- Families may have believed in God and brought their children to believe in God also. When a child is brought up in an environment where they believe a certain thing (i.e. God) the child tends the follow the families’ beliefs.
- We all have the sense of right and wrong and the feeling of guilt; someone must have given us this feeling of right and wrong that we experience. People speculate that we are born with a sense of right and wrong and that that instinct comes from God. This argument is known as the “Argument Based on Morality”.
People may have encountered a feeling of presence with God, such as a miracle or a prayer being answered. A miracle could be either one from the Bible or a modern day one. A miracle taken from the Bible is Matthew 15 verses 29:31. It is about Jesus being by the Sea of Galilee and amongst him were people who were blind, incapacitated or speechless. Jesus laid them by his feet and unexpectedly they were healed. The speechless could then talk, the incapacitated could walk and the blind could see. This is a phenomenal miracle. How is one man able to heal blind people or severe handicapped people? This must be some act of God and his mighty powers; no normal human is able to accomplish such outstanding deeds.
I also found a modern miracle on the Internet about a five year old girl and her mum and dad. Her parents were an atheist couple (did not believe in God) and so they never told their daughter about Jesus. One night the parents were arguing and the dad shot the mum right in front of the little girl and then shot himself. The child was then put with a foster family, who were strong Christians. They took the little girl to Church for the first time one Sunday and the foster mother explained to the teacher how the girl had never heard of Jesus and to have patience with her. When the class began, the teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said “Does anyone know who this is?” The little girl said, “I do, that’s the man who was holding me the night my parents died.” This also must be an act of God. The child had not even heard of Jesus, and had no idea of the Christian beliefs, yet she recognised the picture as the man who helped her cope with the disturbing scenes she saw between her mother and father.
- The universe cannot just have come into existence by accident; there must be some sort of creator. There is always cause and consequences for everything we do in life and that must have started somewhere and God is the only logical explanation for cause and consequence. This argument collides with the Cosmological Argument previously.
These are just a few approaches that a Christian might use to put forward to show there is a God.
b) Explain how some of the difficulties which might be found in trying to describe God [A02 35%]
There are many difficulties in describing God. The first thing that people tend to mention is the fact that we haven’t seen God. How can anyone possibly believe that a supreme being exists if we can’t even see him? God is beyond our words there are so many different ways of describing God that its difficult to get your head round all of them. Some of the words describing God are:
Omnipotent is the expression used to describe how far-fetched God’s powers are. People could argue with that expression and say how can God over power every human being. There is no such thing as a power that major. How is that possible for people to establish?
Omniscient means God is all knowing. That means that there is nothing that anybody can do, without God seeing one way or another. People would find that disturbing and unbelievable. How likely is it that one being could know about five billion people’s lives and what they are up to at the same time? It’s not possible that one person, how far-fetched they are, is capable of such things.
Omnipresent meaning God is everywhere, again how probable is that? Does that mean that God is in my little finger, and my hair and my dad’s fingernails as well as someone from New Zealand’s little finger, and their hair, and even their dad’s fingernail? How can someone even begin to get their head round that? Its hard to take in that God is everywhere in the whole wide world, which may be why some people object to that term.
Infinite signifies that God has no limits. That means that God can do anything without anyone or anything stopping him (or her). That means that God can do whatever he wants, and how he wants because he is unbounded. If he decides to do something evil then, there is nothing stopping him. If he has no limits then how come he doesn’t stop all the diseases around the world, and he won’t stop the world from suffering? If he is unstoppable, then why didn’t he stop the horrible events on September 11th? There is nothing stopping God so why can’t he prevent such awful things? If God had no limits then he’d eliminate evil, otherwise he palpably isn’t wholly limitless.
Immanent means that God is involved in the world. This term links up with the above description of God. How can God be involved with the whole world when there are billions of people in it? God cannot merely be in a billion places at once, giving his full attention to every single human being, its completely absurd.
Immaterial or Incorporeal indicates that God has no body or no form, in the prospect of physical objects. This means we can never have a clear image of God no matter how hard we try. That doesn’t make sense; if God has no form that means he’s nothing, that means you can’t even picture a stereotype image. How can God exist if he has no type of form what so ever? This also signifies that God is neither male nor female, this creates problems. How can you converse about God, if “it” doesn’t have a sex? You cannot refer to God as it, as God is not an everyday object. Christians believe that God is both male and female. This represents that a male and female separately are almost like two halves, and when the come together through sexual intercourse, they almost join together as one, this could symbolize how God is part of every single person.
Immutable meaning God is unchangeable. Well how can you even begin to change God, if he doesn’t have a form? You cannot accept that God is unchangeable, because there must be something he has to change form.
Transcendent represents God as a supreme being above and beyond the world. How probable is it that one singular person can be that surpassing to everyone else.
Immeasurable or immense signifies God being unable to be measured. Again, like God being Transcendent, how can he be unable to be to be calculated? It is strenuous to get your head round, to conjecture that one individual can posses that much power over the entire world.
God is known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all 3 of these terms means God and as it is known, God is meant to be loved and of course a good being. However, if a young girl was raped by her father or abused, it would not make her think too kindly towards referring to God as Father. Her father would have left painful memories and God would only remind her of those memories.
These are some of the words used to depict God, and how queries occur when they are used.
Other difficulties that can befall are why there is evil in the world, if there is such thing as evil. People blame God for all the suffering, hunger, murder and sorrow in the world. Either God does not choose to demolish all the so-called “evil” in the world, or he actually cannot. If he truly can’t, then this goes against the terms Transcendent, Immanent and Infinite. It could even mean that God is not everywhere at once; perhaps he didn’t see all these events occur, and now it’s too late to change them.
C) “If God existed would be able to prove it.” Do you agree? Give reasons to support and show that you have thought about different points of view you must refer to the religion which you are studying in your answer. [A03 25%]
Unfortunately, it is not possible to prove God’s existence, no matter what religion, however, I will be focussing on the Christian views on God’s existence. The only thing people rely on is the Bible and their own fate that God exists. Nevertheless, if there is no evidence that God exists, it’s capable that he actually doesn’t. The Christian religion is shinning through people, so the people believe there is a little bit of God inside everyone.
One argument which I have not yet mentioned is called the Ontological Argument. St Anselm put forward this argument, and in brief he basically said that God exists in the mind and God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. He believed that God existed not as visual or reality objects but as a state of mind. If his argument was true, then it is possible that God exists, as he isn’t as far as anyone knows a visual object. If you believe that God does exist in the mind, you can then take the argument to the next step – if God does exist in the mind, he must then therefore exist in reality because there is nothing greater than God. Imagine being given a sum of money, it’s a nice thought but it’s even nicer to be consuming the money.
Christians feel that the world we live in is enough to show that there is a God. When you look around outside, there are all these natural things which are perfectly designed, that there must be a creator behind it all. Someone who is Atheist (someone who doesn’t believe there is a God) might need proof in order to believe the existence of the Supreme Being called God. No matter how strong the argument is you put forward to them, they are asking for visual proof. That would be impossible under any circumstances, there is no way you can then bring out a picture of God or call him over. However, some people who put forward strong arguments like the Cosmological, Teleological or the Ontological might change the person’s pattern of thinking and he might start looking at things in a completely different way and begin to ask himself if there is such a Supreme Being that has designed and made us all.
Here are some queries to think about when trying to find Gods existence. In order to find a person, we need to find where the person is. In order to contact something, we need to know the realm in which that thing exists. Where is God? What realm is God living in? Where is man? What realm is man living in? Is there a common realm in which the two may meet?
So the question is can we prove that God exists? The answer is no, you can't. Very few come to Christian faith through a process of logical proof. We may believe very sincerely that God exists, but producing proof is quite another matter and makes the matter of God being real more impossible. It is nearly without dispute that everything that exists is visible to physical eyes. So, if in fact God does truly exist, he too should be visible to the eyes.