The Weight of Philosophy

We do not think enough about the nature of certain questions and issues. Part of the reason for that, sadly, is intellectual laziness, while a great degree is due to the fact that we've allowed the purveyors of pop science to set the terms of debate in their favor. We've allowed ourselves to be sucked into the vortex of accepting the idea that science answers everything. It does not; indeed, though scientific inquiry is very important and necessary for us in understanding our world and advancing our knowledge, not to mention how it has helped us learn to build new things, do great things, and eradicate disease, scientific knowledge is actually merely rote, and therefore, again, though important, the lowest type of knowledge that we can have.

Types of knowledge are actually hierarchical, and there are essentially three: scientific, philosophical, and theological, in inverse order. Science is the bottom of the triangle, and its standard of evidence is empirical: it is based, ideally, on hard, observable data. Philosophic knowledge is a step higher, and is based on reason. Or, more importantly, on what I believe it was Aquinas who called it Right Reason: reasoning perfectly logical, so much so that any rational being could not justifiably deny its truth. The highest type of knowing is theological, and the standard of evidence is faith. It is knowledge we cannot hold without a belief in God.

In this light, we make a grave mistake (and science makes a grave error) in assuming these days that everything must answered empirically. Things can be answered reasonably, and such knowledge is in fact better, higher, and more critical to our understanding of ourselves and our world than what true science can teach us.

For example, many people like to assume that all questions of God and of the metaphysical must be proven scientifically. They are wrong; I would like to offer two examples of such error.

Many folks deny the possibility of life after death. They presume this to be a religious question, and assert that it can't be true because science cannot prove it. This isn't fair. There is a basis for it in philosophy. As we are aware of ourselves, aware that we have powers above those of the lower animals, it isn't unreasonable to presume that such higher beings would not go out of existence so easily as leaves falling off a tree and disintegrating. The precise philosophic argument is called, I believe, the Principle of Creation: things aren't created in order to be later annihilated (the more exact way to say go out of existence). It doesn't make sense; what's the point of any type of creation to begin with if it is only to become nothing again in the long run? Therefore, sentient, thinking, considerate minds would not go out of existence because they cannot. They must only pass into another form of existence. Consciousness must somehow survive.

It has been argued that we only believe in God because we have been taught it. That we are all products of our personal histories I will not deny, of course: I like baseball because my dad did (does; he's still alive!). Since that is demonstrably true on a lesser subject, it surely applies to religious belief too. Still, to dismiss a belief in God simply because we were raised one way instead of another seems rather, well, silly. It begs the question of whether there is in fact a God.
A belief in a God is, like a belief in an afterlife, not wholly or necessarily a matter of faith. That a God of some kind exists is in fact a philosophical argument: it is not irrational to argue and hold the position that someone or thing is behind creation, indeed behind existence itself. Which god is God is religious and personal, and beyond the scope of philosophy.

Yes, science can't prove these things. But it isn't expected to: they are questions beyond its ability. The sooner we learn that there is a gravity in philosophical knowledge which helps us immensely more than a comprehension of rote fact, and understand that science isn't the end all be all of our life, the better off we will be. The better people we will become.