The problem of God! [philosophy]

Yep, God has a problem. Although people say that He is all mighty and powerful. But He has a major problematic PROBLEM - and that is us! Since science has grow bigger and bigger, He is losing some credibility here. People are now, especially in the western world, wondering if there is any God.

So, here's the question: Does God exists?

In order to analyse this question, we shall look through the historic data to find reasons why people believe in God.
Basically, Christian religion is an "hybrid" of two views: Judaism (religious view) and Greek philosophy (knowledge view). There are three people that are the thee important roots:

First, Alexander the Great, a conqueror of the world (well, a fair part of the world), founded Alexandria. This place is still nowadays the second major seat of Christianity, for it is the location of the great Royal Library of Alexandria that seems to have been the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It contains manuscripts of Greek philosophy. And, our second character wrote things that are there. (Yeah, Alexander only founded the base and that's all.)

The second one is Philo Judaeus of Alexandria. He combined of Hellenistic philosophy with the Jewish Bible. And the Hellenistic philosophy derives from Plato, Aristotle and many other - but we shall focus on Plato, which is the third character.

Plato is a guy who believes in soul and likes to convert philosophy into story and images. One of Plato's philosophy is the Theory of Forms which says that all things are made of ideal forms. Like the moon is a circle, the mountains are triangles. These ideal forms, called universal archetypes, are thought by a craftsman who then use receptacles (materials and elements) to produce the nature.

So, Philo was inspired by Plato's story and saw parallel with the Genesis. In the Genesis, God creates by saying "let there be [this stuff]". But before, He must have thought about it. So, the universal archetypes are God's mind and the craftsman is God. But there must not be material or element, because before God creates the world, there was nothing. So, God's will is the receptacle.
i.e.: God (intelligible thing) --> speak his will --> create material things

Words become important things. In Greek, they are called "logos", meaning also "speech," "account," or "reason."

Now, let's look at this diagram.

Human mind can understand concepts which create things. Human can sense the things and pass the information to their mind. And that makes a circle that can never reach God. Which is why science can never understand God.
In God's side, he can think about ideal forms that are the base of the concepts. So for God to contact human's mind, he must reveal himself through prophecy (words), like Jesus.

Revelation of God's Personality and Characteristics!
(believed in Judaism, Islam and Christianity)

• God is totally transcendent
  
• God pre-exists and all thing are derived from God
  
• God is a person
  
• God is a rational being
  
• God is all-knowing (omniscient)
  
• God is all-powerful (omnipotent)
  
• God is eternal (omnipresent), or outside of time
  
• God is benevolent
  
• God is a judge
  
• God is moral and lawgiving
  

Wait, what? God has a personality? Why rational? Ok, he did thought about forms but he's the one who decides how the forms looks like. So, he is the base and the inventor of what is rational. You can't really call him rational, can you?

Don't look at me, I'm not the one who give those characteristics. But I think you're right. Though, it's those religious believes that make no sense. It's possible to believe in illogic stuff, that happens often. lol

By the way, shame on you that you write "He" with a lowercase "h". lol

Medieval perspective

Psalm 14:1-3 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

So, those who do not believe in God are fools, and God is believed to be "nothing greater can be conceived". This means that nothing is more difficult to understand than God.

There are some arguments for the existence of God:

• The existence of God is self-evident because it is a knowledge naturally implanted in all.
  
• There are some notions of the mind that are common self-evident only to the learned, as that incorporeal substance are not in space (as Boethius said).
  
• As soon as the name God is understood it exists mentally, therefore it also exist actually.
  
• God is the truth.
  
• God is the derivative of all thing.
  
• God's existence can be proven by His effects.
  
• God's existence is self-evident to Himself, but not to the human.

Source: St. Thomas Aquinas's "The Summa Theologica

The arguments are kind of outdated and ridiculous. We should consider that during this period, there was not a lot of science and people always thought that things are made or have happened because of God's will. So, let's focus on some of the arguments.

The first one: it is strange to realize that people in actual world would unconsciously think about God, or a divine power, or something similar, even if they are atheism. So, is this a natural implanted knowledge, maybe. Look at the multiple religions we have on our planet, all kinds of society and community believe in something similar to God. If we trace back to prehistory, people might also have this kind of belief.

But why do we think about it? I think it must be because of facing unfamiliar situation, such as meteor shower, for example. Imagine a Homo sapiens in 2.9 million years ago, freaking out in front of a meteor shower. He sure does not have the reflex to think that some meteorites are penetrating the Earth atmosphere. He will probably think that it's a divine power or some sort of magic/miracle for it's a rare phenomenal. And that is where God comes from. (Then again, it's only my hypothesis.) So human have the reflex to explain thing with God, it's must be kind of a natural implanted knowledge. (Don't know it animal think about God, though.)

For the sixth argument: when they say "His effect" is refers probably to unexplainable things during the medieval period, like meteor shower. People believed that some stars and meteorites are oracles, and messages from God. But now, science has perfectly explained those phenomenon. So, this argument is outdated - and most people believe that all nature is explainable by science.

For the fifth argument: it's based on the argument of motion, which says that things are moved by another, which is moved by another, and so on. Like regeneration: you give birth to your son, your son give birth to his son, and so on. But at the beginning, there must be a 'beginning', which must be God, because he is all-mighty and powerful and do not need to be moved in order to move something else. So, this argument is still up-to-date since we don't know what happened before the Big Bang, or anything like that.

The last argument is just ridiculous and meaningless. For God exists or not is self-evident to Himself - if He does not exist, He does not even have a self, and if He does, it does not help us to know if he exist or not.

So, as I was trying to say, during the Medieval period, people are already thinking about this question. But because of lack of scientific evidence, they cannot demonstrate anything and so, they are happy to explain every phenomenon with "because God wanted that way".

Source: ST. Bonaventure's "Retracing the Arts to Theology"

This is how people organised knowledge:

Father of light = God

4 lights given by God:

1. External light: light of mechanic skill (art & craft)
   
2. Lower light: light of sense perception (capturing natural form)
   
3. Inner light: light of philosophical knowledge (intellectual truth)
   
4. Higher light: light of grace and sacred scriptures (saving truth)

External light: intend to supply the need of the body

• For comfort and betterment: 6 mechanical skill
  
  1. Covering: Weaving - soft light material
     Armour making - strong and hard light material.
     
  2. Food: Agriculture or farming - vegetable
     Hunting - meat
     
  3. Aid: Navigation - supply a want (commerce)
     Medicine - remove implement and ill
  
  
• Consolation and amusement: 1 mechanical art
  
  1. Dramatic art

Lower light: enable to discuss about natural form, 5 senses

1. Sight: light and brightness
   
2. Hearing: air
   
3. Smell: vapor
   
4. Taste: liquid/fluid
   
5. Touch: solid

Inner light: investigation of intelligible truth, 3 divisions

1. Rational: truth of speech
   
2. Natural: truth of thing
   
   1. Physic
      
   2. Mathematics
      
   3. Metaphysic
   
   
3. Moral: truth of conduct
   
   1. Ethical principles
      1. Individual
         
      2. Family
         
      3. State
      
      
   2. Economical principles
      
   3. Political principles

Alternative division:

1. Physic: cause of being
   
2. Logic: principle of reasoning
   
3. Moral and practical: right way of living
   
   1. Moral philosophy: motive
      
   2. Natural philosophy: reason
      
   3. Discursive philosophy: interpretation & speech
      
      1. Grammar: correct speech - express, apprehending
         
      2. Logic: truth speech - teach, judge
         
         1. Formal course: pertain to matter
            
         2. Intellectual course: pertain to the mind
            
         3. Ideal course: pertain to the Divine Wisdom
         
         
      3. Rhetoric: embellished speech - persuade, motivating
         

Higher light: saving truth (the sacred stories of about God)

• Literal meaning: word clearly expressed
  
• Spiritual meaning
  
  1. Allegorical: taught to believe in Divinity & humanity
     
  2. Moral: taught how to live
     
  3. Analogical: taught how to keep close to God
  
  
• 3 truths that are taught in sacred scripture
  
  1. Faith: eternal generation & incarnation of Christ
     
  2. Moral: pattern of human life
     
  3. Purpose of both: union of the soul with God

Therefore, there are 6 illuminations and 6 days of creation: light of sacred scripture, light of sense perception, light of mechanical knowledge, light of rational philosophy, light of natural philosophy, light of moral philosophy; and the 7th day is the illumination of glory, the rest.

---

Indeed, life was pretty boring back then - there were only that much of thing that we can learn, and one day of rest. And again, everything has to do with God. Like many scriptures, it was fundamental to mention God, or the purpose of God.

The barrier to modern science: Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)
Source from M.H. Barnes's 'Science and Secularity'

Before G.G. time:

Science was part of philosophy and all explanations were consorted with ultimate purposes, i.e.: the purpose of God. Thus, God seemed to have human-like motive for intervening in life. As 丐侠侠 brilliantly pointed out, some religious, such as the animists and polytheists, said that many events are caused by spirits and gods. Hence, to understand reality, they must explain the purpose of God.

During G.G. time:

Since G.G. was the revolutionary, nobody believed his discoveries. E.g.: a theologian contradicted G.G.'s claim about the moons on Jupiter. He said that there was no meaning for God to put moons on Jupiter because, without good telescope, it was impossible to see them from Earth. The moons couldn't guide the navigator as the stars were, nor move people to admire God's talent as a creator. Therefore, they could not exist.

But G.G. didn't give up. He believed that people should forget about the purpose of God and just focus on finding the accuracy just how things act, and just what the patterns of physical nature really are. He said that objects followed a patterns that can be described by mathematical formulae.

After G.G. time:

Gradually, science become more and more "independent" of God. During Napoleon time (~18th century), the French astronomer Laplace explained to the emperor his theory on how the universe might have slowly evolved into its present form - without mentioning a single thing about God. "I have no need of that hypothesis," he said when Napoleon challenged him to explain the role of God. Science had come to take for granted; patterns of nature had a regularity on their own.

The Four States of "God's Existence"
Source: M.H. Barnes's "Science and Secularity"

Theism (word derived from Greek, theos meaning God; that is believe in an active God)
Refer to previous messages; no need for me to add more. =)

Deism (believe in God, but God does not evolve)
In Europe, by the middle of the 18th century was known as the Enlightenment. With many new discoveries, people were encouraged to believe that the physical universe was entirely intelligible in mathematical and mechanical terms. Theories such as "God made gravity to hold the universe together" or "rocks fall because they seek a natural state of rest" were gone. Rock cannot "seek"; language suggests any life or consciousness in matter were simply foolish.

Irregularity of nature that were believe as demon or angel-doing, or miracles, turned to be predictable with with natural laws - like everything else that could be perfectly described with mathematical equations. People agreed that this orderliness was not an accident. Therefore, God must be like a clockmaker, who designs clocks that can run by its own. This new view about the universe that is full of details and complexity given people the idea that, once God finalized his work, he do not have to intervene anymore.

Believe in miracles seemed to be an obstacle to the search of scientific explanation. One of the arguments said that believing in God's intervene suggests that God did a sloppy job. People knew that God was perfect, and so the universe should run perfectly by its own. So, after the first sabbath, God has rested; this world is ergo a good place to live and all people needs to do is to understand it and then set to work to make it better for humanity.

Not everyone believe that God had rested. In a traditional Western belief, God must punish those who cause evil disorders of life. If God applied only natural laws on human, then people would have too much freedom - and enough freedom to wreck the overall order of things. So, God is watching, and after death, God will pass judgment and reward or punish according to our "report card".

So God is the creator of the world and also a judge.

Also, during the beginning of the 19th century, people were interested in the question of their own existence: why did God made human? So, there were the 'natural laws of human behavior' and the appearance of new science: psychology, economy, sociology. And people were eager to know how to live wisely and happily.

To the deists, human reason was the highest authority. Traditional religion stressed for losing believers and donations. With the discovery of the great power of reason, many people adopted the nonreligious position - and entered to the era of evolution!

Evolution Theory
Source: M.H. Barnes's "Science and Secularity"
As mentioned earlier, Laplace got a theory that the universe was not static, but was a changing process, i.e.: the Sun and planets were slowly formed over many thousand years out of some heavenly gases or matter. From that begun geologists' inspections of Earth evolution and the apparition of life evolution theories. In Charles Darwin studies states that new life-forms spring up as variation on old ones, and compete for survival and success. The most successful produce other life themselves; the unsuccessful die and wither.

Many new theories contradict the bible's story. E.g.: the bible suggests that Earth was created no more than 6000 years. The only major changes was caused by God's intervene, such as the great flood, which only Noah, his family and some animal had survived. After studying the layers of different kinds of rock formation, Geologists are convinced that only a slow process of change taking over many millions of year can form those layers.

Religious authorities rejected the new theories. Some other people replace static deism with revolutionary deism. Yet, how ingenious of God to have built a world that evolute. But God was still the creator - except for the agnostics and atheists.

The Four States of "God's Existence" (continued)
Source: M.H. Barnes's "Science and Secularity"

Agnosticism (don't know)
Agnostics say that the mystery we human face is a mystery.

Thomas Huxley, one of Darwin's main supporter, once during a debate about the existence of God, was asked if he was theist or atheist. He answered "agnostic", meaning "one who does not know" or "not-knower". He agreed with both opposite arguments: evolutionary process of mankind must not be accidental - God planned that way; and randomness of evolution proof that God does not exist. He came up with what seemed the most rational conclusion: no one can know.

Atheism(do not believe in God)
Atheists say that the mystery we human face a meaningless emptiness.

As KINGof♠ mentioned before, Darwin had supported science and discovered many new theories. Beside natural selection, he also supposed that human are descendants of apes. With all these new theories that stress on random process and variation (e.g.: each offspring might randomly be different from their parents), the belief of God became more and more rejected.

During the 19th century, agnostics could feel comfortable with a godless universe because human can do quite well without one. People learned to become more and more rational. Human reasoning is the product of life's evolution, the Darwinists said. With human reasoning as a tool, those can use it best will survive best. Those ideas that would best promote survival are ideas that promote better health, international peace, and economical prosperity. Therefore, these ideas would steadily increase in influence until one day humankind would enjoy health, peace, and prosperity everywhere.

Some secular evolutionary
source: M.H. Barnes's "Science and Secularity"

Evolutionary view: reality is in constant process of development.

Humanism view: the quality of life is the most basic value there is, to be sought in all else - human goal is to seek for a humane, loving, free and creative existence.

Note: Before, during the medieval period, people live in a sinful body. According to the bible, human was punished by God because Adam and Eve ate the apple. And so, people believed that they lived on Earth as the result of their sin - living is a punishment. So, they do their best to receive forgiveness and thus, unite with God after death.

After, people started to believe that they are free and have a goal of their own.

Hey guys, you just answered the question on the meaning of human life: http://vien-ici.1fr1.net/t134-l-utilite-de-la-vie-discution XD

And these texts lack of quotation marks.

Let's go take a further look on the classical theism.

In the western culture, as I mentioned before, classical theism is a marriage between the Greek philosophy and the Judaism belief. But why did it sounds logical to believe in God - and why did we accept this belief?

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, all culture were lost, except Christianity. As Constantine the Great decided, Christianity was the official religion in Roman. Since then, religion was the only knowledge, and philosophy had to be based on religion.

In the text written by Thomas Aquinas, who is a interpreter of Aristotle's philosophy, he argued about the existence of God with the concept of causality, i.e.: if there is an effect, then there's a cause. For example, some flower always turns itself to face the sun. According to Aquinas, there must be a cause for it to behave that way. But a flower do not have conscience and therefore can't order itself to face the sun. Then, there must be something that tells that flower to do this. Since he can't find that cause in nature as an explanation, he claims that the cause must be beyond nature: God. So, whenever we don't understand something, we say it is because God wanted to. And thus, philosophers found that our human mind cannot comprehend the nature of God.

The line that separate God and Human is the evidence to proof that Human can never understand the intention and purpose of God, no matter how far we go in science and philosophy.

So, since ancient scriptures are considered as the truth, all discoveries of science and philosophy have to match with the scriptures.

Galileo Galilei: what happen with his telescope

This is a name of a man who did something that ordinary people would never do.

---

In the Genesis, God creates the Earth before everything. Claudius Ptolemy, an astrologer in Egypt, gave a his physical view about the position of the planet. With the combination of Aristotle's philosophy, the church accepted his idea that Earth is the center of the universe and all other celestial body turn around the Earth.

In Aristotle (Plato's student)'s view, elements on Earth have their natural place, according to their density. Therefore, solid matters (earth) are in the center, liquid matters (ocean) are on top of the solids, gas (atmosphere) on top of liquid, and finally, fire (stars/planets) on top of gas. For Aristotle, things seek for their natural place. And everything above the moon is heaven, which contains another element: aether (perfect), for all things change, except in heaven.

---

So, the church said that the moon is a perfect body made of divine substance, that illumine.
But when Galileo G. pointed his telescope to the moon, he saw a cracky surface that resembles to the one on Earth. No matter how the church tried to reject this discovery, the proof was there! Although G.G. was locked up, people started to questioning about the information given in the bible, because, if the church was wrong about the moon, then what other things they are wrong?
And this is the start deism.

Let's take a look of the argument for God that was founded in the medieval period; they might still apply nowadays, or can be refuted with science.

Here are the four major argument that still work:

• The ontological argument, by St Anselm
  
  This argument shows, by definition of God, that God is something greater that we can ever imagine. "God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived." Therefore, no matter what you think God is, the real God is greater. If what you think exist in your mind, than God must exist.
  
  
• The cosmological argument, by Aquinas
  
  This is the argument that says that there must exist a first cause. If we go back in time, every even is the cause of its successor even. But this chain of cause and effect cannot go to infinity (because for the philosophers, it was logically impossible).Therefore, there must be something that is the First Cause (which is an uncaused cause), and this cause must be God.
  
  As 丐侠侠 wrote before, His Effect refers to unexplainable thing. There are always mysteries and science seems to be able to solve it. With the notion of natural random selection and natural evolution, it is harder for people to believe that everything has necessarily a cause.
  
  
• The argument for necessary/consequence, by Aquinas
  
  This argument shows that there are things that are necessary and things that are just the consequences of what are necessary. If everything is a consequence of something, than there must be something that is necessary. Therefore, this necessary being is God.
  
  
• The argument from design, by Aquinas
  
  This argument says that the world that looks like this, must not be a coincidence. It must be designed this way. Therefore, there exist an intelligent designer who created everything: that is God.
  
  Then again, with the same notion of natural random selection and natural evolution, the world now is believed to have become like this because of nature and evolution. The sample question that refute this argument is why would God create evolution? If He created a world with natural selection and evolution, than this world isn't perfect and He isn't an intelligent designer.
  
  However, where do all those physic laws came from? These law haven't change through time.

Why do we believe in God: God is the result of thing that we can't cope

3 things:

• intellectual - explanation of the universe
  
• emotion - protection, help and love (e.g: that there will always be God who will protect, help and love us)
  
• social - judgement of good or evil

Intellectual impediments
Source: "The Modern Predicament" by H. J. Paton

In Paton's view, the main obstacle in religion comes from the "intellectual element in religion itself", i.e.: theologies and religious doctrines. However, there is only one truth, and therefore only one kind of doctrine that is true. Because doctrines compete with other doctrines, when scientific doctrines gain more and more influence, religious doctrines can no longer stay at the top. People tend more to believe something that we can prove.

As in the scientific methods, explanations of the universe are giving according to the observation of nature and are supported with public proof (that is everyone can verify them). On the other hand, religious knowledges are only giving according to scriptures and personal religious experience, which cannot be publically verified.

With the discoveries of many laws of natures, which are not variants, all human actions are caused by the laws of nature. We have therefore a sequence of cause and effect. Hence, human do not have free will, unlike how religious said that God made man free. If human do not have the choice to be good or evil, than God cannot be a judge.

Scientific method:
Observe - the nature, let the nature speak to you by doing experience
Analyse/Describe - understand what the nature says
Conclude - summarize what the nature says, it has to be something that can be verified - everything has to respect to the laws of nature

V.S.

Religious method:
Observe - the nature
Analyse/Describe - understand with critical thinking (philosophy)
Conclude - adapt your finding with what is written in the Holy scriptures - everything are made according to the purpose of God

Religion as Wish Fulfillment
Source: "The Future of an Illusion" by Sigmund Freud

Why do we insist so must on believing in something superior and divine while our reason tell us (for most of us) that there is no proof the existence of such divine thing? Some people, you might know, feel comfortable with the idea that a God exist. This, according to Freud, is a psychological issue. As he points out, an infant's protection is given by his father - when he grow up, his need of protection leads to the belief of a more powerful Father. Thus, the idea of the existence of God - of some Father that loves us, watches us and supports us - help us to deal with the "fear of the danger of life" and establish moral principles which help us to make judgement.

One might needs love and support when something sad or unpleasant happens to him. If there is no one beside him, he might start praying to something, he believe, divine that can help him out. This is only a simple human need - to feel secured and loved.

Another wish that human always want to fulfill is to be better, to have more. With the belief of God as a judge, we might think that, if we lived good, we will go to heaven and get everything we want to have once we get there.

Human curiosity does also play a factor. We ant to understand the universe that we are living in. When we can't find the answer, we would likely to give up (generally, many people do that) and just assume that God must made that way for his own reason. With this simple hypothesis, it can already satisfy some people's curiosity and make them feel safe.

Knowledge v.s. Illusion v.s. Delusion

Knowledge: is a belief of something that is true and can be justified and verified
Illusion: is a belief of something that is true or false, but cannot be justified or verified
Delusion: is a belief of something that is false and that have evidence that it is false, but that is so good that we really want to believe that it is true.

Fraud said that the existence of God is an illusion, because it cannot be proven nor be refuted. Why we believe in His existence is for wish fulfillment.

Scientists said that science is the only way to gain knowledge.

Religion as Wish Fulfillment II
Source: "Religion Without God" by Konstantin Kolenda

Some people wish to be better than what they are. For instance, to gain more money, to have more talents, to be more powerful - to be transcendent. People who search hopelessly for the highest ideas, will end up to think of God. As Kolenda says, "God [...] is the limiting target of compensation" where the word "compensation” means something that we think that is in deficiency, that we don't have and should have. Thus, God is the limit of what we can aim for, because God has all the Human qualities and he is transcendent to all.

Therefore, the real idea behind the belief in God it these highest ideas. Hence, God is just an integration of highest ideas. But the religious interpretations are wrong. When we say that Man are made by God, or anything related, this means that Gos is superior to all Human and Human can never reach God. But, according to Kolenda, God, wich is only highest ideas, is not something that exist independently, but rather a concept made by Man which Men can tends towards that concept.

Kolenda comes up with an secular idea of believing in radiance instead of God. "Radiance is the capacity [...] of something to attract attention to itself." For example, an idol can manifest radiance, or food, or an object, or the nature,... These radiance can give us inspiration, make our life wiser, give us higher ideas.

First debate is on! Go speak now: https://secondlife.1fr1.net/t107-the-problem-of-god-debate#960