THE PROBLEM OF BEING

1. INTRODUCTION

   The problem of being is the central and fundamental problem of philosophy.
   This problem may be simply stated as follows: What is being?
   Or more precisely, which has primacy in the concept of being: essence or existence?
   Essence is what a thing is and
   Existence is that a thing is.
   The branch of philosophy that deals with this problem is called ontology.
   In the attempt to answer this problem, philosophy has developed various solutions. The history of philosophy is the history of these solutions and attempt to develop the philosophy of being or an ontology.

2. HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEING
   1. The Eleatics.

   2. Platonism.

   3. Neo-Platonism.

   4. Origen.

   5. Augustinianism.

   6. Boethius.

   7. Pseudo-Dionysius.

   8. John Scotus Erigena.

   9. Anselm.

   10. Universals.

   11. Aristotelianism.

   12. Thomas Aquinas.

   13. Duns Scotus.

   14. Nominalism.

   15. Hegelianism.

   16. Existentialism.
       1. Soren Kierkegaard.

       2. Martin Heidegger.

       3. Karl Jaspers.

       4. Jean-Paul Sartre.

       5. Dialectical Theology.
          • Neo-Orthodoxy - Barth and Brunner.
          • Neo-Protestantism - Niebuhr and Tillich.

3. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM.
   1. Essentialism.
   2. Existentialism.
      1. Atomistic Existentialism.
      2. Relational Existentialism.
4. THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
   1. Personism.
   2. Personism and God.
   3. The Problem of Ontologial Truth.
   4. The Image of God.
   5. The Biblical View of Man.
   6. The Biblical View of Reality.