Psalm 100
"He made us"
I've been reading Edward Feser's book Five Proofs for the Existence of God.
I think impressions would vary widely about the book. While it's an introductory treatment, much of the book is pretty technical and analytical. Perhaps oddly, I've enjoyed the book as devotional reading.
Here's why.
I don't know how persuasive "proofs" are for the existence of God. But when you look at these proofs, especially those in Feser's volume, many of them engage in a characteristic train of reflection. We start with what we observe in the world around us and begin to ask questions, following those questions deeper and deeper into first and primary realities. Reason digs down into the ground of being. Our minds move toward the Source. We seek the Origin.
Of course, like I said, reasoning toward an "Unmoved Mover," an "Uncaused Cause," or an "Actualizing Actualizer" might be convincing for some and less so for others. Regardless, what is obvious is that our minds are driving toward something fundamental. And that's what I'm finding devotional about Feser's book. I don't know if any of his proofs really work as proofs. But I have allowed Feser's arguments to lead my mind toward the mystery of existence. And that experience makes you appreciate the sheer miracle of why anything exists at all. You just look around in astonishment at the simplest of things.
This radical contingency is what Psalm 100 confesses. We are not the source of our own being. Nor can we hold ourselves in being. Contemplating that contingency draws your mind toward God. Our existence comes from beyond ourselves.
He made us.
"The sheer miracle of why anything exists at all" - yes, that seems like the central mystery to me. It also seems like God is not exactly the answer to that, since why there should be a God rather than no God is just as mysterious. One answer to that is sometimes phrased as God is a necessary being or God's existence is a necessary divine attribute. To some people that makes good sense. I have never been able to grasp it. If necessary just means, well it must be necessary or nothing would exist, then that seems like dispelling a mystery with hand waving. And if it is necessary, necessary according to whom, or to what law? And then the question arises, why should that whom or that law exist rather than nothing? In the end, I think we just have to embrace the mystery...hopefully with gratitude, but also a little trepidation.
Years ago I came up with my own "5 points to ponder"...I see, being, life mind wisdom, love; not a list, but a unity that is greater than any one of us, any tribe of us, any world of us...thiis unity is always more than the sum who ponder it.