A questão de Deus em Bergson

Abstract

Our work intends to study what bergsonian philosophy has bequeathed to us about the problem of God. To do this, we will go through some of the french philosopher's main works. Firstly, we will investigate what Bergson says about this topic in the “Psychology and metaphysics classes”, where we will see him comment on some of the main metaphysical theses that tradition has brought to us. In these classes, we will find a somewhat traditional approach to philosophy, which closely follows Kant's criticism of the claims of theodicy and concludes, together with the Prussian master, for the existence of divinity based on a moral argument. After that, we will delve into Bergson's main works, which gave him the popularity he enjoyed. In “Matter and memory”, we will study the theory of degrees of duration and the relationships between spirit and matter, from which we will conclude, in addition to a sui generis dualism, the existence of degrees of duration greater than those that characterize us and, therefore, ultimately, the existence of a more tense consciousness, which we understand to be already a reference to divinity. Next, we will see in “Introduction to Metaphysics” Bergson distinguishing between intellectual and intuitive knowledge, the latter having our interior as its privileged object. It would be through intuition that we could go through the different degrees of duration that constitute us. Again, at the limit, it would be possible to think of a higher consciousness, which would constrict the entire history of the world in a few moments, what Bergson will call “eternity of life”, in opposition to the traditional conception of God as non-temporal, an idea that he will call of “eternity of death”. In our second chapter, we will investigate the work “Creative Evolution”, where we will find the concept of vital elan and the process of genesis of matter from an act of inversion of the spirit. God will then appear properly as creator, occupying the summit of the Real, and being named as “Supraconsciousness”. Finally, our third chapter will deal with Bergson's last book, “The Two Sources of Morality and Religion”, where we will see him move through the concepts of static religion and dynamic religion, closed morality and open morality, concluding the existence of a privileged experience, which would allow human beings to be certain about God in an experiential way and no longer in a purely logical way.