Seeking God’s Help is Rational Since the Human Condition is Desperate
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2025.026Keywords
Philosophy of emotion, Philosophy of religion, Desperation, Religious attitudesAbstract
The paper argues for God as the rational object of our desire and action, with respect to help-seeking. I begin by characterizing the desperate situation as one that is very bad in ways that are beyond one’s control. Knowing that one’s situation is desperate, it is rational to feel desperation about it. Desperation, I argue, involves an impulse to seek help; to find and entreat a helper. So, feeling and expressing that impulse in a desperate situation is rational. The human condition itself seems to be desperate, due to things like our mortality, fragile well-being, and philosophical ignorance. So, it is rational to feel desperate about the human condition and to seek help regarding it. I argue that God is the best target of that impulse, arguing from common consent, by showing that God best satisfies the criteria for a helper, and from a Neo-Platonic conception of God as the cause of all help.
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