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Is God important and Why?
Why is God such a big deal?
(By the way this not in any order of importance – nor are these the handouts from class…)
- As shown through the “plagues” in the Exodus story, God teaches us that He manipulates nature and, in fact, is not nature. He is the creator of all that is created. All the other things that many may “worship” (i.e. Mother Earth, the Nile, animals, weather, etc.) are simply things He created and controls. To demonstrate this, God desanctifies nature through the 10 plagues.
These other “things” that people worship, or pray to, or look to for insight are amoral… Nature has no morality. There is no good or evil in Nature. Natural law is: Survival of the fittest.
God, however, is moral. He creates morality. He teaches us morality. Please remember, the Bible over and over again spells out the ethics we take for granted today. IE, human and child sacrifice was common before God demanded we not.
- The God of Israel set forth the movement for linear history. By this I mean that our current understanding of progressive time and the ability to improve from one generation to the next is directly linked to the God of the Bible. Prior to the biblical age, cultures basically existed in cyclical history. There was minimal, if any, “progress” of societies up until the age of Israel and God’s revelation at Mount Sinai.
Most ancient people simply existed in their cycle of life (you’re born, you work doing what your father did, you die and so on for the next generations.) Therefore. they did not progress ethically or technologically in a linear fashion like what we take for granted in today’s society.
- The God of Israel is a universal God with universal laws (morality). He judges ALL people. Prior to us knowing this God, people simply made up their ethics for their time and society. Their “gods” may or may not judge them or others. But with the God of the Bible, there became a standard of morality for all mankind and the Judge who judges all of mankind.
Without this, then there is no way to define good or evil people. Also, there is no difference in their fate beyond this existence. If there is no God and no afterlife, then when a murderous monster dies, his fate is no different than those he murdered. With a good God who is the Judge of all, then the murderer will have a very different (and hopefully torturous) fate than that of the murdered.
- The God of the Torah is an abstract concept and has no material representation. This allows for a truly mind-expanding consciousness. Prior to this, man always limited the idea of God to the material or known world. However, this God requires we think beyond this material world.
This concept opens us up to a world of possibilities like science, math, and theory which are not based on known facts… but rather abstract possibilities.
- The idea that there is one God who created all of humanity and this one God says we are created in his divine image universalizes the sanctity of human life. Regardless of ancestry or status or appearance, we are all of infinite value.
Our behavior determines our fate and that by which we should be judged. Otherwise, we are all of equal value… though obviously not the same.
- He creates a world of order, not chaos. Unlike others gods who are depicted as capricious, God as depicted in the Torah is the antithesis of these other ideas of gods. He acts methodically and not capriciously. Again, having a very predictable world allows science and math to exist.
- Without God, the world is meaningless.
So, why is God so important?
If nothing else, without Him… nothing is important in the final analysis.
(By the way, I found the class notes and handouts, but… They are on my old computer and ‘Pages’ won’t allow them to open ??? Any suggestions would be appreciated.)
