Questions such as: Whether there is a God? Whether we continue to exist after death? And whether any God is active in human history? – are but human need that probably exists for some sort of salvation, liberation, pacification, or whatever it may be called. It seems to be among the main foundations of all religion. This may also be a basic human need for mystery, wonder, fear of the sacred, awe in the presence of the completely different, or emotional response to the “numinous,” which is discussed in The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto and The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade.
God is uniquely other than everything in creation. God’s distinctness from the being of the world has been implied in previous discussions of God’s attributes metaphysically, intellectually, ethically, emotionally, and existentially. While God’s being is eternal, the world is temporal. God’s knowledge is total and human knowledge is incomplete. God’s character is holy, humanity’s character fallen and sinful. God’s desires are consistently against evil yet long-suffering and compassionate; human desires fluctuate inconsistently and often intermingle evil with the good. God’s energy is untiring and inexhaustible; the world’s energy is subject to depletion. Hence God is over and above persons in the world in all these respects. GOD IS TRANSCENDENT.
God exists, but cannot be known. It is, however, the fact that God cannot be known that is the one means humanity has of knowing that God exists. This sounds paradoxical, but it is not.
The severe limitations inherent in human knowledge, language and reasoning make the demonstration of God’s existence impossible. No human term–not “universal,” or “omnipotent,” or “infinite,” or “omniscient,” or even “other”–is adequate to the task of describing God’s existence. These terms hint at humanity’s recognition of the essential unknowable-ness of God. Each of them describes some quality that cannot be realized by a human being and can only be a quality of some existence that is not human. Yet these terms fail to achieve their goal of describing such an existence because they themselves exist, inevitably, in relation to human experience.
While God is unknowable, the desire to know God can be shown to exist. While this desire is, admittedly, a human impulse, it is also an impulse that is not related to the limited range of human existence. There are other, seemingly unrealizable, goals to which humanity aspires. But love, peace, justice, knowledge and others like them are clearly related to the limited human sphere. The desire to know God might, in order to distinguish it from these desires, be called a transcendent impulse. It is only the existence of this impulse that even hints at the existence of God.
However, others might say that God is not anymore needed in this contemporary time, that he has caused the people’s live into the pit of disaster, that God is dead! For the majority of Europeans and the most highly educated around the world, this is true. It is much truer than when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that in his article of the Madman.
From these claims, the question therefore arises as to whether we were right to dispose the idea of God. As it is natural in societies that are now animated to the highest degree by science, the answers we hear most commonly are those of the scientist; NO, they say, all that matters is what can be proven and the useful technology that this gives us. Has not religion held back science and technology in the past? Did it not lead to millions of lives sacrificed on altars of ignorance and stupidity, in countless wars and oppressions? Does it not encourage us to cease to think and explore the world in positive ways and devote ourselves to mindless worship?
God was “discovered” by man through the faculty of thought and destroyed by the same method; the question of evidence and proof is wholly irrelevant here, just as it is to our notion of beauty or love. A scientist can no more destroy the validity of God as an idea than he can demonstrate God’s existence as a tangible thing in the laboratory. God is an idea, not a thing, whereas science deals in things. As our mastery of things has progressed, we have shed our belief in intangible ideas such as our belief in God because we think we no longer need them. The spiritual realm of the human mind still exists and is still there to be tapped; it still gives comfort to millions.
The answer to all of these questions is that yes, the idea of God, systemized into religion, can do these things. But it is a fallacy to think that the idea of God or of gods has been merely a tool of oppression and nothing else, and that it has always and everywhere held back progress and crushed the dignity of man and left only death in its wake. Clearly, it has offered comfort to the most needy, inspiration to the most brilliant artists, and the will to continue to the most oppressed. It has even done this for entire peoples.
It does not seem irrelevant to point out that the idea of God has arisen in almost every human society that there has ever been and that it is clearly in some way innate in man, even if only as a protection against his ignorance. It is a commonplace of the modern man to say that he has no need of God because he has dispelled his ignorance by science. But this ignores the vast questions on which science is not competent to answer, among which lie the most important facing us – how to construct a just society; how to live sustainably with nature; and what our societies should value and reward.
The point is not that God is Great. It is not that we should leap back into our old superstitions or beliefs, and dismiss the enormous progress we have made in many areas in the last century. It is that life is about great choices such as these, monumental questions that underpin our civilization and ultimately determine its fate. The conditions of life might include error, might include things that are not scientific truths that can be demonstrated in a laboratory; in fact, Nietzsche was wrong to even include the word “might” in that sentence. The concept of God was one such possible way of providing an answer to these questions, but we have killed Him. He is not coming back. What bodes worst for our civilization is that after killing Him, we have forgotten how to even think about these questions, or the reason why it is important to think about them at all.
God is a living, personal Spirit worthy of whole-soul adoration and trust, separate from the world, and yet continuously active in the world. Unlimited by space, God nevertheless created and sustains the cosmos, scientific laws, geographical and political boundaries. Beyond time, God nevertheless actively relates to time, to each human life, home, city, nation, and to human history in general. Transcendent to discursive knowledge and conceptual truth, God nevertheless intelligently relates to objective validity, logical consistency, coherence and clarity, as well as subjective authenticity and existential integrity. Unlimited by a body, God is nevertheless providentially related to physical power in nature and society, industrially, socially, and politically. God knows and judges human stewardship in the use of all the earth’s energy resources. God transcends every attempt to achieve justice in the world, but righteously relates to every good endeavor of his creatures personally, economically, socially, academically, religiously, and politically. Although free from unworthy and uncontrolled emotions, God is caringly related to the poor, the unfortunate, the lonely, the sorrowing, the sick, the victims of prejudice, injustice, anxiety, and despair. Beyond all the apparent meaninglessness and purposelessness of human existence, God personally gives significance to the most insignificant life.
God is uniquely other than everything in creation. God’s distinctness from the being of the world has been implied in previous discussions of God’s attributes metaphysically, intellectually, ethically, emotionally, and existentially. While God’s being is eternal, the world is temporal. God’s knowledge is total and human knowledge is incomplete. God’s character is holy, humanity’s character fallen and sinful. God’s desires are consistently against evil yet long-suffering and compassionate; human desires fluctuate inconsistently and often intermingle evil with the good. God’s energy is untiring and inexhaustible; the world’s energy is subject to depletion. Hence God is over and above persons in the world in all these respects. GOD IS TRANSCENDENT.
God exists, but cannot be known. It is, however, the fact that God cannot be known that is the one means humanity has of knowing that God exists. This sounds paradoxical, but it is not.
Ang Banal (Sacred) ay nagpapakita, ngunit ang nagpapakita ay sabay nagtatago. Hindi lahat sa Kanya nakikita — sapagkat kung nakita lahat, wala na tayong hahanapin. Hindi lahat sa Kanya nakikilala — kung kilala na natin, wala nang saysay na kilalanin pa siya.
– Prof. Jeremy Eliab
The severe limitations inherent in human knowledge, language and reasoning make the demonstration of God’s existence impossible. No human term–not “universal,” or “omnipotent,” or “infinite,” or “omniscient,” or even “other”–is adequate to the task of describing God’s existence. These terms hint at humanity’s recognition of the essential unknowable-ness of God. Each of them describes some quality that cannot be realized by a human being and can only be a quality of some existence that is not human. Yet these terms fail to achieve their goal of describing such an existence because they themselves exist, inevitably, in relation to human experience.
While God is unknowable, the desire to know God can be shown to exist. While this desire is, admittedly, a human impulse, it is also an impulse that is not related to the limited range of human existence. There are other, seemingly unrealizable, goals to which humanity aspires. But love, peace, justice, knowledge and others like them are clearly related to the limited human sphere. The desire to know God might, in order to distinguish it from these desires, be called a transcendent impulse. It is only the existence of this impulse that even hints at the existence of God.
However, others might say that God is not anymore needed in this contemporary time, that he has caused the people’s live into the pit of disaster, that God is dead! For the majority of Europeans and the most highly educated around the world, this is true. It is much truer than when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that in his article of the Madman.
From these claims, the question therefore arises as to whether we were right to dispose the idea of God. As it is natural in societies that are now animated to the highest degree by science, the answers we hear most commonly are those of the scientist; NO, they say, all that matters is what can be proven and the useful technology that this gives us. Has not religion held back science and technology in the past? Did it not lead to millions of lives sacrificed on altars of ignorance and stupidity, in countless wars and oppressions? Does it not encourage us to cease to think and explore the world in positive ways and devote ourselves to mindless worship?
God was “discovered” by man through the faculty of thought and destroyed by the same method; the question of evidence and proof is wholly irrelevant here, just as it is to our notion of beauty or love. A scientist can no more destroy the validity of God as an idea than he can demonstrate God’s existence as a tangible thing in the laboratory. God is an idea, not a thing, whereas science deals in things. As our mastery of things has progressed, we have shed our belief in intangible ideas such as our belief in God because we think we no longer need them. The spiritual realm of the human mind still exists and is still there to be tapped; it still gives comfort to millions.
The answer to all of these questions is that yes, the idea of God, systemized into religion, can do these things. But it is a fallacy to think that the idea of God or of gods has been merely a tool of oppression and nothing else, and that it has always and everywhere held back progress and crushed the dignity of man and left only death in its wake. Clearly, it has offered comfort to the most needy, inspiration to the most brilliant artists, and the will to continue to the most oppressed. It has even done this for entire peoples.
It does not seem irrelevant to point out that the idea of God has arisen in almost every human society that there has ever been and that it is clearly in some way innate in man, even if only as a protection against his ignorance. It is a commonplace of the modern man to say that he has no need of God because he has dispelled his ignorance by science. But this ignores the vast questions on which science is not competent to answer, among which lie the most important facing us – how to construct a just society; how to live sustainably with nature; and what our societies should value and reward.
The point is not that God is Great. It is not that we should leap back into our old superstitions or beliefs, and dismiss the enormous progress we have made in many areas in the last century. It is that life is about great choices such as these, monumental questions that underpin our civilization and ultimately determine its fate. The conditions of life might include error, might include things that are not scientific truths that can be demonstrated in a laboratory; in fact, Nietzsche was wrong to even include the word “might” in that sentence. The concept of God was one such possible way of providing an answer to these questions, but we have killed Him. He is not coming back. What bodes worst for our civilization is that after killing Him, we have forgotten how to even think about these questions, or the reason why it is important to think about them at all.
God is a living, personal Spirit worthy of whole-soul adoration and trust, separate from the world, and yet continuously active in the world. Unlimited by space, God nevertheless created and sustains the cosmos, scientific laws, geographical and political boundaries. Beyond time, God nevertheless actively relates to time, to each human life, home, city, nation, and to human history in general. Transcendent to discursive knowledge and conceptual truth, God nevertheless intelligently relates to objective validity, logical consistency, coherence and clarity, as well as subjective authenticity and existential integrity. Unlimited by a body, God is nevertheless providentially related to physical power in nature and society, industrially, socially, and politically. God knows and judges human stewardship in the use of all the earth’s energy resources. God transcends every attempt to achieve justice in the world, but righteously relates to every good endeavor of his creatures personally, economically, socially, academically, religiously, and politically. Although free from unworthy and uncontrolled emotions, God is caringly related to the poor, the unfortunate, the lonely, the sorrowing, the sick, the victims of prejudice, injustice, anxiety, and despair. Beyond all the apparent meaninglessness and purposelessness of human existence, God personally gives significance to the most insignificant life.
-Pilosopong Pepe
