The belief of God is obviously a popular notion. But there is substance to that belief only when you know what kind of "God" you do or don't believe in. Unless you know what exactly what you mean when you say "God," you can't really understand any other statement that you make about... it.
But how easy is it to indicate what you mean by "God," even in vague terms? One problem I have with the Christian faith, is that it claims that "God" is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving), omniscient (all-knowing), and the creator of all that exists. It's not hard to tell that there are contradictions in this standard. If such a God created the universe, being all-knowing, (I'll use the word "he" just so it's less confusing) he must have known about all the suffering there would be in this world. Yet God still created it, as it is. He did not create a more promising version of the universe or simply choose not to create the universe. Why is this?
It could be that God did not know about all the suffering that would occur. But that would make God not all-knowing. It could be that God doesn't mind all the suffering, but that would make him less than all-loving. It could be that God could not have created a more pleasant world than this one. But that would seem to make God less than all-powerful. The only way to resolve this problem is to conclude that God can only do what is possible and that this really is the best of all possible words. But this is hard to believe, since we can easily idealize a better world pretty easily. For example, we are able to make human brains more emotionally developed, which reduces the chances of psychopathology, and in return, would result in an immediate decrease of certain crimes related to sadastic homocides. Is this inaccurate in some way?
This attempt to "model" God may seem somewhat rough. Have I forgotten that God is described as "surpassing human standing?" No... people say this a lot. But within a few moments, they are describing very specific properties of this previously unfathomable deity.
You can't have your heavenly cake and eat it, too. If you believe that God cannot be described in human language, then don't speak of him. Or if you do, understand that you are using no more than metaphors, and don't fall into the trap of pretending that you know what they mean. That is harder than it sounds. One reason to love God is that God is all-loving. But if you think we really don't know what that means, it isn't clear why God deserves your love, or why you should think of divine love as being anything like its human counterpart.
But if you do think descriptions of God are better than vague metaphors, then you have to take seriously the conceptual problems that come up. The trouble is that many people bounce back and forth between these two options, resorting to the mysterious God only when they confront a problem with the usual non-mysterious understanding of him.
3 comments:
This is a really interesting post, it really made me think. I think that there is a missing link, though. God and Jesus have a purpose--God gives us trials to help us grow and become more like him, and Jesus aids in helping us cleanse ourselves of sin, and heals all the suffering we endure in this life. In order to gain this healing, though, we have to keep the commandments which are really tools to help us become (eventually) perfect and more wise, just like him. Jesus suffered so much (not just on the cross, but in the garden of gethsemane when he prayed for all of mankind), that no human could ever endure the pain he went through without dying. Since Christ's literal father is God, he was able to withstand all the suffering the world would ever experience so he would be able to relate with each and every individual regarding their problems(whether it be emotional, physical, mental...alllll types), and help them to heal and overcome them.
The reason why God is all-loving is because he gives us opportunities to learn and become like him. If he wasn't, he'd just be like "ok. you're my babies. I want you to just automatically know everything I do and never suffer." there would be no progression, no growing of ourselves....we need to work to become perfect and content, happy in this life.
Anyway that's my 2 cents. My thoat hurts so I won't go on lol
God. Oh god! IT's so far from us that
doesn't make no sense to talk or even think about IT.
"Why god is accepting the evil, cruelty or sufferings on earth (maybe in all the phisycal universe and behond as well)?" that question have absolutely no sense. It's just like you'd say :"why man is raining"?
Even if you're using 100% of your brain, do you really think you could touch some way the Great Ontologic Determinism.Life call for more pragmatism.
Let's beginn by this reality, this world, ourselves -one among the boundlessness "side effects of the G.O.D.
That 's the principle of this blog doesn't it?
Thanks for sharings.
Yan
It always amazes how every nation would proclaim that God is guiding her footsteps, and ultimately, they all war against each other...ah this God, he really plays his tricks...or maybe, he's the byproduct of our mundane realities...in any case, I can't say that I really care personally except for the degrading effect this very concept still plays in our societies. God does not exist, for if he did, I'd be him.
Post a Comment