Idealism as The Philosophy of Christian Theology
by The Fascifist
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
— The Gospel of Saint John, Chapter 1, Verses 1-5
Introduction
This paper is a sequel to the paper titled “The Theory of Language as the basis of Identity”. In order to properly understand the subject matter and ideas put forth in this paper, it is recommended that the reader first read the previous paper mentioned above. It is further recommended that the reader also read the paper titled “The Theory of Consciousness as the Basis of Reality” which is the predecessor to the paper mentioned above. Many of the ideas and themes discussed in this paper will directly relate to the ideas and themes discussed in the two previous papers.
This paper seeks to present a top-down explanation on how Idealism is the most suitable philosophy when it comes to understanding and explaining Christian theology. Historically, Christian theology has been heavily rooted in some form of philosophical Realism owing to the fact that Christians have for centuries relied upon the Realism of Aristotle and, to a lesser degree, Plato as a philosophic basis upon which to make sense of Christian theological matters. The aim of this paper shall be to show that the philosophy of Idealism yields a far better explanation of Christian theology than Realism ever could. This paper will also seek to prove how the abandonment of Realism in favor of Idealism can better refute Materialism which is ultimately a logical consequence of Realism. While the Idealism of the previously mentioned papers was presented through Personalism, this is to say that the primary subject was the human being and his consciousness; the Idealism of this paper shall use the divine being, or more specifically the Christian God as the primary subject of study. Christian tradition, both sacred scripture and commentaries, shall be used to justify the claims of this paper. Obviously taking this approach requires far more foundational abstractions since neither the author of this paper nor the reader of this paper can philosophize without being human or, better said, transcending one's humanity. Nevertheless, these abstractions will be made out of necessity for the purposes of this paper.
George Berkeley and The Ontology of His Idealism
Idealism holds consciousness to be the substance of all existence. “To be, is to be perceived” as George Berkeley famously proclaimed. Because of this, what the Materialists mean by “material things” are actually to be understood as “passively perceived ideas” of the human mind using the human senses. Berkeley’s arguments in support of his conclusion that the existence of anything consists in it being perceived by a perceiver may be illustrated through the ironic imagery of taking the empiricist and nominalist elements within John Locke’s thought and stretching them until they undermine and destroy the realist base out of which which they sprang from.
Berkeley puts forth the views that human beings are not the authors of man’s waking experiences, that things do not cease to exist simply because human beings no longer perceive them, and that through a common human consciousness, all men may perceive the same world through a “common reality”. For Berkeley, It is the Christian God that makes all of this possible. If God’s divine agency and ideation is the cause of man’s perceptions of this so-called “material reality”, then humanity’s passivity towards it, and conversely its externality to humanity, is fully preserved. Furthermore, if the divine is omnipresent and eternal, human beings may remain confident that even when not within human minds, things continue to exist in the infinite and divine mind of God who ideates and maintains all. One may even suppose that, insofar as God’s ideas are the archetypes of man’s own, a sense is preserved in which human experiences are all more or less accurate perceptions of a commonly harmonized, subjective human reality.
In short, the attachment to common-sense is accompanied by a host of realist intuitions which Berkeley subordinates as mental phenomena that are subject to a higher being. It is this supreme and sovereign divine being which constantly and perpetually perceives all things thereby preserving their existence. This underpins the radical ontological immaterialism of George Berkeley which completely redefines what matter is and thereby effectively eliminates both materialism and substance dualism all together.
The Philosophy of Idealism In Relation to Christian Theology
While there are many different streams of Idealist thought within the school of Idealism, the one that is presented herewith is meant to be completely harmonious with Christian theological dogmas. The philosophy of Realism claims the existence of things independent of the thoughts and perceptions of mind. The philosophy of Idealism, in sharp contrast, claims that all things are a product of and dependent upon the thoughts and perceptions of mind. It is this fundamental difference that distinguishes the two philosophical views at their core essence. Because of this, Idealism does not allow the philosophy of Materialism any room to even be considered. Idealism also utterly rejects substance dualism as a valid alternative instead promoting a radical immaterialist ontology and cosmology.
Idealism claims that all things that common-sense realism would claim as “material things” are actually just immaterial ideas within the consciousness of mindful sentient beings. Ontologically, they are better understood as “actualized mental things” rather than “material things”. Cosmologically, the “universe” is mental, not material. It is composed of dissociated personalities who are connected through consciousness within the greater “universal mind”. One can summarize these concepts with the following points:
The universe is not material nor is it made of matter independent of mind.
“Matter” is an idea used to describe that which the human being perceives with his senses. Therefore, matter and “materiality” in idealist philosophy is used to describe a representation of reality rather than reality itself. Concepts of “space”, “time” and “energy” are also ideas within the mind.
The universe is made of ideas dependent on the mind. Therefore, the universe is made of mind. Therefore, the universe is mental.
A reality is that which the mind is conscious of. Realities are perceived into being through the cognitive process of “realization”.
Perceptible realities for human beings are limited to the human senses. All things beyond the human senses constitute imperceptible realities for human beings.
Abstracting away from man as the primary subject and making the Christian God the primary subject in his stead, the above points explain Christian theological doctrines quite nicely when paired up with the following complementary points:
God created the universe as a pure act of consciousness and its existence is dependent on him.
God is omnipotent and omnipresent. Ultimate reality is subject to his ideation.
The entire universe is contained within the divine mind of God. God is both within the universe and beyond it.
The divine mind of God is perpetually conscious of ultimate reality. It was God who realized all things into being.
Nothing is beyond God’s perception. God perceives all things and knows all things. God is not limited to the human senses.
Reading the opening lines of the book of Genesis through an Idealist lens rather than a realist lens one finds a far more philosophically satisfying account (emboldened portions are for emphasis):
“In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.”
— The Book of Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1-5
Realists who are leaning towards Materialism can not coherently make sense of the passage above. Realists who can make sense of the passage above, only do so because they are already leaning towards an Idealist philosophical understanding and have yet to give up their Realism in its fullness. God created light when he said “Be light made”. Light was made as a consequence of God’s pure act of consciousness. The very existence of light is an idea within the divine mind of God. An idea that was actualized when God willed it into being and realized it as “good”. Can there be any light independent of God? If the answer is “no”, then the philosophy of Realism must be abandoned in favor of Idealism, for it is Idealism that better explains Christian theology.
Similarly to the opening of Genesis, one may find a more satisfying understanding in the following message by St. Paul (emboldened portions are for emphasis):
“(Jesus Christ,) Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by him and in him. And he is before all: and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the primacy: Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell: And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven.”
— Letter to the Colossians, Chapter 1, Verses 15-20
It should be noted here that Paul is writing about a divine being to an intended audience of human beings. The personalism within this passage is evidenced by the language that is used. For God, all things are visible but, for man, there are both visible things and invisible things. Nevertheless, one finds here an excellent passage that is best read through a subjective idealist lens. For the Colossian believers who originally read this letter, Jesus Christ is the God who was previously invisible but was now visible to them. It was Jesus Christ all along who was before all other ideas and it is by him that all ideas consist. In him, God the Father dwelt fully and expressed himself to both those who already believed as well as those who came to believe in time.
The Uncreated Sovereign Being In Relation to All Created Subjected Beings
Christian teaching holds God to be uncreated having neither beginning nor end. The Philosophy of Idealism would emphasize that this means that God has always been self aware and had no need to undergo the process of “becoming self aware”. This would of course be problematic for certain conceptions of God such as the Islamic one which holds God to be a singular person with no complementary persons within the godhead. The reason for this is because the recognition of a “self” is only possible through a co-dependent recognition of the “other”. One can only recognize “selfness” in contrast to “otherness”. This is roughly analogous to how there can only be a recognition of “up” and “upness” if there is also along with it a recognition of “down” and “downness” to contrast against it. Thankfully, this problem does not apply to the Christian God for he is triune consisting of three distinct persons within the godhead. These three have always existed together without beginning nor end. They have always been in a loving relationship with each other with each person being fully aware of his own “self” and the two “others”. Thus, the Christian God has always been perpetually self-aware even before anything was created. Perpetually self-perceiving without end, the Christian God is the only being who is completely subject only unto himself and no one else.
In sharp contrast, however, all created beings had to be realized into being by this Christian God. Every created being, whether higher than human, human or lesser than human, undergoes a perpetual process of “becoming”. It is for this reason that it is only the Christian God alone who is known as the great “I AM THAT I AM” and not even the second greatest being in the hierarchies of the angelic realms can claim this title for he too is a subject of a higher being than himself. Only the Christian God “always was, always is and always shall be”.
Created Beings as Self-Conscious Ideas of The Divine Mind of God
“God created man and Man created matter.” A statement like this may rather baffle a Christian Realist and certainly would be repugnant to an Atheist Materialist. Nevertheless, this provocative statement is especially designed to show how something so seemingly outrageous at face value is actually rather quite logical if the ultimate ontological and cosmological substance of the universe is consciousness. If reality is a cognitive product of intelligent spirit driven beings who realize their subjective worlds into being, then there is nothing provocative about the statement.
Indeed, no Christian should take issue with the notion that God created man in his image. It is the second part however that needs to now be clarified. Recall again that in the Idealist philosophical framework, the universe is mental and every conscious personality can be understood to be a dissociated mind membrane interacting with other mind membranes within a universal mind that emanates both perceptible and imperceptible mental phenomena to all of its lesser disassociated mind membrane parts. An example of this can be understood in how human beings can not necessarily perceive the angels in the higher realms unless these angels manifest themselves in a way that is perceptible to human beings. However, just because human beings can not perceive the angels above them does not mean that the Angels are not capable of perceiving the Human beings below them. This can best be understood through the analogue of a “one way looking glass”. In realms where beings can perceive each other, such as human beings in the “human world”, all mind membranes partake in some kind of common consciousness and more or less experience similar realities which, despite their subjectivities, harmonize through various means into a “commonly shared reality”. “Weltanschauung” (Worldview in English), is a human thought consequence based on human experiences acquired through the recognition of patterns within man’s mental perceptions over time. It is in this same sense that one can now understand how matter was created by man. For both man and matter are ideas and ideas beget ideas. Matter was an idea man created in order to explain the mental phenomena he was perceiving as he interacted with what he could passively perceive and recognize as consistent and patterned. Man coined this “the world out there”. And all the constructs he perceived, their various shapes, sizes, textures, smells and sounds he began to realize as “material objects”. Thus it was man who created matter and it was God who created man who created matter.
The Idealist Cosmological View and Materialist Cosmological View
The Panentheism of Christianity In Relation to The Cosmology of Idealism
Panentheism by itself simply means “All in God”, “All is dependent upon God” or “God is greater than the Universe”. Ironically, the term “Panentheism” did not exist until the German Idealist, Karl Krauss, penned it in the 19th century. It is for this reason that the term is wrongly associated with heretical doctrines found within Process Theology and Open Theism. Nevertheless, taking the term by its literal definition alone, one can properly recognize the entirety of Christian theology as panentheistic and indeed confirm that George Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism was a philosophy that reflected a Christian panentheism. To Berkeley, Idealist philosophy and Christian theology were two sides of the same coin of Christian panentheism with the difference only being that Christian theology orients itself from God to man while Idealist philosophy orients itself from man to God. Two different starting points seeking harmony and concord; divine revelation calling man to repentance and human reason seeking God to surrender towards.
“And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17)
“One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephisians 4:6)
“For from him and through him and for him are all things. (Romans 11:36)
“For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)— King James Bible
"As Christians we affirm not pantheism but ‘panentheism.’ God is in all things yet also beyond and above all things. He is both ‘greater than the great’ and ‘smaller than the small’ . . . ‘everywhere and nowhere, he is everything and nothing.’ . . . God is at the core. God is other than the core. God is within the core, and all through the core, and beyond the core, closer to the core than the core."
— Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way
It should be noted that the created man is distinct from the uncreated God. Therefore, creation does not partake in God’s essence but only his energies. This essence-energies distinction is an aspect of Palamite theology which is complemented rather quite well by Berkeley’s Subjective Idealist philosophy. In short, the essence-energies distinction is based on the limited perception of Man’s mind which can neither perceive nor comprehend the essence of God. What man therefore distinguishes as “the imminent energies of God” are simply those things which man can perceive and comprehend. One can understand the limitations of the human being as necessary because without this limitation, the human being’s soul may suffer a terrible fate. In a way, Man’s limitations are there for his own protection as he is in no condition to perceive the essence of God which would certainly overwhelm him.
For simplicity’s sake, the distinction is akin to how a man may look out into the distance and see a wide expanse in front of him. All that is near to him is quite clearly visible and distinguishable but the further he looks, the blurrier all things become until the man has reached the limits of his optics and can see no further. It is in this Idealist sense that the Palamite essence-energies distinction can be understood as being a subjective one based on the limitations of the human being. This is also why the distinction does not contradict the western Church’s doctrine of “Divine Simplicity”. The two are in concordance. The early Church fathers confirm this (emboldened portions are for emphasis):
“Far off in his essence (ousia) but very near in his power (dynamei) which embraces all things . . . He is in essence remote; ‘for how is it that that which is begotten can approach that which is Unbegotten?’ But he is very near in virtue of that power which holds all things in its embrace.”
— St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 2.2
“In creation He is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it; ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing all, yet is he Himself the Uncountained, existing solely in His Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the part. Existing in a human body, to which He Himself gives life, He is still the Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole; and he is revealed both through the works of His body and through His activity in the world.”
— St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 3.17
It is for this reason that the universe itself is not divine despite being contained by the divine.
According to St. Gregory Palamas:
“Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy, and the triad of the divine hypostases. As we have seen, those privileged to be united to God so as to become one spirit with him - as St. Paul has said, ‘He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him (1 Co. 6:17)’ - are not united to God with respect to his essence. All the theologians testify that with respect to his essence, God undergoes no participation. Moreover, the hypostatic union is fulfilled only in the case of the Logos, the God-man (Jesus Christ). Thus, those privileged to attain union with God are united to him with respect to his energies.”
— Gregory Palamas cited by Kallistos Ware in ‘God Immanent yet Transcendent,’ Pg. 161
Even Martin Luther appears to agree when he states the following:
“God must be present in every single creature in its innermost and outermost being, on all sides, through and through, below and above, in front of and behind, so that nothing can be truly present and within all creatures than God himself with his power.”
— Martin Luther, Weimar Ausgabe, 32.134.34 – 136.36
Finally, St. Paul states the following:
“For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
— Letter to the Romans, Chapter 1, Verse 20
The Christian teaching about God is panentheistic. God is described as omnipotent and omniscient, and yet more than that, he is also described as beyond all human concepts such as time and space. There is nowhere in the universe that one can escape to get away from God and there is nothing that one can be apart from God. God is ultimate and true being itself. All things are contained by him and maintained by him. The Idealist philosophy about the cosmos is likewise panentheistic. The cosmos is described as spirit driven and intelligent, and yet more than that, it is a creation that exists and finds its existence only in the uncreated Being and through the uncreated Being. The cosmos can not separate itself from the uncreated Being’s perception and is completely sustained by this Being and for this Being. The cosmos is contained and maintained by the power of the divine mind of this uncreated Being.
Jesus Christ himself repeatedly speaks to his own disciples in these very same philosophically Idealist terms:
“Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, you too shall live. On that day you shall know that I am in my Father: and you in me, and I in you.”
— The Gospel of St. John, Chapter 14, Verses 19-20
“Abide in me: and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine: you the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.”
— The Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15, Verses 4-6
St. Paul once again confirms and upholds Christ’s teachings in Idealist terms:
“For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.”
— Letter to the Philippians, Chapter 2, Verses 5-11
One can herewith conclude that “We see things not as they are but as we are” Christian Theology and Idealist Philosophy, married into a proper panentheism, reveal themselves to be the best combination for understanding the Christian religion exceeding any and all Realisms which lean towards Idealism but attempt to cling on to Common-Sense Realism’s Materialist inclinations if even ever so slightly. Idealism:
“Not that which stands above all other philosophical goes into the mouth approaches when it comes to Christian defiles a man, rather, theology for it is only Idealism that can utterly that which comes out of remove the presence of Materialism in its the mouth; this defiles a
fullness. Man.”— Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 15, Verse 11
Miracles in the Bible Suggest an Idealist Ontology and Cosmology
Many Christians may be familiar with various miracles that are described all throughout Christian sacred scripture. From Joshua commanding the sun and moon to stay in place for a full day, to Moses departing the sea in order to allow his people to cross through and finally to Jesus Christ turning water into wine. These miracles violate the laws of classical physics which would under normal circumstances be considered immutable. Fortunately, the Idealist framework provides a far more satisfying insight regarding biblical miracles.
If the universe is mental, then it is not difficult for a universal mind to project something into the consciousness of lesser minds that is out of the ordinary for them. Taking the example of the first miracle mentioned earlier:
“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord, in the day that he delivered the Amorrhite in the sight of the children of Israel, and he said before them: Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon. And the sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of the just? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down the space of one day.”
— The Book of Joshua, Chapter 10, Verses 12-13
Joshua, who himself was but a mere human being, was able to command the sun and the moon to stay in place as if they were mental constructs being intelligently controlled by the mind of a higher being. Indeed, the universal mind, upon Joshua’s command, manifested Joshua’s thought driven will into common actuality. The rarity of this occasion is confirmed by what is written about the Lord God in the immediately following verse:
“There was not before, nor after, so long a day, in which the Lord obeyed the voice of a man, and fought for Israel.”
— The Book of Joshua, Chapter 10, Verse 14
George Berkeley teaches that within the human experience, which is limited to the human senses, there are two types of perceptions; passive perception and active perception. Passive perception occurs when man is unable to affect an idea that he perceives. For example, when a man is looking at a chair that appears in front of him, he can not help but perceive its qualities in the manner that he does. His mind can not manifest any other qualities to be perceived other than what the universal mind is causing him to see. If the chair is white, it will likely remain white no matter how much the passive perceiver may desire the chair to become brown. Perhaps the chair is small. It will remain small to the senses of the passive perceiver though he may desire the chair to appear as a colossal structure. What then is active perception? Active perception occurs when man is able to influence what he perceives to become what he wants it to be. Taking the same example of the chair, the man can paint the white chair brown and then perceive that the chair is indeed now brown. The man could also construct a colossal replica of the chair and indeed perceive the new chair in the manner that he desired. It is, however, still only possible to do all this within the confining limits of what the universal mind allows and does not allow.
This however changes in altered states of consciousness that disassociate from the universal mind. For example, if he were encountering this chair in a dream while sleeping, he would be presented with one of the highest forms of active perception within the human experience. He would be able to determine the color and size of the chair at will and it would present itself to him in that manner. Since he is dreaming, the only perceptible difference between his dream reality and the common reality he shares with the rest of mankind when “awake”, would be the knowledge of the consistency and rigidness of the “actual world” in relation to this “dream world” he is experiencing while asleep. Nevertheless, in this dream world, he is more disassociated from the universal mind and thus he can command the sun and moon to stand still, he can depart the sea to let his people cross through and he can indeed turn the water in his dreams into wine even experiencing the difference in taste within this dream world which is also sense based albeit one could say “dream-sense based” to be more precise. Nevertheless the difference between man’s world when “awake” and man’s world when “asleep” can be indistinguishable sometimes from the perspective of human experience alone. It is only the conscious act of thinking which allows man to gain the knowledge necessary to center himself in such a way so that he can clearly distinguish his personal dream realities from that of the greater common realities he experiences while he believes himself to be “awake”.
If man can experience such reality warping mental phenomena in regards to ideas subject to his active perceptions, then it should not be surprising that a supreme divine being like the Christian God can do the same by projecting his ideas onto man’s passive perceptions. The divine mind of God is able to subordinate the universal mind under his power and realize that into being which he desires to be seen by man. It is in this way that Jesus Christ was able to walk on water. Something that should not be possible according to the laws of physics. And yet, not only was Jesus able to do this, but so was Peter so long he had sufficient faith. Indeed, Peter was able to replicate two steps of this miraculous feat before he succumbed to the doubts Jesus warned him against. Peter fell into the water but the point for Idealism has been made abundantly clear. “The power of belief can move mountains”, as the old expression goes, speaks to the overall mental nature of the universe. Of course human beings can not necessarily override the universal mind’s mental locks that impose the passive perceptions man must accept as “fundamental laws of reality”, however, it is shown herewith that these fundamental laws are not eternal nor immutable. They are particular and dependent upon the thoughts and will of a higher being who subjects them all. Every now and then he allows human beings to take control and this is what we colloquially call “miracles”. After all, miracles are things that should only happen “in your dreams”, right?
The universal consciousness bestows upon all lesser, individual minds the ability to generate thought and evolve awareness. The thoughts crafted with this power contribute to the collective human consciousness and, based on the nature of these thoughts, can influence it to different extents. This process results in a vast range of consciousness levels that humanity can achieve, enabling individuals to manifest their own unique realities. Simultaneously, there is an ongoing effort to integrate these personal realities into a cohesive, larger whole.
To summarize the above, mind is behind all things and is all things. The oneness of Mind is the ultimate telos of all things. In oneness, mind is the purest form of itself. Berkeley’s radical immaterialist ontology and cosmology posits that all objects that man passively perceives are actually just ideas ideated by the universal mind and re-ideated within the minds of lesser beings. God’s power controls the universal mind which is subject to the divine mind of God. Only consciousness can give rise to consciousness. Therefore, all that is and ever shall be is mental both ontological and cosmologically. “Materiality” is in of itself a mental abstraction created by man to describe his passive perceptions of all mental phenomena generated by the universal mind. Reality is a product of the mind. Nothing exists outside of the mind.
21st Century Science: Why Quantum Physics Demands Idealism
To this day, academia and the sciences are drowned out by a loud minority of personalities who still espouse physicalism as the preeminent basis upon which to ground all hard sciences upon. This is done purely out of personal biases in favor of Materialist philosophy and against any and all Idealist philosophy. Nevertheless, these loud minorities are unable to answer some of the most fundamental problems that are now brought to the forefront with the dawn of Quantum Physics. The soft and hard problems of consciousness can not be addressed by Materialists. The Physicalist struggles to make sense of quantum fields and the phenomenon of “quantum entanglement”. The double slit experiment leaves Realists baffled as they can not explain the impact of the observer on reality. Well respected scientists are recognizing the need to move towards Idealism as a necessary step to solve these mysteries for it is only Idealism that provides the right foundation to do so. Of course the Realists have responded to this dilemma with the “Many Worlds Theory”, or better known in pop-culture as “the multiverse”, in an attempt to salvage what is left of their decaying philosophy. Great efforts are put forth in preventing the resurgence of Idealism’s notions simply because of their fear of the philosophic consequences. Notions such as:
The mind creates reality.
The only fundamental substance of the universe is consciousness.
The universe is a mental construct.
All objects are but a set of ideas
Such notions strike fear in many of those who resist Idealism with all their being because they know that if they were to accept them, it would necessitate an uncreated being who created all that is created. Many of those who resist Idealism are allergic to the notion of God but especially to the Christian God. They know full well that no philosophy would qualify Christianity as true as much as Idealism does. They have used Realism for centuries to chip away at the foundations of legitimacy within the consciousness of the peoples. In time they were able to fully transition into materialism, but now the only proper antidote to this has begun to rise once more. Idealism seeks to break through again like never before and it will require more than clever advertising, blatant manipulation and media preference to stop it. For those who today profess themselves to be Christian but still adhere to Realism to ground their Christian theology: You may want to reconsider. Philosophical Realism is a sinking ship. Take the life-raft that will lead you to Mount Idealism.
Supplementary Video:
Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism
Fascifist, please become Orthodox. Great work.