Belief in God is rational. Everything has a cause. So unless there is a first cause, then you would have an infinite regress. And then nothing could exist. Therefore there must be a first cause. Therefore God, the first cause, exists. QED.
16.1.26
The implication of the difference between concepts and things is that Kant was right as opposed to H.A. Prichard.
There is a difference between concepts and things. Concepts are universals, but are only perceptible by the mind. The reason I mention this is that Thomas Reid pointed out the fallacy of the theory of ideas of Hume and Berkley that when we are aware of something we are only aware of something in our mind. (Reid pointed out that this is false. Our minds relay information about what is outside the mind. It does not relay information about what is in the mind.) But there is a difference of being aware of universals (characteristic that can be shared by individual things) and being aware of tables. The problem with the theory of ideas of Hume is that it formed the basis of German Idealism -i.e., Kant and Hegel. And it is not so far fetched since even for color to be perceived by us we have to be affected by it. It needs to be caused. But causality is never perceived. We only see one event follow another and from that we extrapolate causality. In short--what we area aware of are things in the mind. But then what is the difference between things and concepts? individuals and universals? Concepts are universals, but are only perceptible by the mind. But the mind is also aware of individual things. But not because of reason. Rather just because they are there. They do not need justification.
[The implication of the difference between concepts and things is that Kant was right as opposed to H.A. Prichard. So, we are right back to where we started with Kant Hegel and Leonard Nelson of the New Friesian School.}
