God as foundation?

This blog was set out by suggesting that in order to have knowledge of the world I need to understand my relation to the world.

Ofcourse there is somewhat of a paradox here, for in order to know how I relate to the world I need to know myself and the world and to know myself I have to know my place in the world, which requires me to know both the world and my relation to it. Although this is indeed problematic and I do not know how to solve it, it at least proves my point that we are unable to approach the world as if we didn't exist. We can't view it objectively from a distance. We are always in the world and it probably influences how and what we see, so the objective is to figure this out, for then we will be able to get closer to the world as it truly is.

As I am writing this, I realise how much this sounds like phenomenology, which we discussed this week for concepts of selfhood. Yet I do not think my thoughts were influenced by phenomenology.

Anyhow, one way of starting this inquiry is by looking at being - no, I am not trying to show the development from Husserl to Heidegger. This is namely what al-Juwayni seemed to do in 'Doctrine on Proving the Prophecy of Muhammad', at least that is how I now understand it. To understand how things are. To understand the structure of the universe.

To do so we start with the observation that 'I am', but I could also not have been. It is perfectly imaginable that I had not existed. Whatever is, is contingent; it relies on something else for its existence. That which it relies on, in turn relies on something else. This will develop into an eternal regress, which would mean that nothing has any reason for its existence and thus nothing would be. Since there are things, there must be something which grounds all other things. This therefore is not contingent; it relies on nothing but itself for its existence. al-Juwayni called this God.

It is an interesting thought and if valid, would be fertile soil to grow new ideas on, to expand on. It lays the foundation for our understanding of how the world is. Perhaps we will find a way to turn towards ourselves and get closer to understanding what our relation is with this thing we called God.