One of the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves is ‘why am I living?’ To answer this question, we must first define what it means to be living in the first place. I think living is more than just circulation, brain activity, or any other host of variations that can be describes as attributes of life. To me, life is consciousness and awareness, and that is something that must be given by God. Genesis 1:26 (ESV) says “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. What does this mean? Surely not physical, as God is formless. I think it is something more like the ‘soul’ or consciousness that is referred to here, that which makes us truly alive, and not just living. What is the cause of my existence and that of everyone else? Simply put, God is the cause of all that exists. Genesis 1:1 (ESV) is one of the more known verses in the Bible, saying “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Specifically, everything was created through the second person of the Trinity, Jesus. John 1:3 (ESV) says “All things were made through him [Jesus], and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
Why do I exist? While this is a similar question as the previous, there is some nuance that creates a difference. While we are alive because God made us alive, existence to me implies physicality. Why did God choose to make a physical world with physical beings? Why not make us spiritual beings only, like the angelic host? This question is much more
What is the purpose of life? What drives you to wake up every morning? Aristotle says through his lectures later published in Nicomachean Ethics that humans ought to have a purpose, an end goal, which they are constantly striving for. Aristotle defines this end goal as “happiness.” However, his definition is different than our modern definition. He says, “Since happiness is a certain sort of activity of the soul in accord with complete virtue, we must explore virtue” (16). Happiness is not a feeling; it is a state of being. He says that we are responsible for our own happiness because we have rational souls composed of two parts: intellectual and moral. Each is composed of virtues, which are moral characteristics to practice in our daily life. The virtues are courage, generosity, moderation, wit, truthfulness, friendliness, magnificence, magnanimity, and mildness. By possessing these virtues we feel accomplished and are closer to achieving the highest human good. No one can achieve these virtues for us. We must do it ourselves thus making us directly responsible for our own happiness. These virtues make us happy because they are desires of the soul and give us a sense of accomplishment. Aristotle says that we are responsible for our own happiness because we can rationally and consciously choose to live a virtuous life to reach the highest human good.
Many different philosophers have their own theory on God's existence. They have their own thoughts of how they believe God is a cause. Such philosophers are Anslem, Spinoza, and Leibniz. .
I live because of my conscious which serves to provide the living experiences. The mind serves to control almost all if not all of my actions, my whole body and the things around me. The mind has influence over matter and this explains why my conscious is responsible for my living.
Sheed had a great explanation on Pg. 52, saying that we need to look at it in a different way. Take the physical landscape of a sunrise; everything is nothing more than objects as you see everything God-bathed. Without man, spirit and matter would be two spheres, not touching. Man belonging to one by his soul, to the other by his body, joins them together. His body is not just an accident, it is essential if he is to act his part in the universe.
In order to maintain a true and authentic representation of the various ways that God created human life the image should “better speaks to the underlying truth of human existence than mere likeness does” (Sporre, Dennis J. Reality through the Arts. pg. 60.).
The New Testament talks about the different constituents of man. If you read the Bible, you can see the heart is mentioned frequently, and it represents all of the physical emotions that we see in humans. What biblical scholars call this is the intellect. It is what is in the mind and is where the ideas of purpose begin. Neither of these show the characteristics of the human life, but they show where are ideas are coming from. The Hebrew belief in human life is that his body is both terrestrial and extraterrestrial where both body and spirit are unified. Jesus viewed every man as valuable, lost or saved (Elwell). The writer of over half of the New Testament, Paul the Apostle has a lot to say on mankind, and he has his anthropology on it as well. He says our life is based off of the sin that we do. Adam brought sin into the world, and man has to live through it. Other writings in the New Testament allude to Jesus being the Son of Man, and the human person should focus their actions around the “perfect man,” Jesus
Humans are inquisitive creatures. Throughout the centuries, we have thought, "Why are we here?" This one question has brought thousands of answers. Once Gods and Goddesses reigned. The many hands of Tishri and Buddha, Tao, Confucius, Muhammad, Huitzpotcly of the South Americas, Re of Egypt, and countless others have been worshiped. From these gods comes the creation of man. In our local, modern society, Christ is present in the vast majority of homes, and behind Christ,
That leads me to my next question. Is there a God or Supreme Being? In the event that there is, what is the reason he/she put us here? Any God/Supreme Being worshiper asked will say our sole object is to serve their God. We have to ask, what does that mean? Also, second, we must know why. Why might a
God created everything and everyone, and he continues to live amongst us all. In the beginning God created the world, and us to live as an example of Him, and to continue life showing others His grace. One can only portray God like characteristics if they are allowing Him to live inside their heart. Everyone will fall short because the only perfect person is no longer walking this earth. It is important to continue with strong God like characteristics to allow others to see the grace that God shed.
Nothing could just appear on its own. Therefore, there has to be a cause. Biblically the Christian believes that God is the Creator. For in Genesis 1:1 it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” ( NASB n.d.). The author of Genesis clearly states there is a cause for all existence and that the cause is God.
Therefore, being human means one has been created in God’s image. In order to discuss how all people are made in God’s image, it must first be understood how humanity came to be and
Throughout the world, many people believe that God created mankind through an unhurried act of free will and with certain ideas in mind. In addition, God already had a clear understanding of what he was creating before humanity existed. However, one could argue that humanity was created with no clear purpose in mind. Therefore, if we were shaped with no clear purpose in mind, why were we created in the first place? Our existence as individuals is eminent, but how we perceive the world around us varies from individual to individual. Whether we were created with a purpose or not, we have to examine the authenticity of our very existence with an existential perspective, where we will then learn how to grasp a better understanding of our purpose. Furthermore, we exist as individuals that are capable of having multiple versions
Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” In other words, we are created by Jesus Christ to walk in His light doing what He has created us to do.
Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them (NIV).” This verse and the surrounding verses explain to us that we were made in the image of God and if we fast forward to Genesis 5:1, it tells us that He made us in the likeness of God. Between the two verses, we come to realize that as humans we were created to be like Him not to be Him. By being created in His image and likeness, we have been given the ability to show love towards others, be faithful and compassionate towards all, have integrity, obtain wisdom and so much more. Being created the way we were is a gift and because of it, we should always show these characteristics in our day-to-day lives. In the future, I hope to plant my own church or become a fulltime missionary. Either way, I will get the chance to use God’s gifts and abilities every day.
The soul gives each of us our personal identity through all of our bodily changes” (2014, p. 365). Known that the soul does not die when the physical body dies, God preserves one’s soul (Luke 20:38, 23:43) until the return of Christ. Chosen by God even before creation (Ephesians 4:1), He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5). Finally, Acts 17:25b solidifies God’s involvement, “he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else” and “he has set the day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).