Reflection Paper: Why the World Is?

Last Saturday’s discussion focused on why the world exists. To answer the said question two arguments were presented. These are the ontological and the cosmological arguments. In Irwagen’s book, the ontological argument was first proposed by Anselm, who claims that it is impossible for God not to exist. And anyone who says that there is no God, contradicts himself. This was later on challenged and invalidated by theologians and philosophers after him, supporting and finding Descartes argument better. According to 

Descartes, existence is a part of the concept of a perfect being; we are perfect beings because we exist.

As a Catholic, I believe in the existence of God, my existence is a manifestation that God exists. The ontological argument presented by Descartes mentioned that existence is a concept of a perfect being. It is better to exist than not to exist at all. My existence is one of the reasons why I am a perfect being. But, according to Kant, perfection can only be used to describe certain properties and existence, according to him, is not a property. White is a property of cloth, existence is not. This is how I understand Kant’s argument.

Although Kant may present a valid point, I am not convinced. As mentioned in Irwagen’s book, existence is part of a definition of things. Therefore, existence cannot be removed and isolated from a being. Descartes also presented his argument of a necessary being, a being that existed no matter what. In the class discussion, we tried to trace the ultimate cause of the existence of a table, only to derive at a conclusion of infinite causality. Therefore, there has to be a necessary being whose existence is not due to the existence of something else.

The discussion on the ontological argument can really stir a lot of questions. In fact, although it is often confusing for me, I think that it is a good way to look at the argument and try to answer why the world exists or why I exist. Indeed, there are a lot of questions that no answer can satisfy. For example, as a Catholic, I believe in God and for me, in Descartes argument, God is the necessary being. But why did God thought of creating the world? Why did he think of creating all the other beings?

There are a lot of possible answers to the questions above to. It could be that God was bored and wanted some things to govern, to control and manage. It could be that He wants to have something He can call His own. However, if this is the case, why would he create something that has the ability to think and decide on its own? Just like the animals, they move according to their instincts. They respond to tings according to what they feel, may it be fear, aggression or being threatened. If control is also what God wanted, then why create human beings and give them free will. Such privilege has caused a lot of problems in the world. If you grant freedom to someone or something, then that meets you give up the control you have on that person.

Then probably, God did not create the world for control. He is probably like an artist who wants to see how His painting unfolds. If that is the case, would that mean that our existence does not have a purpose at all. Did we just happen to exist because God wants to experiment about how the world would look like if he adds us in it?

If God is the necessary being who allows all of us to exist today, then He is the only one who can provide an answer that would satisfy arguments about His existence and the existence of things following His existence.

This is not the only argument presented last Saturday. Another was the cosmological argument, which presents the Principle of Sufficient Reason. What is the Principle of Sufficient Reason all about? This argument states that for everything that is so, there is a sufficient reason for its being true or being so.

Base on this argument, there is sufficient reason for things we see or experience. There is a reason why my coffee is sweet and the sufficient reason for it is the sweetening properties of the sugar added to the coffee, and that is that. The reason may not be interesting and that is what the cosmological argument states. Sufficient reason is not always interesting. In fact, some people say that the cosmological argument is the basis for modern day science. It further argues that there has to be a necessary being or beings that would enable sufficient reasons. It does not necessarily states that God exists.

Often, we want to know the reason why something exist, for we believe that it is in understanding the reason for existence that we can fully understand our purpose. However, the reason for our existence could just be plain and simple and does not offer any interesting story. Perhaps, it just happened that there was once a speck of life that evolved into man’s ancestor. The sufficient reason could be scientific instead of philosophical. Does this means we think of our reason for existence in the same way?

We can start tracing where human beings are from to try to answer who or what is our sufficient reason. However, this should not be our sole motivator to find what our purpose in this world is. We cannot ultimately answer the question, why the world exists? But it does, and we are part of it. Perhaps, it is difficult to understand the reason why we exist at the moment and why we are part of this world, but for some reason, we have our brains to figure that out. We do not exist just for the sake of existing. Our minds are gifted to us to allow us to think and discover our purposes in life.

Maybe the ultimate reason of why we exist is uninteresting. If this is true, then we should just take it as it is. Moreover, we need to understand that how we live our life should not depend on how we came into existence. Although it can affect us in some ways, we should not let it define us. Instead, we take it as a challenge to live a worthwhile and purposeful life.

The ontological and cosmological arguments give us two perspectives of why there has to be a Necessary Being. For one, what we see right now could have only been caused by something or someone, the cause of all causes. Our sole existence justifies this reason. Consequently, I exist because of the existence of my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents. Likewise, the existence of my great grandparents could have been caused by something and some processes. Whatever it is or they are, they caused my existence and the purpose of my existence will unfold before me.