In search of the ultimate truth
An essay about the state of reaches the consciousness of one’s mind in searching the ultimate truth in life from the Christianity standpoint
By Johnny Chong Vun Nyen LLM, MRS (2008)
There is room for doubts of the debate between non-Christian (atheists) and Christian .Does God exist?
Obveriouely, people have the reason for saying that because we are in the position that our mind preoccupied with all these doubts undermining our self-conscious where we are in the chaos seeking the evidence to support our though justifying what we think right. Is factual at this state of mind is not wrong and unknowingly we are already in the right track to the reveal of the ultimate truth.
We may have to ask ourselves, why is that we want to know the answer? Who created our motive and consciences seeking to reveal our own identity? Are we convinced that the “question” that we ask is already an “answer” because the question and answer that combined as ONE – the ultimate is GOD the “CREATOR” and we are his “CREATURE”.
To help the reader comprehend the nature of God, I would like to borrow an analogy from the book Flatland by Edwin Abbott.* Abbott was a mathematician and the model is geometric in nature. It was originally written in the 19th century for the purposes we are using it for here. Flatland is the story of a man who lives in a two dimensional world--like a sheet of paper. In the surface of the paper there is only length and width-there is no such thing as thickness. You and I are three-dimensional beings-we have length and width and frequently considerable thickness. You cannot get me, a three-dimensional being, into a two-dimensional sheet of paper. You can draw a front view of me (a portrait), but that is not the whole me. You can draw a top view of me which because I am bald, ends up being three concentric circles, but that is not the whole me. If you and I were to look at the man in Flatland, we would see him as a profile (see figure 1). He would be outlined but have no thickness.
Figure 1: The man in Flatland.
One day the man in Flatland is visited by a sphere. The sphere is a three-dimensional object just as we are, and it just so happens that it crosses Flatland right in the man's living room. Now if you will think about that for a moment, you will realize that for the man in Flatland a rather incredible thing has happened. A dot appears on the man's floor with no cause that the man in Flatland can understand. A dot in Flatland is matter! In figure 1, the man, himself, is made up of a series of dots. Just as a tennis ball dipped in paint and touched to a sheet of paper would produce a dot on the paper, so too has our dot which the man in Flatland calls matter appeared out of nothing (see figure 2). As the man in Flatland watches, the dot becomes a circle which continuously grows in size (see figure 3). You will see if a plane truncates (or slices) a sphere, it will produce a circle; and the deeper the sphere sinks into the plane, the larger the circle will become.
Figure 2: A sphere tangent to a plane produces a dot on the plane. The man in Flatland sees only the dot.
Figure 3: A plane truncating a sphere. The man in Flatland sees a circle.
The circle becomes so large it is about to fill the living room of the man in Flatland. He is terrified because he does not understand what is happening. All of the laws of science which state that matter cannot be created nor destroyed are being violated. What he sees is for him a true miracle. Just as he is about to run in panic from the room, the sphere reaches its equator, passes its equator, and gradually sinks out of the plane. So what happens to the circle in Flatland? It begins to shrink, and it becomes smaller and smaller until finally it is just a dot on his floor and then it is gone! Another violation of the laws of science! Matter cannot be destroyed and yet the man in Flatland has seen it happen. The man in Flatland is being confronted with miraculous and ghost-like events which violate his science and his common sense.
Let us suppose now that the man in Flatland begins talking to the sphere, and he says to the sphere: "What is it like to be a sphere? The sphere says, "I'll tell you what it's like; draw a circle on your floor." This is not easy for the man in Flatland to do. His perception of a circle is a constantly curving line that returns to its origin, but he cannot see the entire circle at once. He can only see the side of the circle facing him. The only way he could see a whole circle would be to be inside the circle, and if he got inside he could never get out. People in Flatland commit suicide by drawing circles around themselves that they can never get out of. Because of this it takes a long time for him to draw the circle. The sphere is most impatient with all this because he could have done it instantly. Finally the circle is completed and the sphere says, "Now what I want you to do is to rotate the circle! What he has in mind is that the man in Flatland will rotate the circle about its diameter producing a sphere, but what the man in Flatland does is to rotate the circle about its circumference, spinning it like a record on a record player. "No, no--rotate it the third way,' says the sphere.”There is no third way you fool," cries out the man in Flatland, and for him this is true. There is no third way, no up and down in a thickness direction, and absolutely no way for him to comprehend what the sphere is talking about or what the sphere is. The only thing that he can understand is the world or dimension in which he lives.
Now the reason that I have told you this little story is to give you a foundation by which you can understand God. When you read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), you are reading a description analogous to Flatland. The concept is that, a God, who is in a higher dimension than are we, a God who has the same kind of relationship to us which the sphere had to Flatland, that, this kind of being touched our little "Flatland," so to speak, and in violation of all of our laws of science created matter out of nothing. God is so superior to us, he exists in such a higher dimension than do we that what is natural and ordinary to him is miraculous to us. The Bible recognizes this concept and uses it in every single description of God.
One can define consciousness by a person who see things externalizations of inner needs are often illusive that bought to conscious awareness where as outwardly and inwardly consolidating each other towards his or her satisfactions and justifications in teams of one’s mind that matter, often time, human being tend to put too much emphasis on the matter and not on the mind. The other side of “autism” has to be open minded on whatever we perceive and conceive pre-justifying demonstrated presumably “truth” in the knowledge of the human mind like draw lines between the dots versus the horizontal universal beyond imaginative. How can one’s mind challenge the ultimate? Than we may have to ask;” X=MC squared” since when stated? Created by the scientist? If yes, than who create the scientist? Scientist given the wisdom by GOD to find out the answer and the answer by itself is already existed after the creation of the universal, and the answer is GOD by himself.
The latest survey tell us that 90% of people in the world today believe in the existence of God or some higher power, yet, to those who believe God does exist still the burden for us as Christian bearing the responsibility to prove to them somehow that He really does exist. Nevertheless, in knowledge wise, the existence of God cannot be proven nor disapproved. From the biblical point of view, we can only accept through faith the fact that God exist. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he is exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:1 & 6)
If one have to ask who am I? Where I came from, the answer is simple; who give birth to you? You will surely say my mom, than, who give birth to your mum, than you say, my grand mum, if we keep reversing the question, the answer be still the same, the last generation and the ancientness’, you will financially get the last answer- The ultimate and He is GOD the creator of the universe, the “being”.
Let us term the phenomenon of “faith” is “faith “by itself so as to obey God and leave all consequences to him, the bible declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands, Day after Day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech of language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4) we focus our mind and sight to the wonders of the nature, seeing the picturesque pleasing sunrise and the beauty sunset- when the wind blow over the trees leaf smiling at you-all these things point to a Creator of God.
God is supreme, sovereign, if He so desired, he could simple appear before you the whole word He exists, if He does this, then the “faith” is meaningless for us to believe in him. “Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29) How can one tells lie and deny with all these surrounding and say God don’t exist.
One can argued from the ontological point of view by using the concept of God to prove God’s existence begins with the definition of God as “that than which no greater of God can be conceived.” It is than argued that to exist is greater than to not exist, and therefore the greatest conceivable being-but that would contradict God’s very definition.
Teleological is the second argument is that since the universe displays such an amazing design- The divine designer is absolute.
The third logical argument so called cosmological argument, “cause and effect” put the universe and everything’s in it is an effect. The effect can’t come accidentally; there must be something that caused everything to come to effect, whereas the un-caused is the caused that generate the ultimate caused by him- The Sovereign, supreme Divine GOD.
Moral argument is the fourth argument, The Law and how its established is accordingly to some form of the culture trough out the history of the Nation, the very basic fundamental law is the cultural law where accepted by the people to serve the protection over their social wealth fare, freedom of speech, human rights, religion integrated the local value and belief system etc. Perhaps, we have to emphasis a bit more on the cultural religion act is to protect the wellbeing of every each individual life guard safety to prevent “the human nature in committing the wrong or right doing with or without carrying any motive, knowingly and unknowingly, purposely or unintentionally. This crime of events can be in Murder, lying, immorality, stealing, all law breaking behavior causing harms to others. The bible teaching prevail all immorality activities that serves the purpose in the Divine teaching, not just in physical fitness, but, soul with the sound mind.
We know God developed passionate, love, just, consciences to rekindle our behavior, we can differentiate goodness and wickedness, despite all this, people still sin for pride, status, immorality flesh satisfaction at expend of other. The earthy rewards gain by those unscrupulousness behaviors is like an unfilled “black hole”.
“ 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 men are without excuse (Romans 1:20)
“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worship and served created things rather than the Creator-Who is forever praised-Amen. (Romans 1:25)
One who accepted Christ as his or her personal savior will change for a new life-this is the only and absolute way.
Scientific argument is the most modern argument lead to people to “see and what they believe” led to the misconception toward the core belief of the Christianity.
We can briefly review from Christian theism metaphysical prospective point of view and the scientific psychology so complexities to debate about. We act and behave what we think- this point to the psychology as a human kind, our body language reveal as what we perceived – this is visible I call its scientific evidence. In the study of Christian theism, we must first to understand religion belief is none other than metaphysics stand firm by its practical and theoretical to all form of academics’ presuppositions. Nonetheless, metaphysical is beyond presumable- is solely “faith” by the divine knowledge of truth.
Theology in the Christianity is above all knowledge, this don’t mean that we, as Christian carrying the attitude to degrade other knowledge simple because we have to put God first in our daily life activities. There will be no controversial role regardless of scientific, psychology, philosophical only if we set our mind right.
The most challenging, confuses, complex, doubted argument is “Is God dead? What happens after death?”
In the conflict between rival schools of thought in the Ancient Greece, it was the school of Aristotle the eventually become dominant. Aristotle held the view of nature is a hierarchy in which those with less reasoning ability said, exist for the sake of animals, and animals for the sack of man, to provide him with food and clothing. We as Christians know that all creatures created by Him have its purposes. That is undeniable fact. And God said; “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Then God said, “I have give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and have every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be your food” (Genesis 1: 26-29)
To certain points, Christianity teaching accepted in Aristotle’ ethics on the purpose of life to can be found in the essential nature of homo sapiens. Human beings, he argued, have a special ‘function’, to do with rationality; and fulfillment was to be found by living in accordance with that function.
Nowadays many scholars have rejected Aristotle’s idea that less rational human beings exist in order to serve more national humans; but we still retain some of the corresponding attitude to non-human animals. It’s buttressed by the other great intellectual tradition of the West- a national in which the biblical stand as a foundation for everything else: - The Beginning with refer to Genesis 1.
The most famous German poet and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche making his “most influential atheism” statement “GOD IS DEAD” in the nineteenth Century,
Nietzsche influenced by both Greek philosophy and theory of evolution, he wrote, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we all killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves...? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?” (Nietzsche, the Gay Science, P125).
Nietzsche’s philosophical mind set was truly the snares of vanity, he purpose was to abolish and misled the“traditional” morality-Christianity concept and the core value teaching. Particularly, his thinking represented an attempt of self-serving religious fanatic’s leaders to control the weak and unthinking masses. To some extent, Nietzsche’s “God is dead” philosophy has been used to advance the theories of existentialism, nihilism and socialism. Radical theologians such as Thmoas.J.J Altizer and Paul van Buren advocated the “God is dead” idea in the 1960s and 1970s.At the end, Nietzsche was extremely emphatic his motive “master morality” of his own false and illusive self satisfaction was a total failure.
Religion, philosophy and science acknowledge the physical life had a beginning. Some, in fact, most of the philosophers and science did believe that there is soul after life ended. But, they can hardly accept that “soul” is the “eternal life” is the acknowledgement in the Christianity belief. From medical science, no matter how advance the medical technologies are- human life still subject to physical death, here we may have to ask ourselves. If life has the physical beginning-there must be physical end. The question is what about the human’s soul – one minute after you die? A mystery remains?
Notice what God say about human life in Genesis 2:6 -7: “but steams came up from the earth and t watered the whole surface of the ground-the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being” this passage clearly stated the “breath” is the “spirit of the man” and God is the ultimate Creator-He will never die. We accepted Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he died in the cross for human sins- His resurrection and he was taken up into the heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. We know for those who accepted Christ as his personal savior will meet him again in heaven-that is eternal, immortal, spirit life. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:15-16)
God gave Jesus Christ “authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have in Him “(John 17:2)
That is the reason for human life- that we may ultimately receive eternal life.
I conclude my essay with brief summary of the following points:-
(1) Consciousness revealed the wisdom of God’s creature, we, the human beings with the inner self one’s consciences in search the ultimate truth acknowledged by God’s words in the biblical teaching that God’s in supreme and sovereign.
(2) Judging from the following arguments describe as ontological standpoint by using the concept of God to prove God’s existence beings with the definition of God as “that than which no greater of God can be conceived, therefore, God is the ultimate truth.
(3) Teleological argument is that since universe display such an amazing design- The Divine designer is Absolute. God is the Ultimate Truth.
(4) Scientific argument led to people to “see and why they believe” that led to the misconception toward the code value of the Christianity belief in the divine phenomenal “faith” is the only and absolute way. “Faith” is invisible, likewise, Scientific is evidential by itself.
(5) The establishment of law of its enforcement is to act accord nary the punishments that one’s who deserve in any immorality behavior. On the other hand, Law serve the protection of the people on their fundamental rights such as social wealth fare, freedom of speech, human rights, religion integrated the local cultural value and belief system etc. biblical theology religious teaching above all forms of moral knowledge. There will be no controversial role regardless of scientific, psychology, philosophical if we set our mind right in the Divine belief.
I end my essay presented to Professor Dr. Prof. Akihiro Kitsunai, Bible University with the prayer quoted from John Baillie-1886-1960.
Creator Spirit, Who Broodeest everylastingly over the lands and waters of earth, enduing them forms and colours which no human skill can copy, give me today, I beseech thee, the mind and heart to rejoice in the creation.
4th November 2008
