This is my first post on this website, this is an essay i wrote and hope to get some feedback on, this is a rather critical essay and is the first philosophy essay i’ve written which has made me think.
God’s divinity is coherent Sorosh Bateny
First to answer this question one must give clarification of the question. Before we start we have to accept the concept that there is a God which has divine powers (omnipresence, omniscience…) for us to argue about. Coherent meaning logical and consistency giving us a ground to mention and scrutinise popular and well known philosophical ideas and being lenient of them, stretching from Anselm’s Ontological argument to Freud’s critique of Kant.
We start of by giving a distinction between divine beings and mortal beings. To this day we can agree on that just for the case of debate that there is a hierarchy or a greater being (which from this point we shall refer to as God) that is comprehended beyond living things in our existence in every aspect.
The monotheist religion of Christianity believes in such a being. One man who has a logical if somewhat controversial idea for God’s existence was a philosopher called St Anselm of Canterbury. His argument “than that which nothing greater can be conceived” was the ground works of the ontological argument, giving great strength for God’s existence, (especially in a time when people were far less educated and far more dependent on an autocratic system to run society). This is one of the many arguments been put to prove gods existence and ‘coherency’. However it is criticised to being logical through contradiction. This argument being logical and content to a certain extent can still be criticised. One, that a contradicting argument is not a valid argument. If I were to say “I am a Christian but I do not believe in life after death or a God” this would be contradictory and would therefore come to the conclusion that I am not a Christian for the very reason I just said. Two, a valid argument must depend on concrete evidence. The same argument that dismissed Plato’s concept of the world of the Forms. If someone says we have proof of God’s existence, we would rely on our senses to give a verdict on the statement put forward to us. Lets say I were to go into a hospital and say I have found a cure for cancer but have no evidence to back my idea, not only would I be wrong but I would be seen as a fool.
Another argument for God’s divinity through coherency is his divine powers. Take for example God’s omniscience. All knowing, God knows everything before present and after. This is a good example of consistency through logical observation, how could God not be coherent if he knows everything that has ever been or going to be, although this concept if far beyond the normal comprehension of the human mind, we shall dig till we hit oil.
The argument being that if God is so divine then why does he let bad things happen to good people and let horrible plagues take its course in everyday life. How could God intervene, God created the universe so that we experience life as humans along side other humans, not alongside Gods. We have free will to do as we wish, in many religions such as Christianity and Islam (any monotheist religion) argue that life on earth is only a test for what lies ahead. That our current life is a test of faith to see if we can overcome our earthly and natural urges, more commonly known as sins in the bible.
Usually the idea is put forward that God exists outside our time and space. But it can be argued that would be an illogical statement to make as such. If god were to be outside our known time and space than surely he wouldn’t be everywhere. Stating so would only be seen as illogical. This is a contradiction that some would believe to be a great flaw in the concept of God and in the quest to prove his coherency. Just as the same as the idea of God being all knowing but despite this still has very human like emotions of jealousy when he “sees” how we humans treat one an other.
To conclude I would personally say that the concept of God away from religion or religious beliefs is far more consistent than when it is being held accountable by different groups in society which claim “their way” is the right and true way to please almighty God. This is not however to say we should dismiss ideas coming from someone of a religious background such as St Anselm or St Aquinas but rather not taking their religious background into account and seeing it more as one persons concept on something we don’t fully understand.