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The questions that could change our life forever?

1: What is purpose of man’s Existence?

2: Can you prove the Existence of God?

1: What is purpose of man’s Existence?

The first thing the speaker asked the group was what they thought their mission or purpose in life was. Someone replied that we were all made for different reasons, and that each person was made for a different reason. Someone else said that he thinks he was made to help other people. Someone said that his job is to help and heal people since he is in the medical field. Someone said that his goal is to grow, do well, have children, and make more people. In response, the lecturer said that having children is important because without them, the world would end. The last person to speak said that he isn’t sure why he is here, and the lecturer said that maybe he hasn’t thought about it enough. The lecturer went on to say that the question “Why am I here?” should be asked. Is a question that every smart person, any thinking person, always asks? Everything in life depends on the answers, and some people may find their purpose and follow it, only to find out they were wrong and it was a dead end. The lecture gave the example of Uduak Akpan, a young man who sold hard drugs and was recently sentenced to death in Akwaibom for raping and killing a girl who wanted to work for him. You can read the full story here.

The speaker also said that this young man used to be a 7-year-old boy who may have thought he had found his life’s purpose when he started selling hard drugs. But look what happened! So, he had the wrong idea about what he wanted to do with his life. We can say that he was misled.

The second question from the lecture was, “If someone told you that you won the lottery, wouldn’t you try to find out if it’s true?”

Someone said that he would first check to see if and when he had entered a lottery. The lecturer said that was amazing and that everyone should do the same thing to find out if it’s true, if they really did enter a lottery. The lecturer then asked, “What if the person who told you you won the lottery was someone you trust and respect?” If someone with a lot of respect and status, like the vice chancellor or dean, came looking for you and called you out of class to tell you that they just heard that you won or inherited a billion dollars, you would probably take them seriously and do everything you could to find out more about this inheritance you won and claim it. The lecture said that there is a belief system, faith, or creed that says everyone in the class has won a lottery, has a billion dollars, or even more than a billion dollars, has a life that will never end in heaven, and that if they accept this claim, they will automatically get all of this.

This seemed to surprise the people there, but the lecturer went on to say that this set of beliefs or faith is called Christianity, and it says that everyone is called to eternal life in heaven, a life of happiness and joy that never ends, and it is up to each person to claim it. The lecturer adds that, just as you agreed that it would be reasonable to look into the billion-dollar inheritance, no matter how crazy it seemed, you should also find out if it’s true that you entered a lottery. In the same way, it would make sense to look into what Christianity and many other religions say.

The lecture asked the students if they knew that religion has been around since the beginning of time and has always been a part of the history of the human race. He said that since the beginning of time, people have always wanted to worship God. The lecturer asked one of the people in the room if they had ever seen this happen. For example, if they hadn’t seen that their ancestors in different villages worshiped one kind of god or another (Alusi). The lecturer then said that this is something that has always been true about men, that it has been seen in ancient times, among Egyptians and Romans, that all men have a tendency to worship a deity, and that there has never been a society where spontaneous worship of God has not happened. In fact, in most countries, like the Soviet Union, the government has to use harsh laws to stop this natural tendency of man. The lecturer then said that this natural desire to worship some kind of deity, like God, is something that all men have always had. Many philosophers have come to the conclusion that if every desire in man has some kind of natural fulfillment in reality, for example, if a person feels hungry, there is food, and if a person feels thirsty, there is drink. It therefore means that this natural desire for God must also have a natural fulfillment in reality

 In his book “Mere Christianity,” the great author C.S. Lewis makes this point. He says it like this:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A dolphin wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, “Hope”)

The lecturer said that this is one way philosophers have also come to the conclusion that there must be a God, since people have always worshipped different gods to show their desire for God.

2: Can you prove the Existence of Go

 Is there a question that could change our life forever?

            The lecturer then asked the audience if they thought God existed and if God’s existence could be proven. Many of the participants emphasized that, even though they believe in God, there is no scientific way to prove that God exists and there is no proof, and that it’s fair that no one can prove or even give evidence for that belief. The lecture emphasized that it is true that the existence of God cannot be proven by a mathematical formula or a scientific principle of chemistry, since God is not a chemical that you can mix together to test a hypothesis. However, there are logical proofs that God exists, and St. Thomas Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God were given as examples. He told the class that they had to read up on and understand the five ways that St. Thomas tried to prove that God exists, since we could only talk about one of them, which is called the “Contingent argument of God’s existence.” This is how the proof works:

Everything we see around us—the faculty building, cars, the university, the tree, etc.—is contingent, which means that it started to exist at some point in time and wasn’t there before. Also, everything we see in the world has a beginning and an end. Now, if everything in the world had a beginning that means there was a time when they were not there. If that is true, then there was a time when there was nothing. If we go all the way back, it would be true that there was a time when there was nothing. But since nothing comes from nothing, there would still be nothing now. Because of this, there must be something that has always been there, never started, and has always been there from which other things came into being. That something or someone must be eternal because it has always existed. Since it is the cause of all existence, it must also be the cause of its own existence, since nothing caused it to exist. Since it is the only thing that has never had a cause, it is the beginning and the end, or the alpha and omega. God is what we call the thing that has its own beginning and is the end of everything. Since it has no beginning, it also has no end.

Other reasonable proof of existence of God by Dr. Peter Kreeft can be watched here.

At this point, the 25 minutes were up, and the lecturer said that was the end of class for this week. He said that next week, we would talk more about the nature of this God and the different schools of thought about what this God is. For example, some faiths say He is made of stone, some say He is from Mecca and Medina, and some say that this God is not just one person, but three divine beings that make up One God. Are these true? Is there proof? Do the people who say these things have proof to back up their claims? Can these proofs be checked, or are they just making stuff up? In the next class, you’ll find out.

Lecture on Christian Doctrine delivered at ESUCOM

19^th August 2022

By Engr Iyizoba Chinwuba