Sorry, Uncle Tim, I had to put Descartes before the horse :-D
As I sit here about to start my eight-page paper for Philosophy class, many thoughts are going through my mind. Mostly those thoughts are about Rene Descartes... Hmm, could that be because that's one of the people that will be written into my paper??? Could be.
At any rate, anyone who has had a Philosophy class is probably familiar with the quote "Cogito ergo sum." My professor calls it a "cocktail party quote," since it is one of those things you can say at a party to impress people with your infinite knowledge of things (or so he thinks). I am not so convinced that I could use that at a party, but I digress.
For anyone who is not familiar with that quote in Latin, you are probably familiar with it in English: "I think, therefore, I am." Descartes is proving that we exist by the fact that we can think. We are immaterial thinking things; that which we believe makes us human (the human body) actually has very little to do with who we are. The mind is separate from the body, and we merely take the form of a body to be a part of the material world. This intellect separates us from the rocks, the plants, and the animals, since they only have material bodies and no mind/intellect. Descartes would say that therefore, we have dominion over all other things, paraphrasing Genesis: "to be masters and possessors of nature." Very powerful stuff, if you ask me, though I do not agree with it all.
From the way I have learned in many a Theology class, both here and in the past, nature was not created merely for our own use. Yes, I do believe that humans were made in God's image and likeness, and that we are the superior beings due to the intellect we have, but that doesn't mean everything in nature is ours to control. The Bible suggests that we have responsibility for the Earth, not necessarily that we have free reign over everything. Descartes would have us believe that all things were created simply for our sake, and not for those things in and of themselves. For example, the cow was made to give us food and milk, not to be a cow. The tree was made to give us shade and furniture from it's wood, not to grow and live as a tree. Et cetera, et cetera...
Why don't I believe in all of this? Let's just say I can't believe in a God that would create things just for us to exploit them. Yes, I enjoy eating meat and plants, and burning those fossil fuels in my car, and otherwise using nature to continue my life. However, not recognizing that those things that I am using were precious and good before I used them is just plain wrong. In that way, I tend to agree more with St. Thomas Aquinas, who coincidentally is also going to be in my paper. He would have us say that something is good before we use it for our own good. For example, "This is an oak tree, and it is good. Now I will make a table out of it." Or, "This is a cow, and it is good. Now I will make hamburgers out of it."
I think, therefore I am, disagreeing with Descartes on a couple things. He has a lot of good points that I would agree with, but this one just did not sit well with me. What do all the other masters and possessors out there think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Isn't it wonderfull that we can be ignorant of all this and still obtain salvation?
What do I think? I think you will get an "A".
One of my favorite sections of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to do with the “Babel Fish”…a creature that you place in your ear that instantly translates any language into the language you understand. The section is philosophical, ala Descartes proving the existence of God.
It goes:
Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NONexistence of God.
The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
“ ‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
“ ‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“ ‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
“Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn’t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.
(Oolon Colluphid wrote a trilogy of philsophical blockbusters, Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This God Person Anyway?)
Post a Comment