A Partial Idealism

The truth about metaphysics and epistemology is often more nuanced than typical philosophical systems dare to suggest.  The core of basic idealism--the idea that matter cannot exist without being perceived--is entirely unverifiable, with the type of idealism that holds matter to be an illusion being demonstrably false [1].  Despite these facts, however, there are specific elements of idealistic philosophy that, if framed correctly, do correspond to reality.

For example, the relationship between matter and mind involves a subjectivity that can only be a function of an individual consciousness.  A thing such as physical pain can only exist as a subjective experience within a mind: pain does not exist simply because an environment that causes objective harm to living beings exists.  The same is true of something like physical pleasure.  Without consciousness, neither pain nor pleasure can exist, because they are purely mental states, even though they can be caused by external, material stimuli.  Does this mean that the matter that provokes mental responses like pain and pleasure itself depends on the immediate perception of a mind?

This does not follow.  One form of idealism posits that, since humans can only perceive a very small area of nature at a given time, the whole of nature is sustained only by the direct perception of God.  Such a claim cannot escape the same epistemological errors that render humans unable to know if nature ceases to exist when they do not perceive it.  It must be clarified that, though matter might not require perception for it to exist, matter is strictly contingent on the metaphysical existence of the uncaused cause (God).

The relationship between God and creation is quite different from a human and his or her lesser creations.  If a person fashions a new material object from existing matter and then dies upon completing the project, the new object can continue to exist.  Apart from God's existence, though, there is nothing to keep things which depend on God, including all matter, in a continued state of existence.  This means that nature is ultimately mind-dependent, albeit dependent on the mind of God (though I cannot even prove that I myself am not the uncaused cause).  Nevertheless, it still does not follow that God must perceive the whole of creation at once in order for it to persist.

Furthermore, not everything depends on God's existence for its own being.  It is not possible for everything to be mind-dependent.  The laws of logic and the very space that holds matter cannot be constructs of the divine mind for the same reason they cannot be constructs of the human mind: they exist by intrinsic necessity [2].  God is not the supreme metaphysical existent; reason itself is.  This is one of the most metaphysically and theologically significant truths about God that historical and contemporary Christians have, at large, completely ignored or denied.  God is the reference point for all values, but logical truths are a completely different matter.

In light of each of these truths, some forms of idealism can only be false, while the veracity of others is uncertain.  Modern thinkers who appeal to quantum physics in order to argue for matter being dependent upon perception only believe their premises on mere faith.  How could one perceive whether or not matter exists when it is not perceived?  Such a thing is impossible!  The word for someone who thinks that they can know that which cannot be proven is "delusional."  Unfortunately, delusion of various sorts has been the norm for the entirety recorded human history.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/matter-is-not-illusion.html

[2].  See here:
  A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ramifications-of-axioms.html
  B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-refutation-of-naturalism-part-2.html