Concept Of God In World Religion

Assignment # 1 SUBMITTED TO: SIR. ABDUL QADIR

BY:

Syed Owais Ali SP07-BB-0135

Topic: Concept of God in World Religions

Man has been seeking for his Creator from the beginning of known human history. He has called his Creator by many different names, at different times and in different places. According to religion the earliest created man and woman were aware of their Creator and prayed to Him. As time passed their descendants did not transmit the knowledge of the Creator to their offspring properly. At some point in time they lost this knowledge almost completely. Man has an innate nature to seek for his Creator. While seeking for his Creator, anything that was very powerful, enormous, or unusual, drew his attention and he worshipped them. He even worshipped fellow human beings who were gifted with special abilities by God, could perform magic or miracles. This creates different concepts and they further result in the beginning of different religions having there own concept about GOD. We will discuss the concept of GOD according to every religion. The Religion is divided into two categories, which are Heavenly Religion includes Christianity and Judaism. Non-Heavenly Religion includes Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.

Concept of God in Christianity Christians believe in the existence of three Gods. They believe in something called the trinity; which is considered to be one of the most important doctrines of Christianity. This doctrine simply attributes the deity to three persons. It states that not only The Father is God, but Jesus is also a God and the Holy Spirit is a God too. Which makes there three Gods to be worshipped. But the idea of three Gods was rejected big time. Many Christian fathers and theologians had problems accepting this idea. That is why the supporters of this doctrine had to come up with a suitable and accepted definition for the trinity to try to ease down the rejections that faced this doctrine by those who always believed that Christianity is a monotheistic religion and did not accept for it to become a polytheistic one. So they turned to explaining the trinity as not meaning that there are three Gods but as meaning that there are three persons in one Godhead. They say that even though the Father is God and Jesus is a God and the Holy Spirit is also a God; yet there is only one God and not three Gods. They say that the Father + the Son + the Holy Spirit = one god and not three. So according to Christianity; 1+1+1= 1 but according to mathematics and logic and everything we have learned; 1+1+1= 3. so unless Christians mean that the Father is 1/3 God and the son is 1/3 God and the Holy Spirit is 1/3 God which makes the three combined as one complete God; no one who thinks properly and according to logic can accept this Trinitarian formula. Specially when Christians believe that the Father is a complete God, the son is another complete God and the Holy Spirit is another complete God, and each of them has a different and a separate identity, personality, characteristics and acts and not all three are equal in greatness and knowledge and power or capability as clearly shown in the bible in many verses. The most shocking of all is that the word “trinity” is not found any where in the bible and there is not one verse in the bible that states that there are three Gods or that there are

three persons in one Godhead as claimed by this doctrine. So the doctrine of the trinity basically does not have any manuscript proofs that could back it up. It is simply one of the inventions of the early church. This doctrine never existed during the life time of Jesus nor was it practiced by Christianity after his death until the 4th century. So for 400 years Christianity new nothing about this doctrine until it was formulated by the church in the year 381 in the council of Constantinople, yet it wasn't until 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, that the trinity was declared authoritative. Debates on the matter were no longer tolerated; to speak out against the Trinity was now considered blasphemy. But it seems that such declaration by the church was not enough to stop the followers of the truth (the monotheistic Christians) from rejecting this doctrine and debating it with all the powers they got. Many early famous church fathers considered such a teaching “The Trinity” to be a heresy and never accepted it as being a part of the Christian orthodox. And today in the 20th century the situation still remains the same; the doctrine of the trinity is one of the most controversial and disputed issues among the Christian scholars.

Concept of God in Judaism Judaism rejects the Christians’ concept and does not regard Jesus as being the son of God. In fact the Jews have accused Jesus of blasphemy and persecuted him because he called himself the son of God: “The Jews insisted: we have a law and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the son of God” (John 19/7) “For this reason the Jews tried harder to kill him, not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God” (John 5/18) “Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him. But Jesus said to them I have shown you many miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any of these” replied the Jews. “but for blasphemy, because you a mere man claim to be God” (John 10/31-33) as we can see that these verses clearly states that the Jews rejects the idea of God having a son and that they wanted to kill him many times because he called him self the son of God. But the truth is that Jesus never claimed to be the literal or the begotten son of God and never made himself a God or equal to God as the Jews claimed. In John 10/34-36 he tried to explain to them that he never made such claims and that he was only using metaphorical descriptive terms: {“Jesus answered them: is it not written in your law: “I have said you are gods?” if he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture can not be broken, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said: I am God’s son”} The Jews were the ones who always misunderstood him because he used to speak to them in an allegoric way and always used metaphorical descriptive terms or words that are unclear. In fact according to many verses listed in the Gospels; Jesus’ words and parables were unclear and confusing to many people, even his own disciples had problems understanding him as mentioned in the following verses: John 8/27: “they did not understand what he was telling them about the Father” John 10/24: “the Jews gathered around him saying: How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ tell us plainly”

John 16/18 the disciples said: “we don’t understand what he is saying” John 16/29: “then Jesus’ disciples said: Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.” Many of the things that Jesus used to say was so unclear into the extent that the disciples thought his teachings to be so hard to accept which led many of his disciples to stop following him as mentioned in john 6/60: “on hearing it, many of his disciples said: this is a hard teaching, who can accept it.” And in John 6/66: “from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” The Jews disbelieve in Jesus completely; they don’t even consider him as a prophet: “We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow; we don’t even know where he comes from” (John 9/29) They even disbelieve in his miraculous birth and consider him born of an adulterous relationship and many more but this is not the issue we are talking about. There is not one verse in the Old Testament that claims that Jesus is the literal begotten son of God and none of the prophets that came before Jesus claimed such a teaching either. And no Jew today claims or believes that God has a son. This proves that Judaism is against such a teaching.

Concept of God in Hinduism Hinduism is commonly perceived as a polytheistic religion. Indeed, most Hindus would attest to this, by professing belief in multiple Gods. While some Hindus believe in the existence of three gods, some believe in thousands of gods, and some others in thirty three crore i.e. 330 million Gods. However, learned Hindus, who are well versed in their scriptures, insist that a Hindu should believe in and worship only one God. The major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim perception of God is the common Hindus’ belief in the philosophy of Pantheism. Pantheism considers everything, living and non-living, to be Divine and Sacred. The common Hindu, therefore, considers everything as God. He considers the trees as God, the sun as God, the moon as God, the monkey as God, the snake as God and even human beings as manifestations of God! Islam, on the contrary, exhorts man to consider himself and his surroundings as examples of Divine Creation rather than as divinity itself. Muslims therefore believe that everything is God’s i.e. the word ‘God’ with an apostrophe‘s’. In other words the Muslims believe that everything belongs to God. The trees belong to God, the sun belongs to God, the moon belongs to God, the monkey belongs to God, the snake belongs to God, the human beings belong to God and everything in this universe belongs to God. Thus the major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim beliefs is the difference of the apostrophe‘s’. The Hindu says everything is God. The Muslim says everything is God’s.

Concept of God in Buddhism Buddha was silent about the existence or non-existence of God. It may be that since India was drowned in idol worship and anthropomorphism that a sudden step to monotheism would have been drastic and hence Buddha may have chosen to remain silent on the issue of God. He did not deny the existence of God. Buddha was once asked by a disciple whether God exists. He refused to reply. When pressed, he said that if you are suffering from a stomach ache would you concentrate on relieving the pain or studying the prescription of the physician. "It is not my business or yours to find out whether there is God – our business is to remove the sufferings of the world". Buddhism provided Dhamma or the ‘impersonal law’ in place of God. However this could not satisfy the craving of human beings and the religion of self-help had to be converted into a religion of promise and hope. The Hinayana sect could not hold out any promise of external help to the people. The Mahayana sect taught that Buddha’s watchful and compassionate eyes are on all miserable beings, thus making a God out of Buddha. Many scholars consider the evolution of God within Buddhism as an effect of Hinduism. Many Buddhists adopted the local god and thus the religion of ‘No-God’ was transformed into the religion of ‘Many-Gods’ – big and small, strong and weak and male and female. The ‘Man-God’ appears on earth in human form and incarnates from time to time. Buddha was against the caste-system prevalent in the Hindu society.

Concept of God in Sikhism The best definition that any Sikh can give regarding the concept of God in Sikhism is to quote the Mulmantra – the fundamental creed of Sikhism, which occurs at the beginning of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. It is mentioned in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, volume 1 Japuji, the first verse: "There exists but one God, who is called The True, The Creator, Free from fear and hate, Immortal, Not begotten, Self-Existent, Great and Compassionate." Sikhism is a monotheistic Religion. Sikhism enjoins its followers to practice strict monotheism. It believes in only One Supreme God who is, in the unman fest form, called Ek Omkara. In the manifest form He is called Omkara and has several attributes such as: Kartar – The Creator Akal – The Eternal Sattanama – The Holy Name Sahib – The Lord Parvardigar – The Cherisher Rahim – The Merciful Karim – The Benevolent

He is also called Wahe Guru – the One true God. Besides Sikhism being strictly monotheistic, it also does not believe in Avataravada – the doctrine of incarnation. Almighty God does not incarnate Himself in what is known as Avatara. Sikhism is also strongly against idol worship.

Concept of God in Zoroastrianism (Parsi) God in Zoroastrianism is known as ‘Ahura Mazda’. ‘Ahura’ means ‘the Lord’ or 'The Master' and ‘Mazda’ means ‘the Wise’; hence ‘Ahura Mazda’ means ‘the Wise Lord’ or ‘the Wise God’. Ahura Mazda stands for God, in a strictly monotheistic sense. Qualities of God according to the Dasatir: According to the Dasatir, Ahura Mazda has the following qualities: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii.

He is One. He is without an origin or end. He has no father or mother, wife or son. He is without a body or form. Nothing resembles Him. Neither the eye can behold Him, nor can the power of thinking conceive Him. He is above all that you can imagine. He is nearer to you than your own self.

Qualities of God according to Avesta: According to the Avesta, the Gathas and the Yasna give various characteristics to Ahura Mazda such as: i.

ii. iii. iv.

Creator – Yasna 31:7 & 11 Yasna 44:7 Yasna 50:11 Yasna 51:7 Most Mighty – the Greatest Yasna 33:11 Yasna 45:6 Beneficent – Hudai. Yasna 33:11 Yasna 48:3 Bountiful – Spenta; Yasna 43:4,5,7,9,11,13,15 Yasna 44:2 Yasna 45:5 Yasna 46:9 Yasna 48:3

Thus, in Zoroastrianism too, we find a concept of an eternal, omnipotent God. Several verses of Yasna praise the Lord as a Bountiful Creator.