Symposium Upper West Side 1

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Interviewer:   This is a classic question why if there's, it's related to the theodicy question which is if there was a God, then why did he create [inaudible 0:0:11.7] there's a whole, you know almost infinite universe of discussion and books about that. In the metaphysical that I propose, this component of my metaphysical is not original, that everything is twin, good and evil is twin, light and dark is twin, male and female is twin, that initially quest potential a divided zero, whatever zero is into, pluses and minuses, good and evil and therefore infinite divine this is with consonant with classic Jewish philosophy had to allow the creation of both in order to create good and also allow the creation of evil. Again it's a whole infinite discussion and if it's valid infinite discussion.

Audience Member:   Well good is evil creation.

Speaker:        We can have a discussion about that also; it is the absence also is all fair game philosophical issues but all those issues and discussions precede me. They precede this book. This book is built on top of those issues.

Audience Member:   I want to deal with that. Theology did not start today. Theodicy did not start today. We have a long history of this and philosophers use their brain power and use the philosophical insights they had or whatever information they had to try to deal with the situation. Frequently Maimonides is quoted with this, St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted with this, etc., and correctly you deal with these issues is Maimonides perfect? Did he have all the answers? There is a negative there. He did not have all the answers. Aquinas didn't have all the answers. They all had pieces, pieces, one piece, another piece, another piece, another piece, but the total theology or the total theodicy is not there and theodicy is a question. Philosophy is a question. The nature of God is a question and our whole world is dealing with it or not dealing with or can't deal with or is ignoring it or putting it on the back burner. And so I think we have to come back to what you did, build on what everybody else said, what everybody else put on the table and see whether we can come up for our generation, which is not 5000 years from now or not 5000 years ago, but for our generation is there is a total theodicy that we can deal with. Can we make peace with all the good that's in the world and with all the evil that's in the world and where do we put God in there and where do I fit in there. Is there a message that we can convey to the human being on the street?

Speaker:        Exactly and that's very glib, that would be a very good introduction to, that's an old symposium.

Audience Member:   That's right; it puts the cards on the table.

Speaker:        Where is it at? You know it's a big undertaking to propose over-arching metaphysics and I'm the first to agree with relative care that all the players to date that we are aware of have pieces missing in their tapestry, key pieces are missing and from my perspective, I'm sure from your perspective, we can't say you have three-quarters of the pieces but I'm not quite

Audience Member:   That doesn't work.

Speaker:        That doesn't work.

Audience Member:   Either you have it all or you have nothing.

Speaker:        Nothing, right and this is consonant with Jewish thought and [inaudible 0:03:51.5] and

Audience Member:   You need to be total and consistent.

Speaker:        And it must be eternally in to, you must pull together internally and must it be that I am called internally elegant. Now it might be right and it might be wrong.

Audience Member:   Absent, that's an inappropriate term

Speaker:        Right, right, right. It might be right and it might be wrong, but at least it's internally elegant and hangs together and covers all the basics. What are some of the basics? If there is a God why is there evil? If there is a God, where did God come from? If there's not a God where'd everything come from? Where did the cosmos come from? Where's the cosmos headed? What is the purpose of man? These are some of the key core issues I call them the issues that six year olds ask but never get answers and which metaphysical alleges an answer but generally doesn't shuffle, it does the semantic shuffle around the difficult issues and soon alleges have ideals for Catholics provides an over-arching metaphysics which is simultaneously deals with all these issues.

Audience Member:   In an understandable manner.

Speaker:        Right and a relatively understandable manner who could ask for more than that.

Audience Member:   That's great.

Speaker:        We're here to discuss the grasp of the astral [inaudible 0:05:08.6] is it nonsense or is it graspable and real. That's the basic divide here. It's questionable and nonsense semantic construct or is it a valid construct which cracks the cosmic code. It's hard to say that it's somewhere in the middle. It's sort of one or the other and that's what we're here to discuss.

Audience Member:   There is no common

Speaker:        There is no middle.

Audience Member:   That is correct, you're either in or you're out.

Speaker:        Right. That goes for both metaphysics and it goes for this metaphysics and so perhaps we might say what are some elements of this metaphysics that are intriguing to you because it's hard to teach [inaudible 0:05:52.5] in this two volume series. What acts to intrigue or what acts of it do you find vulnerable? Either one, it would seem to me, either intriguing or vulnerable worthy of discussion at this time and either is fine; either is fine, we're not shy.

Audience Member:   Let me throw you a little curve. In addition I think you have to add the concept of time that it doesn't have to be solved in the next five minutes and maybe time could be a century or so, will make things clearer and given time it could either prove it or disprove it.

For David Birnbaum philosophy, metaphysics, see also www.Self-Actualization1000.com