Understanding and Being lecture 10:2

CD/mp3 160, second part of tenth and final Halifax lecture on Insight. Corresponds to CWL 5: 237-46. Sponsored by Mr. Patrick Doyle. The discussion moves on to the notion and existence of God. To understand a being that has the essence of being would be to understand everything, because being includes everything. The approach from limited being to pure act is equivalent, as the conclusions are the same. They are equivalent because being and intelligence are correlative. Regarding the existence of God, our knowledge of God's existence is our knowledge of the truth of the conclusion, 'God is.' The argument must be a posteriori, from effects to cause. Being is intelligible, what is to be known by correct understanding. And there are defects of intelligibility in the existing world, and those defects are universal. The sciences cannot answer the question, Why should there be anything at all? As long as we stay within the limits of the world of our experience, we cannot get beyond the virtually unconditioned. So this universe is intelligible up to a point and then leaves off, giving rise to further questions that can be answered only if there is a universal validity of some principle of extrinsic causality. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the comprehensive expression of arguments for God's existence that Lonergan presents in Insight. Only if God exists can the real be being.