jefferson dale abandia's Blog

The question about God will always remains a human question despite of the development and progress in our contemporary world.  The question on how people look at God in the contemporary world is still a valid question that we need to take into consideration.  It is undeniable that we are longing for something which is greater than us.  We try to search for an answer to so many things and one of those is our question of God or the Divine. Thus, we make sense of what we experience by entering into the realm of eternal realities. Precisely, this is what religion is all about. Religion is always an attempt to make sense of everything that we experience. Thus, religion is a human enterprise and it is not outside of human experience.

However, in contemporary time the influence of God and religion is not that strong compared to the medieval time. It is because with the rise of technology, anything now can be explained and provided by science. The thing which seems impossible before is now possible with the rise of modern technologies. The contemporary world offers things that have godly functions. This is the aims and goals of modern technologies; to acquire or obtained functions like God. Because of this, people of today are now concerned to so many things because of the developments and demands of science and technology. Nowadays, the tendency that a technology offers is to make us busy. The growing numbers of modern inventions in our contemporary time make us concern on material world. This reality diverts our attentions to the city of man instead of focusing to the city of God. This means that we become focus on worldly things than on the spiritual ones. The concern of man in this contemporary world focuses on the present, the here and now. That is here and not anymore the future, the afterlife. We are now busy and preoccupied by so many things because of our so many concerns in life. As a result we seldom talk about God or if we talk about God, we talk of Him as some kind of machine that we can manipulate.

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According to Marion, if metaphysics has ended and it reaches its completion, it implies the death of God in philosophy. It is because when we speak of God in philosophy we always refer to metaphysics because it is the only field in philosophy wherein we can study about God as the source of the Being of the other beings. However, according to Marion the metaphysical language that we are using in dealing with God is obsolete.  He further asserts that God can never be thought of in terms of metaphysical level because it delimits and reduces the idea of God into a human concept which is improper to God, thus such must not be thought of in this manner. Thus, he proposed that we should use phenomenological language in dealing with God. It is because in phenomenology we must do away with all our prejudices and biases. Marion phenomenology is here is the phenomenology of icon and idol. Idol if we are using human category in thinking on God. In idol man is the one designating who God is or what are the characteristics of God. However, for Marion God is not an idol but an icon. Because an icon represent something which man did not designate. In icon it is God who gives himself, thus for Marion giving is very important. God gives without any limit and this is Marion’s idea of donation. “Donation” is the method used by Marion in order to see God in a phenomenological approach. Marion recognizes God as an “unlimited giver/gift”. God gives without limit and yet God never becomes empty. Further, Marion encourages us to think of “God as love”. In doing so, we will then be having an accurate understanding of God.

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This article presents different ways of looking at God, different perspectives in dealing with God. They used different analogies, novels, movies or even music just to share their insights or their ideas about God. They present new ideas about God based on our present time. Some ideas presented here are unusual and some are no longer new to me. However, it triggers me think of what they are presenting whether there are truths on what they are saying or they just want to give new possibilities about the ideas of the existence of God. Further, they gave us as well different possibilities in looking at the existence of God and it was being left to us whether we are going to believe them or not. There are different ways of presenting God in this article: The picture of God as a father who can bail us and after bailing he just left us to live on our own. The picture of God as being one of us, as it is presented by Joan Osborne in his song “One of Us.” The image of a “Missing God” – that no one knows where he is. Picture of God as a silent woman, who cannot speak directly to man because it makes the hearts of man explode because of his unusual power. Also presented here is the idea of God as an old man. And God as a coward God, a God who is out of his control of himself, limited and cannot do anything on what is happening around him.

However, there is one thing in common in all of these images of God that they are presenting, and that is the immanent concept of God; the God who became man who dwell among men. The paper also presented God as a suffering God, a God who is limited, and the God who can abandon his people. Furthermore, God is also being portrayed as a selfish God in the article as it is being present by Ferucci. It is because in Ferucci’s account, God created the cosmos just to relieve his own loneliness. God created us to explain to him who he is. In this sense, it is like saying that we exist because of God’s mistake. God created us for his own benefits and that is to know him better. God in Ferucci’s account is being portrayed also as an imperfect God, a God who has all the qualities and defects like ordinary persons. The picture of dead God is being portrayed also by James Morrow. And such an idea has a lot of implications. It is because often times we do good things out of our fear in God. We believe that we must always please God in all the things we do and having this mentality hinders us to avoid evil deeds. Moreover, if God is already dead we no longer have motivating factor to do good, there is no more God who can dictate us to do good, we already have the freedom to do all the things we want. If God no longer exist, does this mean that all things are already permitted? This is one of the questions that bother me upon reading this article. It makes me realize that I must do things properly because it is my duty and not because of the fear of God.

Another interesting image presented in this paper is when God is being equated to the computers. It is because many of the services that we need which we usually depend on God before can now be performed by the computers and modern technologies. Things which are impossible before are now possible because of modern technologies. Computers now seem to function like God. With present technology now, nothing is impossible. We spend more of our times in front of these modern technologies rather than with God. All the functions of God now can be attributed to modern technologies. We become dependent to such modern inventions than with God. We give priority to these things than to God, these modern inventions are the one controlling us and dictating us without being aware of it. Such article opens to me another window of looking at God as God. Modern inventions might feed me with different images, pictures of God but such will be a help for me to be open to new possibilities about the existence of God especially in our present time.