PAPER NO. 76

PRESUPPOSITION

Our Most Basic Belief

Most Basic Concept

  1. Our most basic belief is about our most basic concept.
  2. Logically, the most basic concept is that of existence.
  3. Existence is of two kinds: temporal (with beginning) and eternal (without beginning).
  4. Eternal existence is prior (logically and ontologically) to temporal existence.
  5. We have a precise concept (not image) of what eternal means.

Eternality

  1. Eternal is not the same as everlasting or aeveternal (in time).
  2. What is eternal is independent, self-existing, self-maintaining, and self-explaining.
  3. There are no unique events in an eternal being or process.

    1. If there was an infinite amount of time, it could not be explained why a unique event did not happen before it did.
    2. How can a unique event happen at all in an eternal (infinite) series?

      1. An infinite series cannot be crossed in finite time.
      2. There cannot be an infinite series since what is infinite is indivisible.
      3. Since time is divisible, time must not be an infinite series.

There Must Be Something Eternal

  1. There must be at least something eternal (assuming anything exists at all).
  2. Reductio Argument:

The contradiction of “some is eternal” is “none is eternal.”

If “none is eternal,” then all is temporal, all had a beginning, all came into being.

If all came into being, then being came into existence from non-being.

Being from non-being is not possible.

Therefore, “none is eternal” is not possible and its contradiction “some is eternal” must be true.

Two Basic Presuppositions

  1. Presupposition is the most basic belief that is used to interpret experience.
  2. There are two presuppositions: all is eternal (in some form or other) or only some is eternal.
  3. No one is fully conscious or consistent in their presupposition; there is an admixture of both in varying degrees in each person, with one being more basic than the other.
  4. History is reason (logos) unfolding the meaning of one’s presupposition in time.
  5. Rationally, one or the other must be true (both can’t be true by the law of non-contradiction and both can’t be false by the law of excluded middle).

Historic Belief Systems

  1. Logically, all historic belief systems can be classified as all or only some is eternal.
  2. All is eternal: material monism, spiritual monism, dualism, pluralism, etc.
  3. Only some is eternal: theism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and deism.

This paper was originally developed for an Introduction to Philosophy course.


© 1992 Logos Papers Press