Personally, I believe using God to explain our existence or to explain the "mystery" is always going to appear faulty and flawed. For a start, to do it we'd have to go through that messy process of trying to actually define the word "god" again, and as the question states we just end up where we started with the whole "who created God". Indeed, one of the biggest problems for many defenders of God's existence and the Christian Faith is that they try and fit their beliefs into a very rational and logical type of philosophy that is ultimately self defeating? Why?
For me the problem is that I believe the God of the bible is beyond our rational proof. If we could "prove" God, I believe God would cease to be God! The God who has expressed himself through the bible is far beyond our proofs, arguments and efforts to understand or pin him down (sorry to all the females out there, using "him" is just easier for me, i don't actually think God is a male...but thats for another topic). That’s exactly why he is the Creator and we are the creature, called to obey and trust him. It’s beyond us to try and do anything beyond that. As the question that began this blog stated, before there was anything there was God...which for us is indeed a great mystery.
However, this probably sounds like a great cop out. I could just be doing the old trick of telling everyone to "just believe and accept", or then coming out and telling people they needed to know God "subjectively" through experience. But again, I think the problem here is that we need to look at what we mean by "god" before we try to prove "god"(s) existence, and we need to look at how the God of the bible chooses to reveal himself to people.
Once again, the God of the bible reveals himself primarily through history...by "doing stuff" not by giving us rational arguments or proofs of himself. God's first chosen people, Israel, knew their God primarily because he was the one who had made a covenant (a sort of unbreakable agreement/bargain between people and God that has an ultimate purpose) with the people and then had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The other people and nations were then to know who God was by looking at Israel; the people and community who were meant to act justly and reflect the character and image of their God.
For most of us non Jewish folk, it seems hard for us to know a God who hasn't dramatically rescued us, and we might feel little connection with some weird “god” of the Old Testament (the whole Israel-Palestinian situation makes things even more tricky and weird for us here). In fact, one of the problems was that by the time of Jesus, Israel hadn't done the best job of showing the world who the Creator God was. This was because they had tended to store up the blessings of the relationship for themselves; and at times they simply forgot the God who had rescued them completely. But God always intended for us to know who he was, and to reveal himself...and not just "subjectively" through personal experience, or "objectively" through logical argumentation.
The only way I know God and call myself a "Christian" or a "follower of Jesus” is because Jesus himself was God; the one who was the creator, who was the God of the Old Testament, of Abraham and the Jewish people. The bible claims Jesus was both the "the image of God", "the Word...who was God", the one through whom all things were created, but also one who was fully human. This is the only reason that most of us who aren't Jewish know who God is. The German theologian Yurgen Moltmann , a former Nazi soldier who became a christian in POW camp, profoundly remarked "Without Christ I personally would be an Atheist. I believe in God only for Christ’s sake, not in a general “higher being” or whatsoever”.
Because Jesus was a real human being doing "real stuff" and an actual figure of history, he is someone we can indeed study and really know about. This means knowing God is not a complete mystery, but has some sort of reality grounded in our real world. We might not be able to know everything this is to know Jesus, or know him "objectively" (surely we all know that no historian can ever present history truly objectively and "how it was"), but we can sketch a pretty good portrait.
So, before you write off God altogether as unproven and a mystery...have you considered who Jesus might have been, both as God and a historical figure? I will save such a topic for a future post.
6 comments:
So, we have established that belief in God based on the Old Testament does not stand up to rationality. The question now becomes: do the life and ideas of Jesus solve this problem?
ok, i wouldn't frame what i've said in terms of "rationality". When people talk about the existence of God in connection with "rationality" it tends to lead to those arguments that go backwards and forwards without getting anywhere. Rationality (especially the idea of universal rationality or resaon) also tends to be a very western concept that has come under attack recently.
for example, i should say that in the new testament and the writings by the Apostle Paul (guy who spread the message about Jesus throughout the mediterainian)it becomes clear that all of us actually do indeed have a knowledge of the God who created the World (Romans 1:18-32, also Acts 17:16-34) simply by looking and observing the world around us. But this isn't neccesarilly a "rational" knowledge that you can prove scientifically.
Our problem with the Old Testement is that we aren't the people of God, nor can we really go back and see or observe God's mighty acts to save his people. This is because it doesn't really seem like our story or history (think about how you'd tell a story about your family or ancestors etc.
it only becomes a story we can relate to and understand when we see Jesus and see Jesus as the one the whole Old Tesament was pointing to, and indeed the one who was the God of the Old Testament. When we become part of God's family, by knowing Jesus...the old testament becomes our story.
I agrew with your last statement though...does the life of the historical Jesus make a difference? I personally think it does, as i believe the gospells bascially give us Jesus largely as he was as a historical figure.I'll do my next blog on this issue.
I also think it solves our problem in a more "real" and personal way. One hard thing to grasp about the God of the bible is that people either know God, or they don't! there is no question of belief. I think we can only know God, personally and in a real and genuine way through Jesus.
I think my next post will deal with Jesus as a historical figure who does help solve our "god?" problem, and i might also right something about how we know things. i think talking about knowing something to be true interms of "rationallity" can be tricky
Perhaps I should have put it like this.
You have established that Christian belief does not stand up to rationality.
That is, it can't be justified by a certain sort of reasoning that scientists (and usually philosophers) think is valid. You think that this sort of reasoning is insufficient.
(Incidentally, I prefer to use the term rationality to refer to the the sum of all our mental processes by which we deliberate over what to believe and what to do. Something is rational when it is an acceptable use of these processes. If we regard religious belief as acceptable in some circumstances, then it is rational in those circumstances under this view.)
Anyway, religious belief doesn't stand up to the sort of rationality that demands empirical evidence or logically valid arguments. There seems to be a problem here, because if there is no evidence of God, and no arguments that show that he is nevertheless there, then it is hard to see why we should think he exists. Arguably, if we can't logically prove God, or find evidence to suggest his existence, we have exhausted our mental toolkit of legitimate ways to form beliefs.
This sort of conclusion is apparently an error. You suggest that the problem should not be about forming beliefs about God but about gaining 'knowledge' of God, and also that the Old Testament doesn't help us very much with this (due to us not relating to it very well). The New Testament with any luck will help to solve this problem and perhaps allow statements like this:
"I don't have reason to believe that Jesus was God. But I know it to be the case."
But is hard to see how we might define knowledge in a way that doesn't include forming beliefs about the object of our knowledge. If we can't, then knowing God will be about coming to form beliefs about God. Which means we'll need to find a legitimate way of forming beliefs that's not included in the common account of rationality. Some sort of leap of faith, perhaps?
This sort of thing gets argued about in the philosophy of religion. Perhaps this is what you mean by "arguments that go backwards and forwards without
getting anywhere." (Although you'd be hard pressed to prove that they weren't getting anywhere.)
Something that's worrying is that if we do avoid classically rational argument about God, do we have any way of discussing religious issues except by "telling everyone to "just believe and accept""? There may arise a problem of telling the difference between knowledge of God and beliefs about God that just haven't been evaluated. But I am preempting you too much.
Do carry on, for the interest of me and the apparently very small number of other people visiting this site.
WHO CREATED GOD?
PART A
Earlier it was impossible for us to give any satisfactory answer to this question. But modern science, rather we should say that Einstein, has made it an easy task for us. And Stephen Hawking has provided us with the clue necessary for solving this riddle. Actually scientists in their infinite wisdom have already kept the ground well-prepared for us believers so that one day we can give a most plausible and logically sound answer to this age-old question. Let us first see how Hawking has helped us by providing the necessary clue. In his book “A Brief History of Time” (Chapter: The origin and fate of the universe) he informs us that there are 1080 particles in the region of the observable universe. Then he raised the question regarding the origin of these particles, and gave the answer himself. According to quantum theory particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But there the question does not stop. Another question props up regarding the origin of that energy. But when it is said that total energy of the universe is exactly zero, then all is said and done. So this is the clue: if we can somehow arrive at zero, then no further question will be raised, and there will be no infinite regression. What I intend to do here is something similar to that. I want to show that our God is a bunch of several zeroes, and that therefore no further question need be raised about His origin. And here comes Einstein with his special theory of relativity for giving us the necessary empirical support to our project.
God is a Being. Therefore God will have existence as well as essence. So I will have to show that both from the point of view of existence as well as from the point of view of essence God is zero. It is almost a common saying that God is spaceless, timeless, changeless, immortal, and all-pervading. Here we are getting three zeroes; space is zero, time is zero, change is zero. But how to prove that if there is a God, then that God will be spaceless, timeless, and changeless? From special theory of relativity we come to know that for light both distance and time become unreal. For light even an infinite distance is infinitely contracted to zero. The volume of an infinite universe full of light only will be simply zero due to this property of light. A universe with zero volume is a spaceless universe. Again at the speed of light time totally stops. So a universe full of light only is a spaceless, timeless universe. But these are the properties of light only! How do we come to know that God is also having the same properties of light so that God can also be spaceless, timeless? Scientists have shown that if there is a God, then that God can only be light, and nothing else, and that therefore He will have all the properties of light. Here is the proof.
WHO CREATED GOD?
PART B
Scientists have shown that total energy of the universe is always zero. If total energy is zero, then total mass will also be zero due to energy-mass equivalence. Now if there is a God, then scientists have calculated the total energy and mass of the universe by taking that God into consideration. In other words, if there is a God, then this total energy-mass calculation by the scientists is God-inclusive, not God-exclusive. This is due to two reasons. First of all, even if there is a God, they are not aware of the fact that there is a God. Secondly, they do not believe that there is a God. So, if there is a God, then they have not been able to keep that God aside before making this calculation, because they do not know that there is a God. They cannot say that they have kept Him aside and then made this calculation, because by saying so they will admit that there is a God. They cannot say that the behind-the-picture God has always remained behind the picture, and that He has in no way come into the picture when they have made this calculation, because by saying so they will again admit that there is a God. At most they can say that there is no God. But we are not going to accept that statement as the final verdict on God-issue, because we are disputing that statement. So the matter of the fact is this: if God is really there, then total mass and total energy of the universe including that God are both zero. Therefore mass and energy of God will also be zero. God is without any mass, without any energy. And Einstein has already shown that anything having zero rest-mass will have the speed of light. In other words, it will be some sort of light. So, if God is there, then God will also be light, and therefore He will be spaceless, timeless. So from the point of view of existence God is zero, because he is spaceless, timeless, without any mass, without any energy.
WHO CREATED GOD?
PART C
Now we will have to show that from the point of view of essence also God is zero. If there is only one being in the universe, and if there is no second being other than that being, then that being cannot have any such property as love, hate, cruelty, compassion, benevolence, etc. Let us say that God is cruel. Now to whom can He be cruel if there is no other being other than God Himself? So, if God is cruel, then is He cruel to Himself? Therefore if we say that God is all-loving, merciful, benevolent, etc., then we are also admitting that God is not alone, that there is another being co-eternal with God to whom He can show His love, benevolence, goodness, mercy, compassion, etc. If we say that God is all-loving, then we are also saying that this “all” is co-eternal with God. Thus we are admitting that God has not created the universe at all, and that therefore we need not have to revere Him, for the simple reason that He is not our creator!
It is usually said that God is good. But Bertrand Russell has shown that God cannot be good for the simple reason that if God is good, then there is a standard of goodness which is independent of God’s will. (Book: A History of Western Philosophy, Ch: Plato’s Utopia). Therefore, if God is the ultimate Being, then that God cannot be good. But neither can He be evil. God is beyond good and evil. Like Hindu’s Brahma, a real God can only be nirguna, nirupadhik; without any name, without any quality. From the point of view of essence also, a real God is a zero. Mystics usually say that their God is a no-thing. This is the real God, not the God of the scriptures.
So, why should there be any need of creation here, if God is existentially, as well as essentially, zero?
But if there is someone who is intelligent and clever enough, then he will not stop raising question here. He will point out to another infinite regression. If God is light, then He will no doubt be spaceless, timeless, etc. Therefore one infinite regression is thus stopped. But what about the second regression? How, and from whom, does light get its own peculiar properties by means of which we have successfully stopped the first regression? So, here is another infinite regression. But we need not have to worry much about this regression, because this problem has already been solved. A whole thing, by virtue of its being the whole thing, will have all the properties of spacelessness, timelessness, changelessness, deathlessness. It need not have to depend on any other external source for getting these properties. Thus no further infinite regression will be there.
Post a Comment