Philosophy Seminar: God of the Philosophers

This month we bring you a seminar from the host of Prague's famous Cafe Philo, Albert Hoffman, entitled “The God of the Philosophers”. In this seminar, we'll be exploring the concept of god not through the lens of holy scriptures or divine revelation, but through that of reason.

When philosophers speak of “god,” they are often speaking of something very different from that presented by most religious traditions.

In his Metaphysics, Aristotle carries out a metaphysical inquiry not with questions concerning the sacred or worship, but with motion, causation, and the structure of reality itself. He arrives at a conception of god not as a mythic figure ready to reward or punish us, but something more similar to a law of nature.

Thomas Aquinas inherits this framework centuries later and deepens it. Drawing on Aristotle's metaphysics, he asks whether contingent beings can account for their own existence, whether causes can regress infinitely, and what it would mean for something to exist necessarily rather than dependently. He presents to us an image of god not merely as first in a sequence, but as the very ground of being itself.

You don't need any prior knowledge or expertise on these subjects to participate in this discussion, so come and join us as we move through the logic underpinning these conceptions of god and discover whether these arguments still carry any force today!

***
We’ll have tea and light snacks, but please feel free to bring any drink or snack you’d like to share!

This event will be hosted in an apartment with a well-trained dog who will be happy to meet you. If anyone has concerns about dogs, let me know so I can be mindful about keeping her from bothering you.

The buzzer is Everett and Mainous—we’re on the 5th floor, apartment 16.