My Worldview

My Worldview

The search for the true and good is the search for God

Winfried Schlotter


EUR 16,90
EUR 10,99

Format: 13,5 x 21,5 cm
Seitenanzahl: 88
ISBN: 978-3-99064-606-9
Erscheinungsdatum: 27.03.2019
In his book Winfried Schlotter gives a personal answer to the existential questions of man, taking into account the current state of scientific knowledge. How he arrives at a religious, especially Christian worldview in the search for truth is explained step by step.
Since the coherences and manifestations of all sensory perceptions suggest that there is a uniform law which is inherent in all that exists, we as human beings, who are aware of our existence and think about ourselves and the world, are faced with the question of the nature of this law.
First we must recognise that all being comes into existence for us only by the information we receive through our sense organs and which becomes conscious in some way in our brain. It follows that everything perceived by people is just a reflection of the original information in the human brain. Humans, for example, perceive colours or tones, but colours and tones are only contents of consciousness of the human perception of certain information that can be interpreted in terms of their physical nature, in our example as frequencies of an electromagnetic quantum current or as an acoustic wave detectable by the sense organs such as the eye or ear. An animal perceives the same information depending on its physical state in a form that deviates more or less from human perception. Thus, all cognition is only fragmentary, and only an aspect of the whole reality is brought to our knowledge. Quantum physics even teaches us that the simultaneous determination of the position and momentum of an elementary particle is subject to an uncertainty principle and that the exact state of an object can never be determined, even with the most accurate methods of measurement. In addition, usually our terminology can only imprecisely describe what is perceptible to the senses and rationally recognisable.
Thus, if everything that we perceive and recognise is ultimately a subjective reality depending on our own form of existence, what about the real being, the objective reality? The fact that there must be an objective reality, which is independent of our own existence, we can deduce from our sensory perception of emanations from objects that can be noted by other people as existing, even if we do not have such perception ourselves, whether because we have not existed yet or because our own perception is interrupted. But that does not mean that the concerned objects, after perception ability is restored, are no longer perceptible, unless the objects themselves have meanwhile adopted a new form of existence due to objective changes.
To approach the objective reality, we need to question our observations with respect to the logic that obviously underlies all being. The physicist and philosopher Werner Heisenberg used the term “central order” for this law inherent in all things (W. Heisenberg, Der Teil und das Ganze). This law also determines the logical thinking of men, which, as we know, on the basis of this law is able to distinguish between true and false. The truth tolerates no contradiction in itself. If this were not the case, the opposite would be true and so this opposite should be a fundamental truth, in which manner such an assertion refutes itself.
Although as humans we do not have the possibility to perceive the real being in an objective way or to recognise it in a perfect manner, we can nevertheless, as stated above, check the subjectively perceivable for its true content, i.e. for consistency, and thus enhance our human knowledge about the objective being in the sense of truth.
Searching for the nature of the law that forms the basis of all being we encounter the concept of truth. It is consubstantial with the logic of “central order”. It is, as far as we can recognise it, chronologically not changeable, i.e. of an unalterable nature.

If everything is subjected to the laws of the truth, from where comes the untruth which stands in unbridgeable contradiction to the truth? The fact that untruth and therefore contradiction and discord exist in the world, is just as evident as the truth itself and at least recognisable for logically thinking people. When asked about the nature of untruth, we must note that untruth exists as a contradiction to the truth. It does not derive its essence from the truth, but presupposes the truth. Therefore, truth is more original. It is incompatible with untruth, but the truth obviously allows contradiction, not in itself, but in that what is mutable due to freedom. For only where freedom of decision-making exists, contradiction of truth is possible. Thus, we necessarily come to the concept of freedom.

Although freedom is in contradiction to strict causality, which we initially perceive in the laws of nature, we know due to more exact physical research that this strict causality is not valid everywhere, that in the field of quantum physics various possible states coexist and probability must be applied and that causality, as we know from classical physics, only arises from the overall probability of the sum of many single events in the area of the elementary. Freedom must not be of a purely random nature, but can also mean freedom of choice. This freedom of choice highly determines the subjective feeling of a person who feels in himself the possibility to be able to decide freely between different options, although this decision may be not unmotivated and not without any reason. This self-experience of man, however, is characterised by several brain researchers and also by many psychologists as self-illusion, and they believe that they have found proof of this. Nevertheless, it must be countered that freedom must exist in some form when it comes to contradiction of the truth in what is existentially subjected to the laws of truth. Furthermore, without freedom every demand for ethical action would be an illusion, because no real alternatives would exist. Also any guilt would be unreal, because every event and action would be determined.

We therefore assume that there is one truth which is unchangeable and free of contradiction in itself, according to whose laws, as far as they are of a deterministic nature, all that is changeable happens in accordance with the one truth, but that where freedom is given, the possibility for turning away from and for contradiction of the truth also exists. The cause of the untruth and all its consequences is therefore not the truth itself, but the turning away from the truth, which is possible because of freedom.
Everything which happens in accordance with the truth is in conflict with that which is false and thus in the sense of truth is bad. As far as what is false happens consciously, freely and willingly, we speak of evil. However, good is what exists and happens in accordance with the truth. While in this case the terms good and evil are clear and definable, there is otherwise a high degree of terminology confusion. In general, as “good” is considered to be what brings the most “benefit” while “bad” or “evil” cause the most “harm”, “benefit” and “harm” in different ways are brought into relation with one’s own person, with parts of the whole or with the whole. Every person has therefore his own idea of values. The result is that everywhere contradictions and discord prevail. This discord is not limited to humans. Generally, every living being aspires to self-preservation, which implies on the one hand the defence against existential threat and on the other hand, as we know, the use of other organisms as a source of food, and so this behaviour leads to conflicts and deadly confrontation even in the plant world and animal kingdom.

According to the above, the question arises: what is good or bad, what is right or wrong? What can be traced back to the one indivisible truth and what is in contradiction to it? Let us assume for a moment that freedom does not exist. Then there can also be no real contradiction in the above dispute. Then all that happens can be derived from the laws of truth. Consequently, everything happens in accordance with it, no matter whether we regard it as “good” or “bad.” The discord between individuals is then not a real (objective) conflict. Although there is suffering, death and destruction, these are not in contradiction to the laws of truth. However, then the question arises, why do we defend ourselves against what is supposed to be “bad” if everything happens in accordance with the truth. Is not our own (subjective) behaviour then in contradiction to the truth?
We might get the idea that there can be no freedom and therefore no dissent within the existing order in the area of inanimate nature as well as in the plant and animal world; that freedom and with it the possibility for contradiction only starts with the appearance of man.
However, we remember that according to today’s physical knowledge even in inanimate nature indefiniteness, i.e. freedom, has to be taken into account.
In addition, all indications are that also the more highly developed animals are aware, similarly to humans, of the threat to and destruction of their own existence, seeing this as an evil that has to be fought. This, however, suggests that here also at least a subjective contradiction exists.

Throughout history, people have dealt with the above-mentioned problems. There is no religion which does not recognise the contradictions in the world and which does not derive consequences for the individual’s own ethical action. Also, most philosophers and thinkers recognise at least the human freedom and the derivable human responsibility for right action.
If there are worldviews which deny any freedom and regard everything that happens as strictly determined, a further discussion of these is not necessary since any view that deviates from these must also be regarded as determined. However, this should not lead to contradictions according to the strict laws of a noncontradictory logic based on an indivisible truth. But if this one indivisible truth and thus the laws of logic based on it and being free of internal contradiction did not exist, all human searching for truth would also be questionable, because a reliable differentiation between what is true or false would not be possible anymore.
So we hold on to the knowledge that there is one indivisible truth, which tolerates no contradiction within itself, but that freedom exists in what is changeable, although it is existentially subjected to the laws of the truth, and that thus the possibility for turning away from the truth and so for contradiction also exists.
Therefore, the truth itself is not identical with the things which are subjected to temporal change and which have also the possibility of turning away from the truth, as far as freedom is inherent to them. In contrast to things, truth is of a purely spiritual nature.
It is recognisable for us humans only to the extent that we have the mental capacity to know the truth. The thing-like, although existentially subjected to the laws of logic and thus to truth, is not truth itself, but is obviously derived from truth. Due to its conformity to the laws of nature and due to its mutability it always has the ability to form new and complex forms, including the human being, who is even able to reflect on the origin of his own existence.

What are the reasons now, resulting from the previous insights, to take a further step and show how what we have recognised as the one indivisible truth is related to the concept of God, which we encounter in the religions, though in different notions, but as the one original creative authority? What brought the atheist and truth-seeker Edith Stein to become a convinced Christian and to say “The search for truth is the search for God”?
Although we have the help of our intellectual knowledge, without the further element of faith, access to such a personal relationship with God will presumably remain blocked to us forever. Nevertheless, important reasons speak for the fact that the original creative authority is more than a “blind natural law”.
There is the question: Must the development of all creaturely life up to the human being with all his abilities not be “pre-thought”? And if all that we experience as existential is “pre-thought” by the original creative authority‚ did this authority then not have in itself at least the idea of all this?
This idea, which was also put forward by Plato, is quite consistent with theology, the doctrine of God. If this idea is correct, which is not provable, but is just what we think is right, it is only a short step to a personal image of God.
However, one must be careful not to humanise such an image of God. Not surprisingly it is forbidden in Judaism and Islam to make an image of God. Rightly, the early heralds of one single Creator God recognised that the faith in the gods of their neighbouring nations was a misbelief. These gods were “supernatural beings with human characteristics”, far from being in line with the recognisable truth of an unitary higher reasonable being, which is the basis of everything and is beyond any human measure. But also the monotheist is in danger of aligning his image of God not with recognisable truth, but of adapting it too much to human images, whereas Buddhism in its theory of the cycle of things largely lacks the view that there must be a goal-directed creative authority, which is the basis of everything.

The Enlightenment looked for new ways to get closer to the aim of finding the truth with the help of the human mind. The natural sciences in particular have achieved significant progress up to the present. However, they have also demonstrated for the first time the fundamental impossibility of finding out the whole truth with the help of scientific methods. So we are in a dilemma. On the one hand we know that there is an objective reality and therefore also a truth and that everything that contradicts this truth leads to discord and with it to harm, but on the other hand we must realise that our human mind is not sufficient to recognise the full truth.
How should we deal with this situation? Should we confine ourselves to accepting as true only that which we can prove scientifically and irrefutably? The mathematical-scientific approach adheres largely to this strict requirement and it has been highly successful in its scientific field up to now. However, unfortunately, this science method is not sufficient to give answers to all the questions which determine our existence, thinking and action.

So we search as human beings beyond the rationally recognisable for answers, which do not exclude the possibility of error. This is especially true for the question of the right doing. In this case the mathematical-scientific way of thinking leaves us completely in the lurch. It deals not with that which should be, but with that which is, what was and what will be on the basis of logical laws. What should be is a matter of ethics and related subjects. Thus, we come back to the points made at the beginning that there are many different value systems due to the different human worldviews, and presumably those prevail which use personal well-being as a criterion and that of the associated social group. Such a system of values is usually oriented only as far on the public welfare as this has con-sequences on the personal well-being and that of the own group. In contrast, the view that our activities should be guided by what serves the whole is rather a minority position. However, this position is the only one that gives hope that the conflicts and contradictions in the world can be overcome. The truth which tolerates no internal contradiction is by its nature, as far as the changeable is concerned, only then fully in line with this, if also all things that are changeable are in accordance with each other.

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