Chapter 3: Being (Sat)

In Hart's discussion of the ontological premise of God, he first begins with a universal experience in which all of man at some point or another has come to know. This is the idea of everything in existence having absolutely no autonomy over its own existence. Even more to this point, nothing in existence has a satisfactory answer to the question of why it exists either. If the question for a thing's existence cannot be answered by the thing that is existing, or anything else that it exists amongst, the answer then lies outside of this world in which the things that exist without autonomy over their coming to exist nor the understanding for their origination. The answer lies outside of the confounds of this world entirely. In this world, we are completely surrounded by things we could beg of the question, 'why'. So much so in fact that a feeling of anxiety begins to take place. This is the universal experience of man that Hart describes. This feeling can become an obsession because there is not a singular existing answer that is agreed upon and understood. This question can become repetitive due to its ease in application to all that exists. However for one to continue living life, a sort of regression to the initial state of obliviousness is necessitated. But Hart argues for one to not relinquish the responsibility entrusted to man of his own cognitive abilities. Instead man is to carry on with the knowledge of the lack of knowledge and press onto an even higher question: "How is it that any reality so obviously fortuitous–so lacking in any mark of inherent necessity or explanatory self-sufficiency–can exist at all?" (90). To which I say, with this question in mind, how do you expect one to negate that anxiety provoking ideology either? Additionally I would argue that simply because this emotional reaction is universal, does not definitively yield the logical state of ontology. This is not done in the same manner as Smart who defines the characteristics specific to religion. If the manner in which Hart derives about the existence of an ulterior being, was replicated in Smart's defining characteristics of religion, one could assume that the existence of religious persecution is also a characteristic of religion. However this is incoherent and illogical because even though this may be a common consequence of the religion's existence, it does not define a characteristic of religion in the same way that an emotionally popular experience of existentialism does not denote the existence of a higher being. In psychology there is such existence of mass hysteria. Mass hysteria defined by Wikipedia as, "a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear." There is nothing to say that the experience of anxiety brought about by the question of the existence of things in the world is more than merely a relative, minute case of mass hysteria. I am not claiming this to be true, but simply stating that it cannot be said to be untrue. To summarize, correlation is not causation. I am not dismissive of Hart's idea, but I am speculative of it.
Hart goes on to suppose that really, everything in existence has an essence of being "out of place". Although, due to our acclimation to the existence of things existing, or 'being', we do not find it to be out of place despite its true state is that of being out of place. It is in this way that the conclusion is brought on that everything in physical existence relies on something unknown for their existence in realities that are outside of itself. "Everything available to the senses or representable to the mind is entirely subject to annicha[...]: impermanence, mutability, transience" (91). All physical things fall prey to the cyclical process of being ever changing until they are nothing at all. It is then that Hart brings the notion to light of, "All things which do not possess the cause of their existence in themselves must be brought into existence by something outside of themselves" (99). The understanding of this brings about the ontological premise of Hart's argument. This premise has been a common theme throughout Hart's text. For instance in his discreditation of naturalism. He brings across the point that naturalism does not in itself explain its own existence and therefore its explanation must exist outside of naturalism. This denoting that if the explanation lies outside of naturalism, then there is more in existence than simply that which naturally occurs, but instead inside of the realm of the supernatural. I do not take issue with this argument because I do agree with Hart's ideas of the existence of the things in our world being reliant on something outside of it. This is entirely sound and logical to me.