Who is God

GOD

What is God? Who is God? Is there a God?

All of the above mentioned questions might never be answered in the light of any scientific experiment. We have only arguments that deal with spirituality, metaphysics, theology, and philosophy. These arguments are not supported with factual material evidences since nobody has seen God. But this thing never concludes on the negation of the entity of God. Truly, we have many of the means to admit the existence of God.

It is an approach of mind whether we perceive one omnipotent being or not as our Lord. This tendency can be either negative or positive. There is no midway since the midway is doubt and haze. Both of the opposite corners (about the entity of God) are two extreme verges of positiveness and negativeness. Man is bound to think within the limits of five senses, and he cant expect anything to be existing beyond his five senses. Human psyche always forces man to peep into the secrets of this universe to unveil the hidden beings for the discovery of his own being. Since the nature is always change-able, therefore, human nature never remains constant and consistent. Similar is the case with beliefs.

Belief is not a thing to be bought from anywhere, rather it is a pack of thoughts that one gets through observation, perception, experience, inclination, invitation, and the most important knowledge. This is not the full list of belief-creating events, in fact, there is a huge catalog of certain belief-creators that instill beliefs in man.

The concept of God is the very type of belief that is a gigantic obstacle before the clarity of human mind. This obstacle becomes even greater when we meet different types of gods. This concept (Which of course belongs to God ultimately) varies from region to region, person to person, and religion to religion. We can experience many of the gods in the world even now apart from history, who have been staunchly conceived beings to be worshipped. We can separate the religions into three categories i. e. monotheism, tritheism, polytheism in terms of experimenting the entity of God.

Monotheism, as the Muslims believe, is one of the greatest worshipers group that only believes in one God. Oneness is the greatest quality of God being the owner of the whole universe without any partner. Muslims concept of God and faith in God is very strong on this point that can encompass either of the other concept. One of the reasons of fast-growth of Islam is its clear and doubtless concept of God.

The history of monotheism goes far back in terms of recorded events. Im not putting here the mythology of religions or the events of the arrival of the Prophets, which is a part of our faith. But Im to deal with recorded history by analyzing it what it says.

Akhanaton was the very first person who proclaimed Monotheism for his nation. He was a Pharaoh of Egypt in 17th century BC, and the name of his God was Aton that means supreme. But after his death, his religion also died and was buried along with him since the people of Egypt restored the previous religion of polytheism.

Socrates was another person who raised the slogan of monotheism in a polytheist-mythical society. Socrates obeyed his lord namely Apollo. The end of Socrates was Capital Punishment being a blasphemous of Greek gods.
Socrates said, I am the slave of Apollo, He is my sole Lord.

Then we reach to Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who is a well-recorded historical personality. I have by-passed Jesus and Moses since they are not recorded historical personalities. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) gave a very clear concept of God that disaccordedly, was not personified. The pollution always started with the personification of gods because it was the seed of idolatry. Muhammad (PBUH) told us about God that he is the spark of this universe. He is the creator and the destroyer. He is the Lord of everything and nothing can even move without His permission. The name of Muhammads God is Allah, which means the supreme God. The word Allah has been derived from the word El of Hebrew, which has been used in Bible for supreme God. This very El later became Elohim, which ultimately changed into Arabic word Allah.

The basic principle of Islam is the admission of oneness of God:
There is none but Allah to be worshipped, Muhammad is His Messenger.

Secondly, we take Christianity as the tritheism. This tritheist belief expresses that there are three entities, which, after conjoining one another, make the power of Supreme God. This concept is called Trinity that means three in one. The three entities included in triangle are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All of them are gods but the Father is superior for His power. The Son (Jesus) was sent to earth in a personified form for the salvation of humanity. The role of Holy Spirit is of a messenger and watchman. Jesus was conceived by Marry from Holy Spirit. Crucifixion of Jesus, according to Christians, cleansed the sins of the whole humanity, which were the result of Adam-Eves disobedience of God by eating the forbidden fruit.

The words of Jesus have been recorded in New Testament;

I am the way, the truth, and the light. (Book of John)

Whoever believeth in me, will never die. (Book of John)

In short, the way to God is the Son whose attention we must need for our salvation.

Now, we turn to the polytheism, which has been the most common religion of mankind through the ages. This religion needs no proper rule, law, or faith, though there are many modified laws. Man, due to his superstitious nature, has always possessed a tendency to incline towards supernatural powers. Whenever man was benefited by anything other than man himself, that thing was chosen as a god. Sometimes, when men died, they were started to be worshipped. The same case happened with Buddha who didnt teach his followers to worship him, but they started the tradition of worship after his death.

This is a very well recorded event in the history of polytheism that whenever someone saintly person would die, he would have first been tributed and saluted, then considered as a powerful authority of heavens, and ultimately given the status of god.

This thing is somewhat different in supernatural religions. The religions like Hinduism and Greek paganism are good examples in this regard. The priestly persons of such religions perceived the supernatural beings as the authority whom the man had to bow before. This sort of paganism has two kinds. One is the paganism that chooses its lords (gods) from heavenly bodies considering them the most influential entity for man. This type of paganism construct the temples of certain heavenly gods where they put mostly nothing but often personified images of those heavenly bodies. The second type of paganism creates the imaginary gods from whom, the people start to expect their desires to be fulfilled. This paganism also construct temples where they necessarily fix the images of such imaginary gods. This type of pantheon was very popular in Greek religion.

Syed Waqar

John J Ratey