Bishop George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge. (02/19/2002)
Anyone searching for the origin of the idea that physical, material reality is an illusion contained wholly in and by the human mind need look nowhere beyond The Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley (1710) to find one. To say that Berkeley invented the idea would be to ignore other earlier attempts to formulate the position at least in some of its essential aspects. At one point he notes that nothing in his argument can be referred to as an "innovation" (91), which implies his awareness that parts of his position have been previously stated. One obvious example of his borrowing from previous tradition follows his disclaimer of novelty when he says that
"as we have shown the doctrine of Matter or corporeal substance to have been the main pillar and support of Scepticism, so likewise upon the same foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and Irreligion. Nay, so great a difficulty has it been thought to conceive Matter produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient philosophers, even those who maintained the being of a God, have thought Matter to be uncreated and coeternal with him." (92)
This same general sentiment was first put forward by Tertullian in the middle of the 3rd Century in his treatise denouncing the heresy of Hermogenes, a Roman philosopher and contemporary of Tertullian, who argued that God created the world out of preexisting Matter and not ex nihilo as Scripture teaches. Whether it is true or not that Berkeley is referring to Hermogenes as a "celebrated" philosopher of the ancient world, he (Hermogenes) did believe in God and did assert the preexistence of Matter as a condition for the creation of the universe, being incapable, as Berkeley suggests, of accepting the notion that matter was "produced out of nothing." Tertullian also objects strongly to this notion because preexisting Matter diminishes God's sovereignty over the world by making "corporeal substance" coeternal with Him. He does not directly link the idea of materialism to an atheistic ideology, as Berkeley does here, but it seems reasonable to assume he would not have objected to the 17th Century Bishop's position since he condemns Hermogenes as a heretic whose religion was heathen and polytheistic as opposed to atheistic. Tertullian also argues in the same treatise that novelty could be taken as the only sign of heresy necessary to prove its factual existence and Berkeley's disclaimer about the presence of "innovation" in his work may suggest specific knowledge of Tertullian's text, which would not have been unusual for a man in Berkeley's position at the time.
The one part of Berkeley's argument that might in fact be novel concerns the notion that all material objects are nothing more than ideas in the human mind and that they have no existence beyond being perceived. He puts it this way:
"The existence of Matter, or bodies unperceived, has not only been the main support of Atheists and Fatalists, but on the same principle doth Idolatry likewise in all its various forms depend. Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses are only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their own ideas, but rather address their homage to that ETERNAL INVISIBLE MIND which produces and sustains all things." (94, emphasis Berkeley's)
Berkeley escapes the total absurdity of his position, since it would be senseless for any reasoning person to accept the notion that every physical object is nothing more than an idea, by claiming that some mind, some where, even especially the mind of God, who created everything initially anyway, is always actively engaged in the process of perceiving every physical object in the universe. Hence, because God never sleeps, never closes His eyes, so to speak, nothing ever unaccountably disappears from the material world or ceases to exist as a part of it. One problem, among several others, that Berkeley's argument generates is that it tends to hang God's existence on the presence of His created and therefore subsequent, a posteriori, and continuing, material reality, which is precisely the linkage between God and Matter that Tertullian was attempting to deny when he declared Hermogenes a heretic.
Be that as it may, what I find most odd about Berkeley's position is that the one thing always perceived as invisible, hidden, mysterious, incomprehensible, in the face of everything else that is visible, revealed, and quantifiable, comes to be "seen" as the only thing that actually exists; whereas, everything that has material presence, even matter itself, is relegated to a position of non-existence, or to an existence that depends absolutely on being perceived by some form of intellect or mind. Berkeley's argument, of course, is meant to preserve the possibility of the existence of God, where he claims that the existence of material reality, since it requires perception by mind everywhere and at all times, must confirm God's existence simply because material reality would cease to be if it were ever to be unperceived. Only God has the capacity to perceive reality always and unconditionally.
A more logical argument, where Berkeley's seems incredibly strained for the simple fact that material reality can be experienced sensibly but God never has been, would be to state that God is an idea that has existed in the minds of most people most of the time over the last 5,000 years but that he may not, even by definition, have any actual place in the real world, especially one limited by material reality. Since God is supernatural, there does not seem to be any way to argue that He is material, that He has presence in the real world. Given the radical separation between God and the world that most theistic religions demand, and given the fact that natural beings cannot see or comprehend a truly supernatural reality, it seems obvious that such other-worlds, so radically different than our own, were created and fabricated, even ex nihilo, as little more than ideal places for such a God to be. By definition, the ideality of God seems inescapable.
A person, like myself, who takes this position and says: "I believe that God exists as an idea in the minds of most people most of the time," cannot be called an Atheist, since the point I take most ardently is that God most certainly does exist, even if His existence is limited to a purely ideal one. Taking that position, at the same time, is only one that is most consistent with the definition most people rely on when they address the issue anyway. From a point-of-view grounded firmly in natural reality, God cannot be anything except an idea, an ideality, because the supernatural cannot be found in nature. Again, from a purely materialistic perspective, God cannot be said to exist in the physical world, even if various religions have created ideologies that attempt, futilely it seems to me, to bring Him bodily into the world. God has no physical ground and to suggest that He does, or can, if and whenever someone thinks it pleases Him, is little more than changing the idea people have of God in order to accommodate this or that expediency.
An example of what I mean by this, and one which clearly demonstrates the dangers inherent in preserving ideologies that want to have God's existence both ways, want Him to exist in reality and in ideality simultaneously, literally fell out of the sky over New York City on September 11, 2001. The two commercial airliners that crashed into the Twin Towers of the WTC that morning were being piloted by individuals who believed that a real and hence material God, called Allah, had commanded them to use whatever means were available to kill as many American Christians as possible. They were incredibly, horribly successful. Looking at this realistically, even factually, an idea (Allah) in the minds of nineteen people not only gave them permission to murder thousands of people in a single act of suicidal madness but also commanded them to do so. George W. Bush, on the other hand, and speaking from the National Cathedral, implied, if not actually claimed, that a second idea of God ("Jesus Christ") in the minds of nearly everyone who survived the Islamic assault, demanded that the "evildoers" (who were already dead) be brought to justice by whatever means were available. President Bush initiated a bombing war, which he called a "crusade," as opposed to the Muslim "jihad," against Afghanistan in which many more thousands of people died. The problem with this ideology, where God is said to exist in reality as a speaking subject when in fact He is nothing more than an idea in the minds of people who can hear, and clearly have heard, whatever serves their immediate needs, their perception of expediency, is that virtually anything at all can be done in the name of an idea that does not have a material reality capable of contradicting what anyone thinks Berkeley's "ETERNAL INVISIBLE MIND" has said we ought to do. The real problem, of course, is that the defining qualities of that mind shift from day-to-day, even minute-to-minute, according to which pole has the "best" perception of ITS will.
Anyone who claims to have the voice of God in his/her ear, where God is only an idea in that person's mind, is doing absolutely nothing except following his/her own desire. That God almost always tells people to kill the Other with whatever means are available should not surprise anyone, since most people are infinitely skilled and practiced in the arts of deceiving themselves with justifications that excuse the most horrific acts imaginable. Hunting down the "evildoers," since the hunters cannot be, and never are, ones themselves, works as well as any other factitious miracle attributed to God.