The Fundamental Problem

“The fundamental problem of Philosophy is that something is here.”





Four fundamental Solutions to the problem of existence. (Francis Schaeffer, continued)

I cannot say that nothing it there; it is quite plain that something is there. Furthermore, it is also clear that that this something that is there has two parts. I am there, and something in contrast to myself is there.

(When thinking about the problem of being) man is shut up to relatively few answers. I think we often fail to understand that the deeper we go into study at this point, the simpler the alternatives become. In almost any profound question, the number of final possibilities is few indeed.


Here are the four:

1) Once there was absolutely nothing, and now there is something;


2) Everything began with an impersonal something;


3) Everything began with a personal something;


4) There has always been a dualism.



The Kirkwood rule of unmitigated Boggle: There is no solution to the problem of existence that does not startle the imagination or take us past the edge of reason.