At the same time, he also said that although the types of animals vary greatly, they all unanimously confirm that they have the same motives, intentions, and destinations, namely preservation, reproduction, and death. In the endless changes, unity is also reflected.
This description itself, from their argument, aims to prove that even in the changes of nature, there exists consistency and purposefulness, and this unity and purposefulness are precisely the basis for the existence of nature.
So, not only does human wisdom come from something external, but the existence of animals or the natural world also has a certain purposefulness.
Therefore, it can be said that there must be something that makes these animals or things in nature tend towards unity, so this is the main reason why he wants to argue why there must be a god beyond humans.
This reason is entirely derived from the basic way of argumentation in Christian theology in the Middle Ages. Whether we read from the early works of Aquinas or the middle works of Ackermann, one of the main ways of arguing for the existence of God is the proof of "ontology", which is to prove that the existence of God is the basis for determining the unity and purposefulness of all our things.
So, it can be said that Voltaire's argument itself is not innovative. He is just a method for medieval theologians to argue for the existence of God. If we want to advance this issue, one thing is the unity and conformity that exists in nature or the animal kingdom. It is precisely a certain way that humans have discovered and already exists in nature and the animal kingdom.
Just as we understand that everything has weight, when we see something having weight, we wonder where its weight comes from?
We would definitely think that something has weight, and everything in the world has weight because it has mass, but where does mass come from? No one could answer this question before Newton.
There is only one answer, which is from God, who endowed things with mass. The root of mass first discovered by Newtonian mechanics is universal gravitation.
Therefore, our theological interpretation of quality collapsed overnight. However, the existence of gravity discovered by Newton is actually largely used to explain this gravity, which is definitely not artificial, it must be the gravity that exists in nature itself. It precisely illustrates a degree of human understanding of things, that is, things are the same and share certain characteristics.
And the understanding and grasp of this characteristic is a product of human recognition at a certain stage, not something that exists in nature, or that is why it exists.
Because all discussions through causal relationships, according to Hume's understanding, are based on human habitual associations. The reason why you say that a fact has a cause and an effect, and the reason why you can trace its cause through its effect, is that we thought from the beginning that there must be a reason for the result you caused, and then you went to find the reason. Therefore, this is the basic way for humans to understand things.
And this approach is science.
The basic way of scientific research is to trace the cause from the effect. When we see things changing, we see the historical records on which things are based. When we discover that things have changed, we ask why this change occurred? What is the root cause behind it, and what are its reasons?
After we find the reason, we say we have discovered the essence of things, and then we give something to things, and then this thing has this essence. Then we use this thing again based on our understanding of the essence of things.
That's how science came about today, that's how technology came about today, and that's how products come about today. This is the way we imagine science to understand things, but it's important to note that this is the way humans understand things, not the way things exist in themselves.
Why does the entire modern epistemology emphasize not what things are like, but what we understand things as; And in Kant's view, he stated more clearly that what things look like depends entirely on how we understand them.
This is an important result of Kant's philosophical revolution: what things look like is what we understand them to be, and then we tell you that things are that way.
We do not have a unified standard for all humans to understand things, such as the simplest understanding of objects, such as gold, because the chemical elements of gold are constant, at least for now, they are eternal. Therefore, we believe that the basic unit of chemical elements of a thing, such as gold, is constant. Our understanding of gold 2000 years ago and today is vastly different.
The ancient people's understanding of gold was entirely based on its physical properties, such as its weight, shape, color, texture, and so on. This is our understanding of the physical properties of gold. As our understanding progressed, we gradually discovered the internal structure of gold, and thus, we gained an understanding of gold.
Today, we take it a step further and our understanding of the chemical properties of gold goes beyond its general chemical structure. We can delve into its molecular and even atomic structure, as well as into deeper, atomic physics. It is not a simple physical level, but an atomic physics level.
In other words, people's understanding of a specific object is the result of long-term observation and research, including our final understanding of things. Does this result come to an end? Does it mean that this thing can only be this way and cannot be any other way? Of course not, because all the specific things we face today are in a special time and space.
The quality, weight, and shape of our things are all due to the compression of our existing space into what we can see, including the human body itself, the form and appearance of our existence, all because we exist in this space, and we can only survive in this space.
So, everything we see is in a specific and concrete time and space. But you said, can you go beyond this time and see things that exist in other times and spaces? I said no, you can't see. So, the idea of things existing in alien spaces is completely constructed by us humans using our imagination, but this kind of imagination. Is there any value?
Of course, there is no doubt that it is valuable. Its value is not to discover the objects we imagine through our imagination, but to tell us that the existing space we know is very limited, or in other words, it is not unique.
Through Voltaire's understanding of things, we can deeply appreciate that the understanding of the purposefulness and causality of things are actually concepts formed by human cognitive activities to a certain extent.
Atheism or theism, on the other hand, is a theory determined in the ontological sense. It is an understanding of the essence of the world's existence proposed from a metaphysical perspective. It is not an epistemological way, and even more so, it is not an experience that can be grasped solely through human understanding of the world.
So, whether atheism or theism, they are by no means a theory of philosophy, but merely a belief.
Even if you have no faith, God accepts you, and for those who do not believe in it, He can make various criticisms. Therefore, faith in humans cannot be argued, questioned, or criticized.
We often say that people need to have faith, but this has nothing to do with their rational ability or their critical thinking style. A true philosopher with critical thinking can also believe in the existence of God; A scientist who explores the mysteries of nature also believes in the first driving force, but you cannot say that as a scientist, how can you believe in God, because if you ask such questions to scientists like this, people will not even pay attention to you.
Because you raised a very boring question, even an ignorant one, because there is no relationship between science and God, and they are not originally on a parallel line. So, we need to show great respect to those who have various religious beliefs, regardless of what they believe in. However, once they leave their faith and discuss issues on a knowledge level, that's another matter.
And the biggest trouble for French philosophers is here, why do they defend theists and atheists in an epistemological or even philosophical way? Think about the final result?
That's understandable. You don't undermine the beliefs of those believers, and you can't prove that your viewpoint is completely correct because you're doing something completely illogical. So, at this point, we must be clear that in French thinkers, there are a lot of arguments filled with such arguments, which we can brush off without delving deeper.
Of course, I would like to bring it out to help everyone analyze how we understand the relationship between religious beliefs and philosophical arguments.
Of course, whether French philosophers criticize theism or atheism, they have an important ideological and historical background, which is the baptism of religious theology that has dominated for over a thousand years in the Middle Ages. So, almost all Europeans, if you don't believe in God, don't have a reverence for God, then you are basically an outsider.
