when it is perceived to be a chair.
When you stated "His concept of chair is preferred because it exists independent of perception," I read this to mean that you are stating God's concept of chair exists in and of its own right. Your statement "there is a chair; it is not God, but exists as (and because) he perceives it" seems to support this interpretation. The logical consequence, though, is that the ideal chair would exist in a concrete and perceivable form. Otherwise, it only exists when God looks at it, and at no other time, a condition which ultimately comes back to "there is no chair."
If God is only part of reality, then what is to prevent some other part of reality from perceiving the ideal chair differently than God perceives it? That difference would require us to judge between the two perceptions, so as to determine which is best in accord with the (proposed) objective reality of this ideal chair. Simply saying "God's perception is better because God is God" is no more meaningful than saying "my perception is better because I am me." In fact, because I am me, I would certainly be more partial to my own perception of any possible ideal chair than I would be towards anyone else's.
Stating that God's essence is His existence is simply observing a tautology -- God == God. If we extend that existence to encompass all of existence, then the tautology becomes significant. Thus, the view from pantheism. I freely admit to a partiality towards pantheism as well as the one towards my own point of view. Deism, it seems to me, seeks to take the sacred wonder of all existence and reserve it for a special select class of being, to which we are not privy. Why should I thus denigrate myself? Particularly, as I observe above, when I have good reason to believe in the priveleged position of my own observations as regards the universe I perceive?
Throughout it all, we keep returning to the observation that a chair, ideal or not, exists only as it is perceived to be a chair. |
