Sunday 7 October 2012

Could Schopenauer's "irratonal will" explain everything?

Please help I think, I am losing my faith here. I have recently read Schopenauer and his world view is pretty self-consistent. The "irrational will" could be the true metaphysical starting point of the universe. Thus it explains the problem of "evil". The will is blind a primordial force, personified in man, that nothing can satisfy so that it actually orders the consciousness to doing anything to fulfilling that hunger.

That makes happiness and peace pretty difficult to attain. I am Looking forward to your answer.

Response: The “irrational will” you describe is a pretty close fit to fallen humanity. If we simply pursue our own gratification we end up in a pretty diabolical state.

But I don’t see that this could really be the starting point of the universe. If the origin of the universe (the Big Bang or whatever it turns out to be) is a purely physical event, mental constructs such as “will” arise some billions of years later when beings capable of willing have evolved. Alternatively there is an Ultimate Creator. Could this Ultimate Creator be irrational? Well God’s rationality is certainly above and beyond ours in many ways. But everything we know about science points to a deep rationality in creation. And we know in our hearts that love is the greatest and most important principle, and that a Loving Ultimate Creator is greater than an irrational or non-loving one could be.

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