Sem. Gaudencio A. Catubao Jr.

AB III Philosophy of Religion Reflection Paper for the month of August

WHY NOT BELIEVE IN GOD? God, being the core and focus of religious faith, is a holy being or ultimate reality to whom worship and prayer are addressed. God is considered the creator or source of everything that exists and is spoken of in terms of perfect attributesfor instance, infinitude, immutability, eternity, goodness, knowledge (omniscience), and power (omnipotence). Man, inevitably has the tendency towards the divine. But due to the fall of man, there exist that obscurity among us to comprehend the Absolute. For us to supplicate our cunning towards him, we tend to look for signs that would enable us to stand that there is really a God. In knowing things spontaneously, one keenly has the craving to yearn for truth which human is naturally inclined and later on perfects the knower by striving for greater precision. But why do men dont believe in God? Is God real or just a mere neurotic product of our mind? In my personal reflection, there are things that people think that hinders them or somehow denies them to believe in God. Arguments against belief in God are as numerous as arguments for it. Atheists absolutely deny the existence of God. Some, for instance, believe the material universe constitutes ultimate reality; others argue that the prevalence of suffering and evil in the world precludes the existence of a sacred being. For them God does not exist because of the primary cause of evil. If God would exist, there would be no suffering and death, and above all evil would and must not exist Agnostics believe that the evidence for and against the existence of God is inconclusive; they therefore suspend judgment. It is the doctrine that the existence of God and other spiritual beings is neither certain nor impossible. Positivists believe that rational inquiry is restricted to questions of empirical fact, so that it is meaningless either to affirm or deny the existence of God. If God then would exist, therefore, because of his ultimate perfection, then we should also be perfect. We can see the effect of the material universe is imperfect therefore we conclude that the one who created us is also imperfect. All these arguments that prove the inexistency of God could be replied and perhaps answered by arguments that defend the existence of God. One common argument perhaps is the argument in which St. Thomas Aquinas promulgated during the medieval period in which he called the Five Ways to prove the existence of God: The fact of change requires an agent of change; the chain of causation needs to be grounded in a first cause that is itself uncaused; the contingent facts of the world (facts that might not have been as they are) presuppose a necessary being; one can observe a gradation of things as higher and lower, and this points to a perfect reality at the top of the hierarchy; the order and design of nature demand as their source a being possessing the highest wisdom.

In my conclusion I could say therefore that ultimately, however, belief in God is, like many other important beliefs, an act of faithone that must be rooted in personal experience.