Being and God: A Systematic Approach in Confrontation with Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Luc Marion

Chapter 3: The Structural- Systematic Approach to a Theory of Being and God

145 Chapter 3 The Structural-Systematic Approach to a Theory of Being and God As its title indicates, this chapter articulates a systematic conception of this book’s subject matter: Being and God. The chapter shows that only within the framework of a coherent and comprehensive theory of Being as such and as a whole is it possible to develop an adequate conception of God. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the background requisite to situate the project this chapter undertakes in relation to both the metaphysical tradition and Heidegger’s thought. Chapter 2’s critique reveals that on the basis of his understanding of how the problem of Being is addressed throughout the history of philosophy, Heidegger addresses that problem originally and forcefully, but also unsuccessfully. The shortcomings of the tradition and of Heidegger reveal the need for the development of a new approach to the problem. The conception presented in this chapter is a part of the structuralsystematic philosophy (SSP), which is articulated in far more extensive detail in Structure and Being: A Theoretical Framework for a Systematic Philosophy . This chapter’s subject matter is situated within the structuralsystematic philosophy’s comprehensive systematics, which is treated in chapter 5 of Structure and Being. In terms introduced and clarified above (chapter 1), this chapter ultimately presents central features of this philosophy ’s version of deep metaphysics. Worth reemphasizing is that deep metaphysics is importantly distinct from what, since the time of Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant, has been termed metaphysica generalis. This metaphysica generalis is the philosophical discipline concerned with the most universal predicates (or characteristics) of all beings. Rather than being any form of metaphysica generalis, the deep metaphysics presented below is a theory of Being as such and as a whole. This chapter contains seven sections, each of which presents a step toward the development of the structural-systematic philosophy’s deep metaphysics. Section 3.1 articulates the systematic context—technically, the theoretical framework—within which this philosophy develops. Section 3.2 takes the step that is decisive for the subject matter of compre- 146 C H A P T E R 3 hensive systematics (and thus of deep metaphysics): the introduction of the unrestricted universe of discourse as the universal dimension of primordial Being. Section 3.3 presents the first part of the structuralsystematic philosophy’s theory of Being, its theory of Being as such, and section 3.4, the second part, its theory of Being as a whole; the latter includes a decisive proof concluding that the universal dimension of Being is more precisely determined as two-dimensional, including a dimension of absolutely necessary Being as well as a dimension of contingent beings . Section 3.5 explicates the relation of absolutely necessary Being to the dimension of contingent beings in a manner that shows absolutely necessary Being to be determinable more precisely as minded Being, and hence as person. Section 3.6 shows that absolutely necessary personal Being is the creator of the world. Section 3.7 shows how the move is made from the absolute creator to an adequate conception of God, and then indicates what an integral theory of God would have to include.1 3.1 The Systematic Context: The Theoretical Framework of the Structural-Systematic Philosophy In this book, as in Structure and Being, philosophy is understood uncompromisingly and consequently as theory. For this reason, wholly excluded are conceptions of philosophy as therapy or therapeutics (particularly as therapeutic critique of language), all forms of philosophy that have practical aims (philosophy as wisdom, as practical reflection, as educational technique, as a way of life, as a way of shaping one’s life or orienting oneself with respect to life, as education, etc.), as diagnostic activity, etc. Detailed clarification of the dimension of theoreticity in general and of philosophy as a specific mode of theorization is provided in Structure and Being, and need not be repeated here. 3.1.1 General Methodological Aspects of the Theoretical Framework of the Structural-Systematic Philosophy [1] The concept of the theoretical framework, which is related to but an extensive modification of the concept, introduced by Rudolf Carnap, of the linguistic framework, is of central importance within the structural1 Some of the passages in what follows in this chapter are taken from Structure and Being. 147 T H E S T R U C T U R A L - S Y S T E M A...