Question 3 -
How did organic life come to be in the universe?
How did everything natural still alive or extinct end up becoming a part of the universe.
Everything in this world has a purpose. Without all the organic life on this world there would be no world, just a lifeless, insignificant piece of rock in the middle of a huge universe. Christians believe in the seven day theory where God created every organic life form within 7 days, (genesis) however these beliefs may not always be taken literally as there is significant evidence that the world must have taken millions of years to create. The world would appear to have started off full of bacteria and minerals and rocks, that is all. Then after an immense amount of time humans, plants and animals eventually were created. All this is absolutely extraordinary, because life requires a parent, or a life giver. Monkeys give birth to monkeys, zebras give birth to zebras but who was there before there were any of these species? Who and how where they made? This is where the belief of the existence of God is important. Belief in God provides a clear explanation for a seemingly unclear event, for example, like how was the earth created? God was the original cause according to the bible, St Thomas Aquinas and many Christians today.
Question 4 -
How has intelligent thought emerged, enabling us to ask these questions?
This uncertainty demonstrates that we are able to think freely, whereas other creatures cant and where did this originate from?
The answer from Christians lies in the bible. It states in the second creation story that God gave us free will, because he didn’t want little slaves following him round everywhere, doing exactly as he pleased, and not having a life for themselves. However, he didn’t want us to disobey him either. He created us in his image, and he had a thinking mind, so he allowed us one too. Only to have us betray him. Consequently he banished us from the Garden of Eden.
We ask these questions because we are a certain people, we don’t like mysteries, they have to be solved. Some people spend their whole lives trying to figure out the world’s secrets and then it even passes on to their offspring. We are obsessed with logic. But logic has not solved all these questions for thousands of years!
So what use is logic, we still don’t actually know whether God exists, whether it’s the God from Christianity or Hinduism etc. But people believe it and so to them it is real. God is a simple way out of a difficult question like so many other things in today’s life. For example aliens ghosts and the supernatural etc. In fact, belief in God can provide a simple explanation of things, events etc
Question 6 -
How is it we recognised awe and the numinous in a sunset, beauty and music, etc?
How come we can acknowledge the ‘supernatural’ in a sunset etc?
The solution is that in fact not many of us often do realize the beautiful and supernatural things in life, such as a sunset. However Christians often do as they appreciate everything in the world and to be God’s will and work. The world and solar system is all pretty amazing, many of us just never have enough time to simply think about all the marvellous things, that we take for granted everyday of our lives. For example the force that allows planets to orbit around the sun and never bump into each other, rotating the moon and the sun depending on night or day. The world is rather beautiful even in the simplest things. We sometimes recognize it and when we do, it gives us an understanding that there is something out there, making all this happen. This thing has so much power that it stuns us with awe at the thought of it, there’s not a lot more powerful than humans so when something stronger strikes us its rather breathtaking to think about.
Question 7 -
How do we come to recognise the need for rules and morality?
Why do we have rules and principles? How did we comprehend it? We are a logical people who like order and clear explanations of events.
The answer is there must be someone watching over us, an ethical lawgiver. Christians believe this is God and in the bible it explains the 10 commandments, which allow us to enter the kingdom of heaven when we die, but only if we follow them. There also always needs to be rules in society, or bad events will follow. Christians believe this is God testing us and these bad events are punishments. So as not to anger God again we inaugurate rules so it never happens again. This argument is called the moral argument.
Question 8 -
How is it we recognise the value of love e.g. from parents, friends etc
We often interrogate our understanding of love and how we can recognize it.
The first love ever, to Christians was when God created humans he loved us dearly and still does. When Adam and Eve betrayed him and he banished them from the garden, he made clothes for them, to hide their nudity, which they where ashamed of. God was angry, but the clothes were symbols of his love for us. Nowadays, we recognize love as a feeling of affection towards someone. Whether they’re a friend, relation, lover or even an animal. Behind love there is an entity telling us that love is good and we feel warm inside when we’re around people we love. Christians believe this is a reward, and love is good.
Personal experience of believers in God
Some people claim to have had a ‘personal experience of God;’ sometimes such experiences can turn atheists into Christians or Christians into deeper Christians. A few examples of what a personal experience could be:
- The feeling of wonder and peace, Christians get when they enter a holy building or somewhere significant to God.
- Another experience is ‘conversion’ this is where someone normally (not necessarily a Christian) gives her/his life to God and preaches about the Christian faith, whereas before he was just an ordinary guy.
- An additional experience could be miracles. Miracles are where something contradicts normality, with the only explanation of it being God. Like when someone is almost sure to die and then ‘miraculously’ recover. Another type of miracle could be when Christians pray, and their prayers are answered. Miracles are powerful to believers in God as the cause and effect can be related in a short time period.
- One more experience could be of actually seeing the God, and sensing his presence. This could happen in a near death experience, or from a flat liner brought back by the hospital staff. It could also happen through dreams or trances, these are called ‘mystical experiences’
These experiences are often extremely hard to explain, almost as if the human language isn’t enough to describe the extremity of the emotions involved. It also seems to be unique to each viewer so no one else understands. Often the onlooker describes the experience as a window to another, better world.
Everyday experiences evoke ideas of God
We experience God everyday of our lives, whether or not we have enough time to even embrace the thought of how beautiful everything around us is. We can see God’s work in everything organic, we can smell it, touch it, hear it, and taste it. You can sense the supernatural when day changes into night and the moon and Sun swap. The sun doesn’t set and rise of its own accord; the earth doesn’t spin of its own accord. They are constantly upheld by God to never stop spinning and never bash into each other. There is always a day after a night and always a night after a day. Always birds singing harmoniously in the morning, do we not groan and wish some one would shoot them, shouldn’t we take their song to be a compliment; exquisite life lives below our windowsill? And what about all the risks we take everyday, adults drive cars, children take buses, we cross roads, drink alcohol and there are so many other risks we take every single day. If you thought about it, doesn’t it make you feel as if you’re being watched over? Christians are thankful for those singing birds, thankful that their last cigarette didn’t kill them, thankful to God for keeping their families safe for at least that one last day. Don’t we take all this for granted?
We thank God for our daily bread, ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.’
Crises in life, which provoke deep questions about God
Its all very well we appreciate the birds and the trees, but what about when a crises happens? Many Christians are forced to question their faith, question whether their whole lives worshipping God have been worthwhile or just completely time-consuming and pointless. A few examples of this are:
- Illness
- Death of family members or of loved ones
- Divorce
- Suffering
- Depression
- Rape
- Struck by lightning
- Car accidents
If God looks after his believers how come he lets these bad things happen to us?
Reinforced by millions of other similar believers of God
As well as many other things that influence Christianity, Christianity is the number 1 religion in the entire world, so there are absolutely millions of believers of God, Christians can connect with and be further influenced, to continue their religion and stand up for it until the bitter end. Christians regard their Christian friends as their family, their church as their second home. They share such friendly love for their family and true Christians go to church for fun, meetings and a little miracle that happens when they enter the church; a rush of love for God, and the friendship (fellowship) of man (people).
Part two: Difficulties in trying to describe God
Traditional theological words associate unique features to God
In Genesis it states that God created us in his own image, yet we cannot do half the things he can. For example there are many theological words associated with God, these are ‘omniscient,’ which means he knows everything, what has happened to us, what will happen to us, who is important to us, what we’re thinking etc. However, it also states in the bible that we have ‘free will.’ If God knows what’s going to happen to us, isn’t that controlling us?
Another word would be ‘omnipotent,’ this means he can do everything but if he could do anything then he should be able to create a rock that he couldn’t lift? This is logically contradictory, like so many other things that contradict each other in the bible.
Another word would be ‘omnipresent,’ this means he is present everywhere including every evil situation, but if this is so how can we trap a bit of God in a box?
Another word for God and his apparent ‘super-human’ attributes is ‘Omni benevolent.’ But this is also flawed because if he was benevolent he would be incompetent; if he is competent he would be malevolent. This is because of all the suffering in the world, if he’s so benevolent, why doesn’t he stop it? Isn’t he supposed to be omnipotent? If he is omnipotent then he must not want to stop it, which means he’s not omni benevolent. What about the holocaust what are God’s reasons for not stopping it? However, it also states in the bible humans have free will, perhaps in the example of the holocaust, it was Hitler’s will that the holocaust happened. So God didn’t mess with Hitler’s decision, until Hitler died that is. But this must have been very difficult for thousands of Jews to accept.
Like humans but beyond human life
God is said to be like humans, but he is so much beyond human life that we simply cannot describe him in our human language. All we can say is he is completely beyond and utterly superior to the world, after all he did create it according to the bible. In fact, humans have so many different points of view of how God is, they all become entangled and confused. Brian Davies, a Philosopher of Religion in Philosophy of Religion, 2000 wrote:
'...The word 'God' has been understood in different ways. So you should not assume that...discussions as to what God is are always proceeding on a set of shared assumptions...'
God is traditionally pictured as a man could he not be also seen as a woman? God also sometimes pictured as a ray of sunshine, or a person…
Human words not enough
In the bible, because of the language barrier of describing God, the writers can only use metaphors, symbols and analogies. A word symbol example famously used in the bible would be 'The Lord is my shepherd’ Psalm 23.1. Such stories made sense when most story telling was by word of mouth, with few people able to read. Also most people, until recent times, had little education or ability to read and write. So symbols are bigger than signs because they go beyond basic facts. However, symbols should not be interpreted factually or literally. That is why the bible is sometimes so misinterpreted, it is full of symbols, and often the reader takes those symbols literally or takes non-symbols as symbols.
Since we only have the simple human languages, we cannot talk about an entity beyond humanity, so instead we use analogies for example ‘God loves you’ where God’s love analogous with human love.
Ontology: a description that leads to an argument for existence (part a)
Anslem was the Arch Bishop of Canterbury in 1033 and he came up with the prospect of ontology. He based his argument on the prayer Proslogion, which uses this definition; The Ontological definition - the language of perfect and full existence God is 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived' Proslogion 1078.
Anslem believed that with God there must always be existence, just as with a 3-sided triangle there must always be 3 angles. To be a triangle this is necessary, to be God this is necessary. God cannot not exist because he is the greatest possible conceivable entity. In other words, God is not the greatest conceivable entity that exists but is the greatest conceivable entity.
The different between existing in reality and existing in imagination is that existing in reality is stronger. If the strongest entity ever existed in the imagination then an entity just like it would have to live in reality, therefore being better than the entity in the imagination, so the entity in the imagination couldn’t be God, as God would have to be existing to be the greatest conceivable entity.
God can’t be made or destroyed because he is the perfection of everything, including existence. So God’s existence is unlimited, God’s non-existence is impossible. From this the concept of ‘ immortal’ also follows.
Part 3: A debate as to whether God exists and if he did, whether or not we should be able to prove it.
From arguments in part 1 summarise their strengths and weaknesses
The arguments about whether God really exists:
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The moral argument, we have so many laws in today’s life there simply must be some kind of law giver at the start. If a random moral law just existed on its own, (which is actually impossible) there would be no moral foundation for people to believe in it. It may exist, but if there is no reason for it to then why should anyone follow it? Laws exist because someone wrote them, however the laws are equal for everyone so the lawgiver must be absolutely good. Who is absolutely good? No one apart from God himself.
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The teleological argument, this is the argument of St Thomas Aquinas; He believed God was the first uncaused cause. The strengths of this argument are that as well as his own beliefs he accepts the scientific ones as well, e.g. the big bang. His argument also dates back from Plato and Aristotle's "unmoved mover", perhaps even before. This means the argument has a pretty solid origin. At first his first uncaused cause argument looks reasonably sturdy but do they actually prove God? We could argue against the first uncaused cause theory by questioning the fact that God is the first uncaused cause, why couldn’t it simply be the universe or the big bang? In other words can’t the universe of created itself instead of creating an entirely new entity? This surely makes more sense. And besides all this, what makes the first necessary cause God? It could quite easily be something else, in no way whatsoever must it be God or anything to do with Christianity or the bible.
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The cosmological argument, why there is something rather than nothing, why there’s a universe, why did it go to all the bother. The best explanation is that we have an omnipotent God who created it. God created it and that’s that. However, there are many objections to this argument. The first doubt is how this possibility matches the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This states that everything ever existing has a reason. However this is not clear, because if everything exists for a reason, and God is self-caused then we have a logical contradiction. However, this rule may not apply to God but only things existing in the universe, maybe it only applies to important things like the universe. I think it’s fair to say the universe does need an explanation, and the answer to that explanation is God.
From language in part 2 is it possible for humans to give a conclusive answer
Due to the limitations of the written word and language cannot give a conclusive answer nor deal fully with the possibility of God. Arguments in English probably can never be fully solved anyway because if one person actually figured out the answer to all the riddles and firmly knew it was true, either they’d never convince everyone else, or it would be too complex to actually put into words. Many of the ‘spiritual’, or ‘religious’ experiences can be felt or experienced, but are really hard to think through and put down in words.
So language is limited in its ability to give and explain a conclusive answer. Many new words were created (e.g. ontology, omnipotent) to try to describe feelings or spiritual things.
Verification/Falsification
True Christians cannot easily be persuaded to change their viewpoints on their belief.
John Hick – the road, is a parable, and like all parables has narrow limitations. It only makes one point, which is in Christian life, they will always believe in God, and whatever happens they will end up in either heaven or hell. The atheist protests however that this doesn’t prove God exists. The road explains this point in a context of two people walking down a road, one a Christian one an atheist, the road resembled their life and they walked their journey in a separate frame of mind from each other, the atheist not understanding what will happen to him at the end of the road, the Christian knowing he will probably go to heaven, but perhaps hell. This parable explains to us that at some point during our life, we make a choice. Whether to be a Christian and follow the path God has laid out for them, or to be an atheist or a member of any other religion, unknowing what will happen. To be a Christian is to believe the bible, it would be almost impossible to convince him/her otherwise, but Christians simply believing in something, doesn’t make the atheist believe it too.
Basil Mitchell’s The Stranger is an allegory about a man and a stranger. The man meets the stranger once in intimacy and from then onwards completely trusts him and believes him to be right. No matter what people said against this stranger, the man kept believing. Though questions arouse about the stranger’s purpose, the man never questioned his friend. This story is like a Christian’s faith. From the first time they understand about God and love him, they never question their faith, no matter what anyone says. They believe it and no one can change that, the only way possible is if they think God’s betrayed them, but this rarely happens and often Christians return to their faith after they’ve calmed down. This parable deeply shows the amount of passion Christians show for their religion. When they’re faced with a question they don’t answer it, when something good happens they thank the lord, when something bad happens they believe God knows best.
John Wisdom’s The Garden is a very simple story with a great meaning behind it. The story basically consists of two people who walk into an untended garden, the first person sees the weeds the negative effects but the second person puts his belief forward and sees all the positive things about the garden, for example there could be a line of daffodils or something that would seem to suggest to him a hidden gardener had come and tended the garden. The moral of this story is that Christians believe everything happens for a reason, they look at life in a positive way because they know God is always watching over them, when something bad happens they take it as a warning. For example if a Christian was seated on a wooden chair, which had slowly been eaten away by termites for months, and finally the chair broke, while this Christian was sitting on it. The Christian would take it as a punishment from God for not clearing those termites, he would be positive about his fall and think of it as a sign from God that he should do something, whereas an atheist would simply curse and take falling off his chair as simple bad luck and possibly clear the termites. This is why you often see a lot of old ladies going back to Christianity, Christian’s way of life gives them hope if they’ve lost their partners or something else terrible has happened to them.
Conclusion
So can we answer the question we started put to solve. What is the true nature of God?
We can be sure that true Christians totally believe they are right and God exists for them.
We can also be sure (e.g. John Wisdom – The Garden) that others see no pattern in life – no God
Bibliography
1) Letts’ ‘Revise GCSE Religious Studies’
2) The bible
3) John Hick – the Road
4) Basil Mitchell – The stranger
5) John Wisdom – The garden
6) www.faithnet.org.uk
7) www.kes.hants.sch.uk
8) http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/