Understanding Reality, Part 1

How do we explain reality?  Is this world merely an illusion?  Or maybe the world we’re living in is self-created, that is, it was created by chance. 

We have to agree that there is something. We see, feel, taste, touch and hear.  Whatever there is, we have to conclude that there is something tangible for us to call reality.

Let’s consider the belief that the world in which we are living is self-existent and eternal.  If this is true, then on the other hand, it would be logically impossible for the world to be self-created, because for something to create itself, it would have to exist before it was, and it would therefore have to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.  This would be totally absurd.  Is it therefore, rationally possible and reasonable for something to be self-existent and eternal than for something to be self-created. 

When we put side by side “self-creation” and “self-existence,” they seem similar. However, there is a big difference.  There is no logical contradiction with something that is self-existent and eternal – that is a being not caused by something else.

Herein is where some become confused – it is over the law of cause and effect. Some reason that everything must have a cause.  But the law of cause and effect simply is saying that only every “effect” must have a cause, because an effect by definition is that which is produced by something outside of itself. Therefore, the idea of an “uncaused” being is perfectly rational as a starting point to accept as a way to explain reality.

We can conceive of an uncaused being – someone who is self-existent and eternal without violating rationality. Reason allows for us to believe in such a being.  What we cannot with our human minds conceive is a self-created being. There is no way we can get our minds wrapped around the idea of there being a being who at the same time and relationship is both a cause and effect.

If we accept the fact that we are not living in a world of illusion, but in a world in which something eternal does exist, then the idea of a self-existent and eternal being becomes not only possible, but necessary.

End of Part 1