Hello friends!
This will be my first philosophical article on Steemit.
As a philosopher, i am always faced with the question, do you believe in God? People go into hasty conclusion whenever you tell them you are studying philosophy. Most times, it is not a question but about conviction. As always, we try to enlighten them about the disaster of such conclusion. We call such conclusion Hasty Generalization or Argument-um ad ignorantiam (A fallacy that simply appeals to ignorance).
First, i was introduced into this question of God's existence in my second year. It was not a question about whether God actually exist but about why philosophers think He does not. Many scholars have tried to advance many arguments to prove the existence of God. By so doing, they do more harm than good to the discourse.
This question can actually be traced back to the Medieval era which marked the beginning or perhaps the infusion of philosophical discourse into religion. Scholars like St Augustine's of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, St Anselm argued to support their claims that God exist.
With their different positions, we have many theories. We have the ontological argument by St Anselm, cosmological argument by Thomas Aquinas, logical necessity by Rene Descartes, and Immanuel Kant's argument that God's existence can be deduced from the idea of Good!
The flaws in their arguments are the attributes they give to God such as benevolence, all knowing, all powerful, etc. While we regard them as the apologists (because they believe God exist), those who do not share such sentiments are called non-apologists (While some simply call them atheist).
Some of the views of the non-apologists are:
1) Creator: If God created everything and the world, who created Him? This is because the idea that something create itself or bring itself into existence is illogical.
2) Benevolence: If God is an all-good God, why are there evils in the world?
3) All-powerful: If God is all powerful, why can't He stop evils in the world?
4) All-Knowing: If God is all-knowing, why can't He prevent future evils?
These and many other questions are raised by the non-apologists and some how the apologists find it very difficult to defend without referencing the Holy Books.
Now to the question, does God exist?
As a philosopher, we try as much as possible to explain every word we use because we know some words have contextual meanings.
To deal with this, let look at the word: exist! Existence can be physical or contextual (non-physical). For instance, i exist, the readers of this piece also exist to be reading it. In the contextual realm, many things exist in this world that our eyes cannot ordinarily see like germs, that people are in Germany, USA, etc. With this, we say God must exist.
To the question of belief! Virtually all the philosophers i know believe God exist. Note that there is a difference between belief and knowledge. To believe is one thing but to know is another thing. To know is to be certain, to make an affirmative assertion about a claim. To say you believe means you have an opinion.
In philosophy, an opinion could be true or false. So when they say they believe, they mean they have an opinion about the idea of God which they think is either true or false.
Without going into the non-apologists method, it is easy to just use their methods against them. If they claim God does not exist, why take the pain in proving His non-existence? It means they must try to prove the 'God' which they ACCEPT as an entity does not exist. The simple logical answer is that if they could prove that a God does not exist, it means they KNOW that an entity which the apologists are defending does not exist.
What do i believe in? Do i believe that God exist or do i know that He exist? Yes i do!!!! Aristotle used a phrase in one of his is arguments called: THE UNMOVED MOVER.
God's existence, ways of working and doing things are way beyond human beings. He is the unmoved mover! We are finite beings but we are using our finite knowledge to question the existence of an infinite Being. How can that be possible? We have a whole lot of imperfections and think we can rationalize our thoughts into proving that a perfect God cannot exist.
Do not join them in believing that philosophers are bunch of people who do not believe or know that there is a Supreme Being that exist. I was created and not a product of Big Bang Theory neither do i come into existence by chance! I WAS CREATED BY A SUPREME BEING AND I KNOW HE EXIST.
Thanks for reading!
If you have other ideas, bring it on and let's argue because it is what philosophers love doing!
