If you've never heard of him Thomas Aquinas was an apologetics master. As I've mentioned before, I've been listening to the learnoutloud.com philosophy podcast and the most recent episode was about Aquinas's proofs for God. He used the unmoved mover, uncaused cause and other arguments to show that the concept of God is perfectly logical. I need to read more from this brilliant man! That being said, this made me think of another reason to believe in God (caveat this is by no means a good reason to believe).
Before I go into that reason, let's discuss "human progress." The only thing that has really progressed for humanity is hubris and pride. Okay, when I say only I'm not saying that there haven't been lots of technological advances over the years. In just my short 30 years (almost 31) there has been huge progress in the power of computing. That's not what I'm talking about, technological advanced are not true progress, it's just more complicated ways to put together different things in different ways.
Let's look at human progress in the realm of morality or at fixing social ills. In the past few thousand years, how has humanity progressed at eradicating any of these things that plague humanity? Hunger? Poverty? Disease? Homicide? War? How well have we done in getting rid of these things?
Going back to the topic of great philosophers, hearing some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas made me pause and think about another reason to believe in God, aside from all the great apologists' arguments. There are dozens upon dozens of brilliant people that have proved time and again that the concept of God is rational. So, when someone stands up on his or her little soap box and states unequivocally that "God is dead" or "man is God," that person is stating that he or she has more knowledge, wisdom, insight, and logic than many of the greatest thinkers. Of the history of philosophy podcast that I've been listening to, basically all of the philosophers so far, have believed in some form of god/gods, that includes Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Then there are the other great thinkers like C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Thomas Aquinas, and many many more. I'm not saying there aren't smart people on the other side of the argument. I'm saying that humanity needs to take a break and remember from where we've come.
Like my last post about believing in God just because without such belief one has no hope, TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of people for centuries have believed that there's Something out there that created everything. Who are you to rail against human history and claim that man is all there is!?
Before I go into that reason, let's discuss "human progress." The only thing that has really progressed for humanity is hubris and pride. Okay, when I say only I'm not saying that there haven't been lots of technological advances over the years. In just my short 30 years (almost 31) there has been huge progress in the power of computing. That's not what I'm talking about, technological advanced are not true progress, it's just more complicated ways to put together different things in different ways.
Let's look at human progress in the realm of morality or at fixing social ills. In the past few thousand years, how has humanity progressed at eradicating any of these things that plague humanity? Hunger? Poverty? Disease? Homicide? War? How well have we done in getting rid of these things?
Going back to the topic of great philosophers, hearing some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas made me pause and think about another reason to believe in God, aside from all the great apologists' arguments. There are dozens upon dozens of brilliant people that have proved time and again that the concept of God is rational. So, when someone stands up on his or her little soap box and states unequivocally that "God is dead" or "man is God," that person is stating that he or she has more knowledge, wisdom, insight, and logic than many of the greatest thinkers. Of the history of philosophy podcast that I've been listening to, basically all of the philosophers so far, have believed in some form of god/gods, that includes Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Then there are the other great thinkers like C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Thomas Aquinas, and many many more. I'm not saying there aren't smart people on the other side of the argument. I'm saying that humanity needs to take a break and remember from where we've come.
Like my last post about believing in God just because without such belief one has no hope, TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of people for centuries have believed that there's Something out there that created everything. Who are you to rail against human history and claim that man is all there is!?
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| Beautiful view of the Golden Gate bridge from the south side |
