The Search for God Page 6.1
- Evidence That Demands a Verdict
- The Closing Argument
- Dismissing Each Point
- Problems with This Approach
- Lengthy Process
I agree this process is lengthy. Most people don’t want to take the time to consider each point. Many people will jump to the conclusion and dismiss various points without consideration. I wish I could help shorten the process.
Jumping to a quick conclusion
Conclusion
Humans have philosophized about existence, the meaning of life, and who God is for over 4,000 years. We have invented gods, we have worshipped statues and other humans as god. Yet either God exists, or he doesn’t. Who is he? The greatest conceivable being.
That was our search. First we developed the attributes of the greatest conceivable being. We took what we know with 100% certainty about logic, our environment, and from ourselves and developed a set of attributes.
God should be:
- All-knowing (death and ultimate reality)
- Omnipresent
- Transcendent
- Timeless
- Eternal, uncaused, non-dependent
- Single being
- Judge
- All-good
- Creator
Who is God?
This is the being we seek. Do we want to? Or are we afraid? I told myself I CAN handle the truth. So God could exist. If this being exists, no greater being would exist. How can I reach this God? That is the problem.
Yet, if this being exists, just based on rational consideration of these attributes, God should have a purpose for human existence. He would know why he created us or the universe. God would be rational, logical, yet unknowable.
So has God spoken to humankind? That is the next question. The first question is, who is God? The greatest conceivable being. Has this being spoken? So then we trudged through the ideas of communication and how we should expect God to communicate throughout human history.
We reasoned that:
- Communication would be old
- Communication would be rational
- Communication would change the listener’s life in a radical way forming a religion that would still exist today
- Communication would be to multiple people
- Communication would introduce God and provide answers to questions
- Why are we here?
- What is our purpose?
- What happens after death?
- Why does evil exist?
- How will you handle injustice?
- Why do humans suffer?
- Communication would show signs of miracles, wonders, and prophecy
Theories
Then we took these theories of who God should be as the greatest conceivable being and how we would expect God to communicate and ran them through all the existing religions of the world to narrow down the answer to Judaism (though at this point Hinduism still should be examined further).
The reason for Judaism over Hinduism comes down to the fact in Judaism, the greatest God, the greatest conceivable being, is the one who claims to have spoken, whereas in Hinduism, the greatest being has not spoken and all communication and creation is through surrogates.
To me, this insight and revelation was enlightening and certainly life-transforming. But this is only the first step in the intellectual and emotional process in the search for God.
Now that we have narrowed down the list of religions based upon their claimed attributes of who God is and his communication, we have different paths to consider. Are the communications, the written words and the texts, reliable? What do we do with this information? What has God said specifically in the texts?
How should this impact my life? Underlying all these questions, each of us are grappling with the following questions: Do I want this information? Will this information make me happy? Is my mind and heart open to contemplating and seriously considering this communication? Ultimately, will I allow this information to transform my life?
This is the fear.
Summary
In summary, we know the world is not right. We know the world is not the way we want it to be. There is strife and war instead of peace. There is hatred and murder instead of love and kindness. We visualize a better world, but each one of us have a different idea and way to achieve our utopia.
However, if God is, if God does exist, what is his plan, what is his purpose? Isn’t that what we want to know? Do we want to find that out? Why do we die? Why does evil exist? Why is there injustice in the world? Those vital questions should prompt each and every human to go in search of God, but where do we find him? Do we invent God?
We say we want adventure, we say we want secret knowledge, we are okay with external adventure and information, but when confronted with the emotional realities of changing who we are, we balk, fearful of being manipulated. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God of all the universe. Are you ready and willing?
References and Links
- Travis Dickinson – The Greatest Conceivable Being
- Gita Daily – How Can We Reach God?