blogforjesus

To existentially ponder ‘why is there something rather than nothingness in the universe’ and ‘why am I even here to ask such a question’, seems to infer that there must somehow be a personal source to bring about such meaning, significance, and purpose that transcends my life and if that is too far of a stretch for some then minimally the majority of people would allow for placing a higher value on existence versus non-existence, in as much as the will to live is mostly greater than the will to die, and for those who may disagree as equating life to suffering or treating it as only illusory or self-determined/defined then please read the following articles.
Pain, Suffering, and Evil
Who am I and why am I here
The Salvation of Secular Humanism
However, if we can concede that our existence, is greater than (>) than our non-existence, as equated to 0, then it becomes credible to extend this same value to that of God, if He exists, whose being is more relevant than that of a non-existent God. It also follows that we as contingent beings are dependent upon another agency as an explanation for our existence, vis-à-vis mom and dad, and this is because a causal being can only effectually bring about another being, as non-being doesn’t beget being, no more than simple organic compounds or inorganic non-living material can produce life and therefore the best explanation for our time on earth is ultimately a God Being.
Who Created God
Now the question of ‘who is God’ is a matter of debate among theists and for those who are atheist or agnostic in persuasion I have various articles as dealing with that subject.
Atheist, Agnostic, Non-theist
If you are to take this argument a step further and grant God to be a (1) superlative being, as an argument from ontology, then this viewpoint becomes more finely tuned in seeing God’s person and essence. For those of you who are stuck back on the idea that God is not (1) a maximally great being or perhaps an imaginative being then I would at least ask you to temporarily allow for this theoretical concept of (1) God as a Being who is the greatest and then backtrack, if necessary, to finish solving the equation by filling in the blanks.
To begin with the monotheistic view of God, as understood by orthodox Christianity, is a trinity or a triunity of three persons who are one in essence, substance, and nature, yet three in person. From a biblical perspective this seems to allow for the usage of the word Echad as found in the Shema of the Hebrew bible, as in Deuteronomy 6:4, which is the defining creed or confession of the Jewish faith (recited 2 times a day) regarding God’s nature as possibly denoting a compound unity that is likewise semi-analogous to the intimate relationship between two persons as in the marital relationship between a husband and wife being joined together as one (echad) flesh, Genesis 2:24, and this typology is also seen in the verbiage of Jesus with the special usage of the terms Father and Son to describe the oneness or unity of the Godhead as Hen in the Greek. Such terminology was readily understood by the Jews of Jesus’ time as a claim to divinity, John 10:25-33, John 5:18, John 14:9-11.
The Divinity of Jesus and Islam
The Divinity of Jesus
The Divinity of the Messiah
Furthermore, the Hebrew word Yachid which carries the idea of an absolute unity is not used as a reference to God in the scriptures however it was later utilized in Jewish literature as to possibly counter Christianity’s trinitarian theology of God’s person by taking the liberty to selectively use this infrequent biblical word as a redefining concept in replacing Echad to seemingly accommodate the idea of an “only” solitary One as a description of the personhood of God.
Those who are considered monotheistic Unitarians, either defined as common or proper, are practitioners of Judaism, Muslims (as borrowed by Judaism), Oneness Pentecostals (special form known as Modalism), Jehovah’s Witness, etc.
God is One
However, in view of God as the Supreme Being, the Unitarians’ belief becomes untenable as inferior in view of God’s greatness as limiting some of God’s attributes, such as love (1) (omnibenevolence), which couldn’t be fully realized, that is apart from self-love, without His created subjects and thus it becomes conceivable that (1) God, as one person or unipersonal, who existed from eternity would not be maximally great if He was only potential rather than actual in His love as a temporal quality that could only be manifested as depending upon His created order, namely humans and angelic agents, to find completion and perfection(Panentheism). Since we are finite, temporal beings within the dimensions of space and time then only a God of process theism, who has not always been complete, in lacking, as only becoming to be perfect is language which is consistent to that of continent beings of which He is not. Now for God to exist as three persons then these attributes could (1) intrapersonally exist eternally and infinitely among the Godhead thus these qualities could have always been. Now you may argue that perhaps five persons in the Godhead would have even been better since there is now more to God than three. Yet, this is a category mistake such as stating that a more perfect triangle would need more than the three necessary sides or by creating more and more subjects of His love, He could achieve greater love through numbers, and yet this is confusing quality with quantity where in the later example more people could lead to overpopulation, starvation, disease, etc. So essentially the view of (1) God as a trinity is greater than a God who is a solitary or singular person.
As moving on to viewing God pantheistically as the all-encompassing whole of the universe takes special pleading to realize that any variance of god in any way could never be the most maximally great being even from the perspective of eternity, which makes me wonder how god could have become imperfect to begin with, which shows that this kind of god concept is really not perfect at all or maximally great as surpassed by a God who never lacks perfection and to simply say that this seemingly imperfection is merely illusory is not consistent with how people really view and live their life apart from such a theory.
Then there is polytheism, which is the Mormonism’s god of tri-theism, which some people wrongly associate in respect to the concept of the Trinity because God is three persons with different roles, yet within this diversity is unity that does not transgress the consistency of His perfect divine nature. In polytheism, all of these manifestations of gods or extensions of the one god again lacks maximal greatness as a god that is fragmented or divided as incomplete of itself into many gods (330 million in Hinduism), as insufficient or even antithetical to the other gods, thus is not a maximally great god who alone would be completely and independently sufficient and self-existent as one in perfect unity as greater than any divisible god into various imperfect parts who is something other than simple in being. Some may challenge this break in unity when Jesus came in the flesh and yet Jesus didn’t become only a man but added to His divine nature, manhood, which if not under original sin, purely reflects the image of God as maintaining the unity, even in His humanity, somewhat like the first Adam, though not divine, prior to his disobedience as without sin, John 1:14, 10:30, Colossians 2:9, Philippians 2:5-11. Therefore, the Son and Father are really one as Christ retains His divine status, which if He is God, is something He can’t really lose anyway as a necessary being, who is the mediator between man and God as our human and divine representative by proxy, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:13-16.
Finally, for God to exist in being as more than one person in complete unity is greater than any other model of deity as superseding these mathematical definitions of god as in 1+1+1= 3 or all finite objects =1+1+1 polytheism vs. pantheism (Sum is always insufficient as dependent upon its finite parts), all finite objects = ? panentheism (relatively unsolvable), 1X1X1=1 modalism (incoherent), 1+0=1 unitarian (limited to itself), 0=0 atheist (zero, though numerically represented, is really no-thing). Some of these mathematic equations may actually work out theoretically but it doesn’t mean that it is a sound argument for reality nor can it mean that each of these views is equally true in the same sense at the same time which makes it essential as solving this problem with only one real solution as definitionally God.
Lastly, to conceive of a maximally great God would exceed the greatest of all human qualities, as (1) personal and social beings, which is consistent with the biblical nature of God who is depicted as immanently present and tangibly real (interpersonal), especially as expressed in the divine persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit apart from any relationally transcendent, impersonal, unapproachable being or force as found among Deists and in some respects the Islamic view of god. Though polytheism and animism may qualify as relational it does not possess the highest attribute or quality, such as perfect love, as it is strictly conditional as more predominantly fear based as to appease the gods and spirits in order to gain the blessing while the God of the bible, though just, is described as perfect love which drives out all fear as including Jesus initial mission which was not to judge but to seek and save the lost as God’s will and desire is that none should perish to such a degree that He gave his only Son and the Holy Spirit for the human plight as only doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, at His expense, as unrivaled by any religion, 1 John 4:7-21, John 3:16-18, 2 Peter 3:9, Romans 5, John 14:16-17.
The Perfect Gift from Above
Thus Christianity’s God is more plausibly the greatest and only being to be known as God par excellence.

How to know God
Atheist and Agnostic Resources
English Articles on Atheism and Agnosticism
Seekers

1 Excerpts from these sections of the article has been taken from Douglas Groothuis, “Christian Apologetics”, A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, (Downers Grove:InterVarsity Press, 2011) pp. 204-205.