The Search for God Page 4.2.6
These are the attributes I expect God to possess. I am not saying I know God has these attributes. If we are looking for ultimate reality and the eternal substance of the universe, then this is the only unique being possible.
What I know to be true:
| Problem | lack of knowledge about death, evil, and ultimate reality |
| Solution | A being who possesses all knowledge about ultimate reality |
| Implication | To possess all knowledge, this being must know the future, therefore, must be eternal and timeless |
| Problem | Our knowledge and understanding change |
| Solution | A being with all knowledge could not gain more knowledge |
| Implication | This being would have to be unchanging in substance (immutable) and knowledge |
| Observation | The universe is rational and displays signs of intelligent design |
| Implication | This being is rational and creative |
| Problem | Solution |
| Something is eternal and uncaused, either a being, matter or both. | An intelligent living being who caused intelligent life seems more likely than non-intelligent, non-living matter |
| Without knowledge of future causes, a being would lack all knowledge | A being must be timeless to have all knowledge. |
| A timeless, universal, “all-knowing,” caused or dependent being reliant upon external knowledge would not be truly all-knowing about ultimate reality | To possess all knowledge, a being must be an eternal, non-dependent, uncaused, timeless being. |
| Issue | Problem | Solution |
Moral facts and duties are rational, necessary, and unchanging. Moral facts and duties are good. | Moral facts and duties are grounded in a necessary, rational, unchanging being. | |
Humans recognize rational moral facts but fail to perform rational moral duties. Failure of moral duties produces evil in society. Human society possesses evil, immoral humans. | Therefore, Human society has evil because humans fail to perform rational moral duties. | We need something or someone to rid human society of evil and ensure moral duties are performed. |
| When rational moral duties are breached, producing evil, society expects and demands justice. | Justice for evil moral actions is often inadequate during a human lifetime, resulting in injustice. | We need someone with the power and righteous, all-knowing judgment to bring true justice to evil, even after death. |
| Problem | All humans die. Death is an effect that has a cause. Human reason and senses are insufficient to provide true answers about death. |
| Solution | Humans must find a transcendent being with knowledge about death. |
| Implication | Since we want a true answer about death, the being must be trustworthy and transcendent. This transcendent being should provide either proof of the realm of death or proof of possessing all-knowledge about ultimate reality. Based on the law of causality, a being to possess all knowledge must be an eternal, non-dependent, uncaused, timeless being. |
The Being We Are Looking For
Death and evil injustice – To solve the problems of death, moral evil, and injustice, a being must be an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good judge. Furthermore, to be all-knowing, the being must be eternal, non-dependent, uncaused, and timeless, which rules out a simple transcendent being.
There would only be one, single, unique being with these attributes:
| All-good | Timeless |
| All-knowing | Transcendent |
| All-powerful | Uncaused |
| Eternal | Unchanging |
| Non-dependent |
We use the term god as a title, like the president, for this being. Because God is transcendent and nondependent, humans cannot communicate with God unless he initiates communication. Therefore, we must examine history for signs of communication from God.
If God communicates, he has a purpose. If God has a purpose, then we should expect the following:
Displays and demonstrations of his nature to confirm who he is, such as:
Displays of his power to convince individual messengers
Foretelling the future to convince others to trust the messengers
The human demand is a being who we can trust that has knowledge of the solutions to our main problems of death, moral evil, and injustice. Only God, a single unique being, could communicate all-knowledge about ultimate reality, ensuring humankind absolute truth.
My Theory:
There exists in reality a single unique being who is:
| Able to judge moral evil | Immutable |
| Able to provide true justice | Nondependent |
| All-good | Transcendent |
| All-knowing | Timeless |
| All-powerful | Uncaused |
| Eternal | Unchanging |
Can anything greater exist?
Can we find signs of communication with humankind?
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Through knowledge and rational thought mankind can conceive of the greatest being possible who we label God.
- Why is that significant?
- Knowing the greatest conceivable being’s characteristics before we study religions help us to identify if God spoke.
References And Links
- Christianity – Attributes of God
- Harvest – God has a purpose
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