Fundamental Questions

By Rich Van Winkle

If we ask ourselves, “What is it that matters most?” we begin the line of inquiry based upon the
“fundamental questions”. (Fundamental: The primary and essential principles on which everything else
based). A more direct way of asking the same thing is: “What is the one thing which we must know or
decide in order to best choose how to live?” The value of inquiry begins with asking the right questions.

My most fundamental decision answers the question: “Is there a Divinity or not?” I ask about divinity
because the question “Is there a “god”?” has become too confused by the cultural conceptions of “god”.
Thus, it is critical to have a clear meaning to what is meant by “a Divinity”. Yes, it begins with something
being divine which I conceive to mean: supernaturally (greater than human) perfect and powerful that
exhibits great purpose and potential. [Our word “divine” has roots in both “predictive” and “akin to
‘deus’” (the Supreme Being) while also connoting something extremely good and the ability to know
through intuition or insight. Thus, the word divine is often used in relation to “God” while many other
meanings or attributes are added to “God” which I typically don’t accept in my conception].

Thus, my fundamental question requires me to decide whether something exists that is supernaturally
perfect and powerful that exhibits great purpose and potential. The answer is not obvious because there
is no direct sensory evidence of a familiar thing or being that is divine. I have never seen, heard, felt, or
smelt a Divinity. To answer my question requires that I search for evidence that the Divine exists without
“first-hand” contact with it. This requires that I have first-hand contact with something that only
something supernatural, more perfect, and extremely powerful that exhibits great purpose and potential
could produce. How about the “Universe”? (everything we can experience).

Of course the universe is a cosmological feature seeming to yield the reality which we most directly
experience: the galaxies, stars, planets, our planet, atoms, plants and animals, and people. We study the
universe using science, particularly the physical sciences. But we tend not to study our ability to study,
our creation of science, or the abstract (non-physical) aspects of science, especially mathematics. These
are not just part of the universe, but yield the Universe. Differentiating these is critical because our
question and decision about how to answer it is incomplete if we merely look at the universe. While the
universe may be something that only something supernatural, more perfect, and extremely powerful
that exhibits great purpose and potential could produce, there seems to be a possibility that the
universe is a purely physical system which could be the result of just physical principles and processes.

While I accept that the complexity, structure, beauty, and nature of the universe must be the result of
Divinity, my level of certainty is tempered by a deep understanding of the physical nature of reality. The
complexity, structure, and nature of the universe could yield its beauty as well as its potential and
purpose. But that has never been intuitively acceptable to me even if reasonable. And then I began to
comprehend the Universe by asking the question: “How is it that I can comprehend the universe?”

Yes, there are physical elements to our ability to comprehend which we mostly identify with the brain
and our sensory systems. There are certainly direct associations between our neural system and our
ability to think and comprehend, but we have never been able to observe or measure a thought or
locate a neural source for logic or comprehension. We know that the brain is involved but have found no
physical aspect to its most apparent functionality. “I think, therefore I am,” expresses the essential

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divergence of the physical and non-physical aspects of the Universe. But that is hardly the “tip of the
iceberg”. We not only think and comprehend, we are beings that produce things supernatural, more
perfect, and extremely powerful that exhibit great purpose and potential. We, for example, produce
love.

If you don’t think of love that way, that’s unfortunate. But just for the sake of argument, try to. Love is
supernatural in that there is nothing physical about it. Yes, it has physical associations and produces
physical effects, but it seems most unlikely to have some physical essence that we can observe and
measure. Love is more perfect than any physical object even thought I am unable to explain why. (“It just
is” as some say about the universe). Love is extremely powerful, and I hope that you know that from
your sentient experience. And love exhibits great purpose and potential; some even claim that “love
makes the world go round” although that’s not physically true.

We all grasp what love is and yet we don’t give it a place of significance in the universe. So let us
examine another example of our divinity: “E=mc2” is a simple statement about physical reality which says
that energy is the same as mass times the speed of light squared. We didn’t create this equivalency, but
we comprehend it and express it in a system of logic, symbols, and operands. We didn’t create this
system of representation; it simply exists, and we make it work for us. We call it mathematics.

Like love, mathematics is something we know exists, yet we can’t explain its origin. We don’t create it,
we discover it. Mathematics is a non-physical structural aspect of the Universe. In the same manner that
we know that love is real, we know that mathematics is real even though we have no idea where it
comes from. It just is. It is supernatural, is more perfect than anything else we are know of, it is
extremely powerful in its power to explain and predict, and it exhibits great purpose and potential. Thus,
I conclude that mathematics is divine. But since we are not its creators and there is no physical
explanation for its existence other than “it just is”, logic says that, therefore, Divinity “just is”.

I don’t need more – because of thought, love, and mathematics I am compelled to decide that Divinity
exists. That doesn’t mean that love and mathematics are divine, but that they are “proof” of a Divinity
which I conceive as that which yields or creates the Universe. Because I include the universe as an
inherent part of the Universe, I equate the Divine to the Creator. Because I am unable to observe or
measure the Creator, I seek to grasp the Divine through the creation (the universe) and Creation (the
Universe).

The reason for this is obvious to me, but I should explain. The second fundamental question is: “If there
is a Divinity, what difference does that make?” (One can ask the corollary question if they want to waste
time: “If there is no Divinity, what difference does that make?”). Since I have decided to accept that
there must be a Divinity – a supernatural entity that is perfect and powerful enough to create the
Universe and thereby exhibits great purpose and potential - I must decide what difference that makes in
my life. That compulsion arises from the third fundamental question: “Does my life have purpose?”
which leads to the obvious follow-up, “And, if so, what is that purpose?”

I personally simply cannot conceive of a life without purpose as I have concluded through the study of
life that its very nature is purpose. An obvious purpose of life is to live and reproduce, but if that’s all
there was to life, we wouldn’t be here. Life exists to improve itself. We credit that to something we call
“evolution” and yet we give it little thought. Even in science evolution gets little attention because
evolution points to the Divine and science and the Divine seem like oil and water. I digress…

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Life has unquestionably yielded something quite perfect, extremely powerful, and that exhibits great
purpose and potential – humans. Life is divine; all humans share the Divinity; perfection and power are
quite relative in nature; purpose and potential require “realization”.

If you’re giving this significant thought you likely recognize that I have created a circular argument. I have
made purpose a part of my conception of the Divinity and thereby, everything divine must have purpose.
That is a result of my conception of purpose. While the word “purpose” has several meanings, some
which might relate purpose and “function”, I use the term more restrictively. “Purpose” as used here
refers to the reason for which something exists and its inherent intended objectives or result. In that use,
the “purpose of life” means that life has a reason for existing which has several objectives (like survival
and reproduction) and intends the result of evolving. In our case, the reason for life is revealed by the
objectives and results. Our objectives are revealed by our potentials and our purpose is consistent with
our results. Among our potentials are learning and creating. Learning yields the potential to teach which
advances learning.

We have produced many results, some good and some bad. That we recognize the difference is key to
understanding which results reveal our purpose. Here, we need only recognize one very good result: we
have come to recognize the Divinity. On the whole, we have created great confusion, and divergent,
sometimes divisive, conceptions of the Divine, but the vast amount of time, energy, and resources we
have invested in attempting to recognize and grasp the Divine is the key result of our humanness. Life
has produced the result of more life and that has resulted in beings that recognize and understand life
and its purpose. That has resulted in beings who recognize and can understand the Divine. (Welcome to
the club).

It is not my purpose, potential, or desire to suggest what your purpose or potential are. My intent is to
ask the fundamental questions and to hopefully inspire you to do the same. That’s why you’re here.
Now, just do it.