Unbreakable and St. Anselm
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“If there is someone like me in the world and I am in one end of the spectrum, couldnt there be someone else opposite me in the other end? Someone who doesnt get sick doesnt get hurt like the rest of us.”
This line was said by Elijah Price, a character in the movie “Unbreakable”. This line recognizes that it is possible to conceive an object through negative knowledge. By acknowledging ones being he can infer that there is another being that is directly opposite to him. As for the movie “Unbreakable”, if there is a Super-hero, there is a directly opposite Arch-villain.
Similarly, humans conceive of a being directly opposite of themselves, which they call ÐGod. The line taken from the movie recognizes that humans have had the notion of a ÐGod through negative knowledge. Through the unearthing of their Ðimperfections, humans had concluded that if there is someone who is imperfect, there should another being that is perfect. This is the simplest explanation why humans have this notion of a greater entity, an explanation sufficient to explain how we got our notion but insufficient to explain what our notion is.
We human beings may have had the notion of God by seeing ourselves in one end of a spectrum and seeing him in the other end, however, God is not a being who is merely at the end of a spectrum. We cannot define Gods existence for he is beyond our reality. All we can do is ascribe good things to him in accordance to what is our belief of the absolute good. God is good, that is all we need to know of him. Anything more about this Ðgood is cannot be known for our imperfect mind cannot grasp things that are absolutely perfect.
There were attempts to study Gods existence. Some of these attempts were in the form of Science and Logic. Consequently, scholars in these fields concluded that it is impossible for a perfect being to exist. For them, everything that is occurring in our universe is the product of chance.
In reply to these conclusions, I can say that attempts such us those of Science and Logic inadequate to comprehend God. These things may apply to beings such us ourselves but never to the absolute being of God.
An ordinary thermometer will not be able to measure the temperature of the sun because its gauge is not enough to measure the immense heat