If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
-- Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
When a friend ask me a while back: "Why can there be only one God?", I was taken aback a little. Sure, I am a Christian, believing in monotheism, but it had never crossed my mind why it is so. This was not ignorance but more like in my mind the inescapable conclusion is that God can only be one.
The argument I thus offered my friend was the causa prima argument:
Look at the world as a series of causes and effects with innumerable branches. An event is preceded by a cause, which is in turn preceded by another cause, and so on. Up the branches, we inevitably have to come to a point where there is a single cause that itself is not caused. This cause, or entity if you like, is called Causa Prima, the first cause.
To me, the extrapolation until every event is reduced to singularity of cause is inevitable. Animals cannot extrapolate far enough. An old dog-and-cat joke: If a dog is taken care of, it would deem the one taking care of him the Master. If a cat is taken care of, it would deem itself the Master.
Humans are then a little better. We see something greater than ourselves, then we extrapolate upwards to find God at the zenith of infinity. If we ever go along the way of arrogance of the cat, our rationale would tell us that a lot of things are beyond our control, therefore we ourselves cannot be gods.
By the way, the causa prima argument provides answer to chicken-and-egg question:
A chicken originates from an egg; an egg, a chicken; and so on. Sounds awfully familiar to cause-and-effect picture? This obviously has to stop somewhere up the origination branches. Simply: God creates the first pair of chickens. If you cringe at the word 'God', fine, you can replace the causa prima as anything else that causes the first pair of chickens. Evolution from another species, for instance. You should note however, that this causa prima is not the Causa Prima. It only is as far as existence of chickens is concerned. Regarding the existence of everything, subsuming chickens, the Causa Prima can only be a Supreme Being, with intelligence and consciousness.
You may realise that our extrapolation to find God is quite feeble. We have the concept of 'infinity' but it so taxes our mind when we try to rationalise it. The picture of God is then a fuzzy one, One whose personage we can only deduce from the ramifications down the branches of cause-and-effect. Religions then, can be seen as the attempt to illuminate on the identity and motives of this fuzzy God. This definition may not apply to some religions, like Buddhism where there is no God. Again, it depends on what religion means. Some people do not classify Buddhism as religion, but merely a way of living. If you look at the world's religions, monotheistic ones are surprisingly scarce: Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Some might even group the latter three as Abrahamic religions collectively.
I should highlight that most religions view this attempt to uncover who God is anthropocentrally. Do good deeds, accumulate enough points to gain the entry to Salvation. In Christianity the picture is a little different: God understands that Man's picture of Him is fuzzy, so He went and revealed Himself, his personage, purposes, and ultimately His authorship of Salvation in Jesus Christ.
If you say doing good is enough for salvation, you have gone the path of arrogance of the cat. Who are we to say that our moral standard is good enough, that our 'good' is truly good? The Bible mentions several discrepancies between our own moral standard and that of God. If someone slap you in the cheek, you would be entitled to retaliate with another slap, an eye for an eye, right? No, Jesus said, give him your other cheek. You are entitled to love your friend and hate your enemy, right? No, Jesus said, love your enemy. That illustrates how Man finds himself deep in the mud of corruption, even his own moral is already corrupted; he cannot hoist himself to the higher ground. The only salvation is to reach the outstretched Hand coming down from above.
Doing good then is not the requirement of salvation, rather it is the consequence of it.
Fuzzy?
9 comments:
--rexy--
It is certainly convincing using Causa Prima to derive at the conclusion that there must be an ultimate entity dubbed God that is behind all these things that are happening. Nonetheless, this concept of cause and effect is likewise created and formulated by man. As you mention about how do we know that our moral standard which perceived to be true is the true moral standard? It is the same thing. What we know is a knowledge that has been passed down by generation before us. What we discover is a knowledge that is created by us. It is still US.
We have to start somewhere. If we denounce every argument as man-made, then any conclusion is useless.
Here I started with logical sequence of cause-and-effect. Christians believe that Man is created in the image of God. Our logic is therefore the mirror, albeit inferior, to the divine logic. For Jesus is called the Word, the Logos Himself, the origin of all logic.
Regarding the true moral standard, I've already said that Christianity differs from other religions where God Himself took the initiative to reveal Himself personally. In revealing Himself, He also reveals his moral standard. This is what Christians take as the true moral standard.
Islam is similar in this aspect, where God reveals his rule through the Prophet, but let me elaborate about two kinds of revelations first:
Christians believe that there is common revelation, like conscience and nature. Those reveals to everyone the possible existence of a Higher Being. That Man will reason: if there exists such wonderful Nature with all its orderliness, there should be a Creator; if I have a moral conscience to do right or wrong, there should be a higher Order of sorts. This should sound familiar, for this is just another way of stating the Causa Prima argument.
However, Christians also believe that there is a specific revelation in the person of Jesus Christ. And Christians also believe that Jesus is God Himself. Here Islam departs from Christianity for they believe that Jesus is only a prophet but not divine. Christians, then, in turn also takes Jesus' instructions as the true moral standard, because he is divine.
This is why I disagree vehemently to the statement that all religions are the same. No, they are not.
--rexy--
Certainly it is not a easy fight within ourselves seeking for the truth and the battle is becoming more devastating as we are becoming more skeptical. You see, you said "if we denounce every argument as man-made, then any conclusion is useless." So are you saying that all these arguments and facts are not compiled and made by man? who teaches us logic? isn't the maths class teaches you that 2 plus 2 equal to 4? or is 2 plus 2 ought to be 4?
I must say that it is not wrong that we have to start somewhere--logically speaking. If not, then we will still have to keep seeking and that is not an easy way and perhaps no one likes doing thing the hard way.
Touching on the issue of religions being the same, i agree with you that all religions--with regards to their belief of existence of God, Ultimate God--are not the same. However, if you remember about my entry drawing an analogy of religion to brand name/label: each religion, in my opinion, is a genuine label of their own. Certainly they are different but they have a common purpose--to distinguish themselves and each of them portrays a good value. Similarly, religions, no matter what the name of the doctrine is, are still guiding people to the right path--one that is doing good. Have you seen any religion telling its follower that by doing bad they will be saved? I believe not. They all guide people to do good to themselves and to others. What the followers do (the means) are ultimately for the sake of what they belief or told are the right and good things.
Some clarifications:
"...then any conclusion is useless."
I mean, as in the context, any conclusion about the divine would be useless if we denounce everything as man-made. I circumvented this issue by saying that our logic itself originates from the divine, thus it can validly concludes something about the divine.
Regarding equality of religions: Certainly, it depends on the level of comparison we are talking about. Yes, all religions are the same, I would agree to that up to the level where religions are taken to be ways to identify the fuzzy God.
This is fine as far as values are concerned. Certainly, our conscience naturally tells us what is right and wrong, and we should strive to do what is right.
But the problem is, face it, Man is ultimately an egoistic creature. We care about religions simply because we don't want to burn in Hell; we want Salvation -- and there is only a single way, you have to choose the correct one. In this case, it's not apt to say that there are many ways to Rome, since some religions are specific in the requirements, therefore they cannot all point to the same path of Salvation.
--rexy--
Let's assume that your statement about our logic being originated from the divine itself true. Are there any assumptions to this statement?
The concept of Hell and Heaven: who fires off this? Or have we seen it? Doesn't it serve as a deterrence for us not to do bad things because we know we will suffer retribution?
Looking back the Causa Prima logic deduction of one true God, are there any assumptions to that logic? What if there are more than one God causing different sets of things. For instance, the tornado doesn't cause the earthquake. So maybe God A causes the birth of Tornado and God B causes the existence of the Earthquake. Although science explains otherwise about how such natural disasters occur--difference in pressure, earth crust movement and such.
--rexy--
Well regarding the analogy of getting to Rome. Isn't it true there are many ways of getting to Rome? Just some are more difficult and take longer? So it is analogous to the specific requirements for each religion in guiding their believers on how to go around travel about the path that they have chosen. If you choose path A, then certainly you need a set of instruction for path A and not B's. Nonetheless, you will reach Rome if you succeed.
Of course there is. It takes a leap of faith :)
Otherwise, well, that kind of argument will get nowhere. An agnostic will stay as as an agnostic.
There is no proof whatsoever that logic originates from the divine. This is the point where one has to take it or leave it.
Heaven and Hell. We can use a very similar argument: Humans can differentiate what is right and wrong. Even in man-made law we have punishment for breaking the law. We can say that there may exist a greater Law which we will be subject to in the afterlife. Some may call it Hell, or samsara, or karma; we can see that this kind of concept along similar line can be viewed as a result of our own extrapolation: we have a sense of justice, so how about higher Justice?
Correlations. Indeed you can see it that way. I tend to be of the opinion that that's simply not far enough an extrapolation. I already said something about extrapolating far, far enough to reach the "zenith of infinity". You have to look at the beginning of the universe, and probably beyond. Currently, the best theory we have is the Big Bang theory, which fits quite nicely with the Causa Prima argument, actually. The universe is said to begin with singularity.
Some may call it God.
Well, no. The destinations are not the same. What I mean here is that 'Rome' is 'Deliverance'; ticket to Heaven, if you like.
Christians believe that Jesus is the Way. Muslims believe in the path where the entry to Heaven is based on their accumulation of 'pahala', a score of sorts which reflect good deeds. Muslims reject Jesus as the Way.
Will they in the end arrive at the same 'Rome'? I don't think so.
--rexy--
Well there are too many uncertainties to make any concrete logical conclusion. After all, sometimes what is logical and fit at time turns out wrong...
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