what is god essay

Questions about God and Faith

Who is god.

“Who is God?” It’s a question that people have asked throughout history and across cultures. While there’s still many things we don’t know about God, here are a few things we do know about the nature and character of God.

God is our creator

This is where the story begins. We read in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, that God created everything—light, earth, water, air, plants, animals, and humans. God created the entire world out of nothing—and everything that God created, God called “good.” God saved the best for the last day of creation; he created man and woman in his own image.

In the beginning, everyone and everything was created good. All of it was created to reflect the glory of God. This has not changed. All of creation is still meant to reflect God’s glory.

God is three in one—a Trinity.

What exactly is the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

Defining the Trinity is not easy. The Trinity is sometimes explained like a triangle—three distinct points, yet still one figure overall. Another explanation can be found in the Belgic Confession , Article 8. The confession says that God, who is one being in essence, exists eternally in three persons.

God is unchanging.

We live in a world where everything changes, and where the pace of change seems to quicken all the time. This causes a lot of stress and anxiety as people try to maintain a sense of stability in the middle of all the change.

This is why the truth that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever is so important. It is our anchor and hope in a world where life can be uncertain and unpredictable. It is the firm foundation we can stand on when things seem to be falling down around us.

God is love.

Above everything else, God is love. This truth is made clear all through the Bible by God’s actions—including sending Jesus, God’s only son, to earth to live and die, opening the door for us to be reconciled to God.

God is faithful.

The Bible is full of God’s promises: for individuals, for the ancient nation of Israel, and for us. Many times, the Old Testament tells how God’s people turned away and sought other gods or desires. Through it all, God remained faithful, pulling them out of their worship of false gods and reminding them of God’s own love and faithfulness.

The same holds true for us today. Even when we are not faithful to our promises to God, God is always faithful to us. God will never forsake us or stop loving us, even when we make mistakes.

God is knowable.

God is not distant or hidden from us but wants us to be known personally. We can get to know God by reading and studying the Bible, the Holy Scriptures.

The Bible is the story of the God who created the universe, who made everything in it and declared that it was good. It is the story of a God who desires to be in deep relationship with us. It is the story of a God who has been changing and guiding people’s lives for thousands of years.

God is bigger than all this.

While we can come to know God through reading the Bible, following Jesus Christ, and listening to the Holy Spirit, we can’t confine God or put God in a box. Even when things happen that we can’t understand or explain, we remain confident of God’s redemptive purpose in all things—trusting that God is good, that God loves us, and that our eternal salvation comes through God’s grace.

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The Story and Message of the Bible

Other essays.

The Bible is comprised of many books and written by various authors over centuries, but as God’s Word it is a unified revelation unveiling a single message. It is crucial to understand what the Bible’s overall message is to interpret it properly and rightly apply it to our lives.

This article explains what the central message of the Bible is by thinking through two ways of describing the overall story of Scripture. First, the Bible’s plots movements of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation are explored to understand the Bible’s message. Second, the Bible’s story is explained by thinking through how God’s plan is unveiled through the covenants from the creation covenant to the new covenant in Christ.

The Bible is a big book that consists of many topics, diverse literature, and spans centuries. Yet, the Bible, despite being written by multiple authors and addressing various subjects, is one grand story whose central message is about what our triune Creator-covenant God planned in eternity, executed in time, to glorify himself by the redemption of his people, the judgment of sin, and making all things new in Christ Jesus (Rom. 11:33-36; Eph. 1:9-10; Col. 1:15-20).

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible’s message is first and foremost about the triune God. It’s centered in his name and glory, and how he has graciously chosen to share himself with us—although perfectly complete and satisfied in himself—which results to the praise of his glorious grace and our eternal good (Eph. 2:1-10).

We can outline the Bible’s long and layered story in a couple of ways. First, we can capture it in terms of four major plot movements: creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. Second, we can describe the unfolding of God’s eternal plan from creation to the new creation through the progression of the biblical covenants. Let’s look at both of these ways of summarizing the Bible’s overall story and message.

The Bible’s Story and Message through its Unfolding Plot Movements

By thinking through the Bible’s plot movements, we can grasp the broadest contours of the Bible’s story and message and think about the Bible’s unique worldview against other views. Thinking through the Bible’s plot movements helps us answer the questions that every person asks and must answer: Where did we come from? What went wrong? What is the solution to our problem? Where is history going?

Where did everything come from? Genesis 1-2 gives us the account of God’s creation of all things, including us, his creatures and image-bearers. Although this section of the Bible is short, it’s theologically significant and foundational to everything that follows, setting the stage for the rest of the Bible’s unfolding drama.

Here we meet several key characters and first grasp the setting for Scripture’s story. Also, in creation, various typological patterns are established, that in the story will reach their fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant (e.g., the rest of the seventh day [Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:8-11] and salvation rest in Christ [Heb. 3:7-4:13]; Eden as a temple sanctuary that is fulfilled in Christ as the new temple; and marriage which points to a greater reality, namely Christ’s relationship to his people [Gen. 2:24-25; Eph. 5:32]). All of these patterns will be progressively unpacked through the later covenants, all working toward an ultimate end and explaining the Bible’s story.

What went wrong? In Genesis 3, everything changed in God’s good world. Adam, the first man, forever changed the direction of history with his choice to rebel against God. When tempted by the serpent, Adam disobeyed God and plunged all humanity into sin, death, and condemnation. The Fall establishes the terrible problem that the rest of Scripture is written to address.

Apart from Genesis 3, we cannot make sense of God’s plan of redemption and how we, as humans, can stand justified before our holy God, given our sin. Because of Adam’s sin and our banishment from God’s presence, our only hope is found in God’s gracious initiative to redeem and to reverse the effects of sin and death caused by Adam.

Where do we find hope? In Genesis 3:15, God promises that a son—the “seed” of the woman—will one day defeat the serpent and reverse what Adam did. Although humans merit death for their sin (Rom. 6:23), death will not have the last word. In truth, the rest of the Bible, with all of its stories and details—the people, the sacrificial system, its saving events—tells us how this will happen by slowly unfolding this “good news” promise, which ultimately leads us to Christ.

As history unfolds, Christ eventually comes—God’s own Son—and by his life, death, and resurrection, the Father creates a new humanity, the church, who enjoy the full forgiveness of sins, new hearts, and access to the Father by the Spirit. In Christ, what the triune God originally intended for his creatures, crippled by the Fall, is now beginning to be restored.

New Creation

Where is history going? The direction of history is toward the new creation, the goal and end of God’s redeeming promise. The present order is the old creation in Adam, but Christ will bring a new creation. The OT prophets describe this new creation as arriving in the coming of God’s King and Messiah. Through his life and cross-work, Jesus brings the new creation. In his return, the new creation is consummated, as beautifully portrayed in Revelation 21-22. But even now, some of what John envisioned is present in Christ’s people, who are a new creation, a colony of the future age, although we still await the fullness of it when Christ returns.

These four plot movements are one way of summarizing the Bible’s story. They nicely capture the Bible’s message of what God has planned in eternity, executed in time, to glorify himself by destroying sin and redeeming his people in Christ.

Yet, another way to grasp the Bible’s message is by thinking about how God’s redemptive plan, from creation to the new creation, progressively unfolds through the covenants.

The Bible’s Story and Message through its Unfolding Covenants

Scripture’s plot movements help capture the Bible’s message, but covenants serve as the backbone to the Bible’s story that holds its diverse pieces together. Covenant is a word that describes who God is as the covenant Lord and his gracious choice to be our God—“I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33). Through the covenants, we come to know what God’s eternal plan is. Each covenant, from Adam to Christ, contributes to the plan, and ultimately, through the covenants, we discover how all of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ.

God’s Covenant with Creation through Adam and Noah

As noted above, the Bible begins with the creation of the world and of human beings, but it does so by first beginning with God as Creator and Lord (Gen. 1-2; Psa. 103:19; Dan. 4:34-35; Acts 17:24-25). God’s creation work is the outworking of his eternal plan in time (Eph. 1:11; Rev. 4:1), which he directs to a specific telos or end. As history unfolds, God’s plan is unpacked through specific covenantal relationships, which all lead us to Christ (Col. 1:15-20).

From Genesis 1 on, God presents himself as the uncreated, independent, self-sufficient God who creates and rules all things by his word (Gen 1-2; Psa. 50:12-14; Acts 17:24-25; cf. John 1:1). As Creator and Lord, God is fully present and related to his creatures: he freely, powerfully, and purposefully sustains and governs all things to his desired end (Psa. 139:1-10; Acts 17:28; Eph. 1:11). As personal, God commands, loves, comforts, and judges consistent with himself. Indeed, as we move through redemptive history, God discloses himself not merely as uni-personal but as tri-personal, a being-in-relation: Father, Son, and Spirit.

God is also the Holy One (Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 3:2-5; Lev. 11:44; Isa. 6:1-3; cf. Rom. 1:18-23). God’s holiness is associated with his independence and aseity (“life from himself”). As God he is self-existent and self-justifying as the moral standard of the universe. He is “too pure to behold evil” and unable to tolerate wrong (Hab. 1:12-13; cf. Isa. 1:4-20; 35:8). God must act with holy justice when his people rebel against him; yet he is the God who loves his people with a holy, covenant love (Hos. 11:9). God’s holiness and love are never at odds (1Jn. 4:8; Rev. 4:8). Yet, as sin enters the world, and God graciously promises to redeem us, a question arises as to how he will do so and remain true to himself—a question central to the Bible’s unfolding story.

Next, we are introduced to Adam, the first man, who is the representative head of humanity and of creation. Scripture divides all humans under two representative heads: Adam and Christ (Rom. 5:12-21; 1Cor. 15:12-28). In God’s plan, Adam is a type of Christ, who anticipates the last Adam (Rom. 5:14). But Adam, sadly, by his representative act of disobedience, plunged all people into sin, with consequences for the entire creation. Yet, according to God’s promise (Gen. 3:15), a “son/seed” will undo the curse of sin on the world and restore humanity to God.

Yet, in this promise, a question arises as to who this “seed” will be? After all, given God’s holiness, how can fallen humans be justified before him ? God cannot overlook our sin; he must remain true to his own righteous demand against sin. But how can God remain just and the justifier of the ungodly? In Scripture, this is the major question that drives the Bible’s story. God must judge human sin, but given his promise to redeem, a tension is created in the Bible’s covenantal relationships. God promises to be our God, and for us to dwell in his presence, but he is holy and we are not. No doubt, in the later covenants God initiates and provides various means to deal with sin (e.g., the priesthood, sacrificial system, tabernacle-temple [Lev. 17:11]). But under the Mosaic covenant, it was intended to never be enough. God was teaching his people about its built-in limitations that pointed beyond itself for a greater provision and covenant. As God’s plan unfolds, the only way to resolve this tension is by the provision of a specific son—one who is human and the divine Son . He alone is able to redeem and justify us (Rom. 3:21-26). But this is to anticipate what is still to come.

In Noah, we also see God’s creation purposes continue. When God judged the world with a flood, he saved Noah, his family, and two of every creature. Noah and his family were a “restart” on creation. As God commanded Adam before him, Noah was to fill the earth and rule over it. When God made a covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:13), it was a reaffirmation of the foundational covenant with Adam and creation. Yet, the Noahic covenant is established in the context of a fallen world reserved for judgment. Because of God’s promise, we know that God will preserve creation until the end of time, despite ongoing human sin, and he will bring forth the promised seed through Noah, who will reverse all the effects of Adam’s sin.

God’s Covenant with Abraham and his Children

As Noah’s children multiplied, they lived just like their ancestors, carrying on humanity’s sinful rebellion. The Tower at Babel is evidence that humanity’s Adam-like, God-defying ambition continues. Sin is passed on from generation to generation, and we wonder how God will reverse the effects of sin and death and restore us to our image-bearing role.

The answer is the Abrahamic covenant. Set in the context of Genesis 1-11, the Abrahamic covenant is how God will fulfill his promise to redeem and restore. Through one family , Abraham and his seed, God will keep his promise to reverse the effects of sin and death. By sovereign grace—not according to what Abraham did or any special about him—God chose Abraham, an idol worshipper, and promised to bless him with a great name, land, and offspring to bring salvation to all nations (Gen. 12:1-3; cf. Josh. 24:2-4). Through the Abrahamic covenant, God clarifies further how his saving promise will take place . In its inauguration in Genesis 15, God demonstrates that he alone will keep his promise to save. God’s promises rely on his being true to his Word, which Abraham received by faith alone (Gen. 15:6).

In Eden, God banished Adam from his presence. Now Abraham’s children, identified as those who trust and obey God, will be God’s people, restored to his presence, and re-made to fulfill God’s intent for humans.

God’s Covenant with Israel through Moses

Abraham’s descendants multiplied into the nation of Israel. As the story continues, God makes a further agreement with them. In God’s covenant with Israel, mediated by Moses, God’s promise is now focused on an entire nation —a holy nation and a kingdom of priests who are to be God’s son (Exod. 4:22; 9:6). God delivered his people out of Egypt by the exodus, which established Israel as God’s covenant people and served as a paradigm for God’s saving acts to follow.

At Sinai, God gives his covenant law to Israel (Exod. 19-20). Moses serves as the mediator of the covenant, and God outlines his plans for the nation. These plans include the key roles of prophets, priests, and kings, each role touching on an aspect of Adam’s original role in Eden. Again, we see that God’s covenant with Israel builds on the previous covenants, continuing to unfold God’s one redemptive plan and his original purposes for us. God’s covenant includes within it blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, and it is through her obedience that Israel would experience the blessings of God.

Over time, while Israel sometimes obeys, the pattern of her life is largely disobedience. Despite her special calling, Israel acts just like Adam in her rebellion and rejection of God. As such, the old covenant, although given by God, points to something greater. In itself it was insufficient; it foreshadowed what was necessary to save us, but it did not provide it in full.

In God’s plan, we discover that God, in various ways, intended for this covenant to point forward to Christ and the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34). In God’s plan, Israel’s covenant was intended to be temporary as part of God’s unfolding plan through the covenants. It graciously allowed God to dwell in Israel’s midst, but it also revealed the need for a greater covenant, mediator, and sacrifice. The old covenant served a number of purposes: it revealed the nature of sin (Rom. 7:13), it unveiled the greatness of God’s grace, and it anticipated the righteous of God in the gospel (Rom. 3:21) as it served as a guardian to lead us to Christ (Gal. 3:19-4:7).

God’s Covenant with David and his Son

Through the Davidic covenant, God’s promise is now focused on an individual : the king. The previous covenants are now brought to a head in this covenant, as God promised a “son/king” who would rule the world forever (2Sam. 7:14, 19).

In this “son” promise, we hear echoes of Israel as God’s son (Exod. 4:22). Even more: we hear echoes of God’s promise to provide a “son/seed” who will undo Adam’s work (Gen. 3:15). Central to God’s redemptive plan is the restoration of humanity’s vice-regent role via the seed. By the time we get to David, we now know it’s through the Davidic king that creation will be restored, which is clearly taught in the Prophets and Psalter (Psa. 2, 8, 45, 72; Isa. 9:6-7; 11, 53). Yet David and his sons disobey, thus leaving God’s salvation promises in question. But God promises to bring forth a promised one—a Davidic king—but where is the king?

This leads to the message of the Prophets and the anticipation of a new covenant. The Prophets speak of God’s judgment on Israel for her violation of the covenant, but they also give a word of hope. They announce an overall pattern of renewal by recapitulating the past history of redemption and projecting it into the future. The Prophets proclaim that God will keep his promise to redeem and he will do so through a faithful Davidic king (Isa. 7:14; 9:6-7; 11:1-10; 42:1-9; 49:1-7; 52:13-53:12; 55:3; 61:1-3; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:23-24). In this king, identified as the “servant of YHWH,” a new/everlasting covenant will come with the pouring out of the Spirit (Ezek. 36-37; Joel 2:28-32), God’s saving reign among the nations, the forgiveness of sin (Jer. 31:34) and a new creation (Isa. 65:17). The hope of the Prophets is found in the new covenant.

Regarding the new covenant, all of the Prophets teach about it, but Jeremiah 31 is probably the most famous of the OT texts. Jeremiah focuses on what is central and foundational to the new covenant: the promise of the complete forgiveness of sin (31:34). Under Israel’s covenant, the forgiveness of sin was granted through the sacrificial system. Yet, God never intended for the old system to be an end in itself (Gal. 3-4), which is evident by God’s announcement that in the new covenant sin will be “remembered no more” (v. 34). What, then, is anticipated under the new covenant is a restoration of fellowship with God, and God’s dwelling with us in a new creation—ultimately the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.

God’s New Covenant in Christ

The question of the OT is when and how God will honor his promises, his covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. With Christ’s coming, all of God’s promises are “yes” in him (2Cor. 1:20). As God planned from eternity, through the new covenant established by our Lord Jesus, our triune God inaugurates his saving kingdom in the world. In his incarnation, the divine Son becomes the promised human son, Abraham’s seed, the true Israel, and David’s greater Son, and he achieves our redemption by his work. By Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, he pays for our sin, remakes us as his new creation, and removes the curse of sin on creation. In Christ alone, all of God’s promises are fulfilled and the original purpose of our creation is now accomplished forever.

These glorious truths are beautifully pictured in Revelation 21-22. After final judgment on sin is enacted, the new creation comes in all of its consummated fullness. In Christ’s return, the new creation comes in its consummated fullness so that the entire creation is where the triune God in all of his glory manifests his unique covenantal presence with us. Eden has given way to the new creation and what God created for us in the first place, namely, to dwell in his presence as his people, is now fully and finally realized now forevermore, amen!

The Bible, as God’s Word written, is centrally about what our glorious triune God has done to glorify himself by the redemption of his people, the judgment of sin, and making all things new in Christ. For the church, such a message is good news, which ought to move us to faith, hope, love, and faithfulness to Christ. But the Bible’s message also reminds us that outside of Christ is only final judgment, which ought to move us to faithful gospel proclamation.

Who is God? His Nature, Roles, and Works

Discover who God is according to the Bible and aspects of His divinity that we all should know!

No other question is more important than “Who is God?” Learn about the roles , nature , and works of God to more deeply understand Him. Find Scriptures that provide context while revealing His character.

Get this one right — and experience who He is each day — and you’ll enjoy life to the full! We see this in Deuteronomy 7:12-13 , Psalm 16:2 , John 10:10 , and James 1:17 . We also see this today.

"I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” ( Psalm 16:2 )

“The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long.” - A. W. Tozer

Who Is God?

Nature of God

Works of God

According to the Bible

The Bible does not give one specific definition of God. Instead, it assumes God's existence from the beginning and reveals His nature and work throughout. God is understood as the supreme being and the creator of the universe.

God is Our Creator

The Bible begins with the statement,

" In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" ( Genesis 1:1 , NIV).

This verse introduces the notion that God initiated the existence of the world through a deliberate and purposeful act of creation. God is thought to have brought the universe into existence without pre-existing materials. This idea emphasizes God's absolute power and sovereignty over all of creation. God continues to sustain and uphold the universe. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul writes, " In him [Christ] all things hold together " ( Colossians 1:17 , NIV), suggesting God's ongoing role in maintaining the order and existence of the world. The act of creation is often seen as a manifestation of God's glory and creative wisdom. Psalm 19:1 expresses this sentiment: " The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands " (NIV). Understanding God as the Creator of the universe provides a framework for understanding the nature of God and humanity's place in the world.

God is the Holy Trinity

The Trinity refers to the understanding of God as one essence existing eternally in three distinct persons: Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. The Trinity asserts that there is one God—that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share the same divine essence. The concept of the Trinity is not explicitly laid out in a single biblical passage but is inferred from various biblical teachings, such as the Great Commission, where Jesus speaks, referencing each entity.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen." ( Matthew 28:19-20 ).

Each person of the Trinity is understood to have distinct roles while sharing the same divine nature. The Father is often associated with the role of creator and source, the Son with redemption and revelation (especially in the Incarnation of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit with sanctification and empowerment. The relationships within the Trinity are considered eternal and unchanging. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have existed in a perfect and loving relationship from eternity past. This eternal communion reflects the idea that God is inherently relational. The Trinity is often described as a divine mystery, acknowledging that human language and thought are limited when trying to grasp the nature of God. It goes beyond our ordinary understanding of unity and plurality. The work of redemption involves the Father sending the Son, Jesus Christ, into the world for the salvation of humanity and the Holy Spirit's role in convicting, guiding, and empowering believers.

Definition of God

"God" is central to many religious and philosophical traditions, representing the ultimate and transcendent being. In monotheistic religions such as Christianity, God is understood as the creator and sustainer of the universe, possessing attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. God is seen as the source of moral authority and the ultimate object of worship and devotion.

Nature of God in the Bible

So, “Who is God?” Among many other biblical and theological words, five stand out. All five words are multiplied by eternity and infinity.

In other words, what do we mean when we say, “My love falls impossibly short of God’s love?” Everything about God stretches not only across the 100 billion light-years of this universe, but also stretches far beyond this universe to God’s throne in heaven.

So, what are the five words that answer, “Who is God?”?

1. God Is Sovereign

“Sovereign” appears hundreds of times in Scripture and is embedded 6,700 plus times in the sacred divine name, YHWH. The latter typically appears as the word “LORD” capitalized in most modern Bible translations.

When we think about who God is, we begin by describing Him as all-powerful (omnipotent) and everywhere-present (omnipresent).

The biblical heroes of the faith rejoiced in both aspects of God’s sovereignty. King David said, “T he LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all ” ( Psalm 103:19 ). Later he prayed, “ Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all ” ( 1 Chronicles 29:11 ).

The initial followers of Jesus Christ prayed, “ Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them” ( Acts 4:24 ). Later the Apostle Paul described God as “the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen ” ( 1 Timothy 6:15-16 ).

So, does God’s power and presence permeate every moment and millimeter of your life?

Yes! You’re never alone. And you’re never powerless. God is with you, asking, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Call out to Him now.

2. God Is Working

He is providential, and while the word “providence” (referring to God) doesn’t appear in a single Bible verse, in some ways, that’s fitting. After all, “providence” speaks of God’s eternal, infinite, and (mostly) invisible hand at work in nations, tribes, families, and individuals.

Heroes of faith — Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, Ezra, Esther, and many others — rejoiced in God’s providence, which increased their faith and trust in Him. Job humbled himself before God and said, “ I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted ” ( Job 42:2 ). Centuries later, the Lord assured the prophet Isaiah: “ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘ My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please ’” ( Isaiah 46:10 ).

After witnessing a tremendous miracle, King Nebuchadnezzar wrote to everyone in his empire: “ He [the LORD] does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done? ’” ( Daniel 4:35 ). The Apostle Paul reaffirmed that God “ works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will ” ( Ephesians 1:11 ).

So, does God’s guidance and goodness permeate your life?

What Are the Radical Demands of Following Jesus?

Yes! Life is abundant when you recognize and rejoice in both today!

3. God Is Holy

“Holy” and its synonyms appear more than 1,600 times throughout the Bible. It quickly becomes clear that God is holy, people aren’t, God expects us to be holy, and we can’t be without His divine transformation.

After giving the Ten Commandments, the Lord told His ancient people: “ Do not profane my holy name, for I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD, who made you holy ” ( Leviticus 22:32 ). He also told them: “ Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy ” ( Leviticus 19:2 ).

Old and New Testament heroes of faith talk about the dichotomies of holiness , which both challenged them and spurred their faith into action. In the middle of the Bible, we’re told, “ Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom ” ( Psalm 45:6 ). Toward the end of the Bible, we’re told, “ God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness ” ( Hebrews 12:10 ).

So, does God’s glory and purity permeate your life?

Yes! Now is the time to confess any known sins and embrace God’s holiness anew.

4. God Is Love

Jesus and His apostles didn’t invent the idea of God’s love. Far from it!

Remember the Lord’s sacred name, YHWH? Here’s the first part of how the Lord Himself defines it: “ Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD, and he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin ’” ( Exodus 34:5-7 ).

Did you notice the word “love” appears twice?

Actually, “God” and “love” appear adjacent to each other many, many times throughout the Bible, especially in the New Testament. The most famous of those verses is John 3:16 . Other famous verses about God’s love include Romans 5:5 , Romans 5:8 , and Romans 8:38-39 . Still, others include 1 John 4:7-10 , 1 John 4:16 , and 1 John 4:19 . But it’s not enough to just know about God’s love.

So, does God’s graciousness and passion permeate your life?

Yes! Open your heart and arms to receive His love right now.

5. God Is Omnipotent

When we think about who God is, we can’t finish before we talk about Him as all-knowing (omniscient). This doesn’t mean God knows all the facts in the universe. Well, that’s true; He does, but God knows much, much more.

Remember phone books? A million facts, but none that could change your life. By themselves, facts are just facts. God not only has all knowledge but also has all- discernment , all-insight, all-understanding, all-wisdom, and “way-above-our-heads” ways.

The Lord puts it this way: “‘ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts ’” ( Isaiah 55:8-9 ).

In other words, “God alone knows” multiplied by eternity and infinity.

None of us knows 0.000001% of everything that’s true and right and important and life-changing. So, why in the world are we ever tempted to think we know better than God? Do we know better than Him how to run our lives? Not a chance!

So, does God’s mystery permeate your life?

Yes! Humbly acknowledge His higher, heavenly wisdom and ways today.

The works of God refer to the actions or deeds attributed to God as revealed in the Bible. These works exhibit God's nature, character, and purpose in relation to creation and humanity. Here are three of the most significant examples of God's works in the Bible:

Creation: One of the most fundamental works of God described in the Bible is the creation of the universe. In the book of Genesis, God is described as the creator of the heavens and the earth, bringing order out of chaos and filling the world with life. This act of creation demonstrates God's power, wisdom, and sovereignty over all things.

Redemption: Another significant work of God in the Bible is the redemption of humanity through Jesus Christ. God sent his Son, Jesus, to earth to save humanity from sin and reconcile them to himself. This act of redemption is seen as the ultimate expression of God's love and mercy towards humanity, demonstrating his desire to restore broken relationships and offer the gift of salvation.

Providence: God's providential care and guidance over creation and human history is also highlighted in the Bible. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, God is portrayed as actively involved in the lives of individuals and nations, working out his purposes in the world. This work of providence is seen as a reflection of God's faithfulness, wisdom, and concern for his creation. This providence continues today through the active work of the Holy Spirit .

Who is God, According to the Bible?

John 4:24 - God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Numbers 23:19 - God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Exodus 3:14 - God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

1 John 4:16 - So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Revelation 1:8 - “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

God Is More Than We Can Know

In this article, I don’t want to imply that five words alone can describe who God is. Believe me, I know He is much more!

When I read Scripture, I’m reminded that the Lord God is One in Three (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) infinitely and eternally.

When I’m stressed, I remember the Lord’s presence is with me and thank Him for His infinite and eternal joy and peace.

When I’ve sinned, I recall the Lord’s holiness and love and thank Him for His marvelous, amazing mercy and grace.

Bottom line: Don’t forget to experience who God is each day — so you can enjoy life to the full!

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15 Amazing Attributes of God: What They Mean and Why They Matter

What are God’s attributes? When we talk about the attributes of God, we are trying to answer questions like, Who is God, What is God like, and What kind of God is he? An attribute of God is something true about him. While fully comprehending who God is impossible for us as limited beings, God does make himself known in a variety of ways, and through what he reveals about himself in his Word and in his creation, we can begin to wrap our minds around our awesome Creator and God.

God is unlike anything or anyone we could ever know or imagine. He is one of a kind, unique and without comparison. Even describing him with mere words truly falls short of capturing who he is – our words simply cannot to justice to describe our holy God.

Still, God possess attributes that we can know (even in just in part) and he’s given us his Word as a means to understand himself. We’ve complied a list of 15 of God’s attributes; some are what theologians call “incommunicable” (qualities possessed by God alone) and others are “communicable” (qualities that both God and we possess, though only he possesses them perfectly).

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Here are 15 attributes of God, what they mean and why they matter:

1. God Is Infinite – He is Self-Existing, Without Origin

"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." - Colossians 1:17

“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” – Psalm 147:5

The fact that God is self-existent -- that he was created by nothing and has always existed forever -- is perhaps one of the hardest attributes of God for the believer to understand. In our limitedness, grasping the nature of our limitless God is like holding onto water as it rages down a river. Indeed, Tozer writes this about the confusing, head-spinning attribute of God’s infinity:

‘To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him.”

In his article on Christianity.com, Dr. Adrian Rogers writes about the self-existence of God: “The name Jehovah is used some 6,800 times in the Bible. It is the personal covenant name of Israel's God. In the King James Version of the Bible, it's translated Lord God. Not only does it speak of God's strength, but also it speaks of the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God. The root of this name means "self-existing," one who never came into being, and one who always will be. When Moses asked God, "Who shall I tell Pharaoh has sent me?" God said, "I AM THAT I AM." Jehovah or Yahweh is the most intensely sacred name to Jewish scribes and many will not even pronounce the name. When possible, they use another name.”

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2. God Is Immutable – He Never Changes

“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” Malachi 3:6

God does not change. Who he is never changes. His attributes are the same from before the beginning of time into eternity. His character never changes – he never gets “better” or “worse.” His plans do not change. His promises do not change.

This ought to be a source of incredible joy for believers. Sam Storms writes this about the good news of God’s unchanging nature: “What all this means, very simply, is that God is dependable! Our trust in him is therefore a confident trust, for we know that he will not, indeed cannot, change. His purposes are unfailing, his promises unassailable. It is because the God who promised us eternal life is immutable that we may rest assured that nothing, not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword shall separate us from the love of Christ. It is because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever that neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not even powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord ( Rom. 8:35-39 )!”

3. God Is Self-Sufficient – He Has No Needs

“For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” – John 5:26

As limited humans, we have incredible needs, which left unfulfilled, result in death. God, however, has never once been in need of anything. As Tim Temple writes , “God is perfectly complete within his own being.”

In a blog post on Reformation21.org, Scott Swain writes that the self-sufficiency of God means he “possesses infinite riches of being, wisdom, goodness, and power in and of himself (Gen 17:1; John 5:26 ; Eph 3:16 ). Because he possesses these unfathomable riches in the perfect knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 11.25-27; John 17:24-26 ), God is the "blessed" or "happy" God (1 Tim 1.11; 6:15).”

Because God is self-sufficient, we can go to him to satisfy all our needs. We never have to worry about “drying up” his never-ending well of goodness, peace , mercy and grace. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” ( Ephesians 3:20 )

4. God is Omnipotent – He Is All Powerful

“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” – Psalm 33:6

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. If he comes along and confines you in prison and convenes a court, who can oppose him? Surely he recognizes deceivers; and when he sees evil, does he not take note?” – Job 11:7-11

Omnipotent means to have unlimited power (omni = all; potent = powerful). God is able and powerful to do anything he wills without any effort on his part.

It’s important to note the “anything he wills” part of that statement because God cannot do anything contradictory or contrary to His nature. Hebrews 6:18 puts it like this: “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.”

In his devotional Forward, Ron Moore puts it like this : “God's attribute of omnipotence means that God is able to do all that He desires to do. When He plans something, it will come to be. If He purposes something, it will happen. Nothing can prevent His plan. When His hand is stretched out to do something, no one can turn it back. Omnipotence comes from two Latin words. Omni means "all," and potens means "powerful." God's decisions are always in line with His character, and He has all the power to do whatever He decides to do.”

“ Scripture is clear that God is strong and mighty ( Psalm 24:8 ). Nothing is too hard for Him to accomplish ( Genesis 18:14 ; Jeremiah 32:17 , 27; Luke 1:37 ). Often God is called "Almighty," describing Him as the One who possesses all power and authority ( 2 Corinthians 6:18 ; Revelation 1:8 ). In fact, Paul says that God is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" ( Ephesians 3:20 ).”

“Although such power might seem frightful, remember that God is good. He can do anything according to His infinite ability, but will do only those things that are consistent with Himself. That’s why He can’t lie, tolerate sin, or save impenitent sinners.” – John MacArthur

5. God Is Omniscient – He Is All-Knowing

“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” - Isaiah 46:9-10

God is omniscient, which means he knows everything. Debbie McDaniel writes this about the omniscience of God , “He can be everywhere, at the same time. And He never sleeps or slumbers, He's aware every moment of every day, exactly what we're up against. He knows our way, and is with us always. There's no place on this earth we can go that He doesn't see and know of.”

Tozer writes this about God’s omniscience: “God perfectly knows Himself and, being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known. And this He knows instantly and with a fullness of perfection that includes every possible item of knowledge concerning everything that exists or could have existed anywhere in the universe at any time in the past or that may exist in the centuries or ages yet unborn.”

Because God is all-knowing, we can trust that he knows everything we’re going through today and everything we will go through tomorrow. When we meditate on this truth, especially in light of his other attributes of goodness and love, it makes it easier to trust him with all we have going on in our lives, from the very serious to the silly and mundane.

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6. God Is Omnipresent – He Is Always Everywhere

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven , You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.” Psalm 139:7-10

“‘Am I a God at hand,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” - Jeremiah 23:23-24

To be omnipresent is to be in all places, at all times. Yet, it is important to understand that for God, “to be” in a place is not the same way we are in a place. “God’s being is all together different from physical matter,” the website Ligonier.org explains . “He exists on a plane wholly distinguishable from the one readily available to the five senses.”

Nevertheless, he is with us. The fullness of his presence is all around us. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” The psalmist proclaims God’s omnipresence in Psalm 137 .

This ought to bring deep comfort to Christians who struggle with loneliness and deep sorrow. In a very real way, God is always near us, “closer than our thoughts,” writes Tozer. “The knowledge that we are never alone calms the troubled sea of our lives and speaks peace to our soul.”

7. God Is Wise – He Is Full of Perfect, Unchanging Wisdom

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” – Romans 11:33

Wisdom is more than just head knowledge and intelligence. A truly wise person is someone who understands all the facts and makes the best decisions. A wise person uses his heart, soul, and mind together with skill and competence. But even the wisest man on earth would never come close to being as wise as God.

God is infinitely wise, consistently wise, and perfectly wise. Tozer writes, “Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.”

Indeed, when we see wisdom like this, we realize just how much our limited, finite wisdom compares with the limitless, infinite wisdom of God. And how comforting and wonderful this is for man to dwell on! The fact that God can never be more wise means he is always doing the wisest thing in our lives. No plan we could make for our lives could be better than the plan he has already crafted and is carrying out for us. We might not understand his ways today, but we can trust that because God is infinitely wise, he truly is working all things out in the best possible way.

8. God Is Faithful – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly True

"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands." - Deut 7:9

“[I]f we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13

As with all of God’s attributes, they are not separate, isolated traits but interconnected parts of his perfect whole being. So his faithfulness cannot be understood apart from his immutability, the fact that he never changes. So when we read that God remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself, we see these his attributes working together. The fact that he is unchanging means he can never not be faithful.

A. W. Pink writes this about God’s faithfulness : “God is true. His Word of Promise is sure. In all His relations with His people God is faithful. He may be safely relied upon. No one ever yet really trusted Him in vain. We find this precious truth expressed almost everywhere in the Scriptures, for His people need to know that faithfulness is an essential part of the Divine character. This is the basis of our confidence in Him.”

The fact that God is infinitely, unchangingly faithful means that he never forgets anything, never fails to do anything he has set out to do, never changes his mind or takes back a promise. And his faithfulness pours out from his love, so we can trust Paul’s word that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

Of course, we don’t always understand or see how his plan is faithful. In our limited understanding and finite minds, God’s faithfulness might look a lot like abandonment. For how could a faithful God allow his children to suffer, to hurt, to die? But Christians can take comfort in these moments by remembering these attributes of God , for when we go through hard times, we know that God is nevertheless unchangingly faithful, good, always with us and wise. Faithfully trusting in who God says he is a great comfort. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

9. God Is Good – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly Kind and Full of Good Will

“O, taste and see that the Lord is good” – Psalm 34:8

According to Tozer, the goodness of God “disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.”

Just like his other attributes, God’s goodness exists within his immutability and infinite nature so that he is unchangingly, always good. His mercy flows from his goodness. “In his goodness to us, we see that He has purposed to be good in a special way to his people” ( Ligonier.com ).

As with God’s other perfect attributes, Christians find it easier to affirm the goodness of God when things are going well. When life takes a nosedive, though, that’s when we begin to question God’s goodness to and for us.

When the Psalmist writes, “O, taste and see that the Lord is good,” ( Psalm 34 ), He is inviting us not just to believe that God is good but to experience God’s goodness. And, interestingly, as Desiring God writer Andrew Wilson notes in his article on the subject of God’s goodness, “the psalmist affirms his experience of God’s goodness from a place of suffering. In verse 19, he makes the remarkable announcement, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Even with a good God, who is sovereign over everything and has the power to do whatever he likes, good people still suffer. His punchline, though, comes in the next phrase: “but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.” Evil happens, but “none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned” (34:22).

10. God Is Just – He Is Infinitely, Unchangeably Right and Perfect in All He Does

"The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” – Duet 32:4

What does it mean that God is just? It means more than he is simply fair. It means he always does what is right and good toward all men. Likewise, although this is hard for many to accept, his sentencing of evil, unrepentant sinners to hell is also right and good.

A natural question that arises from this is, how then can a just God justify the unjust (as each of us are without Christ!)? Tozer answers this by reminding us that we find the answer through the Christian doctrine of justification and redemption. “Through the work of Christ in atonement, justice is not violated but satisfied when God spares a sinner.”

In light of God’s other attributes of goodness, mercy, love, and grace, some might, in error, say that God is too kind to punish the ungodly. But to believe this means we dull the reality of his infinite, unchanging justice. God will have justice for sin, either from Christ’s atoning death or, for those who will not accept it, eternal wrath in hell.

“Let’s assume that all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God. From the mass of humanity, God sovereignly decides to give mercy to some of them. What do the rest get? They get justice. The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. Nobody gets injustice” - R. C. Sproul

11. God Is Merciful – He is Infinitely, Unchangeably Compassionate and Kind

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." - Romans 9:15-16

As noted above, God’s mercy is inseparable from his justness. He is infinitely, unchangeably, unfailingly merciful – forgiving, lovingly kind toward us. He is inexhaustibly, actively compassionate. His mercy is also undeserved by us. Spurgeon writes that “It is undeserved mercy, as indeed all true mercy must be, for deserved mercy is only a misnomer for justice. There was no right on the sinner's part, to the saving mercy of the Most High God. Had the rebel been doomed at once to eternal fire — he would have justly merited the doom; and if delivered from wrath, sovereign love alone has found a cause, for there was none in the sinner himself. “

Without the mercy of God, we would have no hope of heaven. Because of our disobedient hearts, we deserve death. “For all have sinned and fall short glory of God,” and “ the wages of sin is death .” But because of mercy, we don’t get what we deserve. Instead, because of the mercy of God, we get life through faith in Christ.

Tozer writes this about the mercy of God. “As judgment is God’s justice confronting moral inequity, so mercy is the goodness of God confronting human suffering and guilt. Were there no guilt in the world, no pain and no tears, God would yet be infinitely merciful; but His mercy might well remain hidden in His heart, unknown to the created universe. No voice would be raised to celebrate the mercy of which none felt the need. It is human misery and sin that call forth the divine mercy.”

12. God Is Gracious – God Is Infinitely Inclined to Spare the Guilty

"The LORD is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness." – Psalm 145:8

If mercy is not getting what we do deserve (damnation), grace is getting what we don’t deserve (eternal life). “As mercy is God’s goodness confronting human misery and guilt,” Tozer writes, “so grace is His goodness directed toward human debt and demerit. It is by his grace that God imputes merit where none previously existed and declares no debt to be where one had been before.”

Because grace is a part of who God is and not just an action he bestows, it means we can trust that grace is eternal. His grace is something we do not earn or lose (“For it is by grace you have been saved , through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…” Eph. 2:8 ). His grace is also sovereign. “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious” ( Exodus 33:19 ).

When talking about the grace of God, theologians will often differentiate between God’s common grace and his saving grace. Christianity Today writer Patrick Mabilog writes this about the difference. “His common grace is a gift to all of mankind. It is the reason that everyone – Christian or non-Christian - enjoys the blessings of life, provision and abundance. Matthew 5:45 tells us, ‘For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.’”

While all of humanity benefits from common grace, only those who profess believe and put their faith in Christ receive saving grace. This is what results in our sanctification and our glorification of God, that we might live for him and enjoy him for all eternity.

13. God Is Loving – God Infinitely, Unchangingly Loves Us

“Beloved, let us love one another , for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love .” - 1 John 4:7-8

Love. The word “staggers before its task of even describing the reality,” writes R.C. Sproul in his book, God’s Love . As with all attributes, we can only begin to comprehend God’s love in light of his other attributes. The love of God is eternal, sovereign, unchanging, and infinite.

“It is a strange and beautiful eccentricity of the free God,” Tozer writes, “that He has allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with men. Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it. Free as He is, He has let His heart be bound to us forever. God’s love is active, drawing us to himself. His love is personal. He doesn’t love humanity in some vague sense, he loves humans. He loves you and me. And his love for us knows no beginning and no end.

14. God Is Holy – He is Infinitely, Unchangingly Perfect

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord Almighty” – Revelation 4:8

The word holy means sacred, set apart, revered, or devine. And yet none of those words is adequate to describe the awesome holiness of our God. John MacArthur writes this about God’s holiness : “Of all the attributes of God, holiness is the one that most uniquely describes Him and in reality is a summation of all His other attributes. The word holiness refers to His separateness, His otherness, the fact that He is unlike any other being. It indicates His complete and infinite perfection. Holiness is the attribute of God that binds all the others together.”

That God is holy means he is endlessly, always perfect. And his standard for us is perfection as well. “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:48 . That’s why we need Christ. Without Christ taking the place for us and dying for our sins, we would all fall short of God’s holy standard. Tozer says this about what God’s holiness demands:

“Since God’s first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure. To preserve His creation God must destroy whatever would destroy it. When He arises to put down iniquity and save the world from irreparable moral collapse, He is said to be angry. Every wrathful judgment in the history of the world has been a holy act of preservation. The holiness of God, the wrath of God , and the health of the creation are inseparably united. God’s wrath is His utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys.”

Thankfully, the Christian will never have to experience God’s holy wrath poured out. Through Christ’s death and resurrection , the penalty for our sins was paid and we were imputed (credited) with Christ’s righteousness. Now, when God looks on us, he sees Christ’s perfect holiness. Hallelujah! It is only in this that we can hope to stand in the presence of the blindingly pure, perfect, Holy One of Israel.

15. God Is Glorious – He is Infinitely Beautiful and Great

“His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power.” - Habakkuk 3:4

John Piper defines God’s glory like this : “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections. The infinite beauty—and I am focusing on the manifestation of his character and his worth and his attributes — all of his perfections and greatness are beautiful as they are seen, and there are many of them. That is why I use the word manifold.”

Ligonier.org writes this about the glory of God : “When we think of the glory of the Lord, the image of brilliant light often comes to our minds. That is certainly appropriate, as Scripture often describes the glory of God in terms of a light that shines brighter than anything that we experience on earth.”

The glory of God is of course, inseparable from his other attributes, so God is eternally, infinitely, unchangingly glorious. His radiance and beauty emanate from all that his is and all that he does. Isaiah 43:7 says that man was created by God for his glory. So our whole existence and purpose is to glorify him, as we are created in his image and do the good work he has prepared for us to do. Inevitably, man will try to find glory in other things, or to try and make himself an object of glory. And when those things fail to bring us satisfaction, we must decide to humble ourselves and turn our gaze back to the only one who is worthy of glory.

Discovering God’s Purpose for Your Life

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Discovering God's Purpose for your Life

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How can we gain this confidence? To be sure, we can’t work it up on our own through human optimism and positive thinking. Rather, it is produced by the Holy Spirit, who works primarily (though not exclusively) through Holy Scripture, which He uses to enlighten our minds and kindle faith in our hearts (Rom. 10:17).

God’s purpose for our life has two major aspects: (1) His purpose in the world to come and (2) His purpose in the present world. These are intricately intertwined, and it is important to approach our need for guidance in the present world, which seem so urgent, in the context of God’s larger purposes. Once we situate ourselves in this framework, we can more readily discern and embrace God’s purposes in the unique circumstances of our lives.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that the God of the Bible is a God of purpose. And not just general purposes but specific ones. He is the supreme, long-term strategic planner of the universe. He does nothing in a random or haphazard manner. And His purposes extend from eternity past to eternity future, encompassing not only the ultimate destiny of His creation, but our personal lives, as well.

God’s Purpose in the World to Come

The first chapter of the Bible sets the stage: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). 1 God employs His immense power and wisdom to create the world in which He intends to work out His purposes. Hints of this purpose emerge in the verses that follow. From this opening scene, we can rightly conclude that such a God is well able to fulfill His purposes. God Himself assures us of this elsewhere: “I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:9b–10). A number of other Scriptures say the same thing and are meant to assure and comfort us.

“The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6) The psalmists and others would later affirm this, saying, “The Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Ps. 100:5).

God demonstrates His goodness and love most clearly in the gift of His Son to be Savior of the world. What is the big plan that this good, loving, and all-powerful God is working out? Those who are reasonably familiar with the Bible will know the answer, but a brief reminder might be helpful. It begins with creation:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:27–28)

In this pre-fall world, in which there was no sin, suffering, or death, human beings were invited to live with God and to rule over His creation as benevolent stewards. The biblical story ends with the consummation, “according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:9), and once “all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). The picture is glorious:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:1–4)

divine love shall . . . be brought to its most glorious perfection in every individual member of the ransomed church above. Then, in every heart, that love which now seems but a spark, shall be kindled to a bright and glowing flame, and every ransomed soul shall be as it were in a blaze of divine and holy love, and shall remain and grow in this glorious perfection and blessedness throughout all eternity! 2

This is God’s ultimate purpose — to recreate this fallen world and to bring about a new heaven and new earth. He is redeeming a people for Himself, with whom He will dwell and with whom He will share His own glory.

God’s Purpose in the Present World

Between these two beautiful pictures of God’s original good creation and God’s new and glorious creation lies a world that has been devastated by sin, suffering, and death. Thinking about this shifts our attention from the heavenly to the earthly, from the grand masterplan to its fulfillment through redemption. When our first parents fell into sin, they plunged the world into a catastrophe that has plagued us ever since.

But in spite of this, God’s purposes continued to move toward fulfillment, initially through Abraham and the people of Israel, then finally and supremely through Jesus, God’s own Son. Jesus proclaimed the in-breaking of God’s kingdom and gave Himself up as a propitiating sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. His death appeared to have halted the kingdom dead in its tracks. But after His glorious resurrection, He commissioned His followers to go into all the world and make disciples of all people everywhere. Supercharged by the Holy Spirit, God’s kingdom spread across the Roman world in one generation. The kingdom continued to advance, as disciples of Jesus went out into the world and brought people of all nations to faith in the Messiah. Today more and more people are being brought into His family each day, people who will one day inhabit the new heavens and new earth and live in the very presence of God Himself and of Jesus Christ.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:1–10)

Paul emphasizes here that people are brought into God’s kingdom not by any good works they have done, but by God’s grace alone—His completely unwarranted, undeserved mercy and love toward them. Even more shocking, God intends that in the world to come, they shall be examples of His amazing grace, living trophies, as it were, of His great love.

Paul describes God’s people as His “workmanship,” or works of art, created in Christ to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for them to do. In the previous verse, Paul strongly emphasized that they were not saved by good works; here he emphasized that they were saved for good works. Elsewhere Paul urged believers to be “zealous for good works” and to “devote themselves to good works,” (Titus 2:14; 3:8). But for Paul, good works are never the cause of salvation, only the fruit and evidence of it! This is a crucial distinction we need to keep in mind throughout our lives, for we are prone to drift imperceptibly into thinking that our works earn points with God.

What are these good works to which we are called? Their primary manifestation is the change of heart and character that comes from the new birth—the process of becoming holy in daily life through grateful, Spirit-empowered obedience. Paul spoke of this a few verses earlier:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:3–6)

Being “holy” has two aspects: the position of being set apart as God’s child, which is conferred upon us through new birth, justification and adoption into God’s family, and the process of change (sanctification) that makes that position a progressively experienced reality. The goal of this process is to “be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), and it happens as you “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” and seek to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:1–2).

This metamorphosis unfolds as we seek to follow the teaching and example of Jesus, drawn forward by a grateful love. It is guided by Holy Scripture, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and manifested in the fruit of the Spirit, as we fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

God’s grand purpose for the world to come, then, is in the process of coming into being in the present through the redeeming and restoring work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Christ, and by the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, God is at work preparing a people to populate His new world. His purpose is to conform them to the image of Christ. This means that God’s purpose for each one of us is to be transformed in our character, such that we more fully reflect the character of our God and increasingly live a life of love and good works.

God’s Purpose Unfolds in Our Daily Life

The transformation process that shapes and prepares us for the world to come takes place in the midst of our daily lives and is multifaceted. As we saw earlier, this involves every area of personal and moral life. It also includes family, work. And ministry. Yes, God has a place of service in His kingdom for each of His children, whether they are at the top of society or the bottom or somewhere between; whether educated or illiterate. Every life is a plan of God. The Bible shows us many and varied examples of this.

Consider God’s purpose for the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Or His plan for the apostle Paul, “when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles . . .” (Gal. 1:15–16). It was said of King David, “After he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, he fell asleep” (Acts 13:36). God has plans not just for notable figures like these, but for each of us in our own generation, plans which He has “prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Our great concern and frequent prayer should be for God to fulfill his plans for our life. What a tragedy it would be to discover at the judgment seat of Christ that we had not fulfilled His purposes for our lives but our own .

Next, God calls us to respond to His grace with wholehearted surrender and the pursuit of Christlikeness. These purposes of God are general and apply to us all. Once we have embraced them, we are in the position for God to lead us into how He wants to work them out in our daily lives.

God can lead us in any way He wishes. By a direct word, as with Jeremiah (see above). Or in rare cases, a word through others, as with Paul (Ac. 21:10-11) or through unusual circumstances (Ac. 16:6-11). But normally, He works through a process using His written word, by which any other guidance must be judged. This process, which we usually find too slow, serves to draw us closer to Him in prayer, to keep us dependent on His word and Spirit, to help us surrender to His will, and to teach us about Himself and His ways. It should also move us to seek the prayer and wisdom of others in the church, teaching us to depend more on our brothers and sisters in Christ. In a word, it is a maturing process.

God’s plans unfold in the ordinary affairs of daily life, and He wants to guide us, especially in the important issues, such as which church to join, in what ways we should serve God, where we should attend school, what career we should pursue, where we should live, where we should work, who our close friends should be, whom we should marry, and when we should retire. Our choices in these matters may seem mundane, but they are not. Not only do they forge the context in which God’s plans are worked out; more important, they shape our lives and contribute to our transformation. It is an inescapable law of life that we make our choices, then our choices make us. Choices are transformative—for good or ill. Lewis noted: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.” 4 Because of this, it is important to seek God’s Fatherly wisdom and guidance in making these and other significant decisions as our lives unfold.

There are no Bible verses that will give us specific answers to questions like these. However, we can often gain insight and wisdom from relevant biblical precepts and promises. For example, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way” (Ps. 25:8–9). This means humility of heart is essential if we want God to guide us, so is reverence for God; “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose” (Ps. 25:12). Another key promise is “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Ps. 32:8). God instructs and teaches us in a variety of ways through His word and Spirit. He also counsels us with His eye on us, indicating a more personal level of guidance. So this is not a mechanical process of studying the Bible as a book of rules, regulations, policies, and procedures, then coming up with the right answer. Rather, God will personally guide and direct us through the Holy Spirit opening our understanding to the meaning and application of His word to the circumstances of our lives and the situations we face. In the verse that follows (Ps. 32:9), He warns us against being senseless and stubborn, like a horse or mule. In other words, we are not to be spiritually dull and rebellious to His guidance but rather docile and surrendered.

Seeking God’s guidance requires the wholehearted surrender and active faith described above. In practical terms, this means we commit ourselves in advance to trust God and do His will, whether we like it or not. We must resist the tendency to rely on our own understanding and instead seek God’s wisdom. This is reinforced in Proverbs, which reminds us that “whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Prov. 28:26). We find His wisdom as we “trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths” (Prov. 3:5–6). This wholehearted trust does not mean that we shouldn’t use our understanding but that we should subordinate it to God and His wisdom. This is where some of us go astray; we simply default to what appears logical to us. Others default to what “feels” right. As God’s wisdom becomes clearer, we must embrace it, for to “acknowledge” Him in all our ways means to acknowledge His lordship and submit in the obedience of faith.

When it doesn’t become clearer as quickly as we hope, we must wait on God in a posture of active trust. This can be hard. But God often uses delays to work deeply in our lives, testing our motives, deepening our faith, developing our patience, and aligning the circumstances required for His answer. Only then will we be in a position for Him to direct our paths. In seeking God’s guidance, there is also a place to “listen to advice and accept instruction” (Prov. 19:20) from older believers who are known to be wise, godly, and well grounded in Scripture. And of course all of this must be done with serious prayer (and sometimes fasting) and the confident assurance that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb. 11:6 NIV).

The fact is that not all potential candidates are equally desirable as a spouse or parent. Thus, we should go further and seek biblically derived answers to significant questions: What are the basic characteristics of a good husband or wife? What is this person’s level of spiritual maturity and commitment to Christ? Would this person join, support, and encourage me as I seek faithfully to follow Christ? Do we have compatible higher-level priorities and life goals and enough in common to sustain a healthy relationship? How compatible would we be in other ways as a couple? Is this person sufficiently emotionally healthy? What is the place for discernment and advice from parents and godly spiritual leaders?

These are a few of the important questions for which you should seek biblical wisdom when choosing a spouse with whom you can glorify God and fulfill His purposes. Next to accepting Christ as Lord and Savior, this is arguably the most important decision of life. Or consider work. We are free to choose any type of work that is not illegal, immoral, or ungodly. But here as well not all options are equally wise or God-glorifying. What does the Bible teach about our work? A very basic assumption is that God has endowed each of His children with the gifts and abilities necessary to fulfill His plans for their lives. If you did poorly in math and science while in school, you are not likely destined to become an engineer or astronaut! So an important starting point is to take account of our God-given gifts, abilities, and motivations.

These are suggestive. Once they become clear, we are able to ask: Is a given job a good fit for my gifts and abilities, strengths and weaknesses? Is it a position in which my gifts will enable me to glorify God if I perform it well? Is there a realistic possibility of being salt and light to those among whom I labor? Prayer for the Spirit’s guidance (sometimes with fasting), accurate self-understanding, godly counsel, and self-surrender are very important in making such decisions. For most Americans, this process will need to be repeated a number of times over their careers and is crucial to fulfilling God’s plans for them.

In conclusion, if we truly want to do God’s will and fulfill His plans in our lives, and if we ask Him, He will lead and empower us to do so, for He knows our hearts. Indeed, “the eyes of the Lord run to and from throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chron. 16:9a). And when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of our lives (Rom. 14:10–12; 2 Cor. 5:10), we will not have to draw back in failure but can hear Him say, “Well done!” We will have glorified and enjoyed God here on earth and shall joyfully enter the world to come, where we will glorify Him yet more and enjoy Him forever and ever!

A Special Opportunity Designed for You

Article Notes: 1 Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version. 2 Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits. 3 Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, vol. 6 (Oxford: Parker, 1857), see Ps. 148I. 4 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; reprt., San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), 92.

Thomas A. Tarrants

John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Crossway, 2003)

"God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this book, learn to live for Christ, and don't waste your life!

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Essay on God’s Importance In Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on God’s Importance In Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on God’s Importance In Life

Understanding god’s role.

Many people believe in a higher power known as God. They see God as a guide who helps them choose right from wrong. When life gets tough, thinking of God can give comfort and hope.

Learning Through Stories

Religious books are full of stories about God’s love and power. These tales teach kids about bravery, kindness, and honesty. They often look to these stories for lessons on how to live well.

Prayer and Strength

Praying to God is like talking to a friend. It can make you feel strong and calm. When you’re scared or sad, praying might bring peace and a sense of not being alone.

Belonging to a Community

Believing in God can connect you with others. Many gather in places like churches or temples to worship together. This can create a feeling of family and support among the people.

250 Words Essay on God’s Importance In Life

Many people believe in a higher power known as God. They see God as a guiding force in their lives. For those who believe, God is very important because He gives them hope and purpose. When they are scared or unsure, thinking of God can bring comfort and courage.

Learning Right from Wrong

God is often seen as a teacher of what is good and what is bad. Different religions have their own rules that God has given them. These rules help people decide how to act and treat others. With God’s teachings, they learn to be kind, honest, and fair.

Finding Strength in Tough Times

Life can be hard sometimes. When people face problems, they may pray to God for help. They believe God listens and gives them strength to get through tough times. This belief can make them feel less alone and more able to handle life’s challenges.

Bringing People Together

Belief in God can bring people together. In churches, temples, mosques, and other places of worship, people gather to pray and celebrate their faith. This creates a sense of community and belonging, which is very important in life.

Hope for the Future

Thinking about God can give people hope for the future. They believe that God has a plan for them and that everything will work out for the best. This hope can keep them going when things are difficult and can inspire them to work towards a better future.

500 Words Essay on God’s Importance In Life

Many people believe in a higher power known as God. They see God as a source of strength, guidance, and love. In this essay, we will explore why God plays a significant role in the lives of believers.

Comfort in Tough Times

Life can be hard. Sometimes, we face problems that seem too big for us to handle alone. This is where God comes in. For those who believe, God is like a friend who is always there to listen and help. When something bad happens, like losing a loved one or feeling very sad, believers find comfort in praying to God. They feel that God understands their pain and helps them through it.

Guidance for Right Choices

Every day, we make choices. Some are easy, and some are hard. Believers turn to God for help in making the right decisions. They may read holy books, like the Bible or the Quran, to learn what God teaches about living a good life. By following these teachings, they feel they can choose the path that will make them and the people around them happy.

Feeling Loved and Valued

Everyone wants to feel loved. Believers find this love in God. They think of God as a parent who loves them no matter what. This love gives them confidence. It makes them feel important and valued. When they know God loves them, they also learn to love themselves and others.

Thinking about the future can be scary. There are so many unknowns. But believers find hope in their faith in God. They trust that God has a plan for them and that everything will work out for the best. This hope helps them stay positive, even when things look uncertain.

Learning to Forgive

We all make mistakes, and sometimes we hurt others. God teaches about forgiveness. Believers try to follow this teaching by forgiving those who have wronged them. They also ask God to forgive their own mistakes. This helps them live without anger and bitterness.

Building a Community

Believing in God often brings people together. They gather to worship, celebrate, and help each other. This creates a community where people care for one another. In this community, they share their love for God and find friends who support them in their beliefs.

In conclusion, God holds an important place in the lives of those who believe. God offers comfort, guidance, love, hope, and a sense of community. These things help believers lead a fulfilling life. Whether it’s finding strength in tough times, making the right choices, feeling valued, looking forward to the future, learning to forgive, or being part of a community, God’s role is central to many people’s lives. While not everyone believes in God, for those who do, God’s importance in life is clear and deeply felt.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Goals For The Future
Essay on Goals Are Good For You
Essay on Goals And Aspirations

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Overview – The Concept of God

The concept of God in A level philosophy is the concept of God as understood by the three main monotheistic religions – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Typically, these religions agree that God has the following 4 divine attributes :

Omnipotence

Omniscience, omnibenevolence, eternal/everlasting.

However, there are a number of arguments which claim that these characteristics are incoherent or logically inconsistent.

A level philosophy looks at 3 problems with this concept of God . These are:

The problem of the stone

The Euthyphro dilemma
Omniscience vs. Free will

The divine attributes

God, as commonly understood, has a number of key characteristics. These characteristics can be described as the ‘divine attributes’ . The divine attributes are as follows:

Omnipotence literally translates as all powerful.

God is imagined to be perfectly powerful – it’s not possible for there to exist a being with more power than God.

But this doesn’t mean God can do literally anything. For example, God can’t make “triangles have 4 sides” true, because it is a logical contradiction.

Omnipotence is thus best understood as the claim that God can do anything that’s logically possible.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argued that this isn’t a real limitation on God’s power. For something to be logically impossible is for it to contain a contradiction.

However, it is argued that the concept of omnipotence is itself contradictory. For more information, see the problem of the stone .

Omniscience literally translates as all knowing.

This is to say God has perfect knowledge. He knows everything – or, at least, everything it is possible to know.

For example, it is argued that God doesn’t know what we humans are going to do in the future – because we have free will. The claim is still that God knows everything it’s possible to know – but that it is not possible to know the future. For more information, see free will vs. omniscience.

Omnibenevolence literally translates as all loving.

It’s best understood as the claim that God is perfectly good. God always does what’s morally good – He never does anything bad or evil.

There is disagreement among religious philosophers as to whether God is eternal or everlasting:

Everlasting : God exists within time
Eternal : God exists outside of time

If God exists within time, then He is everlasting . This is to say He was there at the beginning of time and will continue to exist forever.

The concept of an eternal God is more difficult to imagine. If God exists outside of time, then He has no beginning or end as these concepts only make sense within time. The 6th century theologian Boethius described God’s eternal relationship with time as:

“the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of boundless life”

So, whereas humans experience time in succession, i.e. one moment at a time, an eternal being experiences all moments simultaneously .

Building on Boethius’ description, philosophers Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann distinguish between 2 types of simultaneity :

T-simultaneity: This applies to temporal ( within time) beings, like humans. Humans can perceive two things happen simultaneously in the present moment only.
E-simultaneity: This applies to atemporal ( outside of time) beings, like God. God can perceive multiple things happening simultaneously at all times (what we would call the past, present, and future) from the perspective of an eternal present. For example, from God’s perspective, He can perceive you on your 7th birthday whilst simultaneously perceiving you on your 17th birthday.

Problems/inconsistencies

If He can’t then he’s not powerful enough to create this stone
But if He can then he’s not powerful enough to lift the stone

Either way, there is something God cannot do – which means He’s not omnipotent.

Possible response:

George Mavrodes replies to the problem of the stone by arguing that ‘a stone an omnipotent being can’t lift’ is not a possible thing – it’s a contradiction. And, as discussed in omnipotence , it’s not necessarily a limitation on God’s power to say He can’t do what’s logically impossible .

The euthyphro dilemma

The Euthyphro dilemma takes its name from Plato’s Euthyphro .

Back then, it was directed against the many Gods of ancient Greece. However, it can be adapted to the modern concept of God .

The Euthyphro dilemma looks at whether morality is created by , or independent of , God.

Applied to the moral judgement ‘torturing babies is wrong’, we can ask:

Is torturing babies wrong because God says it’s wrong?
Or, does God say ‘don’t torture babies’ because it is wrong?

If the second option is the case – in other words morality is independent of God – then it’s a challenge to God’s omnipotence . The reason for this is that God’s power would be limited by morality. God is not powerful enough to make ‘torturing babies is good’ true, for example.

But if the first option is true – and so God created morality – then God could say ‘torturing babies is good’, or whatever He wanted, and it would be true. Why, then, does God say some things are bad and not others? What reason is there for choosing the rule ‘torturing babies is wrong’ over the rule ‘torturing babies is good’? The answer, surely, is nothing and so good and bad are arbitrary. But if goodness is arbitrary, it’s hard to make sense of the claim ‘God is good’ or why anyone would praise God for being good . This presents a challenge to God’s omnibenevolence .

It seems that whichever option we choose – God creates morality or God follows morality – means rejecting a key concept of God (either omnipotence or omnibenevolence ).

We could argue that God chooses the rules of morality based on His other attributes, such as love. For example, God could have chosen to make ‘torturing babies is good’ true. However, God loves humanity and doesn’t like to see us suffer and so for this reason God chose to make ‘torturing babies is bad’ true instead. This would mean goodness and badness are not arbitrary whims but are instead grounded in some justification (God’s love).

Omniscience vs. free will

As an omniscient being, God knows everything.
If God knows everything, then He must know what I’m going to do before I do it – for example, drink beer
If God already knows that I’m going to drink the beer before I do it, then it must be true that I drink the beer
If it’s true that I drink the beer, then it can’t be false that I drink the beer.
In other words, I don’t have a choice. And if I don’t have a choice to either drink or not drink the beer, then I don’t have free will.

So, either:

God is omniscient but we don’t have free will
We have free will but God is not omniscient

A possible reply is that God’s omniscience should be understood as the claim that God knows everything it is possible to know. The whole point of free will is that it makes it impossible to know the future (that’s what ‘free will’ means). So, God is is still omniscient in the sense He knows everything that is possible to know.

Alternatively, we could respond that as an eternal being God exists outside of time and so is observing (and thus knows) our freely chosen actions of the future:

But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call “tomorrow” is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call “today”. All the days are “Now” for Him. […] He does not “foresee” you doing things tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow’s actions in just the same way – because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Does God Exist?>>>

Who Is God for You?

Who is God for you? That is a question to stop a conversation or empty a room, even of learned and devout Christians. It is at once a very personal question (since we each experience God in a unique way) and a very broad one. The phrase “for you” is important, since the God whom we Christians worship is not an abstract principle or an “unmoved mover” who created the world and let it run on its own. No, the God whom we acknowledge and worship is “for us,” has entered into personal relationship with us and cares for us both individually and communally.

On reflection we should find it easy to begin to answer the question “Who is God for you?” because we stand in a theological tradition that can help us speak about who God is. We derive that tradition from Scripture and from statements issued by early church councils. Those councils made definitions about the nature of God (one God in three persons) and Christ (human and divine). Those conciliar definitions made sense of and gave system to what the Scriptures say about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They were necessary from the perspective of history and remain foundational for Christian faith throughout the ages.

Yet if we look at the Scripture readings for Trinity Sunday, we will find a different emphasis, one that is also necessary and important. We will find that the Scriptures emphasize how we relate to God and how God relates to us. There is always a personal, relational and experiential dimension to what the Scriptures say about God. A good starting point for grasping the biblical understanding of God is the final verse (13:13) of Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. It is familiar to most Catholics today because it has become the greeting most often used at the beginning of Mass in many parishes. It can provide a useful framework for reflecting on today’s other texts from Exodus 34 and John 3:16-18.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…. The word “grace” in a theological context refers to divine favor. In Christ, God has shown favor toward us humans, a special care for us and a desire that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection we might find and enjoy right relationship with God. Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, is proof of God’s loving care for us. This recognition has been captured most memorably in the words of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Christ is God’s gift to us, the ultimate sign of God’s favor, God’s grace incarnate. How we respond to that grace is our gift to God.

And the love of God… . We often use the phrase “the love of God” to describe our response to God and our duty to love God. That is both correct and appropriate. But what comes first is God’s love for us. The Scriptures emphasize that God has loved us first and that our love for God is only a fitting response. Today’s reading from Exodus 34 is as close as the Bible comes to giving a definition of God. According to that text, the Lord is “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Every part of that statement stresses God in relationship to humankind, and it emphasizes especially God’s great love for us. This is no distant and impersonal God. This is no first principle or deity or even a “higher power.” This is a God who loves us with a mother’s love, as the Hebrew word translated “merciful” (derived from the word for womb, rechem ) suggests. This is a God who shows infinite patience with us, enters our lives, acts within our history, forgives our sins and works for our salvation. The passage from Exodus 34 goes on to remind us also of the justice of God. The two most prominent divine attributes in the Bible are justice and mercy; usually divine mercy wins out over divine justice. This is the God whom we call “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.... On Pentecost Sunday we celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles 50 days after Easter and the abiding presence of the Spirit in the church throughout history and today. The Holy Spirit guides, empowers and teaches in Christ’s place. The Holy Spirit brings us together in faith, love and hope. The Holy Spirit shapes and animates the life of the Christian community. We live our Christian lives in the fellowship, or koinonia, formed by the Holy Spirit.

This article also appeared in print, under the headline “Who Is God for You?,” in the May 12, 2008 , issue.

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Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of religion is the philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance including the nature of religion itself, alternative concepts of God or ultimate reality, and the religious significance of general features of the cosmos (e.g., the laws of nature, the emergence of consciousness) and of historical events (e.g., the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, the Holocaust). Philosophy of religion also includes the investigation and assessment of worldviews (such as secular naturalism) that are alternatives to religious worldviews. Philosophy of religion involves all the main areas of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, value theory (including moral theory and applied ethics), philosophy of language, science, history, politics, art, and so on. Section 1 offers an overview of the field and its significance, with subsequent sections covering developments in the field since the mid-twentieth century. These sections address philosophy of religion as practiced primarily (but not exclusively) in departments of philosophy and religious studies that are in the broadly analytic tradition. The entry gives significant attention to theism, but it concludes with highlighting the increasing breadth of the field, as more traditions outside the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have become the focus of important philosophical work.

1. The Field and its Significance

2.1 positivism, 2.2 wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, 3.1 evidentialism, reformed epistemology, and volitional epistemology, 3.2 the epistemology of disagreement, 4. religion and science, 5.1.1 omniscience, 5.1.2 eternity, 5.1.3 the goodness of god, 5.2.1 ontological arguments, 5.2.2 cosmological arguments, 5.2.3 teleological arguments, 5.2.4 problems of evil, 5.2.5 evil and the greater good, 5.2.6 religious experience, 6. religious pluralism, other internet resources, related entries.

Ideally, a guide to the nature and history of philosophy of religion would begin with an analysis or definition of religion. Unfortunately, there is no current consensus on a precise identification of the necessary and sufficient conditions of what counts as a religion. We therefore currently lack a decisive criterion that would enable clear rulings whether some movements should count as religions (e.g., Scientology or Cargo cults of the Pacific islands). But while consensus in precise details is elusive, the following general depiction of what counts as a religion may be helpful:

A religion involves a communal, transmittable body of teachings and prescribed practices about an ultimate, sacred reality or state of being that calls for reverence or awe, a body which guides its practitioners into what it describes as a saving, illuminating or emancipatory relationship to this reality through a personally transformative life of prayer, ritualized meditation, and/or moral practices like repentance and personal regeneration. [This is a slightly modified definition of the one for “Religion” in the Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion , Taliaferro & Marty 2010: 196–197; 2018, 240.]

This definition does not involve some obvious shortcomings such as only counting a tradition as religious if it involves belief in God or gods, as some recognized religions such as Buddhism (in its main forms) does not involve a belief in God or gods. Although controversial, the definition provides some reason for thinking Scientology and the Cargo cults are proto-religious insofar as these movements do not have a robust communal, transmittable body of teachings and meet the other conditions for being a religion. (So, while both examples are not decisively ruled out as religions, it is perhaps understandable that in Germany, Scientology is labeled a “sect”, whereas in France it is classified as “a cult”.) For a discussion of other definitions of religion, see Taliaferro 2009, chapter one, and for a recent, different analysis, see Graham Oppy 2018, chapter three. The topic of defining religion is re-engaged below in the section 4, “Religion and Science” . But rather than devoting more space to definitions at the outset, a pragmatic policy will be adopted: for the purpose of this entry, it will be assumed that those traditions that are widely recognized today as religions are, indeed, religions. It will be assumed, then, that religions include (at least) Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and those traditions that are like them. This way of delimiting a domain is sometimes described as employing a definition by examples (an ostensive definition) or making an appeal to a family resemblance between things. It will also be assumed that Greco-Roman views of gods, rituals, the afterlife, the soul, are broadly “religious” or “religiously significant”. Given the pragmatic, open-ended use of the term “religion” the hope is to avoid beginning our inquiry with a procrustean bed.

Given the above, broad perspective of what counts as religion, the roots of what we call philosophy of religion stretch back to the earliest forms of philosophy. From the outset, philosophers in Asia, the Near and Middle East, North Africa, and Europe reflected on the gods or God, duties to the divine, the origin and nature of the cosmos, an afterlife, the nature of happiness and obligations, whether there are sacred duties to family or rulers, and so on. As with each of what would come to be considered sub-fields of philosophy today (like philosophy of science, philosophy of art), philosophers in the Ancient world addressed religiously significant themes (just as they took up reflections on what we call science and art) in the course of their overall practice of philosophy. While from time to time in the Medieval era, some Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophers sought to demarcate philosophy from theology or religion, the evident role of philosophy of religion as a distinct field of philosophy does not seem apparent until the mid-twentieth century. A case can be made, however, that there is some hint of the emergence of philosophy of religion in the seventeenth century philosophical movement Cambridge Platonism. Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), Henry More (1614–1687), and other members of this movement were the first philosophers to practice philosophy in English; they introduced in English many of the terms that are frequently employed in philosophy of religion today, including the term “philosophy of religion”, as well as “theism”, “consciousness”,and “materialism”. The Cambridge Platonists provided the first English versions of the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments, reflections on the relationship of faith and reason, and the case for tolerating different religions. While the Cambridge Platonists might have been the first explicit philosophers of religion, for the most part, their contemporaries and successors addressed religion as part of their overall work. There is reason, therefore, to believe that philosophy of religion only gradually emerged as a distinct sub-field of philosophy in the mid-twentieth century. (For an earlier date, see James Collins’ stress on Hume, Kant and Hegel in The Emergence of Philosophy of Religion , 1967.)

Today, philosophy of religion is one of the most vibrant areas of philosophy. Articles in philosophy of religion appear in virtually all the main philosophical journals, while some journals (such as the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion , Religious Studies , Sophia , Faith and Philosophy , the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion , Open Theology , Analytical Theology and others) are dedicated especially to philosophy of religion. Philosophy of religion is in evidence at institutional meetings of philosophers (such as the meetings of the American Philosophical Association and of the Royal Society of Philosophy). There are societies dedicated to the field such as the Society for Philosophy of Religion (USA) and the British Society for Philosophy of Religion and the field is supported by multiple centers such as the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, the Rutgers Center for Philosophy of Religion, the Centre for the Philosophy of Religion at Glasgow University, The John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham, and other sites (such as the University of Roehampton and Nottingham University). Oxford University Press published in 2009 The History of Western Philosophy of Religion in five volumes involving over 100 contributors (Oppy & Trakakis 2009), and in 2021 Wiley Blackwell published the Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion in four volumes, with over 250 contributors from around the world. What accounts for this vibrancy? Consider four possible reasons.

First: The religious nature of the world population. Most social research on religion supports the view that the majority of the world’s population is either part of a religion or influenced by religion (see the Pew Research Center online). To engage in philosophy of religion is therefore to engage in a subject that affects actual people, rather than only tangentially touching on matters of present social concern. Perhaps one of the reasons why philosophy of religion is often the first topic in textbook introductions to philosophy is that this is one way to propose to readers that philosophical study can impact what large numbers of people actually think about life and value. The role of philosophy of religion in engaging real life beliefs (and doubts) about religion is perhaps also evidenced by the current popularity of books for and against theism in the UK and USA. Interest in the question “is religion dangerous?” (the title of a 2006 book by Keith Ward) calls for work in history, sociology, and psychology, as well was philosophy of religion.

One other aspect of religious populations that may motivate philosophy of religion is that philosophy is a tool that may be used when persons compare different religious traditions. Philosophy of religion can play an important role in helping persons understand and evaluate different religious traditions and their alternatives. See, for example, the philosophically oriented survey Religions: a Quick Immersion and Victoria Harrison’s Eastern Philosophy of Religion .

Second: Philosophy of religion as a field may be popular because of the overlapping interests found in both religious and philosophical traditions. Both religious and philosophical thinking raise many of the same, fascinating questions and possibilities about the nature of reality, the limits of reason, the meaning of life, and so on. Are there good reasons for believing in God? What is good and evil? What is the nature and scope of human knowledge? In Hinduism; A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (2018), Shyam Ranganathan argues that in Asian thought philosophy and religion are almost inseparable such that interest in the one supports an interest in the other.

Third, studying the history of philosophy provides ample reasons to have some expertise in philosophy of religion. In the West, the majority of ancient, medieval, and modern philosophers philosophically reflected on matters of religious significance. Among these modern philosophers, it would be impossible to comprehensively engage their work without looking at their philosophical work on religious beliefs: René Descartes (1596–1650), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Anne Conway (1631–1679), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), John Locke (1632–1704), George Berkeley (1685–1753), David Hume (1711–1776), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) (the list is partial). And in the twentieth century, one should make note of the important philosophical work by Continental philosophers on matters of religious significance: Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), Albert Camus (1913–1960), Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929), Martin Buber (1878–1956), Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), Simone Weil (1909–1943) and, more recently Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), Michel Foucault (1926–1984), and Luce Irigaray (1930–). Evidence of philosophers taking religious matters seriously can also be found in cases of when thinkers who would not (normally) be classified as philosophers of religion have addressed religion, including A.N. Whitehead (1861–1947), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), G.E. Moore (1873–1958), John Rawls (1921–2002), Bernard Williams (1929–2003), Hilary Putnam (1926–2016), Derek Parfit (1942–2017), Thomas Nagel (1937–), Jürgen Habermas (1929–), and others. Chris Firestone and Nathan Jacobs have done recent work highlighting the immense work on religions by modern philosophers that are sometimes ignored in secular histories of philosophy (see their The Persistence of the Sacred in Modern Thought ).

In Chinese and Indian philosophy there is an even greater challenge than in the West to distinguish important philosophical and religious sources of philosophy of religion. It would be difficult to classify Nagarjuna (150–250 CE) or Adi Shankara (788–820 CE) as exclusively philosophical or religious thinkers. Their work seems as equally important philosophically as it is religiously (see Ranganathan 2018).

Fourth, a comprehensive study of theology or religious studies also provides good reasons to have expertise in philosophy of religion. As just observed, Asian philosophy and religious thought are intertwined and so the questions engaged in philosophy of religion seem relevant: what is space and time? Are there many things or one reality? Might our empirically observable world be an illusion? Could the world be governed by Karma? Is reincarnation possible? In terms of the West, there is reason to think that even the sacred texts of the Abrahamic faith involve strong philosophical elements: In Judaism, Job is perhaps the most explicitly philosophical text in the Hebrew Bible. The wisdom tradition of each Abrahamic faith may reflect broader philosophical ways of thinking; the Christian New Testament seems to include or address Platonic themes (the Logos, the soul and body relationship). Much of Islamic thought includes critical reflection on Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, as well as independent philosophical work.

Let us now turn to the way philosophers have approached the meaning of religious beliefs.

2. The Meaning of Religious Beliefs

Prior to the twentieth century, a substantial amount of philosophical reflection on matters of religious significance (but not all) has been realist. That is, it has often been held that religious beliefs are true or false. Xenophanes and other pre-Socratic thinkers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Philo, Plotinus differed on their beliefs (or speculation) about the divine, and they and their contemporaries differed about skepticism, but they held (for example) that there either was a divine reality or not. Medieval and modern Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophers differed in terms of their assessment of faith and reason. They also faced important philosophical questions about the authority of revelation claims in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Qur’an. In Asian philosophy of religion, some religions do not include revelation claims, as in Buddhism and Confucianism, but Hindu tradition confronted philosophers with assessing the Vedas and Upanishads. But for the most part, philosophers in the West and East thought there were truths about whether there is a God, the soul, an afterlife, that which is sacred (whether these are known or understood by any human being or not). Realism of some kind is so pervasive that the great historian of philosophy Richard Popkin (1923–2005) once defined philosophy as “the attempt the give an account of what is true and what is important” (Popkin 1999: 1). Important philosophers in the West such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), among others, challenged classical realist views of truth and metaphysics (ontology or the theory of what is), but the twentieth century saw two, especially powerful movements that challenged realism: logical positivism and philosophy of religion inspired by Wittgenstein.

As a preface to addressing these two movements, let us take note of some of the nuances in philosophical reflection on the realist treatment of religious language. Many theistic philosophers (and their critics) contend that language about God may be used univocally, analogically or equivocally. A term is used univocally about God and humans when it has the same sense. Arguably, the term “to know” is used univocally of God in the claims “God knows you” and “You know London”, even though how God knows you and how you know London differ radically. In terms of the later difference, philosophers sometimes distinguish between what is attributed to some thing and the mode in which some state (such as knowledge) is realized. Terms are used analogously when there is some similarity between what is being attributed, e.g., when it is said that “two human persons love each other” and “God loves the world”, the term “love” may be used analogically when there is some similarity between these loves). Terms are used equivocally when the meaning is different as in the statement “Adam knew Eve” (which in the King James’ Bible meant Adam and Eve had intercourse) and “God knows the world” (while some of the Homeric gods did have intercourse with humans, this was not part of theistic worldviews). Theological work that stresses our ability to form a positive concept of the divine has been called the via positiva or catophatic theology . On the other hand, those who stress the unknowability of God embrace what is called the via negativa or apophatic theology . Maimonides (1135–1204) was a great proponent of the via negativa , favoring the view that we know God principally through what God is not (God is not material, not evil, not ignorant, and so on).

While some (but not all) philosophers of religion in the Continental tradition have aligned themselves with apophatic theology such as Levinas (who was non-theistic) and Jean-Luc Marion (1946–), a substantial amount (but not all) of analytically oriented philosophy of religion have tended to adopt the via positiva One of the challenges of apophatic theology is that it seems to make the philosophy of God remote from religious practices such as prayer, worship, trust in God’s power and goodness, pilgrimages, and religious ethics. According to Karen Armstrong, some of the greatest theologians in the Abrahamic faiths held that God

was not good, divine, powerful, or intelligent in any way that we could understand. We could not even say that God “existed”, because our concept of existence is too limited. Some of the sages preferred to say that God was “Nothing” because God was not another being… To these theologians some of our modern ideas about God would have seemed idolatrous. (Armstrong 2009: x)

A prima facie challenge to this position is that it is hard to believe that religious practitioners could pray or worship or trust in a being which was altogether inscrutable or a being that we cannot in any way understand. For a realist, via positiva philosophy of God that seeks to appreciate the force of apophatic theology, see Mikael Stenmark’s “Competing conceptions of God: the personal God versus the God beyond being” (2015).

Let us now turn to two prominent philosophical movements that challenged a realist philosophy of God.

“Positivism” is a term introduced by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), a French philosopher who championed the natural and social sciences over against theology and the philosophical practice of metaphysics. The term “positivism” was used later (sometimes amplified to Logical Positivism by A.J. Ayer) by a group of philosophers who met in Austria called the Vienna Circle from 1922 to 1938. This group, which included Moritz Schlick and Max Planck, advanced an empirical account of meaning, according to which for a proposition to be meaningful it needed either to be a conceptual or formal statement in mathematics or about analytic definitions (“triangles have three angles”) or about matters that can be empirically verified or falsified. Ostensibly factual claims that do not make any difference in terms of our actual (or possible) empirical experience are void of meaning. A British philosopher, who visited the Vienna Circle, A.J. Ayer popularized this criterion of meaning in his 1936 book, Language, Truth, and Logic . In it, Ayer argued that religious claims as well as their denial were without cognitive content. By his lights, theism, and also atheism and agnosticism, were nonsense, because they were about the reality (or unreality or unknowability) of that which made no difference to our empirical experience. How might one empirically confirm or disconfirm that there is an incorporeal, invisible God or that Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu? Famously, Antony Flew employed this strategy in his likening the God of theism to a belief that there is an undetectable, invisible gardener who could not be heard or smelled or otherwise empirically discovered (Flew 1955). In addition to rejecting traditional religious beliefs as meaningless, Ayer and other logical positivists rejected the meaningfulness of moral statements. By their lights, moral or ethical statements were expressions of persons’ feelings, not about values that have a reality independent of persons’ feelings.

The logical positivist critique of religion is not dead. It can be seen at work in Herman Philipse’s God in the Age of Science; A Critique of Religious Reasons (2012). Still, the criterion of meaning advanced by logical positivism faced a series of objections (for details see Copleston 1960 and Taliaferro 2005b).

Consider five objections that were instrumental in the retreat of logical positivism from its position of dominance.

First, it was charged that logical positivism itself is self-refuting. Is the statement of its standard of meaning (propositions are meaningful if and only if they are about the relations of ideas or about matters that are subject to empirical verification or falsification) itself about the relations of ideas or about matters that are subject to empirical verification or falsification? Arguably not. At best, the positivist criterion of meaning is a recommendation about what to count as meaningful.

Second, it was argued that there are meaningful statements about the world that are not subject to direct or indirect empirical confirmation or disconfirmation. Plausible candidates include statements about the origin of the cosmos or, closer to home, the mental states of other persons or of nonhuman animals (for discussion, see Van Cleve 1999 and Taliaferro 1994).

Third, limiting human experience to what is narrowly understood to be empirical seemed to many philosophers to be arbitrary or capricious. C. D. Broad and others defended a wider understanding of experience to allow for the meaningfulness of moral experience: arguably, one can experience the wrongness of an act as when an innocent person feels herself to be violated.

Fourth, Ayer’s rejection of the meaningfulness of ethics seemed to cut against his epistemology or normative account of beliefs, for he construed empirical knowledge in terms of having the right to certain beliefs. If it is meaningful to refer to the right to beliefs, why is it not meaningful to refer to moral rights such as the right not to be tortured? And if we are countenancing a broader concept of what may be experienced, in the tradition of phenomenology (which involves the analysis of appearances) why rule out, as a matter of principle, the experience of the divine or the sacred?

Fifth, and probably most importantly in terms of the history of ideas, the seminal philosopher of science Carl Hempel (1905–1997) contended that the project of logical positivism was too limited (Hempel 1950). It was insensitive to the broader task of scientific inquiry which is properly conducted not on the tactical scale of scrutinizing particular claims about empirical experience but in terms of a coherent, overall theory or view of the world. According to Hempel, we should be concerned with empirical inquiry but see this as defined by an overall theoretical understanding of reality and the laws of nature. This was not ipso facto a position that favored the meaningfulness of religious belief, but Hempel’s criticism of positivism removed their barrier for overall metaphysical accounts of reality, be these accounts theistic, pantheistic (roughly, God is everything), naturalistic, and so on. Moreover, the positivist critique of what they called metaphysics was attacked as confused as some metaphysics was implied in their claims about empirical experience; see the aptly titled classic The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (1954) by Gustav Bergmann (1906–1987).

Let us now turn to Wittgenstein (1889–1951) and the philosophy of religion his work inspired.

Wittgenstein’s early work was interpreted by some members of the Vienna Circle as friendly to their empiricism, but they were surprised when he visited the Circle and, rather than Wittgenstein discussing his Tractatus , he read them poetry by Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), a Bengal mystic (see Taliaferro 2005b: chapter eight). In any case, Wittgenstein’s later work, which was not friendly to their empiricism, was especially influential in post-World War II philosophy and theology and will be the focus here.

In the Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously in 1953) and in many other works (including the publication of notes taken by his students on his lectures), Wittgenstein opposed what he called the picture theory of meaning. On this view, statements are true or false depending upon whether reality matches the picture expressed by the statements. Wittgenstein came to see this view of meaning as deeply problematic. The meaning of language is, rather, to be found not in referential fidelity but in its use in what Wittgenstein referred to as forms of life . As this position was applied to religious matters, D.Z. Phillips (1966, 1976), B.R. Tilghman (1994), and, more recently, Howard Wettstein (2012), sought to displace traditional metaphysical debate and arguments over theism and its alternatives and to focus instead on the way language about God, the soul, prayer, resurrection, the afterlife, and so on, functions in the life of religious practitioners. For example, Phillips contended that the practice of prayer is best not viewed as humans seeking to influence an all powerful, invisible person, but to achieve solidarity with other persons in light of the fragility of life. Phillips thereby sees himself as following Wittgenstein’s lead by focusing, not on which picture of reality seems most faithful, but on the non-theoretical ways in which religion is practiced.

To ask whether God exists is not to ask a theoretical question. If it is to mean anything at all, it is to wonder about praising and praying; it is to wonder whether there is anything in all that. This is why philosophy cannot answer the question “Does God exist?” with either an affirmative or a negative reply … “There is a God”, though it appears to be in the indicative mood, is an expression of faith. (Phillips 1976: 181; see also Phillips 1970: 16–17)

At least two reasons bolstered this philosophy of religion inspired by Wittgenstein. First, it seemed as though this methodology was more faithful to the practice of philosophy of religion being truly about the actual practice of religious persons themselves. Second, while there has been a revival of philosophical arguments for and against theism and alternative concepts of God (as will be noted in section 5 ), significant numbers of philosophers from the mid-twentieth century onward have concluded that all the traditional arguments and counter-arguments about the metaphysical claims of religion are indecisive. If that is the case, the Wittgenstein-inspired new philosophy of religion had the advantage of shifting ground to what might be a more promising area of agreement.

While this non-realist approach to religion has its defenders today, especially in work by Howard Wettstein, many philosophers have contended that traditional and contemporary religious life rests on making claims about what is truly the case in a realist context. It is hard to imagine why persons would pray to God if they, literally, thought there is no God of any kind. (see Wynn 2020, chapter six)

Interestingly, perhaps inheriting the Wittgenstein stress on practice, some philosophers working on religion today place greater stress on the meaning of religion in life, rather than seeing religious belief as primarily a matter of assessing an hypothesis (see Cottingham 2014).

3. Religious Epistemology

According to the prestigious Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy , religious epistemology is “a branch of philosophy that investigates the epistemic status of propositional attitudes about religious claims” (Audi 2015: 925). Virtually all the extant and current methodologies in epistemology have been employed in assessing religious claims. Some of these methods have been more rationalistic in the sense that they have involved reasoning from ostensibly self-evident truths (e.g., a principle of sufficient reason), while others have been more experiential (e.g., empiricism, phenomenology, the stress on passion and subjectivity, the stress on practice as found in pragmatism). Also, some have sought to be ahistorical (not dependent upon historical revelation claims), while others are profoundly historical (e.g., grounded on revelation either known by faith alone or justified evidentially by an appeal to miracles and/or religious experience.

Over the past twenty years, there has been a growing literature on the nature of religious faith. Among many philosophers in the analytical tradition, faith has often been treated as the propositional attitude belief, e.g., believing that there is or is not a God, and much work devoted to examining when such belief is backed up by evidence and, if so, how much and what kinds of evidence. There has been a famous debate over “the ethics of belief”, determining what kinds of belief should not be entertained or countenanced when the evidence is deemed insufficient, and when matters of religious faith may be justified on pragmatic grounds (e.g., as a wager or venture). Faith has also been philosophically treated as trust, a form of hope, an allegiance to an ideal, commitment, and faithful action with or without belief (for a survey see Abraham & Aquino 2017; for a recent defense of religious faith without belief, see Schellenberg 2017).

The following examines first what is known as evidentialism and reformed epistemology and then a form of what is called volitional epistemology of religion.

Evidentialism is the view that for a person to be justified in some belief, that person must have some awareness of the evidence for the belief. This is usually articulated as a person’s belief being justified given the total evidence available to the person. On this view, the belief in question must not be undermined (or defeated) by other, evident beliefs held by the person. Moreover, evidentialists often contend that the degree of confidence in a belief should be proportional to the evidence. Evidentialism has been defended by representatives of all the different viewpoints in philosophy of religion: theism, atheism, advocates of non-theistic models of God, agnostics. Evidentialists have differed in terms of their accounts of evidence (what weight might be given to phenomenology?) and the relationship between evident beliefs (must beliefs either be foundational or basic or entailed by such foundational beliefs?) Probably the most well known evidentialist in the field of philosophy of religion who advocates for theism is Richard Swinburne (1934–).

Swinburne was (and is) the leading advocate of theistic natural theology since the early 1970s. Swinburne has applied his considerable analytical skills in arguing for the coherence and cogency of theism, and the analysis and defense of specific Christian teachings about the trinity, incarnation, the resurrection of Christ, revelation, and more. Swinburne’s projects in the evidentialist tradition in philosophy of religion are in the great tradition of British philosophy of religion from the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth century through Joseph Butler (1692–1752) and William Paley (1743–1805) to twentieth century British philosophers such as A.E. Taylor (1869–1945), F. R. Tennant (1866–1957), William Temple (1881–1944), H.D. Lewis (1910–1992), and A.C. Ewing (1899–1973). The positive philosophical case for theism has been met by work by many powerful philosophers, most recently Ronald Hepburn (1927–2008), J.L. Mackie (1917–1981), Antony Flew (1923–2010), Richard Gale (1932–2015), William Rowe (1931–2015), Michael Martin (1932–2015), Graham Oppy (1960–), J.L. Schellenberg (1959–), and Paul Draper (1957–). (See The Routledge Companion to Theism [Taliaferro, Harrison, & Goetz 2012] for an overview of such work.)

There have been at least two interesting, recent developments in the philosophy of religion in the framework of evidentialism. One has been advanced by John Schellenberg who argues that if the God of Christianity exists, God’s reality would be far more evident than it is. Arguably, in the Christian understanding of values, an evident relationship with God is part of the highest human good, and if God were loving, God would bring about such a good. Because there is evidence that God does not make Godself available to earnest seekers of such a relationship, this is evidence that such a God does not exist. According to this line of reasoning, the absence of evidence of the God of Christianity is evidence of absence (see Schellenberg 2007 and Howard-Snyder & Moser 2001). The argument applies beyond Christian values and theism, and to any concept of God in which God is powerful and good and such that a relationship with such a good God would be fulfilling and good for creatures. It would not work with a concept of God (as we find, for example, in the work of Aristotle) in which God is not lovingly and providentially engaged in the world. This line of reasoning is often referred to in terms of the hiddenness of God.

Another interesting development has been advanced by Sandra Menssen and Thomas Sullivan. In philosophical reflection about God the tendency has been to give priority to what may be called bare theism (assessing the plausibility of there being the God of theism) rather than a more specific concept of God. This priority makes sense insofar as the plausibility of a general thesis (there are mammals on the savanna) will be greater than a more specific thesis (there are 12,796 giraffes on the savanna). But Menssen and Sullivan argue that practicing philosophy of religion from a more particular, especially Christian, context, provides a richer “data base” for reflection.

The all–too–common insistence among philosophers that proper procedure requires establishing the likelihood of God’s existence prior to testing revelatory claims cuts off a huge part of the data base relevant to arguing for theism… For it is difficult to establish God’s existence as likely unless some account can be given of the evils of the world, and the account Christianity has to offer is unimaginably richer than any non-religious account. The Christian account, accessed through scripture, is a story of love: of God’s love for us and of what God has prepared for those who love him… It is a story of the salvific value of suffering: our sufferings are caught up with Christ’s, and are included in the sufferings adequate for the world’s redemption, sufferings Christ has willed to make his own. (Menssen & Sullivan 2017: 37–38)

In terms of the order of inquiry, it may be helpful at times, to consider more specific philosophical positions—for example, it may seem at first glance that materialism is hopeless until one engages the resources of some specific materialist account that involves functionalism—but, arguably, this does not alone offset the logical primacy of the more general thesis (whether this is bare theism or bare materialism). Perhaps the import of the Menssen-Sullivan proposal is that philosophers of religion need to enhance their critical assessment of general positions along with taking seriously more specific accounts about the data on hand (e.g., when it comes to theism, assessing the problem of evil in terms of possible theological positions on redemption as presented in ostensible revelations).

Evidentialism has been challenged on many grounds. Some argue that it is too stringent; we have many evident beliefs that we would be at a loss to successfully justify. Instead of evidentialism, some philosophers adopt a form of reliabilism, according to which a person may be justified in a belief so long as the belief is produced by a reliable means, whether or not the person is aware of evidence that justifies the belief. Two movements in philosophy of religion develop positions that are not in line with the traditional evidential tradition: reformed epistemology and volitional epistemology.

Reformed epistemology has been championed by Alvin Plantinga (1932–) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932–), among others. Reformed epistemology is “Reformed” insofar as it draws on the Reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) who claimed that persons are created with a sense of God ( sensus divinitatis ). While this sense of God may not be apparent due to sin, it can reliably prompt persons to believe in God and support a life of Christian faith. While this prompting may play an evidential role in terms of the experience or ostensible perception of God, it can also warrant Christian belief in the absence of evidence or argument (see K. Clark & VanArragon 2011; M. Bergmann 2017; and Plantinga & Bergmann 2016). In the language Plantinga introduced, belief in God may be as properly basic as our ordinary beliefs about other persons and the world. The framework of Reformed epistemology is conditional as it advances the thesis that if there is a God and if God has indeed created us with a sensus divinitatis that reliably leads us to believe (truly) that God exists, then such belief is warranted. There is a sense in which Reformed epistemology is more of a defensive strategy (offering grounds for thinking that religious belief, if true, is warranted) rather than providing a positive reason why persons who do not have (or believe they have) a sensus divinitatis should embrace Christian faith. Plantinga has argued that at least one alternative to Christian faith, secular naturalism, is deeply problematic, if not self-refuting, but this position (if cogent) has been advanced more as a reason not to be a naturalist than as a reason for being a theist. (For a stronger version of the argument that theism better accounts for the normativity of reason than alternatives, see Angus Menuge’s Agents Under Fire , 2004.)

Reformed epistemology is not ipso facto fideism. Fideism explicitly endorses the legitimacy of faith without the support, not just of (propositional) evidence, but also of reason (MacSwain 2013). By contrast, Reformed epistemology offers a metaphysical and epistemological account of warrant according to which belief in God can be warranted even if it is not supported by evidence and it offers an account of properly basic belief according to which basic belief in God is on an epistemic par with our ordinary basic beliefs about the world and other minds which seem to be paradigmatically rational. Nonetheless, while Reformed epistemology is not necessarily fideistic, it shares with fideism the idea that a person may have a justified religious belief in the absence of evidence.

Consider now what is called volitional epistemology in the philosophy of religion. Paul Moser has systematically argued for a profoundly different framework in which he contends that if the God of Christianity exists, this God would not be evident to inquirers who (for example) are curious about whether God exists. By Moser’s lights, the God of Christianity would only become evident in a process that would involve the moral and spiritual transformation of persons (Moser 2017). This process might involve persons receiving (accepting) the revelation of Jesus Christ as redeemer and sanctifier who calls persons to a radical life of loving compassion, even the loving of our enemies. By willfully subjecting oneself to the commanding love of God, a person in this filial relationship with God through Christ may experience a change of character (from self-centeredness to serving others) in which the person’s character (or very being) may come to serve as evidence of the truths of faith.

The terrain covered so far in this entry indicates considerable disagreement over epistemic justification and religious belief. If the experts disagree about such matters, what should non-experts think and do? Or, putting the question to the so-called experts, if you (as a trained inquirer) disagree about the above matters with those whom you regard as equally intelligent and sensitive to evidence, should that fact alone bring you to modify or even abandon the confidence you hold concerning your own beliefs?

Some philosophers propose that in the case of disagreements among epistemic peers, one should seek some kind of account of the disagreement. For example, is there any reason to think that the evidence available to you and your peers differs or is conceived of differently. Perhaps there are ways of explaining, for example, why Buddhists may claim not to observe themselves as substantial selves existing over time whereas a non-Buddhist might claim that self-observation provides grounds for believing that persons are substantial, enduring agents (David Lund 2005). The non-Buddhist might need another reason to prefer her framework over the Buddhist one, but she would at least (perhaps) have found a way of accounting for why equally reasonable persons would come to different conclusions in the face of ostensibly identical evidence.

Assessing the significance of disagreement over religious belief is very different from assessing the significance of disagreement in domains where there are clearer, shared understandings of methodology and evidence. For example, if two equally proficient detectives examine the same evidence that Smith murdered Jones, their disagreement should (other things being equal) lead us to modify confidence that Smith is guilty, for the detectives may be presumed to use the same evidence and methods of investigation. But in assessing the disagreements among philosophers over (for example) the coherence and plausibility of theism, philosophers today often rely on different methodologies (phenomenology, empiricism, conceptual or linguistic analysis, structural theory, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and so on). But what if a person accepts a given religion as reasonable and yet acknowledges that equally reasonable, mature, responsible inquirers adopt a different religion incompatible with her own and they all share a similar philosophical methodology ? This situation is not an abstract thought experiment. In Christian-Muslim dialogue, philosophers often share a common philosophical inheritance from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and a broad range of shared views about the perfection of God/Allah.

One option would be to adopt an epistemological pluralism, according to which persons can be equally well justified in affirming incompatible beliefs. This option would seem to provide some grounds for epistemic humility (Audi 2011; Ward 2002, 2014, 2017). In an appropriately titled essay, “Why religious pluralism is not evil and is in some respects quite good”, (2018) Robert McKim presents reasons why, from a philosophical point of view, it may be good to encourage (and not merely acknowledge) ostensibly equally reasonable worldviews. For an overview of the current state of play in philosophy of religion on the topic of religious disagreement, see “Disagreement and the Epistemology of Theology” (King & Kelly 2017).

At the end of this section, two observations are also worth noting about epistemic disagreements. First, our beliefs and our confidence in the truth of our beliefs may not be under our voluntary control. Perhaps you form a belief of the truth of Buddhism based on what you take to be compelling evidence. Even if you are convinced that equally intelligent persons do not reach a similar conclusion, that alone may not empower you to deny what seems to you to be compelling. Second, if the disagreement between experts gives you reason to abandon a position, then the very principle you are relying on (one should abandon a belief that X if experts disagree about X ) would be undermined, for experts disagree about what one should do when experts disagree. For overviews and explorations of relevant philosophical work in a pluralistic setting, see New Models of Religious Understanding (2018) edited by Fiona Ellis and Renewing Philosophy of Religion (2017) edited by Paul Draper and J.L. Schellenberg. Two other resources are also highly recommended: In God, Knowledge, and the Good , Linda Zagzebski commends the epistemic importance of practicing philosophy in a communal setting and in On Evidence in Philosophy William Lycan offers a seasoned view of how to assess the epistemic credibility of arguments by philosophers.

The relationship between religion and science has been an important topic in twentieth century philosophy of religion and it seems highly important today.

This section begins by considering the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) statement on the relationship between science and religion:

Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist. (NASIM 2008: 12)

This view of science and religion seems promising on many fronts. If the above statement on science and religion is accepted, then it seems to insure there is minimal conflict between two dynamic domains of what the Academies refer to as “human experience”. The National Academies do seem to be correct in implying that the key elements of many religions do not admit of direct scientific investigations nor rest “only on empirical evidence”. Neither God nor Allah nor Brahman (the divine as conceived of in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) is a physical or material object or process. It seems, then, that the divine or the sacred and many other elements in world religions (meditation, prayer, sin and forgiveness, deliverance from craving) can only be indirectly investigated scientifically. So, a neurologist can produce detailed studies of the brains of monks and nuns when they pray and meditate, and there can be comparative studies of the health of those who practice a religion and those who do not, but it is very hard to conceive of how to scientifically measure God or Allah or Brahman or the Dao, heaven, and so on. Despite the initial plausibility of the Academies stance, however, it may be problematic.

First, a minor (and controversial) critical point in response to the Academies: The statement makes use of the terms “supernatural forces or entities” that “are not part of nature”. The term “supernatural” is not the standard term used to refer only to God or the divine, probably (in part) because in English the term “supernatural” refers not just to God or the divine, but also to poltergeists, ghosts, devils, witches, mediums, oracles, and so on. The later are a panoply of what is commonly thought of as preposterous superstition. (The similarity of the terms supernatural and superstitious may not be an accident.) The standard philosophical term to reference God in the English language, from the seventeenth century onward, is theism (from the Greek theos for god/God). So, rather than the statement refer to “supernatural forces or entities”, a more charitable phrase might refer to how many world religions are theistic or involve some sacred reality that is not directly, empirically measurable.

Moving beyond this minor point about terminology, religious beliefs have traditionally and today been thought of as subject to evidence. Evidence for religious beliefs have included appeal to the contingency of the cosmos and principles of explanation, the ostensibly purposive nature of the cosmos, the emergence of consciousness, and so on. Evidence against religious belief have included appeal to the evident, quantity of evil in the cosmos, the success of the natural sciences, and so on.

One reason, however, for supporting the Academies notion that religion and science do not overlap is the fact that in modern science there has been a bracketing of reference to minds and the mental. That is, the sciences have been concerned with a mind-independent physical world, whereas in religion this is chiefly a domain concerned with mind (feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, and so on), created minds and (in the case of some religions) the mind of God. The science of Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton was carried out with an explicit study of the world without appeal to anything involving what today would be referred to as the psychological, the mind or the mental. So, Newton’s laws of motion about the attraction and repulsion of material objects make no mention of how love or desire or emotional need might be required to explain the motion of two material bodies to embrace romantically. The bracketing of mind from the physical sciences was not a sign of early scientists having any doubts about the existence, power and importance of minds. That is, from Kepler through Newton and on to the early twentieth century, scientists themselves did not doubt the causal significance of minds; they simply did not include minds (their own or the minds of others) among the data of what they were studying. But interestingly, each of the early modern scientists believed that what they were studying was in some fashion made possible by the whole of the natural world (terrestrial and celestial) being created and sustained in existence by a Divine Mind, an all good, necessarily existing Creator. They had an overall or comprehensive worldview according to which science itself was reasonable and made sense. Scientists have to have a kind of faith or trust in their methods and that the cosmos is so ordered that their methods are effective and reliable. The earliest modern scientists thought such faith (in what Einstein refers to as “the rationality and intelligibility of the world” (Cain 2015: 42, quoting a 1929 statement in Einstein 1954 [1973: 262]) was reasonable because of their belief in the existence of God (Cain 2015).

Whether there is sufficient evidence for or against some religious conception of the cosmos will be addressed in section 4 . Let us contrast briefly, however, two very different views on whether contemporary science has undermined religious belief.

According to Steven Pinker, science has shown the beliefs of many religions to be false.

To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that emerged from prebiotic chemicals almost four billion years ago.… We know that the laws governing the physical world (including accidents, disease, and other misfortunes) have no goals that pertain to human well-being. There is no such thing as fate, providence, karma, spells, curses, augury, divine retribution, or answered prayer—though the discrepancy between the laws of probability and the workings of cognition may explain why people think there is. (Pinker 2013)

Following up on Pinker, it should be noted that it would not be scientifically acceptable today to appeal to miracles or to direct acts of God. Any supposed miracle would (to many, if not all scientists) be a kind of defeat and to welcome an unacceptable mystery. This is why some philosophers of science propose that the sciences are methodologically atheistic . That is, while science itself does not pass judgment on whether God exists (even though some philosophers of science do), appealing to God’s existence forms no part of their scientific theories and investigations.

There is some reason to think that Pinker’s case may be overstated, however, and that it would be more fair to characterize the sciences as methodologically agnostic (simply not taking a view on the matter of whether or not God exists) rather than atheistic (taking a position on the matter). First, Pinker’s examples of what science has shown to be wrong, seem unsubstantial. As Michael Ruse points out:

The arguments that are given for suggesting that science necessitates atheism are not convincing. There is no question that many of the claims of religion are no longer tenable in light of modern science. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Flood, the sun stopping for Joshua, Jonah and the whale, and much more. But more sophisticated Christians know that already. The thing is that these things are not all there is to religions, and many would say that they are far from the central claims of religion—God existing and being creator and having a special place for humans and so forth. (Ruse 2014: 74–75)

Ruse goes on to note that religions address important concerns that go beyond what is approachable only from the standpoint of the natural sciences.

Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the purpose of it all? And (somewhat more controversially) what are the basic foundations of morality and what is sentience? Science takes the world as given Science sees no ultimate purpose to reality… I would say that as science does not speak to these issues, I see no reason why the religious person should not offer answers. They cannot be scientific answers. They must be religious answers—answers that will involve a God or gods. There is something rather than nothing because a good God created them from love out of nothing. The purpose of it all is to find eternal bliss with the Creator. Morality is a function of God’s will; it is doing what He wants us to do. Sentience is that by which we realize that we are made in God’s image. We humans are not just any old kind of organism. This does not mean that the religious answers are beyond criticism, but they must be answered on philosophical or theological grounds and not simply because they are not scientific. (2014: 76)

The debate over religion and science is ongoing (for promising work, see Stenmark 2001, 2004).

5. Philosophical Reflection on Theism and Its Alternatives

For much of the history of philosophy of religion, there has been stress on the assessment of theism. Non-theistic concepts of the divine have increasingly become part of philosophy of religion (see, for example, Buckareff & Nagasawa 2016; Diller & Kasher 2013; and Harrison 2006, 2012, 2015). Section 6 makes special note of this broadening of horizons. As noted at the outset of this entry, theism still has some claim for special attention given the large world population that is aligned with theistic traditions (the Abrahamic faiths and theistic Hinduism) and the enormity of attention given to the defense and critique of theism in philosophy of religion historically and today.

5.1 Philosophical Reflection on Divine Attributes

Speculation about divine attributes in theistic tradition has often been carried out in accord with what is currently referred to as perfect being theology , according to which God is understood to be maximally excellent or unsurpassable in greatness. This tradition was (famously) developed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4–1109). For a contemporary work offering an historic overview of Anselmian theism, see Yujin Nagasawa’s Maximal God; A New Defense of Perfect Being Theism (2017). Divine attributes in this tradition have been identified by philosophers as those attributes that are the greatest compossible set of great-making properties; properties are compossible when they can be instantiated by the same being. Traditionally, the divine attributes have been identified as omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, worthiness of worship, necessary of non-contingent existence, and eternality (existing outside of time or atemporally). Each of these attributes has been subject to nuanced different analysis, as noted below. God has also been traditionally conceived to be incorporeal or immaterial, immutable, impassable, omnipresent. And unlike Judaism and Islam, Christian theists conceive of God as triune (the Godhead is not homogenous but consists of three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth (fully God and fully human).

One of the tools philosophers use in their investigation into divine attributes involve thought experiments. In thought experiments, hypothetical cases are described—cases that may or may not represent the way things are. In these descriptions, terms normally used in one context are employed in expanded settings. Thus, in thinking of God as omniscient, one might begin with a non-controversial case of a person knowing that a proposition is true, taking note of what it means for someone to possess that knowledge and of the ways in which the knowledge is secured. A theistic thought experiment would seek to extend our understanding of knowledge as we think of it in our own case, working toward the conception of a maximum or supreme intellectual excellence befitting the religious believers’ understanding of God. Various degrees of refinement would then be in order, as one speculates not only about the extent of a maximum set of propositions known but also about how these might be known. That is, in attributing omniscience to God, would one thereby claim God knows all truths in a way that is analogous to the way we come to know truths about the world? Too close an analogy would produce a peculiar picture of God relying upon, for example, induction, sensory evidence, or the testimony of others. One move in the philosophy of God has been to assert that the claim “God knows something” employs the word “knows” univocally when read as picking out the thesis that God knows something, while it uses the term in only a remotely analogical sense if read as identifying how God knows (Swinburne 1977).

Using thought experiments often employs an appearance principle. One version of an appearance principle is that a person has a reason for believing that some state of affairs (SOA) is possible if she can conceive, describe or imagine the SOA obtaining and she knows of no independent reasons for believing the SOA is impossible. As stated the principle is advanced as simply offering a reason for believing the SOA to be possible, and it thus may be seen a advancing a prima facie reason. But it might be seen as a secundum facie reason insofar as the person carefully scrutinizes the SOA and its possible defeaters (see Taliaferro & Knuths 2017). Some philosophers are skeptical of appealing to thought experiments (see Van Inwagen 1998; for a defense see Taliaferro 2002, Kwan 2013, and Swinburne 1979; for general treatments see Sorensen 1992 and Gendler & Hawthorne 2002).

Imagine there is a God who knows the future free action of human beings. If God does know you will freely do some act X , then it is true that you will indeed do X . But if you are free, would you not be free to avoid doing X ? Given that it is foreknown you will do X , it appears you would not be free to refrain from the act.

Initially this paradox seems easy to dispel. If God knows about your free action, then God knows that you will freely do something and that you could have refrained from it. God’s foreknowing the act does not make it necessary. Does not the paradox only arise because the proposition, “Necessarily, if God knows X , then X ” is confused with “If God knows X , then necessarily X ?” After all, it is necessarily the case that if someone knows you are reading this entry right now, then it is true that you are reading this entry, but your reading this entry may still be seen as a contingent, not necessary state of affairs. But the problem is not so easily diffused, however, because God’s knowledge, unlike human knowledge, is infallible, and if God infallibly knows that some state of affairs obtains then it cannot be that the state of affairs does not obtain. Think of what is sometimes called the necessity of the past. Once a state of affairs has obtained, it is unalterably or necessarily the case that it did occur . If the future is known precisely and comprehensively, isn’t the future like the past, necessarily or unalterably the case? If the problem is put in first-person terms and one imagines God foreknows you will freely turn to a different entry in this Encyclopedia (moreover, God knows with unsurpassable precision when you will do so, which entry you will select and what you will think about it), then an easy resolution of the paradox seems elusive. To highlight the nature of this problem, imagine God tells you what you will freely do in the next hour. Under such conditions, is it still intelligible to believe you have the ability to do otherwise if it is known by God as well as yourself what you will indeed elect to do? Self-foreknowledge, then, produces an additional related problem because the psychology of choice seems to require prior ignorance about what will be choose.

Various replies to the freedom-foreknowledge debate have been given. Some adopt compatibilism, affirming the compatibility of free will and determinism, and conclude that foreknowledge is no more threatening to freedom than determinism. While some prominent philosophical theists in the past have taken this route (most dramatically Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)), this seems to be the minority position in philosophy of religion today (exceptions include Paul Helm, John Fischer, and Lynne Baker). A second position adheres to the libertarian outlook, which insists that freedom involves a radical, indeterminist exercise of power, and concludes that God cannot know future free action. What prevents such philosophers from denying that God is omniscient is that they contend there are no truths about future free actions, or that while there are truths about the future, God either cannot know those truths (Swinburne) or freely decides not to know them in order to preserve free choice (John Lucas). On the first view, prior to someone’s doing a free action, there is no fact of the matter that he or she will do a given act. This is in keeping with a traditional, but controversial, interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy of time and truth. Aristotle may have thought it was neither true nor false prior to a given sea battle whether a given side would win it. Some theists, such as Richard Swinburne, adopt this line today, holding that the future cannot be known. If it cannot be known for metaphysical reasons, then omniscience can be analyzed as knowing all that it is possible to know . That God cannot know future free action is no more of a mark against God’s being omniscient than God’s inability to make square circles is a mark against God’s being omnipotent. Other philosophers deny the original paradox. They insist that God’s foreknowledge is compatible with libertarian freedom and seek to resolve the quandary by claiming that God is not bound in time (God does not so much foreknow the future as God knows what for us is the future from an eternal viewpoint) and by arguing that the unique vantage point of an omniscient God prevents any impingement on freedom. God can simply know the future without this having to be grounded on an established, determinate future. But this only works if there is no necessity of eternity analogous to the necessity of the past. Why think that we have any more control over God’s timeless belief than over God’s past belief? If not, then there is an exactly parallel dilemma of timeless knowledge. For outstanding current analysis of freedom and foreknowledge, see the work of Linda Zagzebski.

Could there be a being that is outside time? In the great monotheistic traditions, God is thought of as without any kind of beginning or end. God will never, indeed, can never, cease to be. Some philosophical theists hold that God’s temporality is very much like ours in the sense that there is a before, during, and an after for God, or a past, present, and future for God. This view is sometimes referred to as the thesis that God is everlasting. Those adopting a more radical stance claim that God is independent of temporality, arguing either that God is not in time at all, or that God is “simultaneously” at or in all times. This is sometimes called the view that God is eternal as opposed to everlasting.

Why adopt the more radical stance? One reason, already noted, is that if God is not temporally bound, there may be a resolution to the earlier problem of reconciling freedom and foreknowledge. As St. Augustine of Hippo put it:

so that of those things which emerge in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal presence. ( The City of God , XI.21)

If God is outside time, there may also be a secure foundation explaining God’s immutability (changelessness), incorruptibility, and immortality. Furthermore, there may be an opportunity to use God’s standing outside of time to launch an argument that God is the creator of time.

Those affirming God to be unbounded by temporal sequences face several puzzles which I note without trying to settle. If God is somehow at or in all times, is God simultaneously at or in each? If so, there is the following problem. If God is simultaneous with the event of Rome burning in 410 CE, and also simultaneous with your reading this entry, then it seems that Rome must be burning at the same time you are reading this entry. (This problem was advanced by Nelson Pike (1970); Stump and Kretzmann 1981 have replied that the simultaneity involved in God’s eternal knowledge is not transitive). A different problem arises with respect to eternity and omniscience. If God is outside of time, can God know what time it is now? Arguably, there is a fact of the matter that it is now, say, midnight on 1 July 2018. A God outside of time might know that at midnight on 1 July 2018 certain things occur, but could God know when it is now that time? The problem is that the more emphasis one places on the claim that God’s supreme existence is independent of time, the more one seems to jeopardize taking seriously time as it is known. Finally, while the great monotheistic traditions provide a portrait of the Divine as supremely different from the creation, there is also an insistence on God’s proximity or immanence. For some theists, describing God as a person or person-like (God loves, acts, knows) is not to equivocate. But it is not clear that an eternal God could be personal. For recent work on God’s relation to time, see work by Katherine Rogers (2007, 2008).

All known world religions address the nature of good and evil and commend ways of achieving human well-being, whether this be thought of in terms of salvation, liberation, deliverance, enlightenment, tranquility, or an egoless state of Nirvana. Notwithstanding important differences, there is a substantial overlap between many of these conceptions of the good as witnessed by the commending of the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) in many religions. Some religions construe the Divine as in some respect beyond our human notions of good and evil. In some forms of Hinduism, for example, Brahman has been extolled as possessing a sort of moral transcendence, and some Christian theologians and philosophers have likewise insisted that God is only a moral agent in a highly qualified sense, if at all (Davies 1993). To call God good is, for them, very different from calling a human being good.

Here are only some of the ways in which philosophers have articulated what it means to call God good. In treating the matter, there has been a tendency either to explain God’s goodness in terms of standards that are not God’s creation and thus, in some measure, independent of God’s will, or in terms of God’s will and the standards God has created. The latter view has been termed theistic voluntarism . A common version of theistic voluntarism is the claim that for something to be good or right simply means that God approves of permits it and for something to be bad or wrong means that God disapproves or forbids it.

Theistic voluntarists face several difficulties: moral language seems intelligible without having to be explained in terms of the Divine will. Indeed, many people make what they take to be objective moral judgments without making any reference to God. If they are using moral language intelligibly, how could it be that the very meaning of such moral language should be analyzed in terms of Divine volitions? New work in the philosophy of language may be of use to theistic voluntarists. According to a causal theory of reference, “water” necessarily designates H 2 O. It is not a contingent fact that water is H 2 O notwithstanding the fact that many people can use the term “water” without knowing its composition. Similarly, could it not be the case that “good” may refer to that which is willed by God even though many people are not aware of (or even deny) the existence of God? Another difficulty for voluntarism lies in accounting for the apparent meaningful content of claims like “God is good”. It appears that in calling God or in particular God’s will “good” the religious believer is saying more than “God wills what God wills”. If so, must not the very notion of goodness have some meaning independent of God’s will? Also at issue is the worry that if voluntarism is accepted, the theist has threatened the normative objectivity of moral judgments. Could God make it the case that moral judgments were turned upside down? For example, could God make cruelty good? Arguably, the moral universe is not so malleable. In reply, some voluntarists have sought to understand the stability of the moral laws in light of God’s immutably fixed, necessary nature.

By understanding God’s goodness in terms of God’s being (as opposed to God’s will alone), one comes close to the non-voluntarist stand. Aquinas and others hold that God is essentially good in virtue of God’s very being. All such positions are non-voluntarist in so far as they do not claim that what it means for something to be good is that God wills it to be so. The goodness of God may be articulated in various ways, either by arguing that God’s perfection requires God being good as an agent or by arguing that God’s goodness can be articulated in terms of other Divine attributes such as those outlined above. For example, because knowledge is in itself good, omniscience is a supreme good. God has also been considered good in so far as God has created and conserves in existence a good cosmos. Debates over the problem of evil (if God is indeed omnipotent and perfectly good, why is there evil?) have poignancy precisely because one side challenges this chief judgment about God’s goodness. (The debate over the problem of evil is taken up in section 5.2.4 .)

The choice between voluntarism and seeing God’s very being as good is rarely strict. Some theists who oppose a full-scale voluntarism allow for partial voluntarist elements. According to one such moderate stance, while God cannot make cruelty good, God can make some actions morally required or morally forbidden which otherwise would be morally neutral. Arguments for this have been based on the thesis that the cosmos and all its contents are God’s creation. According to some theories of property, an agent making something good gains entitlements over the property. The crucial moves in arguments that the cosmos and its contents belong to their Creator have been to guard against the idea that human parents would then “own” their children (they do not, because parents are not radical creators like God), and the idea that Divine ownership would permit anything, thus construing human duties owed to God as the duties of a slave to a master (a view to which not all theists have objected). Theories spelling out why and how the cosmos belongs to God have been prominent in all three monotheistic traditions. Plato defended the notion, as did Aquinas and Locke (see Brody 1974 for a defense).

A new development in theorizing about God’s goodness has been advanced in Zagzebski 2004. Zagzebski contends that being an exemplary virtuous person consists in having good motives. Motives have an internal, affective or emotive structure. An emotion is “an affective perception of the world” (2004: xvi) that “initiates and directs action” (2004: 1). The ultimate grounding of what makes human motives good is that they are in accord with the motives of God. Zagzebski’s theory is perhaps the most ambitious virtue theory in print, offering an account of human virtues in light of theism. Not all theists resonate with her bold claim that God is a person who has emotions, but many allow that (at least in some analogical sense) God may be see as personal and having affective states.

One other effort worth noting to link judgments of good and evil with judgments about God relies upon the ideal observer theory of ethics. According to this theory, moral judgments can be analyzed in terms of how an ideal observer would judge matters. To say an act is right entails a commitment to holding that if there were an ideal observer, it would approve of the act; to claim an act is wrong entails the thesis that if there were an ideal observer, it would disapprove of it. The theory can be found in works by Hume, Adam Smith, R.M. Hare, and R. Firth (see Firth 1952 [1970]). The ideal observer is variously described, but typically is thought of as an impartial omniscient regarding non-moral facts (facts that can be grasped without already knowing the moral status or implications of the fact—for instance, “He did something bad” is a moral fact; “He hit Smith” is not), and as omnipercipient (Firth’s term for adopting a position of universal affective appreciation of the points of view of all involved parties). The theory receives some support from the fact that most moral disputes can be analyzed in terms of different parties challenging each other to be impartial, to get their empirical facts straight, and to be more sensitive—for example, by realizing what it feels like to be disadvantaged. The theory has formidable critics and defenders. If true, it does not follow that there is an ideal observer, but if it is true and moral judgments are coherent, then the idea of an ideal observer is coherent. Given certain conceptions of God in the three great monotheistic traditions, God fits the ideal observer description (and more besides, of course). This need not be unwelcome to atheists. Should an ideal observer theory be cogent, a theist would have some reason for claiming that atheists committed to normative, ethical judgments are also committed to the idea of a God or a God-like being. (For a defense of a theistic form of the ideal observer theory, see Taliaferro 2005a; for criticism see Anderson 2005. For further work on God, goodness, and morality, see Evans 2013 and Hare 2015. For interesting work on the notion of religious authority, see Zagzebski 2012.)

It should be noted that in addition to attention to the classical divine attributes discussed in this section, there has also been philosophical work on divine simplicity, immutability, impassibility, omnipresence, God’s freedom, divine necessity, sovereignty, God’s relationship with abstract objects, Christian teachings about the Trinity, the incarnation, atonement, the sacraments, and more.

5.2 God’s Existence

In some introductory philosophy textbooks and anthologies, the arguments for God’s existence are presented as ostensible proofs which are then shown to be fallible. For example, an argument from the apparent order and purposive nature of the cosmos will be criticized on the grounds that, at best, the argument would establish there is a purposive, designing intelligence at work in the cosmos. This falls far short of establishing that there is a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, and so on. But two comments need to be made: First, that “meager” conclusion alone would be enough to disturb a scientific naturalist who wishes to rule out all such transcendent intelligence. Second, few philosophers today advance a single argument as a proof. Customarily, a design argument might be advanced alongside an argument from religious experience, and the other arguments to be considered below. True to Hempel’s advice (cited earlier) about comprehensive inquiry, it is increasingly common to see philosophies—scientific naturalism or theism—advanced with cumulative arguments, a whole range of considerations, and not with a supposed knock-down, single proof.

This section surveys some of the main theistic arguments.

There is a host of arguments under this title; version of the argument works, then it can be deployed using only the concept of God as maximally excellent and some modal principles of inference, that is, principles concerning possibility and necessity. The argument need not resist all empirical support, however, as shall be indicated. The focus of the argument is the thesis that, if there is a God, then God’s existence is necessary. In other words, God’s existence is not contingent—God is not the sort of being that just happens to exist or not exist. That necessary existence is built into the concept of God can be supported by appealing to the way God is conceived in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. This would involve some a posteriori , empirical research into the way God is thought of in these traditions. Alternatively, a defender of the ontological argument might hope to convince others that the concept of God is the concept of a being that exists necessarily by beginning with the idea of a maximally perfect being. If there were a maximally perfect being, what would it be like? It has been argued that among its array of great-making qualities (omniscience and omnipotence) would be necessary existence. Once fully articulated, it can be argued that a maximally perfect being which existed necessarily could be called “God”. For an interesting, recent treatment of the relationship between the concept of there being a necessarily existing being and there being a God, see Necessary Existence by Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen (2018: chapters one to three).

The ontological argument goes back to St. Anselm (1033/34–1109), but this section shall explore a current version relying heavily on the principle that if something is possibly necessarily the case, then it is necessarily the case (or, to put it redundantly, it is necessarily necessary). The principle can be illustrated in the case of propositions. That six is the smallest perfect number (that number which is equal to the sum of its divisors including one but not including itself) does not seem to be the sort of thing that might just happen to be true. Rather, either it is necessarily true or necessarily false. If the latter, it is not possible, if the former, it is possible. If one knows that it is possible that six is the smallest perfect number, then one has good reason to believe that. Does one have reason to think it is possible that God exists necessarily? Defenders of the argument answer in the affirmative and infer that God exists. There have been hundreds of objections and replies to this argument. Perhaps the most ambitious objection is that the same sort of reasoning can be used to argue that God cannot exist; for if it is possible that God not exist and necessary existence is part of the meaning of “God”, then it follows that God cannot exist.

Classical, alternative versions of the ontological argument are propounded by Anselm, Spinoza, and Descartes, with current versions by Alvin Plantinga, Charles Hartshorne, Norman Malcolm, and C. Dore; classical critics include Gaunilo and Kant, and current critics are many, including William Rowe, J. Barnes, G. Oppy, and J. L. Mackie. The latest book-length treatments of the ontological argument are two defenses: Rethinking the Ontological Argument by Daniel Dombrowski (2006) and Yujin Nagasawa’s Maximal God; A New Defence of Perfect Being Theism (2017). Not every advocate of perfect being theology embraces the ontological argument. Famously Thomas Aquinas did not accept the ontological argument. Alvin Plantinga, who is one of the philosophers responsible for the revival of interest in the ontological argument, contends that while he, personally, takes the argument to be sound (because he believes that the conclusion that God exists necessarily is true, which entails that the premise, that it is possible that God exists necessarily is true) he does not think the argument has sufficient force to convince an atheist. (Plantinga 1974: 216–217) For a recent new contribution to the ontological argument, see Brian Leftow’s Anselm’s Argument; Divine Necessity .

Arguments in this vein are more firmly planted in empirical, a posteriori reflection than the ontological argument, but some versions employ a priori reasons as well. There are various versions. Some argue that the cosmos had an initial cause outside it, a First Cause in time. Others argue that the cosmos has a necessary, sustaining cause from instant to instant, whether or not the cosmos had a temporal origin. The two versions are not mutually exclusive, for it is possible both that the cosmos had a First Cause and that it has a continuous, sustaining cause.

The cosmological argument relies on the intelligibility of the notion of there being at least one powerful being which is self-existing or whose origin and continued being does not depend on any other being. This could be either the all-out necessity of supreme pre-eminence across all possible worlds used in versions of the ontological argument, or a more local, limited notion of a being that is uncaused in the actual world. If successful, the argument would provide reason for thinking there is at least one such being of extraordinary power responsible for the existence of the cosmos. At best, it may not justify a full picture of the God of religion (a First Cause would be powerful, but not necessarily omnipotent), but it would nonetheless challenge naturalistic alternatives and provide some reason theism. (The later point is analogous to the idea that evidence that there was some life on another planet would not establish that such life is intelligent, but it increases—perhaps only slightly—the hypothesis that there is intelligent life on another planet.)

Both versions of the argument ask us to consider the cosmos in its present state. Is the world as we know it something that necessarily exists? At least with respect to ourselves, the planet, the solar system and the galaxy, it appears not. With respect to these items in the cosmos, it makes sense to ask why they exist rather than not. In relation to scientific accounts of the natural world, such enquiries into causes make abundant sense and are perhaps even essential presuppositions of the natural sciences. Some proponents of the argument contend that we know a priori that if something exists there is a reason for its existence. So, why does the cosmos exist? Arguably, if explanations of the contingent existence of the cosmos (or states of the cosmos) are only in terms of other contingent things (earlier states of the cosmos, say), then a full cosmic explanation will never be attained. However, if there is at least one necessarily (non-contingent) being causally responsible for the cosmos, the cosmos does have an explanation. At this point the two versions of the argument divide.

Arguments to a First Cause in time contend that a continuous temporal regress from one contingent existence to another would never account for the existence of the cosmos, and they conclude that it is more reasonable to accept there was a First Cause than to accept either a regress or the claim that the cosmos just came into being from nothing. Arguments to a sustaining cause of the cosmos claim that explanations of why something exists now cannot be adequate without assuming a present, contemporaneous sustaining cause. The arguments have been based on the denial of all actual infinities or on the acceptance of some infinities (for instance, the coherence of supposing there to be infinitely many stars) combined with the rejection of an infinite regress of explanations solely involving contingent states of affairs. The latter has been described as a vicious regress as opposed to one that is benign. There are plausible examples of vicious infinite regresses that do not generate explanations: for instance, imagine that Tom explains his possession of a book by reporting that he got it from A who got it from B , and so on to infinity. This would not explain how Tom got the book. Alternatively, imagine a mirror with light reflected in it. Would the presence of light be successfully explained if one claimed that the light was a reflection of light from another mirror, and the light in that mirror came from yet another mirror, and so on to infinity? Consider a final case. You come across a word you do not understand; let it be “ongggt”. You ask its meaning and are given another word which is unintelligible to you, and so on, forming an infinite regress. Would you ever know the meaning of the first term? The force of these cases is to show how similar they are to the regress of contingent explanations.

Versions of the argument that reject all actual infinities face the embarrassment of explaining what is to be made of the First Cause, especially since it might have some features that are actually infinite. In reply, Craig and others have contended that they have no objection to potential infinities (although the First Cause will never cease to be, it will never become an actual infinity). They further accept that prior to the creation, the First Cause was not in time, a position relying on the theory that time is relational rather than absolute. The current scientific popularity of the relational view may offer support to defenders of the argument.

It has been objected that both versions of the cosmological argument set out an inflated picture of what explanations are reasonable. Why should the cosmos as a whole need an explanation? If everything in the cosmos can be explained, albeit through infinite, regressive accounts, what is left to explain? One may reply either by denying that infinite regresses actually do satisfactorily explain, or by charging that the failure to seek an explanation for the whole is arbitrary. The question, “Why is there a cosmos?” seems a perfectly intelligible one. If there are accounts for things in the cosmos, why not for the whole? The argument is not built on the fallacy of treating every whole as having all the properties of its parts. But if everything in the cosmos is contingent, it seems just as reasonable to believe that the whole cosmos is contingent as it is to believe that if everything in the cosmos were invisible, the cosmos as a whole would be invisible.

Another objection is that rather than explaining the contingent cosmos, the cosmological argument introduces a mysterious entity of which we can make very little philosophical or scientific sense. How can positing at least one First Cause provide a better account of the cosmos than simply concluding that the cosmos lacks an ultimate account? In the end, the theist seems bound to admit that why the First Cause created at all was a contingent matter. If, on the contrary, the theist has to claim that the First Cause had to do what it did, would not the cosmos be necessary rather than contingent?

Some theists come close to concluding that it was indeed essential that God created the cosmos. If God is supremely good, there had to be some overflowing of goodness in the form of a cosmos (see Stump & Kretzmann 1981, on the ideas of Dionysius the Areopagite; see Rowe 2004 for arguments that God is not free). But theists typically reserve some role for the freedom of God and thus seek to retain the idea that the cosmos is contingent. Defenders of the cosmological argument still contend that its account of the cosmos has a comprehensive simplicity lacking in alternative views. God’s choices may be contingent, but not God’s existence and the Divine choice of creating the cosmos can be understood to be profoundly simple in its supreme, overriding endeavor, namely to create something good. Swinburne has argued that accounting for natural laws in terms of God’s will provides for a simple, overarching framework within which to comprehend the order and purposive character of the cosmos (see also Foster 2004).

Defenders of the cosmological argument include Swinburne, Richard Taylor, Hugo Meynell, Timothy O’Connor, Bruce Reichenbach, Robert Koons, Alexander Pruss, and William Rowe; prominent opponents include Antony Flew, Michael Martin, Howard Sobel, Graham Oppy, Nicholas Everitt, and J. L Mackie. While Rowe had defended the cosmological argument, his reservations about the principle of sufficient reason prevents his accepting the argument as fully satisfying.

These arguments focus on characteristics of the cosmos that seem to reflect the design or intentionality of God or, more modestly, of one or more powerful, intelligent God-like, purposive forces. Part of the argument may be formulated as providing evidence that the cosmos is the sort of reality that would be produced by an intelligent being, and then arguing that positing this source is more reasonable than agnosticism or denying it. As in the case of the cosmological argument, the defender of the teleological argument may want to claim it only provides some reason for thinking there is a God. It may be that some kind of cumulative case for theism would require construing various arguments as mutually reinforcing. If successful in arguing for an intelligent, trans-cosmos cause, the teleological argument may provide some reason for thinking that the First Cause of the cosmological argument (if it is successful) is purposive, while the ontological argument (if it has some probative force) may provides some reason for thinking that it makes sense to posit a being that has Divine attributes and necessarily exists. Behind all of them an argument from religious experience (to be addressed below) may provide some reasons to seek further support for a religious conception of the cosmos and to question the adequacy of naturalism.

One version of the teleological argument will depend on the intelligibility of purposive explanation. In our own human case it appears that intentional, purposive explanations are legitimate and can truly account for the nature and occurrence of events. In thinking about an explanation for the ultimate character of the cosmos, is it more likely for the cosmos to be accounted for in terms of a powerful, intelligent agent or in terms of a naturalistic scheme of final laws with no intelligence behind them? Theists employing the teleological argument draw attention to the order and stability of the cosmos, the emergence of vegetative and animal life, the existence of consciousness, morality, rational agents and the like, in an effort to identify what might plausibly be seen as purposive explicable features of the cosmos. Naturalistic explanations, whether in biology or physics, are then cast as being comparatively local in application when held up against the broader schema of a theistic metaphysics. Darwinian accounts of biological evolution will not necessarily assist us in thinking through why there are either any such laws or any organisms to begin with. Arguments supporting and opposing the teleological argument will then resemble arguments about the cosmological argument, with the negative side contending that there is no need to move beyond a naturalistic account, and the positive side aiming to establish that failing to go beyond naturalism is unreasonable.

In assessing the teleological argument, consider the objection from uniqueness. The cosmos is utterly unique. There is no access to multiple universes, some of which are known to be designed and some are known not to be. Without being able o compare the cosmos to alternative sets of cosmic worlds, the argument fails. Replies to this objection have contended that were we to insist that inferences in unique cases are out of order, then this would rule out otherwise respectable scientific accounts of the origin of the cosmos. Besides, while it is not possible to compare the layout of different cosmic histories, it is in principle possible to envisage worlds that seem chaotic, random, or based on laws that cripple the emergence of life. Now we can envisage an intelligent being creating such worlds, but, through considering their features, we can articulate some marks of purposive design to help judge whether the cosmos is more reasonably believed to be designed rather than not designed. Some critics appeal to the possibility that the cosmos has an infinite history to bolster and re-introduce the uniqueness objection. Given infinite time and chance, it seems likely that something like our world will come into existence, with all its appearance of design. If so, why should we take it to be so shocking that our world has its apparent design, and why should explaining the world require positing one or more intelligent designers? Replies repeat the earlier move of insisting that if the objection were to be decisive, then many seemingly respectable accounts would also have to fall by the wayside. It is often conceded that the teleological argument does not demonstrate that one or more designers are required; it seeks rather to establish that positing such purposive intelligence is reasonable and preferable to naturalism. Recent defenders of the argument include George Schlesinger, Robin Collins, and Richard Swinburne. It is rejected by J. L. Mackie, Michael Martin, Nicholas Everitt, and many others.

One feature of the teleological argument currently receiving increased attention focuses on epistemology. It has been argued by Richard Taylor (1963), Alvin Plantinga (2011 and in Beilby 2002), and others that if we reasonably rely on our cognitive faculties, it is reasonable to believe that these are not brought about by naturalistic forces—forces that are entirely driven by chance or are the outcome of processes not formed by an overriding intelligence. An illustration may help to understand the argument. Imagine Tom coming across what appears to be a sign reporting some information about his current altitude (some rocks in a configuration giving him his current location and precise height above sea-level in meters). If he had reason to believe that this “sign” was totally the result of chance configurations, would he be reasonable to trust it? Some theists argue that it would not be reasonable, and that trusting our cognitive faculties requires us to accept that they were formed by an overarching, good, creative agent. This rekindles Descartes’ point about relying on the goodness of God to ensure that our cognitive faculties are in good working order. Objections to this argument center on naturalistic explanations, especially those friendly to evolution. In evolutionary epistemology, one tries to account for the reliability of cognitive faculties in terms of trial and error leading to survival. A rejoinder by theists is that survival alone is not necessarily linked to true beliefs. It could, in principle, be false beliefs that enhance survival. In fact, some atheists think that believing in God has been crucial to people’s survival, though the belief is radically false. Evolutionary epistemologists reply that the lack of a necessary link between beliefs that promote survival and truth and the fact that some false beliefs or unreliable belief producing mechanisms promote survival nor falls far short of undermining evolutionary epistemology. See Martin (1990), Mackie (1983), and Tooley (see Tooley’s chapters 2, 4, and 6 in Plantinga & Tooley 2008), among others, object to the epistemic teleological argument.

Another recent development in teleological argumentation has involved an argument from fine-tuning.

Fine tuning arguments contend that life would not exist were it not for the fact that multiple physical parameters (e.g., the cosmological constant and the ratio of the mass of the neutron to the mass of the proton) have numerical values that fall within a range of values known to be life-permitting that is very narrow compared to the range of values that are compatible with current physical theory and are known to be life-prohibiting. For example, even minor changes to the nuclear weak force would not have allowed for stars, nor would stars have endured if the ratio of electromagnetism to gravity had been much different. John Leslie observes:

Alterations by less than one part in a billion to the expansion speed early in the Big Bang would have led to runaway expansion, everything quickly becoming so dilute that no stars could have formed, or else to gravitational collapse inside under a second. (Leslie 2007: 76)

Robin Collins and others have argued that theism better accounts for the fine tuning than naturalism (see Collins 2009; for criticism of the argument, see Craig & Smith 1993). For a collection of articles covering both sides of the debate and both biological and cosmological design arguments, see Manson 2003.

A more sustained objection against virtually all versions of the teleological argument takes issue with the assumption that the cosmos is good or that it is the sort of thing that would be brought about by an intelligent, completely benevolent being. This leads us directly to the next central concern of the philosophy of God.

If there is a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and completely good, why is there evil? The problem of evil is the most widely considered objection to theism in both Western and Eastern philosophy. There are two general versions of the problem: the deductive or logical version, which asserts that the existence of any evil at all (regardless of its role in producing good) is incompatible with God’s existence; and the probabilistic version, which asserts that given the quantity and severity of evil that actually exists, it is unlikely that God exists. The deductive problem is currently less commonly debated because many (but not all) philosophers acknowledge that a thoroughly good being might allow or inflict some harm under certain morally compelling conditions (such as causing a child pain when removing a splinter). More intense debate concerns the likelihood (or even possibility) that there is a completely good God given the vast amount of evil in the cosmos. Such evidential arguments from evil may be deductive or inductive arguments but they include some attempt to show that some known fact about evil bears a negative evidence relation to theism (e.g., it lowers its probability or renders it improbable) whether or not it is logically incompatible with theism. Consider human and animal suffering caused by death, predation, birth defects, ravaging diseases, virtually unchecked human wickedness, torture, rape, oppression, and “natural disasters”. Consider how often those who suffer are innocent. Why should there be so much gratuitous, apparently pointless evil?

In the face of the problem of evil, some philosophers and theologians deny that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. John Stuart Mill took this line, and panentheist theologians today also question the traditional treatments of Divine power. According to panentheism, God is immanent in the world, suffering with the oppressed and working to bring good out of evil, although in spite of God’s efforts, evil will invariably mar the created order. Another response is to think of God as being very different from a moral agent. Brian Davies and others have contended that what it means for God to be good is different from what it means for an agent to be morally good (Davies 2006). See also Mark Murphy’s 2017 book God’s Own Ethics; Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil . A different, more substantial strategy is to deny the existence of evil, but it is difficult to reconcile traditional monotheism with moral skepticism. Also, insofar as we believe there to be a God worthy of worship and a fitting object of human love, the appeal to moral skepticism will carry little weight. The idea that evil is a privation or twisting of the good may have some currency in thinking through the problem of evil, but it is difficult to see how it alone could go very far to vindicate belief in God’s goodness. Searing pain and endless suffering seem altogether real even if they are analyzed as being philosophically parasitic on something valuable. The three great monotheistic, Abrahamic traditions, with their ample insistence on the reality of evil, offer little reason to try to defuse the problem of evil by this route. Indeed, classical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are so committed to the existence of evil that a reason to reject evil would be a reason to reject these religious traditions. What would be the point of the Judaic teaching about the Exodus (God liberating the people of Israel from slavery), or the Christian teaching about the incarnation (Christ revealing God as love and releasing a Divine power that will, in the end, conquer death), or the Islamic teaching of Mohammed (the holy prophet of Allah, whom is all-just and all-merciful) if slavery, hate, death, and injustice did not exist?

In part, the magnitude of the difficulty one takes the problem of evil to pose for theism will depend upon one’s commitments in other areas of philosophy, especially ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. If in ethics you hold that there should be no preventable suffering for any reason, regardless of the cause or consequence, then the problem of evil will conflict with your acceptance of traditional theism. Moreover, if you hold that any solution to the problem of evil should be evident to all persons, then again traditional theism is in jeopardy, for clearly the “solution” is not evident to all. Debate has largely centered on the legitimacy of adopting some middle position: a theory of values that would preserve a clear assessment of the profound evil in the cosmos as well as some understanding of how this might be compatible with the existence of an all powerful, completely good Creator. Could there be reasons why God would permit cosmic ills? If we do not know what those reasons might be, are we in a position to conclude that there are none or that there could not be any? Exploring different possibilities will be shaped by one’s metaphysics. For example, if you do not believe there is free will, then you will not be moved by any appeal to the positive value of free will and its role in bringing about good as offsetting its role in bringing about evil.

Theistic responses to the problem of evil distinguish between a defense and a theodicy. A defense seeks to establish that rational belief that God exists is still possible (when the defense is employed against the logical version of the problem of evil) and that the existence of evil does not make it improbable that God exists (when used against the probabilistic version). Some have adopted the defense strategy while arguing that we are in a position to have rational belief in the existence of evil and in a completely good God who hates this evil, even though we may be unable to see how these two beliefs are compatible. A theodicy is more ambitious and is typically part of a broader project, arguing that it is reasonable to believe that God exists on the basis of the good as well as the evident evil of the cosmos. In a theodicy, the project is not to account for each and every evil, but to provide an overarching framework within which to understand at least roughly how the evil that occurs is part of some overall good—for instance, the overcoming of evil is itself a great good. In practice, a defense and a theodicy often appeal to similar factors, the first and foremost being what many call the Greater Good Defense.

In the Greater Good Defense, it is contended that evil can be understood as either a necessary accompaniment to bringing about greater goods or an integral part of these goods. Thus, in a version often called the Free Will Defense, it is proposed that free creatures who are able to care for each other and whose welfare depends on each other’s freely chosen action constitute a good. For this good to be realized, it is argued, there must be the bona fide possibility of persons harming each other. The free will defense is sometimes used narrowly only to cover evil that occurs as a result, direct or indirect, of human action. But it has been speculatively extended by those proposing a defense rather than a theodicy to cover other evils which might be brought about by supernatural agents other than God. According to the Greater Good case, evil provides an opportunity to realize great values, such as the virtues of courage and the pursuit of justice. Reichenbach (1982), Tennant (1930), Swinburne (1979), and van Inwagen (2006) have also underscored the good of a stable world of natural laws in which animals and humans learn about the cosmos and develop autonomously, independent of the certainty that God exists. Some atheists accord value to the good of living in a world without God, and these views have been used by theists to back up the claim that God might have had reason to create a cosmos in which Divine existence is not overwhelmingly obvious to us. If God’s existence were overwhelmingly obvious, then motivations to virtue might be clouded by self-interest and by the bare fear of offending an omnipotent being. Further, there may even be some good to acting virtuously even if circumstances guarantee a tragic outcome. John Hick (1966 [1977]) so argued and has developed what he construes to be an Irenaean approach to the problem of evil (named after St. Irenaeus of the second century). On this approach, it is deemed good that humanity develops the life of virtue gradually, evolving to a life of grace, maturity, and love. This contrasts with a theodicy associated with St. Augustine, according to which God made us perfect and then allowed us to fall into perdition, only to be redeemed later by Christ. Hick thinks the Augustinian model fails whereas the Irenaean one is credible.

Some have based an argument from the problem of evil on the charge that this is not the best possible world. If there were a supreme, maximally excellent God, surely God would bring about the best possible creation. Because this is not the best possible creation, there is no supreme, maximally excellent God. Following Adams (1987), many now reply that the whole notion of a best possible world, like the highest possible number, is incoherent. For any world that can be imagined with such and such happiness, goodness, virtue and so on, a higher one can be imagined. If the notion of a best possible world is incoherent, would this count against belief that there could be a supreme, maximally excellent being? It has been argued on the contrary that Divine excellences admit of upper limits or maxima that are not quantifiable in a serial fashion (for example, Divine omnipotence involves being able to do anything logically or metaphysically possible, but does not require actually doing the greatest number of acts or a series of acts of which there can be no more).

Those concerned with the problem of evil clash over the question of how one assesses the likelihood of Divine existence. Someone who reports seeing no point to the existence of evil or no justification for God to allow it seems to imply that if there were a point they would see it. Note the difference between seeing no point and not seeing a point. In the cosmic case, is it clear that if there were a reason justifying the existence of evil, we would see it? William Rowe thinks some plausible understanding of God’s justificatory reason for allowing the evil should be detectable, but that there are cases of evil that are altogether gratuitous. Defenders like William Hasker (1989) and Stephen Wykstra (1984) reply that these cases are not decisive counter-examples to the claim that there is a good God. These philosophers hold that we can recognize evil and grasp our duty to do all in our power to prevent or alleviate it. But we should not take our failure to see what reason God might have for allowing evil to count as grounds for thinking that there is no reason. This later move has led to a position commonly called skeptical theism . Michael Bergmann, Michael Rea, William Alston and others have argued that we have good reason to be skeptical about whether we can assess whether ostensibly gratuitous evils may or may not be permitted by an all-good God (Bergmann 2012a and 2012b, 2001; Bergmann & Rea 2005; for criticism see Almeida & Oppy 2003; Draper 2014, 2013, 1996). Overall, it needs to be noted that from the alleged fact that we would be unlikely to see a reason for God to allow some evil if there were one, it only follows that our failure to see such a reason is not strong evidence against theism.

For an interesting practical application of the traditional problem of evil to the topic of the ethics of procreation, see Marsh 2015. It has been argued that if one does believe that the world is not good, then that can provide a prima facie reason against procreation. Why should one bring children into a world that is not good? Another interesting, recent development in the philosophy of religion literature has been the engagement of philosophers with ostensible evils that God commands in the Bible (see Bergmann, Murray, & Rea 2010). For a fascinating engagement with the problem of evil that employs Biblical narratives, see Eleonore Stumps’ Wandering in Darkness (2010). The treatment of the problem of evil has also extended to important reflection on the suffering of non-human animals (see S. Clark 1987, 1995, 2017; Murray 2008; Meister 2018). Problems raised by evil and suffering are multifarious and are being addressed by contemporary philosophers across the religious and non-religious spectrums. See, for example, The History of Evil edited by Meister and Taliaferro, in six volumes with over 130 contributors from virtually all religious and secular points of view, and the recent The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil edited by Meister and Moser (2017).

Some portraits of an afterlife seem to have little bearing on our response to the magnitude of evil here and now. Does it help to understand why God allows evil if all victims will receive happiness later? But it is difficult to treat the possibility of an afterlife as entirely irrelevant. Is death the annihilation of persons or an event involving a transfiguration to a higher state? If you do not think that it matters whether persons continue to exist after death, then such speculation is of little consequence. But suppose that the afterlife is understood as being morally intertwined with this life, with opportunity for moral and spiritual reformation, transfiguration of the wicked, rejuvenation and occasions for new life, perhaps even reconciliation and communion between oppressors seeking forgiveness and their victims. Then these considerations might help to defend against arguments based on the existence of evil. Insofar as one cannot rule out the possibility of an afterlife morally tied to our life, one cannot rule out the possibility that God brings some good out of cosmic ills. For two recent arguments against a positive theistic appeal to an afterlife, see Sterba 2019 141–156, and Ekstrom 2021;131–155 — compare with Mawson 2016.

The most recent work on the afterlife in philosophy of religion has focused on the compatibility of an individual afterlife with some forms of physicalism. Arguably, a dualist treatment of human persons is more promising. If you are not metaphysically identical with your body, then perhaps the annihilation of your body is not the annihilation of you. Today, a range of philosophers have argued that even if physicalism is true, an afterlife is still possible (Peter van Inwagen, Lynne Baker, Trenton Merricks, Kevin Corcoran). The import of this work for the problem of evil is that the possible redemptive value of an afterlife should not be ruled out (without argument) if one assumes physicalism to be true. (For an extraordinary, rich resource on the relevant literature, see The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology , edited by J. Walls, 2007.)

Perhaps the justification most widely offered for religious belief concerns the occurrence of religious experience or the cumulative weight of testimony of those claiming to have had religious experiences. Putting the latter case in theistic terms, the argument appeals to the fact that many people have testified that they have felt God’s presence. Does such testimony provide evidence that God exists? That it is evidence has been argued by Jerome Gellman, Keith Yandell, William Alston, Caroline Davis, Gary Gutting, Kai-Man Kwan, Richard Swinburne, Charles Taliaferro, and others. That it is not (or that its evidential force is trivial) is argued by Michael Martin, J. L. Mackie, Kai Nielson, Matthew Bagger, John Schellenberg, William Rowe, Graham Oppy, and others. In an effort to stimulate further investigation, consider the following sketch of some of the moves and countermoves in the debate.

Objection: Religious experience cannot be experience of God for perceptual experience is only sensory and if God is non-physical, God cannot be sensed.

Reply: The thesis that perceptual experience is only sensory can be challenged. Yandell marks out some experiences (as when one has “a feeling” someone is present but without having any accompanying sensations) that might provide grounds for questioning a narrow sensory notion of perceptual experience.

Objection: Testimony to have experienced God is only testimony that one thinks one has experienced God; it is only testimony of a conviction, not evidence.

Reply: The literature on religious experience testifies to the existence of experience of some Divine being on the basis of which the subject comes to think the experience is of God. If read charitably, the testimony is not testimony to a conviction, but to experiences that form the grounds for the conviction. (See Bagger 1999 for a vigorous articulation of this objection, and note the reply by Kai-man Kwam 2003).

Objection: Because religious experience is unique, how could one ever determine whether it is reliable? We simply lack the ability to examine the object of religious experience in order to test whether the reported experiences are indeed reliable.

Reply: As we learned from Descartes, all our experiences of external objects face a problem of uniqueness. It is possible in principle that all our senses are mistaken and we do not have the public, embodied life we think we lead. We cannot step out of our own subjectivity to vindicate our ordinary perceptual beliefs any more than in the religious case. (See the debate between William Alston [2004] and Evan Fales [2004]).

Objection: Reports of religious experience differ radically and the testimony of one religious party neutralizes the testimony of others. The testimony of Hindus cancels out the testimony of Christians. The testimony of atheists to experience God’s absence cancels out the testimony of “believers”.

Reply: Several replies might be offered here. Testimony to experience the absence of God might be better understood as testimony not to experience God. Failing to experience God might be justification for believing that there is no God only to the extent that we have reason to believe that if God exists God would be experienced by all. Theists might even appeal to the claim by many atheists that it can be virtuous to live ethically with atheist beliefs. Perhaps if there is a God, God does not think this is altogether bad, and actually desires religious belief to be fashioned under conditions of trust and faith rather than knowledge. The diversity of religious experiences has caused some defenders of the argument from religious experience to mute their conclusion. Thus, Gutting (1982) contends that the argument is not strong enough to fully vindicate a specific religious tradition, but that it is strong enough to overturn an anti-religious naturalism. Other defenders use their specific tradition to deal with ostensibly competing claims based on different sorts of religious experiences. Theists have proposed that more impersonal experiences of the Divine represent only one aspect of God. God is a person or is person-like, but God can also be experienced, for example, as sheer luminous unity. Hindus have claimed the experience of God as personal is only one stage in the overall journey of the soul to truth, the highest truth being that Brahman transcends personhood. (For a discussion of these objections and replies and references, see Taliaferro 1998.)

How one settles the argument will depend on one’s overall convictions in many areas of philosophy. The holistic, interwoven nature of both theistic and atheistic arguments can be readily illustrated. If you diminish the implications of religious experience and have a high standard regarding the burden of proof for any sort of religious outlook, then it is highly likely that the classical arguments for God’s existence will not be persuasive. Moreover, if one thinks that theism can be shown to be intellectually confused from the start, then theistic arguments from religious experience will carry little weight. Testimony to have experienced God will have no more weight than testimony to have experienced a round square, and non-religious explanations of religious experience—like those of Freud (a result of wish-fulfillment), Marx (a reflection of the economic base), or Durkheim (a product of social forces)—will increase their appeal. If, on the other hand, you think the theistic picture is coherent and that the testimony of religious experience provides some evidence for theism, then your assessment of the classical theistic arguments might be more favorable, for they would serve to corroborate and further support what you already have some reason to believe. From such a vantage point, appeal to wish-fulfillment, economics, and social forces might have a role, but the role is to explain why some parties do not have experiences of God and to counter the charge that failure to have such experiences provides evidence that there is no religious reality. (For an excellent collection of recent work on explaining the emergence and continuation of religious experience, see Schloss & Murray (eds.) 2009.)

There is not space to cover the many other arguments for and against the existence of God, but several additional arguments are briefly noted. The argument from miracles starts from specific extraordinary events, arguing that they provide reasons for believing there to be a supernatural agent or, more modestly, reasons for skepticism about the sufficiency of a naturalistic world view. The argument has attracted much philosophical attention, especially since David Hume’s rejection of miracles. The debate has turned mainly on how one defines a miracle, understands the laws of nature, and specifies the principles of evidence that govern the explanation of highly unusual historical occurrences. There is considerable debate over whether Hume’s case against miracles simply begs the question against “believers”. Detailed exposition is impossible in this short entry. Taliaferro has argued elsewhere that Hume’s case against the rationality of belief in miracles is best seen as part of his overall case for a form of naturalism (Taliaferro 2005b).

There are various arguments that are advanced to motivate religious belief. One of the most interesting and popular is a wager argument often associated with Pascal (1623–1662). It is designed to offer practical reasons to cultivate a belief in God. Imagine that you are unsure whether there is or is not a God. You have it within your power to live on either assumption and perhaps, through various practices, to get yourself to believe one or the other. There would be good consequences of believing in God even if your belief were false, and if the belief were true you would receive even greater good. There would also be good consequences of believing that there is no God, but in this case the consequences would not alter if you were correct. If, however, you believe that there is no God and you are wrong, then you would risk losing the many goods which follow from the belief that God exists and from actual Divine existence. On this basis, it may seem reasonable to believe there is a God.

In different forms the argument may be given a rough edge (for example, imagine that if you do not believe in God and there is a God, hell is waiting). It may be put as an appeal to individual self-interest (you will be better off) or more generally (believers whose lives are bound together can realize some of the goods comprising a mature religious life). Objectors worry about whether one ever is able to bring choices down to just such a narrow selection—for example, to choose either theism or naturalism. Some think the argument is too thoroughly egotistic and thus offensive to religion. Many of these objections have generated some plausible replies (Rescher 1985). (For a thoroughgoing exploration of the relevant arguments, see the collection of essays edited by Jeffrey Jordan (1994).)

Recent work on Pascalian wagering has a bearing on work on the nature of faith (is it voluntary or involuntary?), its value (when, if ever, is it a virtue?), and relation to evidence (insofar as faith involves belief, is it possible to have faith without evidence?). For an overview and promising analysis, see Chappell (1996), Swinburne (1979), Schellenberg (2005), and Rota (2016). A promising feature of such new work is that it is often accompanied by a rich understanding of revelation that is not limited to a sacred scripture, but sees a revelatory role in scripture plus the history of its interpretation, the use of creeds, icons, and so on (see the work of William Abraham [1998]).

A burgeoning question in recent years is whether the cognitive science of religion (CSR) has significance for the truth or rationality of religious commitment. According to CSR, belief in supernatural agents appears to be cognitively natural (Barrett 2004, Kelemen 2004, Dennett 2006, De Cruz, H., & De Smedt, J. 2010) and easy to spread (Boyer 2001). The naturalness of religion thesis has led some, including Alvin Plantinga it seems (2011: 60), to imply that we have scientific evidence for Calvin’s sensus divinitatis . But others have argued that CSR can intensify the problem of divine hiddenness, since diverse religious concepts are cognitively natural and early humans seem to have lacked anything like a theistic concept (Marsh 2013). There are many other questions being investigated about CSR, such as whether it provides a debunking challenge to religion (Murray & Schloss 2009), whether it poses a cultural challenge for religious outlooks like Schellenberg’s Ultimism (Marsh 2014), and whether it challenges human dignity (Audi 2013). Needless to say, at the present time, there is nothing like a clear consensus on whether CSR should be seen as worrisome, welcome, or neither, by religious believers.

For some further work on the framework of assessing the evidence for and against theism (and other religious and secular worldviews) see C. S. Evans 2010, Chandler and Harrison 2012. In the last twenty years there has been increasing attention given to the aesthetic dimension of arguments for and against religiously significant conceptions of ultimate reality and of the meaning of life (see Brown 2004; Wynn 2013; Hedley 2016; Mawson 2016; Taliaferro & Evans 2010, 2013, 2021).

In the midst of the new work on religious traditions, there has been a steady, growing representation of non-monotheistic traditions. An early proponent of this expanded format was Ninian Smart (1927–2001), who, through many publications, scholarly as well as popular, secured philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism as components in the standard canon of English-speaking philosophy of religion.

Smart championed the thesis that there are genuine differences between religious traditions. He therefore resisted seeing some core experience as capturing the essential identity of being religious. Under Smart’s tutelage, there has been considerable growth in cross-cultural philosophy of religion. Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916–2000) also did a great deal to improve the representation of non-Western religions and reflection. See, for example, the Routledge series Investigating Philosophy of Religion with Routledge with volumes already published or forthcoming on Buddhism (Burton 2017), Hinduism (Ranganathan 2018), Daoism, and Confucianism. The five volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion (mentioned earlier) to be published by Wiley Blackwell (projected for 2021) will have ample contributions on the widest spectrum of philosophical treatments of diverse religions to date.

The explanation of philosophy of religion has involved fresh translations of philosophical and religious texts from India, China, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Exceptional figures from non-Western traditions have an increased role in cross-cultural philosophy of religion and religious dialogue. The late Bimal Krishna Matilal (1935–1991) made salient contributions to enrich Western exposure to Indian philosophy of religion (see Matilal 1882). Among the mid-twentieth-century Asian philosophers, two who stand out for special note are T.R.V. Murti (1955) and S.N. Dasgupta (1922–1955). Both brought high philosophical standards along with the essential philology to educate Western thinkers. As evidence of non-Western productivity in the Anglophone world, see Arvind Sharma 1990 and 1995. There are now extensive treatments of pantheism and student-friendly guides to diverse religious conceptions of the cosmos.

The expanded interest in religious pluralism has led to extensive reflection on the compatibility and possible synthesis of religions. John Hick is the preeminent synthesizer of religious traditions. Hick (1973 a and b)) advanced a complex picture of the afterlife involving components from diverse traditions. Over many publications and many years, Hick has moved from a broadly based theistic view of God to what Hick calls “the Real”, a noumenal sacred reality. Hick claims that different religions provide us with a glimpse or partial access to the Real. In an influential article, “The New Map of the Universe of Faiths” (1973a), Hick raised the possibility that many of the great world religions are revelatory of the Real.

Seen in [an] historical context these movements of faith—the Judaic-Christian, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Muslim—are not essentially rivals. They began at different times and in different places, and each expanded outwards into the surrounding world of primitive natural religion until most of the world was drawn up into one or the other of the great revealed faiths. And once this global pattern had become established it has ever since remained fairly stable… Then in Persia the great prophet Zoroaster appeared; China produced Lao-tzu and then the Buddha lived, the Mahavira, the founder of the Jain religion and, probably about the end of this period, the writing of the Bhagavad Gita; and Greece produced Pythagoras and then, ending this golden age, Socrates and Plato. Then after the gap of some three hundred years came Jesus of Nazareth and the emergence of Christianity; and after another gap the prophet Mohammed and the rise of Islam. The suggestion that we must consider is that these were all movements of the divine revelation . (Hick 1989: 136; emphasis added)

Hick sees these traditions, and others as well, as different meeting points in which a person might be in relation to the same reality or the Real:

The great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses to, the Real from within the major variant ways of being human; and that within each of them the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness is taking place. (1989: 240)

Hick uses Kant to develop his central thesis.

Kant distinguishes between noumenon and phenomenon, or between a Ding an sich [the thing itself] and the thing as it appears to human consciousness…. In this strand of Kant’s thought—not the only strand, but the one which I am seeking to press into service in the epistemology of religion—the noumenal world exists independently of our perception of it and the phenomenal world is that same world as it appears to our human consciousness…. I want to say that the noumenal Real is experienced and thought by different human mentalities, forming and formed by different religious traditions, as the range of gods and absolutes which the phenomenology of religion reports. (1989: 241–242)

One advantage of Hick’s position is that it undermines a rationale for religious conflict. If successful, this approach would offer a way to accommodate diverse communities and undermine what has been a source of grave conflict in the past.

Hick’s work since the early 1980s provided an impetus for not taking what appears to be religious conflict as outright contradictions. He advanced a philosophy of religion that paid careful attention to the historical and social context. By doing so, Hick thought that apparently conflicting descriptions of the sacred could be reconciled as representing different perspectives on the same reality, the Real (see Hick 2004, 2006).

The response to Hick’s proposal has been mixed. Some contend that the very concept of “the Real” is incoherent or not religiously adequate. Indeed, articulating the nature of the Real is no easy task. Hick writes that the Real

cannot be said to be one thing or many, person or thing, substance or process, good or bad, purposive or non-purposive. None of the concrete descriptions that apply within the realm of human experience can apply literally to the unexperienceable ground of that realm…. We cannot even speak of this as a thing or an entity. (1989: 246).

It has been argued that Hick has secured not the equal acceptability of diverse religions but rather their unacceptability. In their classical forms, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity diverge. If, say, the Incarnation of God in Christ did not occur, isn’t Christianity false? In reply, Hick has sought to interpret specific claims about the Incarnation in ways that do not commit Christians to the “literal truth” of God becoming enfleshed. The “truth” of the Incarnation has been interpreted in such terms as these: in Jesus Christ (or in the narratives about Christ) God is disclosed. Or: Jesus Christ was so united with God’s will that his actions were and are the functional display of God’s character. Perhaps as a result of Hick’s challenge, philosophical work on the incarnation and other beliefs and practice specific to religious traditions have received renewed attention (see, for example, Taliaferro and Meister 2009). Hick has been a leading, widely appreciated force in the expansion of philosophy of religion in the late twentieth century.

In addition to the expansion of philosophy of religion to take into account a wider set of religions, the field has also seen an expansion in terms of methodology. Philosophers of religion have re-discovered medieval philosophy—the new translations and commentaries of medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts have blossomed. There is now a self-conscious, deliberate effort to combine work on the concepts in religious belief alongside a critical understanding of their social and political roots (the work of Foucault has been influential on this point), feminist philosophy of religion has been especially important in re-thinking what may be called the ethics of methodology and, as this is in some respects the most current debate in the field, it is a fitting point to end this entry by highlighting the work of Pamela Sue Anderson (1955–2017) and others.

Anderson (1997 and 2012) seeks to question respects in which gender enters into traditional conceptions of God and in their moral and political repercussions. She also advances a concept of method which delimits justice and human flourishing. A mark of legitimation of philosophy should be the extent to which it contributes to human welfare. In a sense, this is a venerable thesis in some ancient, specifically Platonic philosophy that envisaged the goal and method of philosophy in terms of virtue and the good. Feminist philosophy today is not exclusively a critical undertaking, critiquing “patriarchy”. For a constructive, subtle treatment of religious contemplation and practice, see Coakley 2002. Another key movement that is developing has come to be called Continental Philosophy of Religion. A major advocate of this new turn is John Caputo. This movement approaches the themes of this entry (the concept of God, pluralism, religious experience, metaphysics and epistemology) in light of Heidegger, Derrida, and other continental philosophers. (For a good representation of this movement, see Caputo 2001 and Crocket, Putt, & Robins 2014.)

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to John Deck, Cara Stevens, and Thomas Churchill for comments and assistance in preparing an earlier version of this entry. Portions of this entry appeared previously in C. Taliaferro, “Philosophy of Religion”, in N. Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy , 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

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February 19, 2021

What is God’s Word, and Why Does it Matter?

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Always Seek to Follow the Word of God

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col. 3:16).

Notice that God’s communication with us, which is normally referred to as the Word of God , is described here as the Word of Christ . That phrase is only used here and in one other place in the New Testament, but it reminds us of a very important truth.

The whole Bible is one story and it is all about Jesus Christ. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The Scriptures… bear witness about me” (Jn. 5:39). On the road to Emmaus, Jesus took two confused disciples through the Old Testament scriptures, showing them “in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27).

Jesus Christ is the central figure in the whole Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. In the Old Testament, He is hidden and anticipated. In the New Testament, He is revealed and enjoyed.

The whole point of the Bible is that we should come to know and enjoy and love and serve and believe in and live for Jesus Christ the Son of God, who is the Savior, the Lord of all.

This is the great theme of Colossians: In Him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (1:19). In Him, God has triumphed over all the dark powers (2:15). In Him, believers are rooted and built up and established in the faith (2:7).

The word of Christ, the Bible, is God speaking to us about His Son, or God speaking to us through His Son.

New Thinking about the Bible

The Christian church has been in agreement for nearly 2,000 years that the Bible is the Word of God, one that speaks primarily about his Son, Jesus Christ. I say nearly 2,000 years, because about a hundred years ago some people introduced a new and very different view of the Bible.

Charles Darwin grasped the minds and hearts of many people with his theory of evolution, suggesting that the world could be explained entirely by natural causes and processes. It’s fascinating to follow the story of how in the years that followed, some leaders in the church began to recast their view of the Bible in the light of evolutionary theory.

The church had always held the conviction that the Bible was God’s Word to us. The church believed that God exists, that God has made Himself known, and that the Bible tells us what God has said and what He has done. The Bible is essentially a story about God: God’s world and God’s Word to mankind.

But the new thinking turned all of that on its head. You can imagine how some began to say, “We’ve been told that the story is all about God. What if the story is really about us?”

If this were true, then the Bible would be the evolving story of human thinking about what God might be like. And the Bible would not be God’s words to us, but the record of our words about God. If you believe this, then it is reasonable to conclude that it began very crude, and over time, our view of God has become more sophisticated.

These are two very different views of the Bible. In the one, the Bible is God’s Word to us. In the other, the Bible is our word about God.

What you believe about the Bible will shape how you use it and respond to it.

If you believe that the Bible is a human word about God, you may want to read it for inspiration, but when it does not fit well with your view of life or of the world, you will feel free to disagree and choose your own path.

If the Bible is merely a collection of human words about God, it will be natural for you to say, “That was then, but this is now.”

Why the Word Matters: Three Biblical Convictions

Why is this important? What difference does it make? Why should anyone care whether the Bible is our speaking about God or God speaking to us? It makes all the difference in the world: Here’s why:

1. If God has not spoken, His promises are replaced by our wishes.

Think about some of the great promises of Scripture:

I will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts 16:31). My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory (Phil. 4:19).

Who said these things? If these words came from the mouth of God, if God said them, if they are indeed the Word of God to us, then they are promises on which we can depend. You can take them to the bank. You can build on them in every circumstance of your life.

But if these are human words about God, then they are not promises on which we can depend but merely wishes arising from the heart of Paul or from Isaiah, that we might also cherish.

If you believe that the Bible is our word about God rather than God’s word to us, you undermine the foundation of hope and replace God’s promises to us with our wishes about God.

2. If God has not spoken, His truth is replaced by our opinion.

The Bible says that God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love. These words are repeated no less than seven times in the Old Testament (Ex. 34:6, Neh. 9:7, Psa. 86:15, Psa. 103:8, Psa. 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2).

But whose words are these? If God spoke these words to Moses and the prophets, we can be sure that he is indeed gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love, because He is the one who said it. He has disclosed this Himself.

But if these words arose from the thoughts of Moses, David, Nehemiah, or Jonah, then we do not have truth that we can count on for our lives today. All we have is opinion that arose from the experience of these particular men, and it may or may not prove true for us today.

When you buy into evolutionary theory, conversations in small groups around the Word of God go something like this… Moses believed that God is gracious and merciful, but others have a different experience. What about you? What do you think God is like? How do you see him?

When the Word of God to us is viewed as our word about God, His truth gets replaced by our opinion—and that undermines the foundations of our faith.

3. If God has not spoken, His welcome is replaced by our journey.

The Bible is full of invitations:

Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live; I will make with you an everlasting covenant (Isa. 55:3). Draw near to God and he will draw near to you (Jas. 4:8). Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isa. 1:18).

Who said these things? If God said them (to and through the prophet Isaiah and the apostle James), then you can be certain that God is reaching out to us in love. That means we can come to Him with confidence. We can enjoy a true and authentic relationship with God because He has invited us to come to Him.

If these words were simply reflections of the thoughts or experience of James and Isaiah, they are only pointers on a journey. They tell us what others have found, but they offer no assurance that we will find the same.

If the Bible is viewed as our words about God rather than God’s word to us, you may have people reaching out and seeking after God, but very, very little finding. Why? Because what is lost is God reaching out in love through his Son, and what you have left is people seeking.

What’s at stake? If the Bible is our word about God rather than God’s word to us, then God’s welcome is replaced by our journey , and we lose the assurance of His love.

Do you see how much this matters? The basis of faith, hope, and love all rest on God having spoken—giving us promises, telling us who He is, inviting us into a relationship with Himself, and telling is how that is possible through His Son Jesus Christ.

When I think about all this, it makes me step back and breathe a big sigh of relief. Thank God for the Word of Christ!

____________

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This article is an adaptation of pastor colin’s sermon, “the word of god”, from his series, soul care: part 2—four friends for your soul., colin smith.

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What is god’s grace.

God is Merciful , God is Just

“Amazing Grace” is one of the most well-known songs in the English-speaking world. This 18th-century hymn is a staple of funerals and church services, has been part of the soundtrack of many movies and television shows, and has been recorded by thousands of artists. Its message resonates deeply with people who follow Jesus and with the wider culture. But what exactly is “grace”?

Grace is the promise that you stand forgiven before God if you know Jesus personally. For those who don’t follow Jesus, a desire for grace speaks to a hope that, if God exists, He’s kind, merciful and compassionate.

But what does it mean that God is gracious? How does it work? How do we receive or experience this amazing grace?

Defining Grace

When Christians talk about God’s grace, they’re referring to the ways God deals with all of the human race. God shows favor toward the unfavorable, acceptance to the unacceptable, kindness to the undeserving and blessings to the unworthy.

When theologians speak of God’s grace, they’re talking about the extension of mercy and favor toward those who don’t deserve it — to those who instead deserve punishment.

God’s Attribute of Grace

In the New Testament, John — one of the men who followed Jesus most closely during His ministry on earth — says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8, New International Version). Mercy and grace are facets of love. Since God is love, you should expect to see God defined by graciousness — and in fact, He is. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, God displays consistent, unmerited favor.

Moses was a man whom God chose to lead Israel out of slavery, as described in the Bible’s Old Testament. God also gave Moses the law that Israel was supposed to follow, which helped them to understand right from wrong. The Bible says God spoke to Moses as one would speak to a friend (Exodus 33:11). In one exchange with Moses, God defined Himself by His grace.

Note that when the Bible uses the all-caps “LORD,” it is standing in for God’s name, Yahweh (sometimes spelled YHWH because Ancient Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament is written, does not have vowels). God’s name is not normally printed in English translations of the Bible. In this passage, God is literally telling Moses His name and describing Himself.

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed His name, the LORD. And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:5–7, NIV)

God said this to Moses after the people of Israel had broken God’s law in a very bad way. God wants Moses to understand that He is gracious and compassionate, and those characteristics are witnessed in the fact that He is:

Slow to anger.
Abounding in love and faithfulness.
Forgiving of wickedness, rebellion and sin.

But immediately after this, God also says that He doesn't leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:7). He even says that the punishment for guilt spans generations. This introduces a dilemma that we must understand when we talk about God’s grace: Because God is good, He wants to do good to the people He created. But because He is good, He must also oppose evil — including evil people.

As the Bible teaches elsewhere, there is really no person who isn’t somehow corrupted by what the Bible calls sin (Romans 3:23). Sin makes us all do and think things that are evil so that God would be right to punish rather than reward us.

Reconciling Justice and Mercy

It might seem difficult to harmonize the idea of God’s mercy and His judgment. But is God’s justice incompatible with His compassion? Not at all!

Many years after Moses, the prophet Ezekiel wanted to warn Israel and neighboring nations about God’s judgment. But throughout his prophecy, he echoes the same cry:

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? (Ezekiel 18:23, NIV)

For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:32, NIV)

Say to them, "As surely as I live, declares the LORD God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11, NIV)

God’s justice and mercy would be irreconcilable if punishing evildoers brought Him pleasure. But it doesn’t. Over and over, Ezekiel tells Israel it brings God no joy to punish their disobedience but that punishment is coming.

Our God is just. To completely ignore injustice would undermine His righteousness. Can you imagine a ruler whose kindness got in the way of keeping order? His subjects would take advantage of his gentleness. There is thus a tension between God’s righteous justice and His grace that He carries into all His interactions with human beings.

Throughout Scripture, God begs His people to repent before calamity befalls them:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. (Jeremiah 18:7–8, NIV)

Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. Then I will relent and not inflict on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done. (Jeremiah 26:3, NIV)

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened. (Jonah 3:10, NIV)

When you look closely at how hard God worked to convince Israel to turn away from sin and avoid the consequences of their behavior, you see God’s grace at work. In fact, many of the Old Testament books are accounts of the prophets, whose job was to warn God’s people that they were on a collision course because of the repercussions of their behavior. In His mercy and grace, God worked overtime to coax Israel onto the right path.

The Gospel of Grace

The Gospels are the four books of the Bible — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — that describe the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The word “gospel” comes from a Greek word meaning “good news.” The Gospels tell us about God’s resolution to this grace-justice tension. In the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, God showed grace while exercising judgment against humanity’s sins.

The opening of John’s gospel tells us, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, NIV). “The Word” is Jesus, who is the Son of God and is Himself God . In Jesus, God became a human being to live with us and, ultimately, to take the punishment of sin in our place.

John tells us, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17, NIV). When Christ died on the cross, He made it possible for God to forgive sin in a way that the law alone does not allow. Because Jesus took the punishment that we deserve , God can punish sin and give grace to sinners.

Paul, a leader in the early church who wrote much of the Bible’s New Testament, explains it this way:

No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:20–24, NIV)

The law could only highlight how far people had fallen. It set a standard that people could only aspire to but never truly achieve. But God gives the grace of forgiveness to those who trust in Christ and His work on the cross and enter into a relationship with Him. As Paul says, this justification is a free gift of grace paid for by Jesus’ sacrifice. This is the most important gift that God has given us — the “amazing grace” that the song celebrates.

God’s Gifts of Grace

People tend to think of God’s grace as being merely forgiveness. This is His greatest gift but not His only one. Grace is an unmerited gift from God in any form. Paul rightly recognizes that every gift you receive from God is grace — even the abilities and strengths you seem to possess naturally.

Paul wrote a letter to a church in a city called Ephesus, in the region known today as Turkey, telling them God has given everyone specific gifts for the purpose of building up other people. He uses an interesting turn of phrase: “To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” (Ephesians 4:7, NIV).

Peter, another one of Jesus’ close followers and a companion of John, echoes this sentiment in one of the letters he wrote: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10, NIV).

Stewardship is the recognition that God is the ultimate owner of everything under the sun, and people are His managers. When you recognize God’s ownership and use His blessings to serve others, you become a steward of God’s grace. This beautiful phrase demonstrates how God shows grace to others.

As proclaimers of the message that Jesus died to forgive sins — what is often called “the good news” or “the gospel” — people who follow Jesus are stewards of God’s grace. When you share the good news, you distribute the grace God has entrusted you with. The same is true of everything you’ve received from God: money, possessions, talents, kindness, mercy, love and so on.

This means that you are not simply called to receive God’s grace. What you receive from God you share , and this is a critical way that others experience God’s mercies in their lives.

Growing in God’s Grace

Peter also writes, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever! Amen” (1 Peter 3:18, NIV).

What does it mean to grow in grace?

The New Testament writers are united around the idea that every good thing you experience is a gift from God. James, Jesus’ biological brother and another important leader of the early church, writes, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17, NIV). Those gifts aren’t limited to the tangible things you receive. You see God’s unmerited favor in the natural wonders of sunshine, newborn babies and friendship. All the goodness you experience comes directly from God’s hands.

One essential gift of grace is our ability to mature as Christians. In one of His final teaching opportunities before He went to the cross, Jesus explained to the disciples how to progress in the Christian life:

I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples.”(John 15:1–8, NIV)

It’s vital that you recognize that even as you grow in your relationship with God, it is God who is doing the work. Your maturity is God’s gift of grace and requires that you remain connected to the source, Jesus. If you are receiving nutrients from the vine, God’s power is at work in you, making you more like Jesus.

To grow in grace is to maintain a posture that doesn’t hinder God’s work. You do this by putting Jesus first, by striving to be faithful and obedient and by fighting sin — avoiding it, and seeking God’s forgiveness when you do not.

Embracing God’s Grace

Jesus teaches us that God doesn’t hoard good. He doesn’t hoard His grace or give it out to a limited number of special people. In fact, that’s one of the things that drove Jesus’ critics, the Pharisees, crazy and set them against Jesus. They thought grace was just for the people who can follow all the rules. It’s not!

God demonstrates a desire for everyone to experience His goodness. This includes “bad people.” In Jesus’ time, the so-called “bad people” were tax collectors, sinners, Samaritans, and Gentiles. But Jesus welcomed these people and forgave them. Jesus puts God’s grace on display to humankind.

It’s God’s grace that equips you. It’s God’s grace that holds you. It’s God’s grace that grants you a relationship with Him and eternal life with Him.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Learn how to receive God's grace and how it can impact the way you live .

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“Good Old Grace”
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“Forgiveness”

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There was no Jesus

How could a cult leader draw crowds, inspire devotion and die by crucifixion, yet leave no mark in contemporary records.

by Gavin Evans + BIO

Most New Testament scholars agree that some 2,000 years ago a peripatetic Jewish preacher from Galilee was executed by the Romans, after a year or more of telling his followers about this world and the world to come. Most scholars – though not all.

But let’s stick with the mainstream for now: the Bible historians who harbour no doubt that the sandals of Yeshua ben Yosef really did leave imprints between Nazareth and Jerusalem early in the common era. They divide loosely into three groups, the largest of which includes Christian theologians who conflate the Jesus of faith with the historical figure, which usually means they accept the virgin birth, the miracles and the resurrection; although a few, such as Simon Gathercole, a professor at the University of Cambridge and a conservative evangelical, grapple seriously with the historical evidence.

Next are the liberal Christians who separate faith from history, and are prepared to go wherever the evidence leads, even if it contradicts traditional belief. Their most vocal representative is John Barton, an Anglican clergyman and Oxford scholar, who accepts that most Bible books were written by multiple authors, often over centuries, and that they diverge from history.

A third group, with views not far from Barton’s, are secular scholars who dismiss the miracle-rich parts of the New Testament while accepting that Jesus was, nonetheless, a figure rooted in history: the gospels, they contend, offer evidence of the main thrusts of his preaching life. A number of this group, including their most prolific member, Bart Ehrman, a Biblical historian at the University of North Carolina, are atheists who emerged from evangelical Christianity. In the spirit of full declaration, I should add that my own vantage point is similar to Ehrman’s: I was raised in an evangelical Christian family, the son of a ‘born-again’, tongues-talking, Jewish-born, Anglican bishop; but, from the age of 17, I came to doubt all that I once believed. Though I remained fascinated by the Abrahamic religions, my interest in them was not enough to prevent my drifting, via agnosticism, into atheism.

There is also a smaller, fourth group who threaten the largely peaceable disagreements between atheists, deists and more orthodox Christians by insisting that evidence for a historical Jesus is so flimsy as to cast doubt on his earthly existence altogether. This group – which includes its share of lapsed Christians – suggests that Jesus may have been a mythological figure who, like Romulus, of Roman legend, was later historicised.

But what is the evidence for Jesus’ existence? And how robust is it by the standards historians might deploy – which is to say: how much of the gospel story can be relied upon as truth? The answers have enormous implications, not just for the Catholic Church and for faith-obsessed countries like the United States, but for billions of individuals who grew up with the comforting picture of a loving Jesus in their hearts. Even for people like me, who dispensed with the God-soul-heaven-hell bits, the idea that this figure of childhood devotion might not have existed or, if he did, that we might know very little indeed about him, takes some swallowing. It involves a traumatic loss – which perhaps explains why the debate is so fraught, even among secular scholars.

Secondo Pia’s photograph of the Shroud of Turin (May 1898), digital print from the Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne. Courtesy Wikipedia

When I’ve discussed this essay with people raised as atheists or in other faiths, the question invariably asked goes something like this: why is it so important for Christians that Jesus lived on earth? What is at stake here is the unique aspect of their faith – the thing that sets it apart. For more than 1,900 years, Christianity has maintained the conviction that God sent his son to earth to suffer a hideous crucifixion to save us from our sins and give us everlasting life. Jesus’ earthbound birth, life and particularly his death, which ushered in redemption, are the very foundation of their faith. These views are so deeply entrenched that, even for those who have loosened the grip of belief, the idea that he might not have been ‘real’ is hard to stomach.

Y ou’d think that a cult leader who drew crowds, inspired devoted followers and was executed on the order of a Roman governor would leave some indentation in contemporary records. The emperors Vespasian and Titus and the historians Seneca the Elder and the Younger wrote a good deal about 1st-century Judea without ever mentioning Jesus. That could mean simply that he was less significant an actor than the Bible would have us think. But, despite the volume of records that survive from that time, there is also no death reference (as there was, say, for the 6,000 slaves loyal to Spartacus who were crucified along the Appian Way in 71 BCE), and no mention in any surviving official report, private letter, poetry or play.

Compare this with Socrates, for example. Though none of the thoughts attributed to him survive in written form, still we know that he lived (470- 399 BCE) because several of his pupils and contemporary critics wrote books and plays about him. But with Jesus there is silence from those who might have seen him in the flesh – which is awkward for historicists like Ehrman; ‘odd as it may seem,’ he wrote in 1999, ‘[i]n none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.’ In fact, there are just three sources of putative proof of life – all of them posthumous: the gospels, the letters of Paul, and historical evidence from beyond the Bible.

Christian historians base their claims for a historical Jesus on the thinnest mentions of early Christians by the Roman politicians Pliny the Younger and Tacitus (who write of Christians they interviewed early in the 2nd century – in Pliny’s case, a tortured female deacon – all followers of ‘The Way’ who talked about Jesus) and by Flavius Josephus, a Romanised Jewish historian. Josephus’s 20-volume Antiquities of the Jews , written around 94 CE, during the reign of Domitian, contains two references to Jesus, including one claiming that he was the Messiah crucified by Pontius Pilate. This would carry some weight if Josephus actually wrote it; but the experts, including evangelicals like Gathercole, agree this reference was likely forged by the 4th-century Christian polemicist Eusebius. The other reference is to ‘the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James’. Some scholars say the ‘called Christ’ bit was a later addition, but it hardly matters when Josephus was drawing from stories told by Christians more than six decades after Jesus’ assumed crucifixion.

If the crucifixion was prophesied, then how can it have been embarrassing?

The earliest evidence testifying to a historical figure comes not from contemporary records, but from the letters of Paul, which date broadly from 50 to 58 CE (of the 14 letters originally attributed to Paul, only half are now thought to be mainly his writing, with the rest thought to be written sometime in the 2nd century) . The problem with Paul for proof-seekers is how little he says about Jesus. If Jesus lived and died in Paul’s lifetime, you might expect he’d refer to Jesus’ ministry on earth – to his parables, sermons and prayers – and that his readers would want this crucial life story. But Paul offers nothing on the living Jesus, such as the stories or sayings that later appear in the gospels, and he provides no information from human sources, referring only to visionary communication with Jesus and to messianic Old Testament quotes.

Which brings us to the gospels, written later, and not by those whose names they bear (these were added in the 2nd and 3rd centuries). The gospel of Mark, which borrows from Paul, came first and set the template for the gospels that followed (Matthew draws from 600 of Mark’s 661 verses, while 65 per cent of Luke is drawn from Mark and Matthew . ) The first version of Mark is dated between 53 CE and around 70 CE, when the Second Temple was destroyed, an event it mentions. The last gospel, John, which has a different theology and stories that contradict those of the three ‘synoptic’ gospels, is dated at around 100 CE. All four gospels include sections written in the 2nd century (among them, two different virgin birth narratives in Matthew and Luke), and some scholars place the final 12 verses of Mark in the 3rd century. Several historians assume that Matthew and Luke had an earlier source they call Q. However, Q has never been found and there are no references to it elsewhere. Barton suggests that a belief in Q may serve a ‘conservative religious agenda’ because to say these gospels drew from an earlier source ‘is an implicit denial that they made any of it up themselves’.

Taken together, what can the gospels tell us about the historical Jesus? Secular scholars agree that much of their content is fictional, and note, as Ehrman puts it, that ‘these voices are often at odds with one another, contradicting one another in minute details and in major issues’. And yet Ehrman is convinced that Jesus existed; he contends that the gospel writers heard reports about Jesus and ‘decided to write their own versions’. A few basic facts, like the dates of Jesus’ birth and death (gleaned from their mention of various rulers), are widely accepted, and several of Jesus’ sayings are said to be close to his real words. To separate the factual wheat from the fictional chaff, they employ ‘criteria of authenticity’ – stories and words that ring true. The three main criteria are: embarrassment (are those details out of step with 1st-century Judaism and, if so, why would the gospel writers invent things that would cause problems?); multiple attestation (the more sources, the better); and coherence (are details consistent with what we know?)

However, there is good reason to interrogate this approach. With regard to the criteria of multiple attestation and coherence, we know the gospel writers borrowed from each other, so we’d expect them to include the same stuff. The gospel of Luke, for instance, borrowed Matthew’s ‘consider the lilies of the field’ speech, but if Matthew’s tale is fabricated, Luke’s repetition hardly adds credibility. In addition, the ‘embarrassment criterion’ relies on our knowing what went against the grain. But the Church was diverse when the gospels were written and we can’t be sure what might have embarrassed their authors . It’s often argued, for example, that the gospel writers went to such great lengths to show that the crucifixion was predicted in the Hebrew scriptures in order to make it palatable to an audience convinced that no true messiah could be thus humiliated. But this argument can be turned on its head if we accept that the crucifixion tale was included because the gospel writers – pace Paul – believed it was required to fulfil prophesy. If the crucifixion was prophesied, then how can it have been embarrassing?

On the subject of the crucifixion, it’s worth noting that, while the four accepted gospels have Jesus sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, in the non-canonical gospel of Peter it is Herod Antipas who does the deed. The gospel of Thomas, meanwhile, makes no mention of Jesus’ death, resurrection or divinity at all. According to the 4th-century theologian Epiphanius, the Torah-observant Nazorean Christians (thought to have descended from the first group of believers), held that Jesus lived and died during the reign of King Alexander Jannaeus (10- 76 BCE) – a century before Pontius Pilate. And the Babylonian Talmud agrees, claiming that Jesus was executed by stoning and ‘hanging’ in the town of Lydda (not Jerusalem) for ‘immorality, sorcery and worshipping idols’. So, even when the ‘criteria of authenticity’ are met, historical consensus is hard to establish.

T he most concerted effort to separate fact from fiction started in 1985 when a group of mainly secular scholars were drawn together by the lapsed Catholic theologian Bob Funk. Funk’s ‘Jesus Seminar’ met twice a year for 20 years to ‘search for the historical Jesus’. At its launch, Funk said the group would enquire ‘simply, rigorously after the voice of Jesus, after what he really said.’ These scholars (eventually numbering more than 200) used the ‘criteria of authenticity’ to assess the deeds and words of Jesus as reported in the gospels. Many seminars later, following much debate, they concluded that Jesus was an iconoclastic Hellenistic Jewish preacher who told stories in parables and spoke out against injustice; that he had two earthly parents; and that he did not perform miracles, die for people’s sins or rise from the dead. The veracity of his sayings and deeds was decided by a group vote. Scholars were invited to place plastic beads in a box: red (three points) if Jesus said it; pink (two points) if he probably said it; grey (one point) if he didn’t, but it reflected his ideas; black (zero) if invented. When tallied, there were black or grey beads for 82 per cent of Jesus’ Biblical sayings, and 84 per cent of his deeds.

Such methods are regarded as quaint, at best, by scholars researching non-Biblical historical figures. One of those I canvassed was Catharine Edwards, professor of classics and ancient history at Birkbeck, University of London, who said that some historians of the ancient world tend towards scepticism – ‘for example, we can’t really know anything about the earliest stage of Roman history beyond what is gleaned from archaeological evidence’ – while others tend towards ‘extreme credibility’. But, even among those, ‘criteria of authenticity’ are not a familiar tool. She added that the coloured-beads approach ‘sounds naive and on the credulous end of the spectrum where scholars make assumptions about the character of a particular ancient individual and on that basis decide what they think he (invariably) may or may not have said.’

Hugh Bowden, professor of ancient history at King’s College London, said that there was more evidence for the existence of Socrates and Pericles than for Jesus, but ‘much less hangs on it’. The focus on the historicity of Jesus has ‘no real equivalent in other fields, because it is rooted in confessional preconceptions (early Christianity matters because modern Christianity matters) even when scholars claim to be unaffected by personal religious views. Historians in other fields would not find the question very important.’

The sceptics believe that Jesus was a mythical figure who was subsequently historicised

If we remove those preconceptions, it seems commonsensical to apply caution to the historicity of the gospels and let doubt lead our interrogations. The first gospel, Mark, was begun nearly half a century after Jesus’ ministry (and its final verses much later). Jesus’ Aramaic-speaking followers were probably illiterate, and there were no reporters taking notes. The likelihood of Jesus’ words being accurately reproduced by writers who’d never met him, and were elaborating on increasingly fanciful tales passed down through the decades, seems remote.

One scholar who was part of the Jesus Seminar and yet harboured such doubts, is Robert Price, a respected New Testament professor with a PhD in ‘Systematic Theology’, and a former Baptist pastor turned atheist. Price came to query the methodology used to establish historicity, prompting him to doubt whether Jesus ever lived. ‘If there ever was a historical Jesus there isn’t one anymore,’ he said, later writing: ‘There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure.’

Price became the heavyweight figure for a fringe group of ‘Christ myth’ sceptics – historians who propose that early Christians, including Paul, believed in a celestial messiah and that he was placed in history by the gospel writers in the next generation. So, while most of the 200 believe Jesus was a historical figure mythologised by the gospel writers, the sceptics believe the opposite: he was a mythical figure who was subsequently historicised.

Such ideas have been around for centuries. Thomas Paine was an early adopter but it was the 19th-century German philosopher Bruno Bauer who advanced the theory most assiduously. Bauer, an atheist, recognised the gospel themes as literary rather than historical, arguing that Christianity had pagan roots and that Jesus was a mythical creation.

I n recent decades, it has become widely accepted by secular scholars that the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is more myth than history. In particular, the Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and his American colleague Neil Asher Silberman have written in The Bible Unearthed (2002) that none of the patriarchs, from Moses and Joshua backwards, existed as historical figures; that there was no record of Jews having been enslaved in Egypt (instead, they descended from the Canaanites); that David and Solomon were warlords rather than kings; and that the first temple was built three centuries after Solomon. But the view that the Christian Bible is similarly lacking in veracity has, until recently, been drowned out by those arguing for a flesh-and-blood Jesus. One reason for the consensual chorus may relate to the fact that tenured positions in departments dealing with Bible history tend not to be offered to those who doubt that Jesus was real. So the revival of the ‘doubters’ camp’ owes much to the internet, as well as to the missionary zeal of its key proponents.

Momentum began to gather in the 1990s with a series of books by Earl Doherty, a Canadian writer who became interested in scripture while studying ancient history and classical languages. Doherty claimed that Paul and other early Christian writers did not believe in Jesus as an earthly figure, but instead as a celestial being crucified by demons in the lower realms of heaven and then resurrected by God. His views (ironically, on the face of it, the most ostensibly religious, in being so thoroughly spiritualised) were rejected by historical Jesus scholars who claimed that Doherty lacked the academic nous to understand ancient texts. But the next wave, which included Price, was more firmly rooted in academia.

Price believes that early Christianity was influenced by Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising deities that survived into the Greek and Roman periods. One was a Sumerian legend, ‘The Descent of Inanna’, which tells of the queen of heaven who attends an underworld funeral only to get killed by demons and hung from a hook like a piece of meat. Three days later, however, she’s rescued, rises from the dead, and returns to the land of the living.

For ‘Christ myth’ scholars, the Jesus story fits the outlines of the mythic hero archetype

Another is the Egyptian myth of the murdered god-king Osiris. His wife, Isis, finds his body, restores it to life and, via a flash of lightning in one version, conceives his son, Horus, who succeeds him. Osiris goes on to rule over the dead. In Plutarch’s Greek version, Osiris is tricked to lie in a coffin, which floats out to sea before washing up at the city of Byblos. There, Isis removes Osiris’ body from a tree and brings it back to life.

Several Jewish texts in circulation at the time reinforced the messianic aspects of these narratives. For instance, 1 Enoch (a book written mainly in the 2nd century BCE, and particularly revered within the Essene community, thought to be responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls) refers to the ‘Son of Man’ (a phrase used for Jesus in the gospels) whose name and identity will be kept secret to prevent evildoers from knowing of him until the appointed time.

The favourite ‘Christ myth’ source is the Ascension of Isaiah , written in bits and pieces in the 1st and 2nd centuries. It includes a section dealing with a journey through the seven heavens by a non-human Jesus who is crucified in a lower heaven by Satan and his demonic ‘archons’ who are the rulers of that realm and yet do not know who he is. Again, the story ends with Jesus rising from the dead.

‘Christ myth’ scholars believe that ancient tales of death and resurrection influenced the gospel writers, who also borrowed from Homer, Euripides and the Hebrew Bible. For them, the Jesus story fits the outlines of the mythic hero archetype of the time – a spiritual saviour killed by ‘archons’ before rising triumphant. They contend that later Christians rewrote Jesus as a historical figure who suffered at the hands of earthly rulers.

The rock star of scepticism is Richard Carrier, a Bible scholar with a very modern aptitude for using social media (some of his lengthy YouTube videos have attracted more than a million viewers). He enters into fervent debates with rivals, lectures, and writes acerbic, clinical and fact-laden books . With his PhD in ancient history from the University of Columbia and his record of publishing in academic journals, his credentials are less easily dismissed than Doherty’s. Ehrman, for instance, acknowledges Carrier and Price are serious New Testament scholars.

At one time, Carrier accepted the historicity of Jesus but he became contemptuous of the mainstream position because of what he saw as the parlous state of scholarship supporting it. He and the Australian Bible historian Raphael Lataster use Bayes’ theorem, which considers historical probabilities based on reasonable expectations (weighing up the evidence and attaching mathematical odds to it), to conclude that it is ‘probable’ that Jesus never existed as a historical person, although it is ‘plausible’ that he did.

T he ‘Jesus myth’ advocates get plenty of airplay, but the fringe label has stuck, and not just because religious studies departments freeze them out. Their own methodology has been criticised, not least their use of Bayesian methods. Bizarrely, Carrier offered odds to his readers, concluding that the likelihood of a real-life Jesus was no better than 33 per cent (and perhaps as low as 0.0008 per cent) depending on the estimates used for the computation, which illustrates the wooliness of this use of Bayes’ theorem.

Carrier and his comrades do a fine job poking holes in the methods of historicists but what they offer in exchange seems flimsy. In particular, they have found no clear evidence from the decades before the gospels to show that anyone believed Jesus was not human. Each reference in the epistles can be explained away as referring to a celestial saviour, but it all feels like a bit of a stretch. Paul frequently refers to the crucifixion and says Jesus was ‘born of a woman’ and ‘made from the sperm of David, according to the flesh’. He also refers to James, ‘the brother of Christ’. Using these examples, Ehrman says there’s ‘good evidence that Paul understood Jesus to be a historical figure’. Which was certainly the view of the writer/s of Mark, a gospel begun less than two decades after Paul’s letters were written.

Like the grain of sand that begat Robin Hood, the Jesus story developed fresh layers over time

If we accept this conclusion, but also accept that the gospels are unreliable biographies, then what we are left with is a dimly discernible historical husk. If Jesus did live at the time generally accepted (from 7- 3 BCE to 26- 30 CE) rather than a century earlier as some of the earliest Christians seemed to believe, then we might assume that he started life in Galilee, attracted a following as a preacher and was executed. Everything else is invention or uncertain. In other words, if Jesus did exist, we know next to nothing about him.

One way of looking at it is to think of a pearl, which starts as a grain of sand around which calcium carbonate layers form as an immune response to the irritant until the pearl no longer resembles the speck that started it. Many legends have developed in this way, from the tale of the blind bard Homer onwards.

The outlaw and thief Robert Hod was fined for failing to appear in court in York in 1225 and a year later he reappeared in the court record, still at large. This could be the grain of sand that begat Robin Hood, whom many people assumed to have been a historical figure whose legend grew over the centuries. Robin started as a forest yeoman but morphed into a nobleman. He was later inserted into 12th-century history with King Richard the Lionheart and Prince John (earlier versions had Edward I), along with his ever-expanding band of outlaws. By the 16th century, he and his Merry Men had mutated from lovable rascals to rebels with a cause who ‘tooke from rich to give the poor’.

The Jesus story likewise developed fresh layers over time. At the start of the common era, there may well have been several iconoclastic Jewish preachers, and one of them got up the noses of the Romans, who killed him. Soon his legend grew. New attributes and views were ascribed to him until, eventually, he became the heroic figure of the Messiah and son of God with his band of 12 not-so-merry men. The original grain of sand is less significant than most assume. The interesting bit is how it grew.

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Religious Beliefs — My Personal Experience with God: A Reflection

My Personal Experience with God: a Reflection

Categories: Faith God Religious Beliefs

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Words: 512 |

Published: Aug 4, 2023

Words: 512 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Introduction, finding meaning in god, reflecting on my experience with god, works cited.

The Bible. New International Version. Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com.

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Who God is – Essay Sample

Every person, every human being who lives on this planet has ever thought of who God is and what is he like. Not everyone probably believes in God as the one who controls everything on Earth, but most of the people asked themselves this question. Millions of believers tried and are still trying to guess what God looks like, if he is a man or woman, whether he is a ghost or a material creature. What is more important though is that the Bible gives us a pretty good picture of what God is. However, this description is more spiritual then physical and opens up God’s personality traits. So let us look at them closely, and the find the support in the Holy Book.

Firstly, God is creative. Not only because he created the universe and us, the human beings, but because he is able to solve our everyday problems and create solutions for each and every of our needs and wants. Secondly, God is, undoubtedly, forgiving. People tend to sin. This is because of the original sin that led to our imperfection. Nonetheless, God tries to understand and forgive us for what we are doing, as far as we don’t realize what we are doing. Thirdly, God is honest. He is surely the most trustworthy creature in this world. What he tells – he does, and there is no way that he can lie to us.

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalms 119:130,105)

His other personality trait is capability. Indeed, God is capable of doing anything possible and impossible that can arose in our minds. Gods understanding and wisdom has no limits. He can change people’s minds and lives.

“No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame…” (Psalms 25:3)

I imagine that I never had a clear point of who God is. I guess nobody has. We read the Bible (hopefully we do) and every single person has his own way of seeing God. I myself imagine God as a kind creator who not only observes people but try to help them if they believe in him. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that this world is not his. He can help but the power belongs to the Lucifer or to the Devil as most people call him. Out life is like a test, a rough test for belief in God. We are put into extremely difficult circumstances and have to prove our loyalty and give our honor to God. Consequently, God rewards us. This is what I personally think of God.

For millions of people believing in God and changing his/her way of life are absolutely different things that are not linked. Indeed, many ‘believers’ say that they believe in God, read the Bible, attend the church, thus these are the only moments when they are actually devoted to God. There personal life is far away from all these virtues, therefore, they are living a double life. I personally think that following the Genesis, or the Exodus, and doing everything that the Old Testament says is not the way one should live. I imagine that being true to your heart, being simple, open-hearted and open-minded, spreading love to surrounding world is the way one should live. Find peace and love within yourself and then try to give all these to others, and you will be rewarded accordingly.

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Guest Essay

I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

A black-and-white photo with a camera in the foreground and mid-ground and a building in the background.

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Mr. Shugerman is a law professor at Boston University.

About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the district attorney has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

To recap: Mr. Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.

Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and that only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. He may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.

In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan district attorney’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case , in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check: It is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed , “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed , “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan district attorney is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications. I see three red flags raising concerns about selective prosecution upon appeal.

First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

Second, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the New York statute requires that the predicate (underlying) crime must also be a New York crime, not a crime in another jurisdiction. The district attorney responded with judicial precedents only about other criminal statutes, not the statute in this case. In the end, the prosecutors could not cite a single judicial interpretation of this particular statute supporting their use of the statute (a plea deal and a single jury instruction do not count).

Third, no New York precedent has allowed an interpretation of defrauding the general public. Legal experts have noted that such a broad “election interference” theory is unprecedented, and a conviction based on it may not survive a state appeal.

Mr. Trump’s legal team also undercut itself for its decisions in the past year: His lawyers essentially put all of their eggs in the meritless basket of seeking to move the trial to federal court, instead of seeking a federal injunction to stop the trial entirely. If they had raised the issues of selective or vindictive prosecution and a mix of jurisdictional, pre-emption and constitutional claims, they could have delayed the trial past Election Day, even if they lost at each federal stage.

Another reason a federal crime has wound up in state court is that President Biden’s Justice Department bent over backward not to reopen this valid case or appoint a special counsel. Mr. Trump has tried to blame Mr. Biden for this prosecution as the real “election interference.” The Biden administration’s extra restraint belies this allegation and deserves more credit.

Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.

Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude to develop their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud and the jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges, and he can raise his arguments on appeal. One important principle of “ our Federalism ,” in the Supreme Court’s terms, is abstention , that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later.

This case is still an embarrassment, in terms of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selectivity. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all.

Jed Handelsman Shugerman (@jedshug) is a law professor at Boston University.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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