Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 13:28:45 -0800 (PST)
From: "Gary C. Moore" <gospode-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Fwd: 'God'? Exists?
--- Gary C Moore <gottlos75-AT-mindspring.com> wrote:
> From: "Gary C Moore" <gottlos75-AT-mindspring.com>
> To: <Sartre-AT-egroups.com>
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> "Gary C. Moore" <gospode-AT-yahoo.com>,
> <gottlos45-AT-mail.com>
> Subject: 'God'? Exists?
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:27:41 -0600
>
> Dear Mr.Christopher,
> Those of us who are illiterate in French and have to
> use the English translation will find the first
> quote on page 81 of the Philosophical Library
> edition and page 129 of the Washington Square Press
> Edition, and the second quote on pg. 90 of P. L. and
> pg. 140 of W.S. You have made an extremely good
> point and you are perfectly right. When I read these
> texts, I failed to take them seriously enough,
> though I noted the first one with a large question
> mark. Rereading the second in full context supports
> your point with even greater depth. It goes on from
> where you stop, "The being of human reality is
> suffering because it rises in being as perpetually
> haunted by a totality which it is without being able
> to be it, precisely because it could not attain the
> in-itself without losing itself as for-itself. Human
> reality is therefore by nature an unhappy
> consciousness with no possibility of surpassing its
> unhappy state.
> "But what exactly is the nature of this being
> towards which unhappy consciousness surpasses
> itself? Those contradictions which we discovered in
> it prove only that it cannot be REALIZED. Nothing
> can hold out against the self-evident truth:
> consciousness can exist only as ENGAGED in this
> being which surrounds it on all sides and which
> paralyzes it with its phantom presence. Shall we say
> that it is a being RELATIVE to consciousness? This
> would be to confuse it with the object of a THESIS.
> This being is not posited through and before
> consciousness; there is no consciousness of this
> being since it haunts non-thetic (INTRUDE: "thetic"
> can mean "1) set forth dogmatically; prescribed. 2)
> in Greek and Latin poetry, pertaining to or
> constituting the thesis; also beginning with a
> thesis", but more interestingly it is derived from
> the Greek "'thetikos', fit for placing, from
> 'thetos', placed, from base of 'tithenai'")
> self-consciousness. It points to consciousness as
> the meaning of its being and yet consciousness is no
> more conscious OF it than OF itself. Still it cannot
> escape from consciousness; but inasmuch as
> consciousness enjoys being a consciousness (of)
> being, THIS being is there. Consciousness does not
> confer meaning on this being as it does for this
> inkwell or this pencil; but without this being,
> which it is in the form of not being it,
> consciousness would not be consciousness - i.e.,
> lack. On the contrary, consciousness derives for
> itself its meaning as consciousness from this
> being. This being comes into the world along with
> consciousness, at once in its heart and outside it;
> it is absolute transcendence in absolute immanence.
> It has no priority over consciousness, and
> consciousness has no priority over it. They FORM A
> DYAD. Of course this being could not exist without
> the for-itself, but neither could the for-itself
> exist without it. Consciousness in relation to this
> being stands in the mode of BEING this being, for
> this being is consciousness, but as a being which
> consciousness cannot be. It is consciousness itself,
> in the heart of consciousness, and yet out of reach,
> as an absence, as unrealizable. Its nature is to
> enclose its own contradiction within itself; its
> relation to the for-itself is a total immanence
> which is achieved in total transcendence.
> "Furthermore this being need not be conceived
> as present to consciousness with only the abstract
> characteristics which our study has established. The
> concrete consciousness arises in situation, and it
> is a unique individualized consciousness OF this
> situation and (of) itself in situation. It is to
> this concrete consciousness that the self is
> present, and all the concrete characteristics of
> consciousness have their correlates in the totality
> of the self. The self is individual; it is the
> individual completion of the self which haunts the
> for-itself." And Sartre goes on. But I think that is
> enough to show the great complexity and depth with
> which he takes this dialogue with, on the one hand,
> a 'God' he CANNOT know, yet, on the other hand, is
> the absolutely necessary ground of the self. And it
> shows also Sartre is no mere popularizer of
> Heidegger but a first class philosopher all on his
> own. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
>
> 'Sincerely'
>
> Gary C. Moore
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Christopher Bobo
> To: Sartre e-group
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 1:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Sartre] God exists?
>
>
> Professor Russell remarked:
> >>But roughly, the argument I had
> (perhaps mistakenly) attributed to Sartre would go
> like this: the human
> "fundamental project" of being "God" -- that is,
> being simultaneously
> in-itself and for-itself -- is impossible. That
> means, God -- if thought of
> as any sort of consciousness -- is an impossible
> sort of being.
> Consciousness is other than what it is
> consciousness of, and, stands in a
> negative relationship to whatever it is
> consciousness of. Put simply, we
> experience things negatively. We experience
> things in terms of what they
> lack and we lack. We experience things in terms of
> what we want, or desire.
> We experience what's missing. In Sartre's
> example: I go to the cafe looking
> for Pierre, and see that he isn't there. This is
> generalizable. We see
> everything in terms of what isn't there, what's
> lacking, what we desire or
> want to bring about or change. To want a drink of
> water is to lack water,
> or lack satiation. An omnipotent God couldn't
> want a drink of water. Put
> another way, consciousness requires a problematic
> context. You can't have
> freedom without obstacles. You can't be a
> consciousness unless you are
> lacking something, wanting something, trying to
> accomplish something with
> the real possibility that you won't get it.
> Omnipotent consciousness makes
> no sense. God makes no sense.
>
> The closest thing I can quickly find as a passage
> supporting my account is
> B&N p. 90 (hardback, p. 110 Washington Square
> paperback):<<
>
> This is an interesting argument. But I do not see
> where Sartre ever made it to draw the conclusion
> that God does not exist. To say that omnipotent
> consciouness makes no sense and that therefore God
> makes no sense only raises questions about our
> understanding of God, and then only for those who
> are already atheists, since the believer would
> merely respond that everything is possible in God,
> God's greatness exceeds our understanding, or treat
> it as one of God's mysteries. In Being and
> Nothingness, Part Two, Ch. One, Section II, p. 57,
> Sartre notes that "In this case being sustains its
> own possibilities in being; it is their foundation,
> and the necessity of being can not then be derived
> from its possibility. In a word, God, if he exists,
> is contingent." In other words, if we view God as
> having consciousness the way humans have conscious,
> God must be more like humans than we think
>
> Indeed, Sartre uses the concept of God in
> self-defense against those who would criticize his
> descript of the being for-itself as the ground for
> value. "Let no one reproach us with capriciously
> inventing a being of this kind;" he wrote, "when a
> further movement of thought the being and absolute
> absence of this totatlity are hypostasized as
> transcendence beyond the world, it takes on the name
> of God. Is not God a being who is what he is--in
> that he is all positivity and the foundation of the
> world--and at the same time a being who is not what
> he is and who is what he is not-in that he is
> self-concsiousness and the necessary foundation of
> himself?" Being and Nothingness, Part Two, Ch. One,
> Section III, p. 66.
>
> I is true that often when Sartre speaks of God, it
> is in connection with some misconception we have
> about ourselves or others or the world. But errors
> in our concepts to do not necessarily entail the
> complete non-existence of the subject of the
> concept.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Russell, J. Michael
> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 1:11 PM
> To: 'Sartre-AT-eGroups.com'
> Subject: RE: [Sartre] God exists?
>
>
> I had long been of the impression that Sartre
> did offer arguments against
> God's existence. I'm too rusty on BEING AND
> NOTHINGNESS, and too short on
> time, to back this up with passages. But
> roughly, the argument I had
> (perhaps mistakenly) attributed to Sartre would
> go like this: the human
> "fundamental project" of being "God" -- that is,
> being simultaneously
> in-itself and for-itself -- is impossible. That
> means, God -- if thought of
> as any sort of consciousness -- is an impossible
> sort of being.
> Consciousness is other than what it is
> consciousness of, and, stands in a
> negative relationship to whatever it is
> consciousness of. Put simply, we
> experience things negatively. We experience
> things in terms of what they
> lack and we lack. We experience things in terms
> of what we want, or desire.
> We experience what's missing. In Sartre's
> example: I go to the cafe looking
> for Pierre, and see that he isn't there. This
> is generalizable. We see
> everything in terms of what isn't there, what's
> lacking, what we desire or
> want to bring about or change. To want a drink
> of water is to lack water,
> or lack satiation. An omnipotent God couldn't
> want a drink of water. Put
> another way, consciousness requires a
> problematic context. You can't have
> freedom without obstacles. You can't be a
> consciousness unless you are
> lacking something, wanting something, trying to
> accomplish something with
> the real possibility that you won't get it.
> Omnipotent consciousness makes
> no sense. God makes no sense.
>
> The closest thing I can quickly find as a
> passage supporting my account is
> B&N p. 90 (hardback, p. 110 Washington Square
> paperback):
>
> Is not God a being who is what he is--in that he
> is all positivity and the
> foundation of the world--and at the same time a
> being who is not what he is
> and who is what he is not--in that he is
> self-consciousness and the
> necessary foundation of himself?
>
>
> J. Michael Russell, Ph.D.
> jmrussell-AT-fullerton.edu
> Professor of Philosophy and Human Services
> Chair, Department of Philosophy
> California State University, Fullerton
> Fullerton, CA 92834-6868
> http://members.aol.com/jmrussell/index.htm
> <http://members.aol.com/jmrussell/index.htm>
> Voice: (714) 278-2752 Fax: (714) 278-1274
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Bobo [mailto:cbobo-AT-msn.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 10:52 AM
> To: Sartre e-group
> Subject: Re: [Sartre] God exists?
>
>
> For me, of course, your post raised the issue of
> whether Sartre
> systematically undertook a refutation of
> religious belief. Your post made
> me also wonder whether Sartre ever sought to
> justify his atheism as a
> rational belief.
>
> Surprisingly, Sartre never offered a rational
> argument, nor any intellectual
> defense, to support his atheism, nor did he
> waste his time in efforts to
> refute God's existence. He regarded all such
> efforts as a waste of time and
> energy.
>
> ......
>
>
>
> Sartre homepage: http://www.Sartre.org.uk/
>
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