Christian Rey H.

Balmori January 10, 2021

BS Psychology - 3 PHILO 25

I just had lots of realizations after reading this week’s reading entitled: The Idea of God. It
doesn’t matter what faith or beliefs I have in mind, as long as I am eager to push myself forward
to seeking the true meaning of what I stand for, even though it overlaps my prior faith. I
intentionally read it slowly and made self-explanatory and mental imagery out of it. The text has
revealed five outlines for me to know what God is, and these are the [general] meaning of
theism, God as omnipotent, and the self-existence of God.

I would like to start with theism. According to the book of William L. Rowe, Theism is a religious
or spiritual belief of humans. Theists believe that we are under the sovereign control of supreme
beings/deities from above. They [supernatural beings] are the ones who guide us with their
moral laws presented and preached by their followers. This ideology, Theism, can be reduced
into three: Monotheism, Polytheism, and Henotheism. Monotheism is a theistic belief that we
are all created by one god--an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent god that intervenes in
our world. And because of the readings, I was able to broaden my understanding of theism and
its relevance. In addition, I have discovered some terms that are related to theism, and these
are “up there” and “out there,’ and they are often used to distinguish and taught to avoid
misconception about god. The god “up there” means a supreme being is residing in space
above us, presumably and currently with us at some definite or not-so-far-away distance from
our planet while the god “out there,” according to early theologians, has no permanent and
specific location or region of physical space; and therefore, it is contrary to the god “up there”
concept. I also have to admit that prior to reading this material, I have had mistaken the use of
these terms because I thought they’re just the same, but I’m wrong.

Second, God is omnipotent because He can do anything, and nothing is impossible in Him. He
can only do things that are whatever is possible and not inadequate enough to accomplish with
His power. There’s no need for Him to prove that He’s omnipotent and perfect because he has
to preserve or maintain being righteous. Doing something stupid or evil deeds isn’t a good thing,
such as the ability to destroy Himself or humanity. And I do personally believe that he cannot do
that is contradictory to him being perfect is vital to him. Also, I realized that our God deserves
unconditional praise and worship. Similar to the first item in this essay, I discovered new terms,
such as moral goodness and nonmoral goodness. Moral goodness is a source or a standard on
how we are ought to live our lives morally in this world, like following any moral duties to self and
others. On the other hand, nonmoral goodness pertains to living in good condition or lifestyle.
So perhaps, our God being omnipotent permits Him to issue moral laws as our basis or
standards to live morally.

Third, according to the reading, the self-existence of God could be interpreted and answered by
“others,” “nothing,” and “itself.” The explanation of the existence of matter, atoms, gaseous
particles, and other space materials are made by someone whom the humans thought didn’t
exist. The fact that these things have existed from the past until today and would prolong in the
future seems possible to be explained by other things, which makes sense that it is impossible
to make a claim that doesn’t even have its origin. Whatever exists must and should have an
explanation, therefore. An analogy to better understand my notion is the dilemma of a chicken
and an egg. This dilemma has been argued by many, thinking which one of them had first come
into existence: is it the chicken or the egg? Scientists have announced that the chicken came
first instead of the egg, but perhaps you could be skeptical after hearing this. However, the thing
here is that an egg cannot survive on its own due to abnormal temperature in pre-historic times;
therefore, the egg would perish easily. Unlike the chicken, it could withstand the temperature of
pre-historical times. This analogy concludes that eggs existed because there was “other” thing
that is responsible for their existence. Likewise, everything we see, touch, or communicate
using our senses came from something instead of nothing. In sum, I see our God as
self-existent.

To wrap things up, the eternity of God gives me a sense of direction to know what it means that,
indeed, he’s eternal based on His attributes, such as being omnipotent, perfect, and
self-existent. The reading would, perhaps, serve as a guide or an avenue for non-believers to
give theism a chance and to get back to our God.