WHO IS GOD (class 1)

Who is God?

Among the many questions about life and reality that we can make ourselves this is the most important one. In the way we answer this single question depends our everything, our eternal destiny! How can we ignore such matter? From the moment we are born and start to live we also become slowly aware of the fact that this earthly life will end. After it what will follow then? Many people in their attempts to solve it out have engaged fully into thinking and have pondered this matter. The answers have been manifold.
But how precisely does the answer have so much weight? Let’s review the three basic and only possible answers to this question:

There is No God.

If this was the answer, then everything we see around us with our senses it’s all there is, and after we die then, there is simply nothing for us any more, we would just not be, cease to exist. The world of course will still continue to exist without us. The people that sustain such view are commonly known as “atheists”. Nowadays many people who don’t believe in God, do so mainly because they say that we can only know that which science can explain. “Show me the prod of God, show me God” they say often. If there is no God, then there is no good or evil: No justice since crimes that go unpunished here would never be punished and good actions that people forget here would be always forgotten. If there is no God, our existence, all our achievements, aspirations, dreams and longings would be meaningless. Why then be good at all?

There are many Gods

As human beings spread throughout the whole earth and their consciousness continued to expand, so did its intelligence. When this human got smart enough to realize that there is a reason behind everything and that he was capable of knowing it, and use this knowledge to modify his environment for his own good., the question immediately came to his mind: Who am I? And then. Why am I here? And also: What is the meaning to life?
Man at this moment knew that he was not immersed in a senseless world but that there must be some reason and meaning to it all, and so he thought that behind everything there was someone or something directing it. To the fire he imagined a Fire God, to the wind, a wind God, etc. Many Gods. The people that believe in many Gods, are called either” monotheists” or simply: “pagans”
You might wonder, well, what is wrong with this picture? Let’s think it through;
If there were many Gods, then, wouldn’t they even though they would be more powerful and probably immortal, also be a being, I mean just like us: one limited being, In what way could any of these Gods give us eternal life and existence if themselves came out to existence by a more powerful father God, or Mother Goddess? And here we see that humans little by little start intuiting that there must be a supreme being above everything that exists and above our own nature. But the picture is not quite complete yet. If there were many God, and each one of them demanded adoration, the men would never be truly free, instead man would become a slave of forces he could never understand and would be subject to the whim of some super beings that don’t love him or care for him in the least.

There is ONE God

If there is indeed a God, then everything we see around us will have meaning, our lives will have meaning as well. We would know where we came from and where we are going. We could then, aspire to live forever, not just disappear. Our actions would have meaning as well, for our good actions we would be rewarded and for our bad actions punished, auch!! So it would make sense then to know the world and to use the intelligence we have to use this knowledge for pure good and others, it would make perfect sense to be good and aim at being happy forever.
So, once we know how really important the outcome is, let’s pop the big question:

DOES GOD EXIST?
If the order and harmony we see in the workings of the world around us mean anything at all, it necessarily must mean that the world works in an intelligent manner, not in chaos or disorder. For something to behave intelligently is necessary that it is conceived by a free intelligent will that would give purpose, an intention to what he made. When a carpenter makes a chair he sees first in his mind what he wants to make and what for: He wants to sit down, so then he makes a chair. Everything that an intelligent being makes will have an intention, something for which that thing was made for. This “for which” is also called the end.
So here we see that if we recognize that in the world around us there is evidence of intelligent structure, we can get to know that there must be an intelligent cause for all of this to exist.
And how precisely must this first cause be? Well, it must be first of all: a). Omnipotent, that can do everything (To create everything, then this being must be able to do precisely that, everything, right?) b). Omniscient. If this being can do everything, then he of course should know everything! Nobody makes that which he doesn’t know.. c). Omnipresent. To make everything and know everything, you must be everywhere as well. Could you make a drawing in china right now? No, why: Because you are not there. d). If this being can do all, knows all and is everywhere this means that it is a perfect being! Perfect means: Complete, full, nothing lacking from him.
We see in the reality around us that the better and higher a being is, the more conscious of itself will be, as well as more intelligent. A rock is being, what kind? Inanimate, no conscious or intelligence at all, then, a bacteria, then, plants, then lower animals, and then higher animals, and then us, humans. The higher you go on the scale the smarter you go and the smarter you are the more a true person you become.
We are smart, and we have personhood, but we are not perfect. From where we are to the perfection we just discussed there is a huge and daunting distance. If then, we, even though we are the highest being on this earth (yet to know) are already good, smart, beautiful, and free, could you conceive the perfection of all this in a being?
That’s right; you can’t. The finite can never enclose the infinite.
But we know that if this reality behaves in such an intelligent manner, it is because it has a creator, and he who made it is almighty, all knowing, all present, perfect, infinite, unbound, beyond all that there is, but yet in very little thing. This highest being we understand him and acknowledge Him to be our creator. We call Him GOD!

So, what are the consequences of there being a GOD?
This GOD that is perfect, must by necessity be also Good, not only simply Good, but the best one can say of Good, Good itself! If god is good itself, then that means that He is pure Love, love unbound, love for whom? For Himself, for everything He made, and in a special manner for us humans, for you and for me. Why? Because he made us in such a brilliant manner that we possess precisely the capacity to understand and to reason that He exists. The human race has a desire to live, the desire to be, but not only to just plainly be, in the same way a rock or a cat is, but to fully be, to fully live: To be happy! All men by nature want to know, and all men by nature want to be happy!
If the knowledge or the happiness we long for were not possible for us to obtain, this would make of this GOD an unjust being, which we have seen, is impossible for Him to be so. The hard fact is that man is not truly happy, why? This surely contradicts an infinitely good God. Also, can one man know all?? No. Why does this happen? Because in this life things change, and happiness is difficult to get because we want immediate satisfaction and have not experienced the true peace and happiness our hearts long for. We want this happiness so much that we seek the happiness we want in the things of the world that come and pass away, that will end, and so just like this things pass and go, with the same speed does so our enjoyment of them.
No, that is not what we mean by really being, what we mean by really being, is to be Happy, truly happy, really happy, how happy? Well, the true happiness is the one that never ends. But how is that possible if we are going to die? God who is good, would not put in us a hunger that can not be satisfied ever. God who is love itself would not give us reason to know Him and to love Him, if at the end we are just going to fade away and never get to be with Him whom we know and love. No, the truth is that if we know God, we will love God, if we love God, we will be and act with love for him, for his creation and for everybody, and we will be happy forever because God made us body and soul. -A body to move, a soul to live. This soul is immortal because is the very life of God in us, and in this soul we are like our creator. You have probably heard before that all things are like their owners, and so are we, and so are we.
And here is the whole point of the matter: God made man as a free act of love, in His image and likeness so that he can know His creator and love Him and be Happy With Him in Eternity.

WELCOME TO OUR VIRTUAL CLASS

Dear friends:

I have decided to begin this web log today for our class and to anyone who would like to learn more about the church and the story of our salvation. This page is ours and in it I will be psoting periodically material relevant to the classes, the class itself and a blueprint for the following class. Any question that you might feel went unanswered during the clas time can be freely asked here and i will gladly answer it as directly as possible. Please feel free also to leave any commentary or observation. I rrealize that it has been some time that we begun our course and just untill now I have brought this up. I know; I should have done it before, but as the saying goes "it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings" and we are surely far from over as there are still lots of things to be learned and key concepts understood. We can't leave nothing to chance becaue from your basic formation will depend how you live as catholics the rest of your lives. I strongly encourage enthousiastic participation from your parents in your journey of faith so that they themselves understand the call that Jesus Christ has done to you, to become parts of His body and to share the eternal joy that is destined for his elected ones in heaven, and in this way they can reaffirm (to make stronger again) their faith; the faith they share with you. May god bless you all and that He who knited you on your mother's womb give you the wisdom, the strenght and the way to fulfill his will for you: That you may walk with Him in newness of life and be the true you that he intended you to be, now and forever. Amen

Yours in Christ
Adolfo