Posted on: March 5th, 2007 Yannaras on God as a Conceptual Necessity
“European metaphysics had been built upon the presupposition of God’s existence, while progressively excluding his presence from the world. God is either identified with the conceptual notion of an abstract and impersonal ‘first cause of the universe’ (causa prima), or of an absolute ‘authority’ in ethics. In both cases the existence of God is a conceptual necessity, secured by demonstrative argument, but unrelated to historical experience and the existential condition of human beings.
“Precisely because it offers an absolutized rational affirmation of God, European metaphysics prepares for the possibility of its own rational refutation. The ‘death of God’ is but the end result of this historical unfolding of this absolutized and double-edged rationalism, which took place in the nations of Western Europe over the span of approximately a millenium.”
— Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, p 22.
