What is it that gives us the ability to live?

What drives us to keep on living until

we can no longer hold on to the handles of life? Are we just predestined to die the same
way that we lived? What should we really believe in? Is it this so called God? Or is it the
strong belief we have for ourselves? Every single day in our life we ask questions about
how to live. We constantly look for the answers and yet we ignore it. Who are we as
persons? What is it that makes us who we are? Is it the actions that we do? Or are we who
we choose to be? Are just defined by our abilities alone?

Life is a constant battle. The longer we live the more we struggle. So, why do we
have to continue on living if it means that we have to struggle? Warriors would say that it
is courageous to die in battle. Then if life is a battle, then is it brave to die in front of it?
Why do we consider dying as courage when in fact its merely an escape? What kind of
cause or conviction do we have to continue on fighting the struggles of life? What is it
that we believe in? What are we fighting for? Is it the values of life like justice, hope, and
love? Or is it just escapism or sanity? We ask all these questions and find answers to them
and yet those answers lead to even deeper questions, and the cycle just keeps on repeating
itself. History they say repeats itself and that is true. However, if history is just cyclical
then we are just living out the shadows of our past and not of our present and future. And
as always what there is the underlying question, what makes all these things happen?
What force pushes as all to the edge? Some say it is a divine power that surrounds and
exists everywhere; and still some say its only fate. Does God really exist? Or are we
fated to end to nothing but a pile of dust and memories when we die?

Basically, God is defined as the indescribable, uncreated, self existent, eternal all
knowing source of all reality and being, and source of all goodness and varying grades of
things, as said by Leibniz1. Many philosophies have been breed from this definition. God,
according to Aristotle2, is a being in a state of stases untouched by change and
imperfection. Aristotle is thus saying that God has no flaws and all is moved by Him and
not Him being moved by anything else, even reality itself. Although reality itself is by
God it does not follow that God is by reality.
The basic definition of God is indirectly contradicted by the modern idea of God.
Because of the rise of Atheism and Nihilism in the modern era, Gods definition
diminishes to a point of supremacy. The rise of such belief gave way to Open-Theism that
defines God in a semi-omnipotent view. God is not omnipotent in the classical sense of a
coercive being. Due to free will, the universe is made by a process not as an initial reality
that it was made in such a way and it will stay in that way. God therefore is a coordinate
of its creation, meaning that God cannot force anything to happen, but rather only
influence the exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities; and also the
substance that is the created is directed upon but it itself has to act by itself .3
Different religions have diverse concepts about God or gods but a commonality
appears; all of which pointing to the direction of the basic omni potency definition. The
most common of these religions is Christianity. According to St. Anselm of Canterbury, it
is apparently impossible for a being that nothing can be conceived greater than exist in
the understanding alone. Thus, arguing that reality is greater than that which has nothing
greater than can be conceived, for the whole argument is contradicting. God is defined
1

(Kng, 1979, Does God Exist?, Oxford: Clarendon)

(Copleston, 1960. A History of Philosophy Volume 1 Ancient Philosophy, New York: N.Y. Image Books),
3
(Gilson,1955, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages)
2

as the being that none can be conceived greater than. Thus showing that God exists as a
being both greater than reality and unreality.4
Although the initial arguments of the definition and existence of God remain
vague, there is always a definitive contraposition to them. Many skeptics contradict the
idea of a divine provider. Even St. Thomas Aquinas asks, if there is a God, that which
none can greater be conceived and all goodness flows, from then how come there is so
much suffering in the world?5 This is a normal theme back then during the middle ages
at the times when God supposedlyaccording to some historianstook a much needed
vacation. However, after the birth of reason and its growth, human philosophy began to
adjust to reality as well.
Resulting from the offshoot of belief, nihilism argues that life is meaningless and
that God exists only in the realm of oblivion. According even to Nietzsche God is
Dead.6 However, Nietzcshes primary rationale for this is to show that God has died
due to the loss of true faith. He explains that humans no longer believe thus killing Him.
God is dead, then, in the sense that his existence is now irrelevant to the bulk of
humanity. His existence is replaced by The Gay Science.
Atheism is basically the complete rejection of the existence of God. In accordance
to this belief, God does not exist as an omnipotent but rather a trickster that makes folly
of mans desire. Often the paradox of the stone is used as an argument: if God is
omnipotent then can He create a stone that which He Himself is unable to lift. This
familiar double-edged sword argument is popularly used to show the nature of God by
the Theists.
4

(Donceel, 1979, The Searching Mind: An Introduction to a Philosophy of God)

(Copleston, 1950, History of Philosophy Volume 2 Mediaeval Philosophy, New York: N.Y. Image Books)
6
(Gillispie, 1996, Nihilism Before Nietzsche)
5

This type of paradox does not govern over God and for that matters, nothing
governs God, not even His own laws. Though the proof is vaguely determined, it implies
that God has His own type of free will or rather freedom that can show what true
omnipotence means.
A being could not be moved by nothing or by itself alone, thus sating that
everything is potentially capable of movement but not the mover itself. The process of
mover potentially moved is soon blocked by the thought that it cannot go on infinitely
and therefore a firs mover must have been present and still is present. It is therefore
necessary to arrive at a conclusion that there is a God, a God that is the first mover
moved by no other.7 Even the most controversial science of alchemy shows this kind of
argument; that nothing cannot be given without giving something in return. Also, Physics
is trying to prove the creation off all and thus proving the creation of the idea of God as
the beginning. Nothing can defy the natural laws except perhaps by a divine good, hence
proving a supreme being.8
In the words of Spinoza, since the definition of God is perfect then God
cannot not exist due to contradicting ideas. To assert that God doesnt exist is, to
advertise the confusion of ones thoughts; It is to assert that a perfect being doesnt
exist.9

(Reith, 1958, The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, Baltimore: Penguin Books)
(Davies, 1983, God and the New Physics)
9
(Nicholson, 1950, Philosophy of Religion, Chicago: Loyola University Press)
8