Kierkegaard on God creating versus existing

[Ichthus]

So this is def not going to be addressed in the course, so I'm bringing it up here.

In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard (via Johannes Climacus) says "God does not think, he creates; God does not exist, he is eternal." (there is a little VII 287 next to that paragraph) It's pretty funny when he mocks how it would sound to say, "A supreme being who, please note, does not exist..." ... I mean. He's mocking others arguing for the existence of God (right) and yet... is he not unknowingly mocking himself, who just SAID God doesn't exist??? lol Anyway...

If you know any place where Kierkegaard explains this further, please direct me. The context it currently sits in for me did not help me understand what he was getting at.

The closest I could guess is he was saying something like, he isn't being, he is the source of being. (I would say that is the highest form of being, rather than nonbeing, but anyway...)

Does he distinguish "being" and "existing"?

Does he go into (elsewhere) what it means to create without existing?

Is he trying to say God is original/miraculous ... outside the dialectic/disinterested?

If this is all gibberish please skip it. I need someone who's already studied it.

Thank you!

[felix dakat]

So this is def not going to be addressed in the course, so I'm bringing it up here.

In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard (via Johannes Climacus) says "God does not think, he creates; God does not exist, he is eternal." (there is a little VII 287 next to that paragraph) It's pretty funny when he mocks how it would sound to say, "A supreme being who, please note, does not exist..." ... I mean. He's mocking others arguing for the existence of God (right) and yet... is he not unknowingly mocking himself, who just SAID God doesn't exist??? lol Anyway...

If you know any place where Kierkegaard explains this further, please direct me. The context it currently sits in for me did not help me understand what he was getting at.

The closest I could guess is he was saying something like, he isn't being, he is the source of being. (I would say that is the highest form of being, rather than nonbeing, but anyway...)

Does he distinguish "being" and "existing"?

Does he go into (elsewhere) what it means to create without existing?

Is he trying to say God is original/miraculous ... outside the dialectic/disinterested?

If this is all gibberish please skip it. I need someone who's already studied it.

Thank you!

God is not an existing being not even the supreme one. God is being itself.

[phyllo]

It appears to be similar to 'energy'.

We notice that energy in never created or destroyed, so it must be eternal.

A golf ball flying in the air has high energy and same golf ball sitting on the ground has low energy. One can't say that something started existing when the ball started moving. So the energy is no object or thing which exists.

[Ichthus]

Felix, that seems to jive with what I thought he may be getting at, but I am curious if he goes into it anywhere else?

Phyllo,

The law (description...not necessarily set in stone) of conservation does not require it be eternal, and all the evidence we have suggests a beginning, so it’s not like energy at all.

[phyllo]

Do you think that energy is a thing which exists?

Isn't energy everything?

Doesn't energy create everything?

[Ichthus]

You are getting into cosmology and it’s a different subject.

Seems like he is mocking the ontological argument. That’s a bit over my head. Even when people try to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. Anyway.

[Ichthus]

I should maybe not try to do this before coffee on time change Sunday. LOL

[Ichthus]

Obj. #7. Although “God is not a name but a concept,” and the God-concept is one whose “essentia involvit existentiam” (essence involves existence), this necessary existence is not “factual,” but “ideal”; i.e., it is itself but another essence-determinant. (See Fragments, pp. 41-42, esp. fn.)

Reply to Obj. #7. This objection may very well apply to the ontological argument of Anselm, and of Descartes and several of the moderns. But unless Climacus wishes to defend the controversial Kantian claim that the cosmological argument reduces to the ontological, it is not clear why we should regard this objection as having very wide a scope. Against this Kantian claim, see, e.g., Hugh McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God, pp. 8, 20-21; see also my previous post.

I must look further into this.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/com ... =post_body

[Ichthus]

This is prolly where I have to leave it for now, after a boost from my Cognitive Processes chapter...

Funny how miracles would be impossible if there wasn’t a way things normally are, and the way things normally are would be impossible if there wasn’t a first singularity. Singularities stand out from repetition which feels reliable. Without these things there is no learning or knowing or believing or trusting or loving. There is no self unifying its remembered experiences, comparing it/them to other selves/others. So if there is a beginning to the universe (there is), it still had to have always existed eternally as a finished joint creative effort (between ourselves & God) in God’s mind/being.

[Still curious why he think Socrates left things in tension because he wanted to exist. What is the alternative to existing? Did he think he would blink out of existence? Did he think he would be like God? Just reminds me of how Kierkegaard collapsed after withdrawing the last of his inheritance. It also reminds me of how Socrates was willing to take the Hemlock. But perhaps there is more to it & I’m thinking it into a weird corner. Socrates was a midwife. He had the conclusion in mind...resolution to Euthyphro’s dilemma (the synthesis that God is the Good). Why did Kierkegaard insist such paradoxes, mere apparent (not legit) contradictions, were like miracles/violations of reason? Kinda cute, though.]

[Dan~]

Do you think that energy is a thing which exists?

Isn't energy everything?

Doesn't energy create everything?

Energy is motion.

Existence can be motionless.

They are two different things that interplay.