The God Hypothesis

LETS BEGIN..

Thomas Acquinas, one of the most revered catholic figures was undoubtedly in my candid opinion one of the foremost voices on philosophy and natural theology during the13th century medieval period. Amongst many of the things he thought & wrote about , his thoughts and sentiments on how one greatly needs divine assistance from God in addition to sound reason to properly understand the contents of the Bible is something I have taken great admiration for in my own journey as a christian. He posits that human beings possess the inherent ability to come to terms with a plethora of hidden mysteries by discovering the existing balance between faith/revelation and reason. He did not in any way dispel revelation as he equally believed such experiences had a way of growing our faith . It was on this notion that Aquinas unlike many of his contemporaries in his day especially within the catholic fraternity embraced the philosophical teachings and ideas of men like Aristotle, Plato & the likes with the eventual hope that he could harmonize them with Christian principles without disrupting the fabric of the latter.

This bold attribute of Aquinas would lead him to become one of the foremost repositories of knowledge on the subject of cause and effect which has become undeniably a key if not the main aspect of the cosmological argument for the existence of God . Though the original work is largely attributed to Aristotle & Plato ,the extensive body of work by Aquinas helped to accentuate and bring more meaning to it as recognized largely today . Just like Aquinas I believe that our understanding of Who and what God is is often not far fetched like many perceive it to be . We often entirely rely on supernatural or unexplainable notions to propagate our ideas of God forgetting that there are all sorts of factors around us and in us that also point us to the undeniable existence of God . These factors fortunately for us can be intellectually reasoned out to successfully bring us to an accurate understanding of who and what God is.

THE BEGINNER

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."Genesis 1:1 KJV

The almighty Genesis 1:1 undoubtedly happens to be one of the key foundational texts on the source of creation from a biblical standpoint amongst Christians today and on the other side the most contented with verse amongst scientist and atheist alike . I would understand why it’s loved so dearly by some and yet hated with unbridled passion by others . Whatever be the case one thing is sure, both sides are after one thing , answers! How our current material world came to exist. Genesis 1:1 begins by drawing the reader's mind to the beginning of all that is physical & material . But rather unfortunately like many scientists would unequivocally agree, there is one beginning we don’t see here in the text. The beginning of the beginner . It is pretty easy to note that the contention amongst many scientists today on the creation narrative would primarily, if I'm not mistaken, be the question of who created the creator ?

THE CAUSE & EFFECT DRAMA

The cosmological argument for God would certainly go into the books as one of the primary most resorted to paraenesis on the person of God . It is from this broad argument that we derive one of Aquinas's Five logical arguments for God known as the First cause argument. This argument simply positions "God" as the one who creates from whom all tangible effects are witnessed and not the one who is created . The premise of this notion is simply that it is impossible for something that is caused to be the cause of its own self which would only mean it existed before itself. To further explain, it is most probable to have a cause which can not be caused by another so to speak . In observing universal causation, we see there are two categories of beings, namely necessary beings and contingent or dependent beings . The former i.e. necessary beings, is one that exists by its own self or its own essence while the latter ie. contingent beings do not exist by themselves. Contingent beings are second causes while necessary beings are first causes . Therefore if everything tangible that is either in motion, dependent or imperfect requires some form of cause, we can then confidently deduce that such a cause corresponds with what Genesis 1:1 calls "God". And can be referred to as such .

CONCLUSION:GOD AS THE CAUSE

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these That the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?"Job 12:7-9 KJV

Jobs' writings point us to an ancient irrefutable road map to knowing the personality of this God that the world today is failing to pay attention to. Imagine Job telling you and I that nature itself can teach us common sense and reasoning that no complex scientific methodology could teach us. That the fiber of every intrinsic creation is screaming at us is its ultimate cause and yet we can not hear. The famous theologian Peter Kreeft puts it this way:that the argument( first cause) is basically very simple, natural, intuitive, and commonsensical. We have to become complex and clever in order to doubt or dispute it. I couldn’t have agreed less. Every material thing that exists is there for a reason. This is what philosophers call the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Romans 1:20 says "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

A nation or a people who chose to reject God as cause of all that exists has no excuse. Creation itself boldly testifies against such people . When we ascend up the hierarchy of all present causes as appears in this tangible universe, we are most certain to encounter a First cause . Who is this first cause ? Your guess is as good as mine