Where did your idea of GOD come from?

In a few months, I will be giving a lecture on the claims and disputes about GOD. I am intentionally using all caps for GOD so as to mean the GOD that monotheistic religions believe in and so with the GODS in polytheism.

My task is to present philosophers' and groups of people's beliefs of GOD. Thus, I may be answering big questions like:

Is there really a GOD? If there is, is there only one? Many? Who is/are he/they? If GOD is not real, why do a lot of people believe in him or they? Is the belief in GOD any way beneficial to you and me?

Perhaps there would be more. I am not sure because I haven't done a lot of searching for this yet. Anyhow, I would like to talk about two different ways of using the word GOD. The word can be used as a title and as a proper name.

GOD AS A PROPER NAME

Here, GOD is used in reference to a specific individual or entity. It is just like the name Rodrigo Duterte. For us to know more about Rodrigo Duterte, we have to know him personally. In that case, we would be able to understand what he is like as a person. In the same manner, to know more of GOD in this sense, we have to acquire information about that specific individual to find out what GOD is like.

GOD AS A TITLE

As a title, GOD is referred to anybody or anything that assumes the title. The term President of the Philippines for example can be assumed by anybody elected by the people like Rodrigo Duterte. The president have given attributes and responsibilities whoever he/she would be. Thus, we can learn quite a lot about what GOD is or would be like simply by unpacking our concept of the role associated with the term ‘‘GOD’’ (Murray, M. & Rea, M., 2008)

With these two distinctions, we would be able to understand better the two ways by which monotheistic religions developed their ideas of GOD. Murray, M and Rea, M., 2008 called them as the a posteriori and the a priori ways. So technical? Yes, so I would like to simplify by using ‘experience’ and ‘analysis’.

EXPERIENCE

People used their experience and began believing in GOD based on their assumed direct contact with the individual they refer to as GOD. Their concept is grounded on data coming from revealed texts, religious experiences, mediums or prophets, and the like. This is also like how we can come to know more of Rodrigo Duterte as an individual. We can meet him personally, listen to what people around him describe him, or analyze how the general media would impersonate him.

ANALYSIS

This way begins with the traits, features or a set of criteria that embody a GOD. Thus, believers would only call someone or something GOD if it/he meets the standard. This is the same as to how the country sets a qualification for a person to become a president and how he/she would do his/her roles as such.

 AUTHOR’S EXACT WORDS

There is some reason to think that these various starting points will not all converge on the same entity. A Pure Land Buddhist and a charismatic Protestant might both claim to have had repeated religious experiences of God. But the concepts of Amida Buddha and Jesus are vastly different and seem not to pick out the same thing. Furthermore, someone who thinks of God primarily as the greatest possible being might well arrive at a concept of God very different from what would be arrived at by someone taking as her guiding notion the idea that God is the entity that acts as the ground of morality. In the Western theistic tradition, the concept of God has arisen from a careful negotiation between these two methods. In many respects this dual approach makes perfectly good sense. It makes sense to think of the word ‘‘God’’ as a proper name since theists do think that there is some unique individual entity or person that they are acquainted with – through religious experience or revelation or the mediation of prophets, and so on. But it is also true that revelation or reason sometimes describes God as an entity that plays a certain role. So when the Hebrew Scriptures describe God as the creator, or when someone takes a ‘‘first cause’’ argument to show that the universe was brought into existence by something distinct from itself, we have reason to think that these two approaches are, or at least can be, converging on a description of the same thing.

 MY CONCLUSION

We see and understand GOD differently because of differing views and perspectives. Thus, there is a need for us to respect each other’s beliefs and not make that belief a reason for division but rather a unifying agent. At the end of the day, our beliefs in GOD although not in the same degree affects us alone and not other people.