One of the most influential philosophers of modern times is T. George Berkeley. His major work, Topics in Metaphysics was completed at the University of Virginia in 1687 and it produced some of the most influential discussions on religion, philosophy and the nature of reality. It was also influential in other areas of philosophy including Natural Philosophy, Ethics, sociology, and a few in the field of mathematics. His most famous book, Berkeley’s Essays, produced by his pupil and friend John Locke, has greatly influenced subsequent generations of philosophers in the area of naturalism, metaphysical realism, and the problem of consciousness.
Berkeley’s basic arguments for the existence of God are based on a number of different methods. He takes a strong reductionist view of philosophy and science, believing that matter, space, time, and consciousness are wholly meaningless and that our only concern is with how things appear to us. Berkeley further suggests that all knowledge is physical and that we cannot know anything with our minds but what we experience with our bodies. The essence of philosophy, according to Berkeley, is the search for the knowledge of objects of thought independent of our experience, while all the relations between things physical are purely physical.
Berkeley’s key thesis in his philosophy is that there are no necessary connections among things physical, and his ideas about how things really are led him into trouble with his fellow naturalists like Sir Richard cardinal Newton and Henry clockwork. Berkeley claimed that matter does not exist in a vacuum, but only in combination with its surrounding matter. In his idea of substance, he distinguished five kinds of matter including air, water, fire, earth, and bone. Berkeley further posits that each of these things is composed of pure matter, while the elements of which it is made up are diverse and not essential to it. To put this more simply, matter is composed of matter and energy, and the energy is divided between the various elements, so that matter and energy are inseparable.
Berkeley’s great contribution to the world of philosophy was his emphasis on objectivity. He rejected the Cartesian dualism concerning idealism, or the belief that objects exist apart from human thoughts and emotions. He insisted that every truth is independent of both, and that only through a series of appearances can we know anything objective about anything. Because of his idealist beliefs, Berkeley could not help but be a romantic solipsist. Although his theory of nature is compatible with modern theories of physics, and even with the modern physical science, it differs from them on some fundamental aspects.
Berkeley’s idealism is reflected in his treatment of sensation and thought. His theory of sensation says that all thought stems from bodily sensations. Berkeley maintained that the only real knowledge could be acquired through experience, for through this method we learn things most accurately through touch, sight, smell, and hearing. Because of his idealist beliefs, Berkeley denied the possibility of objective knowledge, and he insisted on the existence of certitude, which he described as a kind of self-deception. According to him, if you believe something because you yourself perceive it, then it is no different from a blind man’s belief in a fixed object.
In his philosophy of religion, Berkeley distinguished between religion and magic, and he based his ideas on his studies of Stoicism and the works of Aristotle. His ideas concerning moral excellence and natural rights gave rise to the foundations of seventeenth-century English utilitarianism and natural law. According to Berkeley, to act is to do, and to have the capacity to act is to deserve. Thus, to be a just and peaceful citizen, one must have the knowledge of right and justice. According to Berkeley, religion, ethics, and laws are nothing more than mere concepts, and he saw no reason for submitting to authority.
Berkeley’s major work in his philosophy of religion was his presentation of nominalism, the view that all reality is simply a variety of opinion. According to him, religion is a set of ideas, and all ideas are physical. He further explained that to know God is to know a reality independent of any opinion. According to Berkeley, there is no reality out there except God, and the only thing we need to know God is through experience. In essence, according to Berkeley, we can know God from experience because there are no concepts in spacetime that can create reality.
Berkeley’s ideas concerning divine knowledge, divine providence, and free will have very radical consequences in the twenty-first century. Some modern scholars have suggested that Berkeley’s ideas were actually ahead of their time, even though others are not so sure. Nevertheless, the main thrust of Berkeley’s system is to suggest that our minds are designed to contemplate a personal God, rather than a physical God. This article briefly discusses some of the difficulties encountered by those who subscribe to the view that modern thought provides a satisfactory answer to all the problems encountered by mankind.