Generally speaking the question would be whether God is real or is it
some sort of projection of the human
mind. Did God make us or did we make God? . There are many who negate
God’s existence and declare themselves to be atheists and not only that but they believe that faith in God is simply a sort of
mental retardation, a kind of a
belief perhaps accepted in the
past by many cultures through many centuries, but in itself something
deep down irrational. Within the
context of our modern times it may cause
some sort of surprise why talk about such a question at all. Don’t we know it
is all over, in other words, did not
science prove that God does not exist? . How about evolution and so on. Is it really important to ask such
a question?. Of course, for other forms
of life on this globe, such a question
does not even come into existence , but
with man it does. Man is blessed or cursed with the ability the inner desire to
ask questions. It’s obvious for anyone who observes little children to see that. A child
three or four years old always asks
questions: why ?, why this?, why
that?, why should I? and so on why,
why….. why. This is the awakening of the mind in
the child. According to Aristotle, all man by
nature want to know. Human beings feel that there is something lacking in them. They are
reaching out towards understanding , explanation, knowledge . Every day we ask
many questions which are relatively
unimportant. They are not really
touching very essential aspects of human existence. However when things happen all of a sudden such as for example death of someone who is very close to you, your parent, your husband, your lover, your
friend, you experience some sort of emptiness. There was a presence, a warm
human living meaningful presence , and
now it’s gone. Also other crisis
happening in life may cause this jolt
to some sort of deeper search and asking. Terminal sickness: when you get a verdict: “Well, after all tests done - the doctor
will tell you - well, you have probably a
month or maximum three months to live.”
The famous story written by
Leo Tolstoy, The Death Of Ivan
Ilyich, portrays a man who is living
a normal life, whatever normal may mean
and this normal naturally differs with different people in different times,
different cultures and so on. But Ivan Ilyich is a happy, important judge, very satisfied with
himself and then some strange thing
happened to him, he gets sick and no one, not even doctors know what is wrong with him. The great
judge is now left with his loneliness.
He is rejected and barely tolerated even by his wife and
daughter. The first time in his life he
asks the question :
What is going on with me?
What will happen when I die?
Is there
any meaning?
What is this meaning ?
How come I am here?
Where am I going?
Is life worth living at all?
So the meaning of life is the central question of any serious search for truth and there can be many answers. The meaning of life is some sort of
puzzle. Life is a maze: you are walking
in different small corridors of time and space, but you really don’t know which
corridor is leading somewhere, or are you simply walking around and moving
nowhere.
Does life lead anywhere?
Some say that life is an adventure, full of surprises, some tragic and some not
so tragic. It is and should be treated
as an adventure only. Others would say
that life is learning experience, but
life is short, my learning is interrupted to soon by death.
For religious people life is a blessing , a
free gift given by
the Creator, and therefore life must be lived in the presence of the
Divine, a personal development towards God in love.
Some philosophies of life for example Buddhism present
life as suffering and the purpose of life is getting rid of this suffering.
Other answers are also very popular. Many would say that the meaning of life
are my children, my family, my career,
making money, getting rich or having as much pleasure as possible, being
famous, having powers over others… The
majority live by such standards. Anyone who has even some knowledge of history,
knows very well how powerful is the
desire for power. All the great Caesars
of Rome, the conquerors like Alexander
the Great , Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and so many others hungry for power gradually turned into tyrants and murdered millions upon millions of people.
In Buddhist writings human life is
compared to a candle. The flame symbolizes life, but
if it is blown out,
the flame is gone, nothing remains.
An atheist, or deterministic
materialist, or universal evolutionist, a skeptic or a pantheist must accept this blowing out of the little flame of the human candle:
nothingness for all eternity. There is no flicker of life anymore.
The question of God’s existence appears here in
all sharpness: on one hand there must be
some meaning in this life: God waiting for humans after physical death. On the
other hand death and complete
nothingness. In the context of God’s existence in theistic
religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam
God is the first source of all reality which is not Him. God wanted humans to exist and He has an eternal purpose towards which everyone should
make his/her efforts. After death the body will be buried or burnet, but the
spiritual element in man “ the inner me” shall enter eternal life. This is the very center of the teaching of Christ: that every
man and every woman once born is
destined to eternal life. Therefore it is a message of absolute optimism
because the gift of eternal life is freely given, nobody can deserve it. Every
life has some meaning for eternity.
For
materialists, nihilists and atheists,
all reality is nothing else but movement
of the subatomic particles of matter, gradually growing into complexity, producing at a point some forms of life, then
producing more complex organisms and in the process of evolution somehow man appeared.
In this context a human being is nothing
but somewhat higher developed
primate and shall pass away. Why?
because all things are matter in movement and this movement here means
transition into nothingness. The highest raptures of love or pleasures, the highest joy
of discovery of a scientists, all prayers of believers, all the great monuments
of “the great people” are nothing but matter in movement. If this is true what is the meaning of being a bundle of small parts of matter in movement?. According to atheism those facts have to be accepted in the brief
moments of life here on earth
persons somehow have to cope and make
the” best” of it.
Every day thousands
of people around the globe die. Every second , every minute , every hour
there is constant dying all over. After Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Erwin Schrodinger,
Stephen Hawking and others, we know that
in modern physics the question what really is
matter is by no means and easy
question, because the subatomic particles behave in a very mysterious way
sometimes as waves, sometimes as particles. That there was a beginning in
physical terms of the world (big bang) is a fact known today. So matter
is not eternal , and there is no eternal universe, but all is in the process of transition. Today we
are alive tomorrow we are gone and other generations after us shall be thrown
into existence. They will go through the same
rigmarole and disappear. Others
will come and so on until there will be the end of the universe in thermal death final entropy of all energies.
Meantime we are living in an expanding universe.
Does God exist?, or are we completely alone moving into nothingness?
The awareness of eternity, the necessity of dying are meaningful if God exists. For a believer this meaning will never pass away because life is meaningful for eternity. The only nly thing for the theist or a believer is to know more and more about the Source of all reality, the Divine . On the other hand, for the atheist the question is also urgent . Since for him/her there is no God he/she must somehow fabricate manmade meaning . Next in the context of morality , in the dimension of good and evil and moral responsibility again the problem of God’s existence becomes of central importance.
Does God exist?, or are we completely alone moving into nothingness?
The awareness of eternity, the necessity of dying are meaningful if God exists. For a believer this meaning will never pass away because life is meaningful for eternity. The only nly thing for the theist or a believer is to know more and more about the Source of all reality, the Divine . On the other hand, for the atheist the question is also urgent . Since for him/her there is no God he/she must somehow fabricate manmade meaning . Next in the context of morality , in the dimension of good and evil and moral responsibility again the problem of God’s existence becomes of central importance.
We cannot impose our beliefs on others, but we are obligated to analyze and to see what evidence there may be one
side or the other.
We must have the courage to objectively analyze the problem, and accept
only strict evidence. We must be logical
and follow wherever the argument
leads. Therefore this kind of thinking and analysis requires in anyone who
tries it to have the courage to think
for him/herself. Courage , why?. Does thinking require courage? Yes it
does if you really follow honestly and seriously the question. The answer to the question does God exist or
not is the most important for human life. And that is why it
requires courage. It may lead to a conclusion which will be very unpleasant and
even terrifying , to a conclusion, which one
never expected to be so decisive molding the whole person and existence , the whole life. There is no other way. There is
one life only and therefore each person must do the search alone or it will
never be done.
Leszek Figurski
Suggested Readings
Suggested Readings
