God: A Study of Divine Concept and Belief
God is, often the greatest concept of the very long life span of human history and experience of all peoples on Earth, regardless of their languages, cultures, and geographical locations; the highest, transcending being or power that people thought must be the world's maker and source of all life, truth, and goodness. Although the concept of God varies from religion to religion or while in comparison to one's philosophy, the concept of God has always remained in the center of human civilization. The essay will try to see the interpretation of God across many religious traditions, philosophical arguments to be or not to be god, and the greater importance of god in human life.
God in Religious Traditions
Most religions describe God as a reality or an existence in nature and in power that surpasses the human imagination. Monotheism
Monotheistic religion is one single eternally existing omnipotent and omniscient being-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All those religions declare that God of the universe is the totality of all things and lives outside of time and space. For Christians, God is conceived through terms of the Holy Trinity: he is one divine essence in three persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God is Yahweh - powerful, loving God, making a covenant with the people of Israel-as seen in the Hebrew Bible, close to humans and mysterious all-present force which is transcendent and thus cannot be reached by human effort. God, or Allah, is the single God without peer or equal. Unity (Tawhid) is the core of the Quran with might and kindness.
Polytheism and Pantheism
Most ancient religions, however were polytheistic-that is, there are many gods. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religions all worshipped gods that represented respective aspects of life-for example, love, war, fertility, and the harvest; the gods were said to be person-like in their attributes, feelings, and interactions with each other. Another of the world's oldest religious traditions is Hinduism, with a similarly enormous range of deities. There is only one ultimate reality called Brahman for most Hindus. However, there is still a pantheon of gods-from Vishnu and Shiva all the way down to Lakshmi-that represents several aspects of the divine.
Another belief system is Pantheism. Here, God cannot be envisaged separately from the universe itself. God cannot be visualized as an individual and thus an independent god but is the totality of all beings that exist. Perhaps the most frequently heard phrases in relating to this belief are by the 17th-century philosopher Spinoza whose phrase at his best was mononymously, God and Nature are One. The philosophy of pantheism conceives the divine in everything from the cosmos to an individual human being.
Most religions are non-theistic or at least agnostic with regard to this concept of a personal God. Nirvana is the ultimate end in Buddhism from which salvation and rebirth shall be achieved. However, in Buddhism, although more limited to particular traditions, there are deities called Bodhisattvas which guide man to this end as well as supernatural beings.
Philosophical Views of God
Man has always kept his question for the nature and existence of God. That fusion of that puzzle led so many thinking minds to set up several arguments either in favor or against the existence of God.
Evidence There Is a God
1. Cosmological Argument
The mere existence of the universe proves that there was the being who created the universe, rather than bringing him from somewhere else or himself. He is an uncaused, necessary being-God. Thomas Aquinas, the great philosopher, put down the "First Cause" argument when he said that everything's existence needs a first cause that initiated movement. Otherwise, then there would have been an infinite regression of the chain of causality that had no beginning.
2. Argument from Design
This is also known as the teleological argument. However, appealing to the observed order of the universe and its complexity, it would be trying to argue that it must have had a design put there by a designing purposeful creator. Actually, this argument was in history for quite some pretty long time and stretched to the extreme point where William Paley would compare the creation of the universe unto making a watch, arguing that fine workmanship in the universe required a divine designer as a watch must have had a watchmaker.
3. Ontological Argument
It is a thesis which the Scholastic philosopher Anselm of Canterbury advanced. Anselm makes an argument toward establishing the purport that if a person conceives of an absolutely perfect God, it must be implicit that He necessarily exists; for existence is the predicate most appropriate to that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
4. Moral Argument
Objective moral values could not exist unless God exists. If there do in fact exist such things as those universally binding moral truths which exist-as murder's wrongness or charity's goodness-there must be an explanation of them; most of us believe that to be God.
Arguments against the Existence of God
1. Problem of Evil
Many consider this as the most critical reasoning against God and the concept of the monotheistic God who insists that evil and suffering are present in this world. Why is God allowing evils and sufferings to have precedence if He is omnipotent, omniscient, and also good? This has fed a virtually immeasurable amount of theological hubris-from the free will defense to the even fancier contention that suffering could plausibly be part of some larger plan of the divine.
2. Argument of Contradictory Revelations
The argument of contradictory revelations is the argument based on the conflicting religious belief that exists among the world as proof that there really exists no single God. How is it possible that these really very diverse, conflicting teachings and divine claims are if there really only exists one God?
3. Atheism and Secular Humanism
Atheism is negation of existence of God. That in itself gives a strong argument for the contention that no deity exists. Most atheists work on secularist ideology and claim that the world and life can be explained rationally and scientifically by other means other than a supernatural super being to create .
God's Role in Human Life
Traditionally, God was to guide human life and, at the same time provide meaning. For instance, most religions institute laws purported by God-the Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity and Five Pillars in Islam. Such laws tend to instill guidance by teaching the people how to live their life in regard to what moral behavior should be. Belief in God gives one comfort and hope as well as meaning especially when in need.
Others, their relation with God is in praying, meditation, or even worship. These will be bases to receive acquaintance with the divine to have an appropriate way and recognition of God. Others said it is obvious in nature. Others said it fell into personal revelations or those that one may encounter in religious literature.
Conclusion
God idea traces back to earliest human experience and extends forward, even to the present; it has been-and remains-the center piece of religio-philosophical-existential thought. As personal all-powerful maker or impersonal, all-transcending force, God becomes the pivot to the vision of worldview for innumerable earthlings. God idea, therefore, presents a question to man within its very questions of origin, morality, and the ultimate purpose of man. Be believer or not, surely one of the most urgent questions clamoring for an admission into human consciousness undoubtedly is the question of God. The God of Conclusion was an idea that personified the last step of whatever journey, decision, or trail of thought. The God of Conclusion therefore became what would be sealed, closed, synthesized by the mind. It was given the semblance of bringing in order where there once was chaos. The God of Conclusion is sometimes called in the climax of debates or stories and even on projects when all loose ends are tied together with clearly concluded outcomes. It stands for wisdom and decisiveness, as through the God of Conclusion, people are helped to proper endings that assure peace and understanding concerning the complexity of the process.
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