I was wondering what your opinions on the arguments from desire for the existence of God are.
I don't necessarily view it as a proof of God, but it's given me reason to believe that there is something more than this: a purpose, if you will. Maybe my materialism has been unfounded. At the very least, it's made me question my beliefs, something that I like to do as often as I can. I only came across it yesterday, and so I'm sure that I know nearly nothing about it, or its refutations, so please enlighten me. Now on to the argument:
Argument
Here's how C.S. Lewis describes it:
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
Essentially, in syllogistic form, this is how it goes:
1) Any base, natural, innate desires that we know of, excluding the one that this argument concerns (God), are founded upon those desires' satisfaction being obtainable.
-- E.g. hunger = food, sexual desire = sex
2) There is a desire within us that no thing on earth can satisfy.
3) If the object of this desire does not exist in this world, it must exist in another.
Criticisms + My responses
Now, the first criticism that springs to my mind is that "if there is a desire within us that no thing on earth can satisfy, then premise (1) -- that all innate desires are founded upon the obtain-ability of the satisfaction of those desires -- cannot be true." However, I would argue that you are being overly-pedantic in your rigorous use of logic, and it's a form of sophistry. If we go by that reasoning, there can be no arguments based on induction of the sort, because there has to be one exception that you are comparing the given rule to.
The second criticism that I could think of was that one can argue that they feel no such desire that no thing on earth can satisfy. Sartre, the atheist existentialist once said "there comes a time when one asks, even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, 'Is that all there is?'" Perhaps this may be true for you, and if that's the case then it doesn't work for you. I would then argue that I believe either that not to be the case, or that you must hold a shallow foundation of beliefs and feelings, but that's a fruitless argument. With this being said, you can't deny its validity for those that the premise does apply to. For instance, I definitely do feel a desire within me above the desire for love, lust, money, hunger, thirst and meaning, that none of these things can satisfy: it's unresolved. Questioning the existence of such a thing can only get you as far as denying the argument for yourself, not for others.
Also, people may argue that the quenching of this innate desire may come from this world -- then it must be so different that I would question how you can distinguish between it and God (which, in my case, simply means something "more" than the purely deterministic material world that I know; something that can quench this desire in my soul). As I said, I resent this argument for the fact that it attempts to prove God, but I approve of it for its demonstration that there must be something more to life than this.
Final Thoughts
I understand that my language may be considered somewhat hollow, Zed might call it meaningless from a logical positivist's point of view (my usage of the term "more to life" and the idea of the "innate" or desires of the "soul"), but that stems from the ineffability of my describing the feeling. As an addendum, I'd like to note that I'm not fully convinced of this, feel free to debate away, considering that's what this section's for and all.
Arguments from desire
Started by: Automaton | Replies: 13 | Views: 731
May 19, 2013 1:22 AM #977769
May 19, 2013 3:51 AM #977954
What this sir, C.S Lewis, is saying; is that every kind of natural desire of any living thing can be satisfied with something that is on the enviroment of that biological organism. Did I get it right?
Well, this is obvious. Every animal have been evolving on a certain enviroment, and that animal have been adapting to that enviroment. It's not like the first organisms that ever existed had born with that kinds of desires since the beginning. At the beginning, those organisms were just cells that processed gases such like carbon dioxide in other gases, like oxigen. but they needed energy to do that, so that's how the second (i'll talk about the first in short) desire, "eat" (get energy from the enviroment, to be more exact) had born.
They did that to the point where the air was composed mostly of oxigen.
Other organism had to adapt to that, so they started to process oxigen into another gas, like carbon dioxide (other organism that couldn't do it, had to die). This is where the first desire, breathe, had born.
now those organisms started to grow, and they had lost their ability to absorb energy from the enviroment. so they started to eat other organisms that absorbs energy from the enviroment to absorb the energy that they had already absorbed (sorry for being redundant).
Well now you get my point, desires didn't born from nothing. It's not like we born to satisfy those desires. In fact, we still don't know why we exist. In my opinion, we didn't born to complete some kind of purpose. We are just the result of a chemical reaction that originated on water, and the result of it, kept evolving to the point that we have enough intelligence to create computer to discuss over an invisible net that conects those computers about why we are even here typing about it. That's it. We are the result of some nature's fart that fused some elements into something that had the ability to process things into another things, and that "something" evolved because things from it enviroment affected it's existence.
The necessity to explain our purpose in life exist because we evolved too much. A baby is the closest form we have to an animal. A baby doesn't ask himself why he had born, or what created the universe. a baby doesn't need to know that kind of things. He just eat when he's hungry, because he needs it.
but when that baby grows, he starts to ask him those things because of it's curiosity, because humans have evolved to be more curious than other animals. In fact, we overthink things to the point where we can't live in harmony because of the differences on ideas we have. That's why humans think about what created the universe, and why are we existing.
Why can't we just concentrate on doing joyfull things without having been asked about why we do them? we can't even exist without questioning ourself about it. I mean, The F°ck? Let's just enjoy our lives, listening to music, loving the people you love, enjoying delicious food, and animating sticks. Because we don't have time to question ourselves "why am I animating those sticks? Is it because I want to play god making these guy beat the crap out to each other?"
Just enjoy, because you may not have another chance to live.
Let's just thank God that we exist and enjoy our existence... Wait, what?
Well, this is obvious. Every animal have been evolving on a certain enviroment, and that animal have been adapting to that enviroment. It's not like the first organisms that ever existed had born with that kinds of desires since the beginning. At the beginning, those organisms were just cells that processed gases such like carbon dioxide in other gases, like oxigen. but they needed energy to do that, so that's how the second (i'll talk about the first in short) desire, "eat" (get energy from the enviroment, to be more exact) had born.
They did that to the point where the air was composed mostly of oxigen.
Other organism had to adapt to that, so they started to process oxigen into another gas, like carbon dioxide (other organism that couldn't do it, had to die). This is where the first desire, breathe, had born.
now those organisms started to grow, and they had lost their ability to absorb energy from the enviroment. so they started to eat other organisms that absorbs energy from the enviroment to absorb the energy that they had already absorbed (sorry for being redundant).
Well now you get my point, desires didn't born from nothing. It's not like we born to satisfy those desires. In fact, we still don't know why we exist. In my opinion, we didn't born to complete some kind of purpose. We are just the result of a chemical reaction that originated on water, and the result of it, kept evolving to the point that we have enough intelligence to create computer to discuss over an invisible net that conects those computers about why we are even here typing about it. That's it. We are the result of some nature's fart that fused some elements into something that had the ability to process things into another things, and that "something" evolved because things from it enviroment affected it's existence.
The necessity to explain our purpose in life exist because we evolved too much. A baby is the closest form we have to an animal. A baby doesn't ask himself why he had born, or what created the universe. a baby doesn't need to know that kind of things. He just eat when he's hungry, because he needs it.
but when that baby grows, he starts to ask him those things because of it's curiosity, because humans have evolved to be more curious than other animals. In fact, we overthink things to the point where we can't live in harmony because of the differences on ideas we have. That's why humans think about what created the universe, and why are we existing.
Why can't we just concentrate on doing joyfull things without having been asked about why we do them? we can't even exist without questioning ourself about it. I mean, The F°ck? Let's just enjoy our lives, listening to music, loving the people you love, enjoying delicious food, and animating sticks. Because we don't have time to question ourselves "why am I animating those sticks? Is it because I want to play god making these guy beat the crap out to each other?"
Just enjoy, because you may not have another chance to live.
Let's just thank God that we exist and enjoy our existence... Wait, what?
May 19, 2013 3:34 PM #978440
Quote from LFlL0What this sir, C.S Lewis, is saying; is that every kind of natural desire of any living thing can be satisfied with something that is on the enviroment of that biological organism. Did I get it right?
Well, this is obvious. Every animal have been evolving on a certain enviroment, and that animal have been adapting to that enviroment. It's not like the first organisms that ever existed had born with that kinds of desires since the beginning. At the beginning, those organisms were just cells that processed gases such like carbon dioxide in other gases, like oxigen. but they needed energy to do that, so that's how the second (i'll talk about the first in short) desire, "eat" (get energy from the enviroment, to be more exact) had born.
They did that to the point where the air was composed mostly of oxigen.
Other organism had to adapt to that, so they started to process oxigen into another gas, like carbon dioxide (other organism that couldn't do it, had to die). This is where the first desire, breathe, had born.
now those organisms started to grow, and they had lost their ability to absorb energy from the enviroment. so they started to eat other organisms that absorbs energy from the enviroment to absorb the energy that they had already absorbed (sorry for being redundant).
Yep, agree with that.
Well now you get my point, desires didn't born from nothing. It's not like we born to satisfy those desires. In fact, we still don't know why we exist. In my opinion, we didn't born to complete some kind of purpose. We are just the result of a chemical reaction that originated on water, and the result of it, kept evolving to the point that we have enough intelligence to create computer to discuss over an invisible net that conects those computers about why we are even here typing about it. That's it. We are the result of some nature's fart that fused some elements into something that had the ability to process things into another things, and that "something" evolved because things from it enviroment affected it's existence.
The necessity to explain our purpose in life exist because we evolved too much. A baby is the closest form we have to an animal. A baby doesn't ask himself why he had born, or what created the universe. a baby doesn't need to know that kind of things. He just eat when he's hungry, because he needs it.
but when that baby grows, he starts to ask him those things because of it's curiosity, because humans have evolved to be more curious than other animals. In fact, we overthink things to the point where we can't live in harmony because of the differences on ideas we have. That's why humans think about what created the universe, and why are we existing.
Why can't we just concentrate on doing joyfull things without having been asked about why we do them? we can't even exist without questioning ourself about it. I mean, The F°ck? Let's just enjoy our lives, listening to music, loving the people you love, enjoying delicious food, and animating sticks. Because we don't have time to question ourselves "why am I animating those sticks? Is it because I want to play god making these guy beat the crap out to each other?"
Just enjoy, because you may not have another chance to live.
Let's just thank God that we exist and enjoy our existence... Wait, what?
Right, so it seems that your main argument here is that our need for purpose, meaning, and something more boils down to our curiosity which is derived from our evolved brains.
This answers the "why" in the short-term, or in the narrow scope of things. However, you then have to take that reasoning and put it into the argument. You said yourself that all of our desires "aren't borne from nothing", they all can be satisfied. That's the main point here: All desires can be satisfied, otherwise they serve no purpose as a desire. Regardless of where this desire for purpose and the feeling that there's more to life than this comes from (i.e. evolution), you still have to make it adhere to that rule.
May 19, 2013 6:44 PM #978596
I suppose you could expand on the first argument, by trying to provide examples of desires which we cannot satisfy, (come on, whose never wished they could fly lie superman?) and thereby show that humans do have unsatisfiable desires other than the desire for a higher being or a higher purpose, in an attempt to disprove Lewis's first premise. However I'm not sure how successful that argument will be; you could argue that such a desire is an a posteriori desire gained from seeing birds undergo (seemingly) effortless flight, and then simply longing to be able to soar like them too.
Then, we might argue that if its possible to have unsatisfiable a posteriori ideas, we could always argue that the desire for a god is a posteriori, implementing the general arguments of Hume, Fauerbach and Freud (god, freud's a loony one. I don't like Freud).
However, such a line of argument probably doesn't have enough evidence to back it up; we might provide possible a posteriori causes for beliefs, but we can never really prove that any of those lines are the truth.
Just some thoughts to chuck in there.
Regardless, Lewis was a brilliant guy;
[h=1]“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."[/h]
Gotta love Lewis.
Then, we might argue that if its possible to have unsatisfiable a posteriori ideas, we could always argue that the desire for a god is a posteriori, implementing the general arguments of Hume, Fauerbach and Freud (god, freud's a loony one. I don't like Freud).
However, such a line of argument probably doesn't have enough evidence to back it up; we might provide possible a posteriori causes for beliefs, but we can never really prove that any of those lines are the truth.
Just some thoughts to chuck in there.
Regardless, Lewis was a brilliant guy;
[h=1]“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."[/h]
Gotta love Lewis.
May 19, 2013 8:04 PM #978621
I really want a time machine. Doesn't make it real. If you want to take Walker's argument that you've seen examples (in a film or whatever) then fine, but you can apply that to Lewis' desire for another world too.
May 21, 2013 2:07 AM #980060
I guess Lewis and Aquinas would argue that your claim that you can apply that form of Locke/Humean complex idea theory to the desire for "another world" isn't really grasping the nature of the desire. I've been going through some pretty rough times recently, and on more than one occasion, whilst smoking outside, I've looked up to the sky and prayed for some sort of meaning to all this (lol dramatic. My situations hardly call for it, but what can I say, I'm an emotional person). That, I believe is different from a desire to fly like superman, or to obtain a time machine. The comparison that the desire arguments draw from are often ones such as hunger and lust: they're primal, innate, strong desires that supersede those other sorts of wants and wishes. I'd even go so far as to say that the desire for purpose outside of this materialistic world and something "more" is almost completely unique in its intensity, though that would draw question to the ability to compare it to other desires that the argument is based upon.
May 21, 2013 3:43 PM #980764
Quote from ZedI really want a time machine. Doesn't make it real. If you want to take Walker's argument that you've seen examples (in a film or whatever) then fine, but you can apply that to Lewis' desire for another world too.
But to the same fact, if the theory that if you travel at light-speed is true, which has not yet been proven, then time aboard the vessel would be significantly slower, thus allowing you to "travel" 500 years into the future, while only aging 7. Thus, if such speed can be obtained by men, than that desire is perhaps possible to satisfy. This may be a good example of a desire that cannot be satisfied here, because as a race, humanity has not achieved enough of an understanding of the concept. In order for time travel to become a true fact, it must first become a true belief. A significant enough portion would have to truly believe it could be done, else we will not put forth the time, resources, and effort to make it happen.
In short, some of the most amazing acts of science have been realized, because we believed in them enough to pursue it.
May 21, 2013 7:51 PM #980849
It doesn't exist at the moment. I assume the argument from desire is an argument that something does exist rather than that something could exist.
May 22, 2013 5:19 PM #981693
sure sounds that way
May 23, 2013 6:04 PM #982645
Quote from ZedIt doesn't exist at the moment. I assume the argument from desire is an argument that something does exist rather than that something could exist.
This is what my example followed. I will explain further.
Quote from Automaton
1) Any base, natural, innate desires that we know of, excluding the one that this argument concerns (God), are founded upon those desires' satisfaction being obtainable.
How it relates to my example is that the desire is obtainable because we have not yet obtained it. To avoid an accidental Ad Ignorantum, I stated my opinion that we must desire it significantly enough to try to make it happen. I also recall 3) If the object of this desire does not exist in this world, it must exist in another. which I assume can also be applied to time periods. In the stone age, self-propelled cars could not exist because the technology that led to it had not been discovered. Furthermore, the desire of reliable and efficient transportation of material and people eventually led to the invention of the wheel, and later automobiles, which I believe supports the previously quoted statement.
May 23, 2013 6:12 PM #982651
Yes, and the desire for a time machine is currently unobtainable. Though I guess so is water for a thirsty man in a desert, but that's not a flaw in my reasoning - it's a flaw in his.
May 23, 2013 7:00 PM #982664
Quote from ZedYes, and the desire for a time machine is currently unobtainable. Though I guess so is water for a thirsty man in a desert, but that's not a flaw in my reasoning - it's a flaw in his.
Point taken. In that case, yeah perhaps he should have been more clear...
May 24, 2013 2:51 PM #983289
A kid desires to be able to meet Santa Claus. Does this mean Santa Claus exists? One can argue that he technically does exists, but only has fictional character and not in actually. I think further evaluation on this point, we'd able to see what is wrong with the desire argument.
May 24, 2013 4:13 PM #983333
Well, meeting a mall Santa does satisfy their desire to meet Santa Claus, even if it's not actually the real guy. I suppose we could expand this to the original argument concerning gods and say that someone's belief that they have witnessed divine providence satiates their desire for 'something greater' even if that greater something isn't actually real.