Did God Make Man or Did Man Make God?

The First Meditation, Sapere Aude – The Limitation of Human Understanding

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

~ The Creation of Adam was painted by Michelangelo (1511) on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It illustrates the Creation of man from the Book of Genesis. As this meditation is mainly centered on God and man, I saw it fitting that the first image in sight should be in proper relation to the subject of discussion.

As the amount of knowledge (or perceived knowledge) I have gained increased steadily over the years, I thought it prudent that I took time to free myself of all other business and humbly review some of the beliefs, philosophy, and arguments that have taken root in my mind. At an earlier age, I came to realize that knowledge is akin to architecture. Should the foundations be of flawed and  of second grade material, the building would also be flawed and of second grade quality.

Worse still is the fact that a building built with a flawed foundation risks collapse like a house of cards as something subject to doubt and fundamental instability would never be a solid foundation of which further knowledge is to be based upon. Therefore, I consider it imperative and of utmost importance that I reconsider everything subject to doubt as Descartes has done and hopefully form my new world view (Weltanschauung).

Bear in mind that what I have written here is not a direct attack on any party or individual that I know of or will come to know in the later days of my life. This cumulative combination of words constitutes only some of my latent opinions on certain matters and represents nothing more than an attempt in forming a coherent train of thought so as to formalize some of the simple abstract ideas floating in the chaos and confusion of my mind.

It is a common thing for people to be puzzled by the existence of God. When an atheist asks for proof of the existence of God, a common answer would be because the holy scripture(s) say so. Yet when asked what authenticates the holy scripture(s), a common answer would be because the holy scripture comes from God. Thus we are stuck with the classic situation as mentioned by Descartes of which a never ending loop forms between God and the Holy Scripture(s), both seeming to validate one another.

While it is easy to say that we must have faith in the Lord Almighty and his heavenly consorts, the reality is that there is a lacking in concrete evidence of the existence of God as God is not something that we are able to feel by our senses. Similarly, there is a lacking in the evidence that God does not exist. This is evidently so when God is attributed with the characteristics of being an eternal, infinite, all-knowing, omnipotent, creator of everything, and yet a vigilant overseer of absolute justice with emotions and feelings akin to that of a mortal.

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by John Martin (1852)

Many situations in history can be linked with the divine punishment of God on mortals for their misdeeds and their sins. Cities like Jericho, Sodom, and Gomorrah were all destroyed by the divine hand of God as a result of some sin against the divine power. However, other cities like the siege and fall of Constantinople (current day Istanbul) and the sacking of Rome by barbarians were more often than not seen as an accident,tragedy,or betrayal to which God is perceived to have played a lesser role.

Siege of Constantinople by Jean Chartier

The lack of uniformity between the justifications of the divine hand of God striking mortals have led me to doubt on whether punishment (or blessing) by a divine being is really a result of the actions of man. Is a natural disaster like the one seen in New Orleans really a result of God’s wrath on the city? Or is there some other explanation that would yield a more logical argument?

In many aspects, I lean towards the writings of the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza in that God is the natural world and thus has no personality. This would of course mean that natural disasters that inflict unimaginable horror and death is not some divine judgment of any kind upon man and their mortal actions. But if God has no personality, does that mean that God does not really exist (since a God without a personality is a God without a will)?

It is important here to remember that although most religious individuals believe that God created man in his own image, man has time and time again recreated his perception of God in his own image. A study of the various religions would show that in different geographical areas, ‘God’ is usually shown with some influence from the culture of its local inhabitants. Therefore is it not better to say that we have created our perspective of God in our own image?

Here lies the greatest puzzle, as all known forms of literature of God’s relationship with man from the Mesopotamia’s Epic of Gilgamesh, and Enuma Elish to the Dead Sea Scrolls contain an epic battle between two superhuman personalities of which one is normally good and the other evil. Whether by divine revelation or human imagination, the story of Yahweh and the Serpent in the Book of Genesis, Lord and Satan in the Book of Job, The Trojan War by Homer, and the Scandinavian God Odin and Loki have inspired us all!

However, the Devil (the bad guy regardless of his name) logically should not exist if God’s universe is perfect. For if the Devil exists, the perfection which he attempts to destroy would already have been destroyed by his mere existence. And thus according to historian Arnold Toynbee, an omnipotent God is subject to two limitations with the first being the perfection of what He has created already and that He cannot refuse to take up a challenge by the Devil.

This of course becomes ironic as the Devil who it would be safe to presume possesses some intellectual ability would take up a fight with God knowing he is bound to lose to an all  powerful God. Thus the Devil who tries as he might to go against God becomes God’s lackey to serve some purpose God has for him and can be really called as God’s fallen scapegoat agent.

At this junction, I would like to point out Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In his critique, Kant pointed out the limitations and possibilities of ‘pure reason’ and that not all knowledge comes from the senses as the old English school (John Locke) believes to be. Kant continues by stressing that some objects are outside the very capacity of our minds and therefore the principle of causality (cause and effect) would be irrelevant.

Thus, due to the limitations of both the senses and of pure reason, no one could surely and absolutely know whether there is a God and an afterlife. Conversely, no one could really know that there is no God and no afterlife as both objects of thought are beyond the capacity of the human mind. Here lies the greatest appeal of Kant’s critique, for how is it possible for man with a limited capacity of understanding and limited by time and relativity explain an infinite, eternal (not subject to time), and absolute being?

Therefore instead of saying as Spinoza has done that God is the natural world and has no personality, it would be better to say that God encompasses the natural world and His personality is beyond the comprehension of man (should it exist at all). The question would now remain on whether morality, and free will would stand alone without them being subject to divine providence.

Epilogue

After reading what I have written above, many people have asked me on whether I am an atheist. Here I would like to stress that although some paragraphs above may have given you that idea, I have not stated that God does not exist (as I do believe that the Creator exists). To be precise, I have come to a position similar to Socrates in acknowledging that I know that I do not know (the absolute understanding of God).