Faith and Reason - Philosophy Paper

HZT4U1 CPT

On Faith and Reason

Part B:

Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?

Introduction and Thesis:

In life there is a search to find the ultimate truth, why we come to ask ourselves questions on our existence and as we generate greater knowledge, we come to learn how these answers develop. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, his main concern is the problem of social and political order, how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. In addition to mature and develop with these answers to our questions, we encounter the events that Hobbes is concerned about and work to avoid all the bad and danger in the world. As we learn about the good and the evil, we seem to always come back to these unanswered questions and have a sense of agreeing and disagreeing with challenges we face. Thomas views the world as a world where human authority is something that requires justification, and  a world where social and political inequality also appears questionable and lastly  a world where religious authority faces significant dispute. I strongly agree with Hobbes because it has become known that human authority and acceptance has been frowned upon for centuries. We need the idea of fear and danger to come to an ultimate end and we should remain together in peace and have inequality an answered remain instead of unanswered and questioned. Many individuals that have reunited with God in heaven today, still have many unanswered questions and my question is what can we do to meet Hobbes’ expectations? In the world and generation we live in today and as generations are created, we will learn that philosophy is the answer to all these questions and there will always be questions unanswered but as a society we can all do our part in creating new ones and learning from them.

First body: Fear and danger are two of the major aspects to why philosophy was born. Philosophy is defined as fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. This is exactly what Thomas Hobbes is focusing on, his beliefs are to stop the existence of the fear and danger and have all human beings together in peace. The values and the reason of fear such as war, slavery, poverty, dangers our minds to create all these questions. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34) In this quote from Matthew in the Bible, he reminds us that, whatever happens today , happens because tomorrow is a new day for new worries. The concept of this bible teaching is to educate us all to value each worry as its own and to not be fearful as to what happens next. Unfortunately in the society and standards we live in today there is constant worrying as to what is happening all the time. There is so much danger in this world that essentially our fear outlines the reason for asking all these questions. Our minds are now triggered to think, what happens next? Our capacity to reason is as fragile as our capacity to know, it relies on language and is prone to error which distorts the influence. This answers the question of  “why is there evil?”, there are so many questions that are left unanswered.  “Rightly, therefore, the sacred author identifies the fear of God as the beginning of true knowledge: “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7; cf. Sir 1:14).” Faith and Reason teaches us that the knowledge that we have is how we identify fear. How we think and act are all the reasons why we are fearful and feel dangered.

Second body: God has created all human beings as unique individuals who all have different perspectives, morals and values on life. Inequality has been brought up a lot in today's society, we all feel unequal in our own way. Thomas is a believer in a world where social and political inequality  appears questionable and he states that we live in a world where all human beings are supposed to have rights, that is, moral claims that protect their basic interests. Each individual has a moral stance or ethnicity, meaning it is a common human instinct to create out of the daily habits such as feeling unequal or branching off this idea of inequality. Most of us feel the need to be like everyone else which essentially disregards the ultimate truth and what God has taught us. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) In this Bible teaching it explains that God has created each and everyone of us in his own image, and this answers the question of  “who am I?” because we understand who we are by growing on this nature of having rights and reason.  “Consider as well certain fundamental moral norms which are shared by all. These are among the indications that, beyond different schools of thought, there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity.” This quote from Faith and Reason states beyond all the thinking and thought in this world, based on our knowledge we feel like we may we judged by what we do or how we act in humanity.