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Existence of God (Concepts of Being)
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장부영
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2008-03-31 22:08:26, 조회 : 3,020 |
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Existence of God (Concepts of Being)
Paul Jang
Concepts of Being
Looking into the philosophical consideration, "being" assumed to be idealistic nature, "existence" to be incarnate one which emphasizes a character, and "reality" to be totality.
For Parmenides, these concepts of God are differentiated a little, and have been put in the same category. In other words, "being" is abstractive and "reality" has totality (Wahl, 1948, 51).
According to Jean Whale, it has been dialectically explained that 'existence' was defined to be subjective partiality, 'reality' to be objective totality, and 'being' to be a kind of union of the two (Wahl, 1948, 54).
Shedd said "we define to being, and explain to existence," emphasizing that 'being' has to be applied to explain the essence of God in opposition to materialistic and pantheistic concept, and 'existence' to be applied to refer to the simple question of existence of God in opposition to atheism (Shedd, 1889, 195). Bolden P. Bowne insisted that the three theoretic usages had to be limited to the aspect of essence (Bowne, 1898, 13).
But in the objective meaning, the tree are identified, and those have diversity of meaning according to the background of those thoughts. For examples, 'being' of Plato has an idealistic sense according to the background of his thought, 'reality' of Hegel or Bradley has the meaning of dialectic spiritualism according to the background of their thoughts, and 'existence' of Heidegger or Nietzsche has existential meaning according to the background of their thoughts. In other words, word may be used of good or evil by its user as if a knife may be used good or evil.
Here theological theory itself is apt to be shaken when not to catch the Christian concept of the word. The concept of Christian existence does absolutely depend upon the fact that God exists. Only under the hypothesis of the fact of this 'absolute existence,' the theological basis can be set on.
This absolute One is neither that of idealism of Plato, nor that of dialectical reality of Hegel, nor that of existentialism of Heidegger, and nor that of materialism of Feuer Bach.
Benjamin B. Warfield said that it is not enough for us to say "God" because God cannot be limited in a definition by man (Warfield, 1968, 7). Of course, this does not mean the same as the pantheistic conception that means universal frame. In pantheism, God is all in all. God pervades all things, contains all things...in short, pantheism views the world as God and God as the world (Geisler and Watkins, 1983, 79)
The existence of God fully contains the transcendental and immanent concepts, and divinity and personality at the same time. Depending upon such a true concept of the existence of God the meaning of existence may be understood.
And only depending upon this concept of existence it is possible to understand the general concept of other existences because God is Creator, that I am who I am as Causer, the First Cause (Ex. 3:14). Cornelius Van Til accepted the secondary ones under the existence of Absolute One (Van Til, 1969, 46).
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선교운동소개
신학 