On the Essence of God Essay

Malala Yousafzai, 18 year old Nobel Prize winner and women’s rights activist, once exclaimed: “I raise up my voice- not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back”. The idea of speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves is extremely important when it comes to striving for change, so being able to express the needs of marginalized people is a great and awesome power. Yousafzai’s quote specifically connects to women’s rights, therefore it can be used to support the feminist movement seeing as she is advocating for the equality, in treatment and opportunity, of men and women. Feminist beliefs do not only apply to society, but to theology as well, seeing as the teachings of the bible are extremely influential in the day to day lives and values of religious people. The text that I chose to highlight this idea comes from Elizabeth A. Johnson’s book Quest for the Living God, chapter 5 ‘God Acting Womanish’ because it directly connects spirituality and feminism.

God has so many attributes and characteristics like the attributes that have been reflected within

1. Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for the existence of God based on religious experience. (18) 2. ‘The argument merely indicates the probability of God and this is of little value to a religious believer.’ Discuss. (12)

in this world, and they are effects derived from a cause. The effects in turn

Humans are finite substances so they cannot come up with the ideas of infinite substances unless it were given to them by an infinite substance. Descartes continues that while we advance gradually each day these attributes could never exist within us because we are only potentially perfect whereas God is actually perfect. Furthermore, Descartes argues that only God could be the author of his being because if it were he or his parent’s other finite substances that authored his being then he would not have wants or doubts because he would have bestowed upon himself every perfection imaginable to a finite being. Therefore, God exists because Descartes could not have thought of God because he is a finite substance thus the idea of God must have come from an infinite substance.

Three Arguments for the Existence of God Many people debate about God’s existence. There are three arguments Christians use to prove God exists. These three arguments are the cause and effect, the design, and the moral arguments. Each argument shows a different piece of evidence for the existence of God. The Bible also gives evidence of God’s existence.

In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of

During the time of philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato, “What exactly is the real relationship and purpose of humanity towards the divine?” was the question spreading among the philosophers. When questioned what God is, Aristotle stated in writing, “God is a supreme and eternal living being, so that to God belong life and continuous and eternal duration. For that is what God is.” If we choose to believe Aristotle’s logic then we are left without a reason as to why humanity exists and are left to make assumptions about our existence for the divine power. If God is eternal and has all power then that would mean that our existence is meaningless unless we had a specific purpose to work towards for our Divine.

In the study of Christian theology, scripture plays an essential role in the revelation of the Doctrine of God. Scriptures are “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) words, written by the Holy Spirit through divine inspiration of prophets. They are necessary for the proper understanding of the doctrine of God, the self-revelation of God, the proof of God’s existence, and for the discernment of false doctrines.

For my book review I chose The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. I have read this book before, but I wanted to go through again, summarize and analyze it. The purpose of this paper will be to summarize The Reason for God and analyze it’s writing style and arguments. The Reason for God defends knowledge of God and is naturally an apologetic work. Interestingly enough though, it reads more like a pastoral than it does an apologetic work.

The theological problem of evil is a problem that many philosophers have tried to solve. The problem is stated as, "if one believes that god is omnipotent and wholly good, why does evil still exist?" In this writing I will discuss the solutions/propositions of John L. Mackie in his work, "Evil and Omnipotence." I will do this in order to illustrate the concept of free will for understanding or resolving the problem, and to reveal how and why Mackie arrives at his conclusions.

created us and that knows us pneltly, God himself. The need of infinity that every man experiments in the most deepest of his heart sees imself vetrated when he closes

a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things:

In the beginning of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, it is revealed to use in 1:26-27 that God has created man in his image. The text verbatim states “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” From this distinct text we can clearly conclude that when ad created man and woman, they were destined to be in God’s image and carry his image throughout his creation. Today we can see that many of us do not live in God’s image due to society becoming more secularized as it progresses through the years, however as Christians we can verse this by living in God’s image in our chosen vocations, churches, and even in the

Through out history, as man progressed from a primitive animal to a "human being" capable of thought and reason, mankind has had to throw questions about the meaning of our own existence to ourselves. Out of those trail of thoughts appeared religion, art, and philosophy, the fundamental process of questioning about existence. Who we are, how we came to be, where we are going, what the most ideal state is....... All these questions had to be asked and if not given a definite answer, then at least given some idea as to how to begin to search for, as humans probed deeper and deeper into the riddle that we were all born into.