"If God is true, he should answer my prayers. If he is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; he should communicate to me that I can give proof to his existence."
A human person is not really perfect. He/ she is impelled to death, to sickness, and to all limitations that his or her mortality denotes. No matter how humans take care of themselves, life to be sustained is indeterminable how long it will last. That is why God is the only refuge wherein a poor mortal soul can incline to reach that imagined heavenly realm in order to preserve eternal life.
If God is true, why can't he assure me the possibility of immortality. However, it seems that he is not because he is only a feeling from a doctrinal or dogmatic injection which I received from a religious tradition that I am born to and that I continue to defend without understanding it carefully what religion really meant from its sociological, theological, psychological and anthropological implication on my poor human self in need of that God who can fill up my weakness and who can attend to my ideal needs.
If my poor intelligence alone is the basis, God fails to be true. The Bible, Vedas, Quran, the Analects, the Tripitaka and other scriptural written traditions which are products of human experience, imagination, and creativity do not really prove God but propose religiously the elements of God to human life. In their cultural location, the religions of these text inculcate in each race the value of God in the foundation of morality, justice, and world view where we as human beings create our world with the God we identify in the sacred canopy where we give meaning to everything we see. Due to different interpretations on these religious texts, there are misconceptions leading to theological wars among the members each religion.
Religion does not really prove God but poses a possibility of Him. Since religion is a product of culture and human experience, it gives us the narrative of God creating the world and of man making deities to promote balance to everything. Through this, human created principles which are the foundations of norms, mores, ethics and laws to regulate human movements. These constructs became the foundation of human character bound to where culture they belong. That is why by cultural relativism, we cannot universalize morality which is source of moral standards like law and conscience.
My search of God made me study the world through history, science and other fields; philosophy wherein I can look and reflect at myself on how I perceive realities; and theology, a science of faith. To understand God, I really need to understand myself and the world first. Searching God made me more inquisitive to devote myself of the commitment to value my neighbor on the application of the grace of life that I received.
I realized that God is not puzzle or an irrelevant idea. By religious plurality, there are different Gods: the trinity, Jesus Christ and God the father of the Christians, Yahweh of the Jews, Allah of the Muslim, Brahman and Atman of the Hindu, Buddha of the Buddhist, TAO of the Confucian and the Taoist, Kami-no-Michi of the Sikhist and all other personifications on how faith traditions identify their Gods. These Gods are foundations of moral character we find in every societies in Asia, Europe, America and the world. It is not an irrelevant idea because anthropologically, faith in God brings us love and hope in every struggles that life leads us no matter in what society we belong whether we are in the Philippines which is a the only Christian country in Asia. Faith in God brings culture and traditions where people determine spirituality or ways of life basing from religiosity. When a beggar or street children ask something to me, my spirituality would tell my conscience to give and share what I have. By searching God, I have seen the formation of character, I have found in my spirituality. Yes, I have flaws and weakness but my way of life is moved more than Ethics and all the moral subjects I am studying.
We all have different goals or different aims in our inquiry but we all share the same purpose that is our end which is happiness. Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy though bias of Christianity founded their system on God as the formation of human values which are the source of faith, hope and love; all other virtues, intellectual and moral.
Proofs about God does not matter to me. God exist inclusively that Karl Rahner identifies "Anonymous Christian" which is a controversial idea of his interreligious theology. Imagine that a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jewish and others can also be a Christian. However, God is undetermined but He is to link people of the world in different cultures to talk and to dialogue about faith to discover harmony. If until now I seek to defend the existence of Christian God for argument, what I bring is war between me and my neighbor, part or member of different faith traditions.
God beyond belief systems is open to communicate to me that he is within my neighbor. He is in the poor. He is in those people who are with me in the struggle of COVID-19. If this is the perspective, I go out of the religious system, and embrace the essence of spirituality that God exist not to be sought but to be recognized to my fellow in my community. My search for God in my prayers is responded through how I care and concern for my neighbors in different religious groups, races, and specially the least and the marginalized.
You must be logged in to post a comment.