By The Qoheleth
Is God human or is the human attribute given to him just because man is describing God? Man has not been able to describe the nature of God since he came into being. The belief that there is something called God was nurtured when man began to asking about his origin. Evidence shows that life is well organized with causes and effects. This, according to man shouldn’t have been by mere accidents. While some are still trying to identify the origin of this belief and what nature the “unmoved mover,” has, many have given up hope with such lasting attribute given to God as omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotence. Such people attribute what they cannot understand as the will of God. They also create fear around this God of being the best and perfect that cannot be challenged. In as much as they could not describe the real nature of God, they erroneously feel that this God lives and changes just as man does. They attribute daily, dynamic activities to him. Such include waking up from sleep, success and failures of activities, daily routines etc. When they attain success, they give glory to the God but when they fail, they don’t blame the same God but out of fear or respect attribute such to his will. Some say “But we cannot blame God.”
One significant evidence that proves that there exists a creator is that life is still evolving. This suggests that it originated from a point and has not reached its desired end. Man’s major function is basically to discover the purpose of life and where it will end. The end is therefore expected to be the revelation of the nature of God which will reveal the purpose of life. Before now, God has been a mystery despite the fact that there had been various attributes. At a point, he was said to live in Heaven (Sky) with some human creatures after which some rebelled against him and were thrown down to the world. This story has shown to be totally human thinking which discoveries have shown to be erroneous. Another version indicated that God through a book revealed himself and his nature. This book was written and collated by a section of people from one part of the world without due consideration to others who have been living at the same period or even before then. It has become obvious that most information from such book cannot be verified and authenticated. Some of the information contained therein have been overtaken by time and events. But the consistent thing is that this God existed but the nature was not known.
There are assumptions that this God was also man. In this case, man places God in human nature in order to understand him more. That is why he refers to God as ‘He’ (gender); we have a God who hears, talks, walks, loves, sleeps, gets angry and who is absent. Obviously, God may not have any of these human attributes but it is necessary to create these to understand, relate and feel God’s presence in human lives.
From some religious perspectives, for God’s love for his creation, man, he left Heaven to come to the earth to live among his people. The God that lived among the people surrendered himself to be killed by the people he created in order to save them from the sin they initially knew nothing about. Isn’t this strange? Most attributes given to this religious God are human. And man, perhaps out of fear has not always challenged this. Those who were courageous enough to challenge these were either ostracized, excommunicated, regarded as atheists or even killed by the adherents of the religion.
In other cases, human beings who have extraordinary characters and performances that is far ahead of their time or acquired certain traits that looks beyond the ordinary were said to be God or from God. People with extraordinary intelligence, nature and physical appearance were said to be either God or to have come directly from God. At the end of such period, such people also passed away but those who believe in such actions still through many ways keep sustaining their faith borne out of the ignorance of the nature of God. If God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, then he cannot be man and cannot be given human attribute. This God created by man occupies space but unseen. Sometimes it is located in a country. Sometimes it lives in a house. Other times, it is fighting a war, adopted a son and in other times did not know much about his creations and therefore cannot control them without using man.
At other times, extraordinary trees, animals, land and other forms of nature had been attributed to be God. In such cases people worship such lands, animals, trees, phenomenon, etc. Some believe that God lived in such things and places and therefore were revered.
There are other sets of people who strongly believe that there is no God because they could not identify his true nature. Based on the human attribute given to God by man, the atheists deny an entity called God. Despite the fact that many of them see meaning in life and are able to interpret the organized structure, changes and development in life which is gradually moving towards a more advanced stage, they erroneously assume that life evolves on its own without any mover. To them, man created God.
Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs, or a projection mechanism from the ‘Id’ omnipotence. This is also a view of many Buddhists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, “the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice.” He reversed Voltaire’s aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that “if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”
For the fact that man is yet to identify the true nature of God doesn’t mean that God does not exist. Man is created to use the powers assigned to him to continually develop himself and his environment till he comes to eternity at which point he will fully identify the purpose of life and the nature of God. Meanwhile, man is the major tool and channel towards this end. The purpose of man and nature around him is to identify the true nature of God and his purpose of life.
