Ultimate Reality

What is ultimate reality? If a person were to do an Internet search of the words, he or she

would find about 5, 670, 000 results. When broken down, “ultimate” is said to mean

“furthest or highest in degree or order” while “reality” is defined as ‘the quality or state

of being actual or true.” When read together many people have different meanings as to

what they ultimately think these two words mean. Genuine philosophers have often

sought for an understanding of ultimate reality, never being content with mere opinion

within the realm of sensory objects. Philosophers ranging from C.S Lewis, to Sartre, to

Bertrand Russell, and of course, to Nietzsche have all in some way, maybe not

intentionally attempted to make us see their meaning of ultimate reality, with the hope

that we might adopt it as our own. There are three models of reality that people can

associate themselves with. The first model consists of Atheism; I will not go into what

each model believes in just yet. Next we have Hinduism, Native American religion,

Buddhism, and Hegelianism. These four make up what we call our second model of

reality. The last model of reality is that which the majority of the world categorizes

themselves as. This model consists of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I am going to

prove how my view of God as the ultimate reality can and will hold up against the

challenges presented in the three models of reality.

First model of reality

The first model of reality deals primarily with Atheism. Atheism claims that god does not

exist, that the material universe is all that essentially exists. There are three major

challenges to atheism that I will try to defend my view of god as ultimate reality against.

The first is consistency; “These philosophers did not live consistently with what they
claimed to be true. Their views about god were not realistic.” God can be described as

staying consistent, in that God can only act in ways consistent with His nature, which is

love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever

believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God’s consistency can

be shown all the way back to when He created man. When Adam and Eve sinned, God

could have ended the whole creation of man. But he had committed Himself to the plan

of mankind living here upon the earth. Had He destroyed Adam, this plan would have

come to nothing. Within Adam was the messiah plan God had held in reserve to restore

mankind. Both these examples show how God has always maintained consistency. The

second challenge we come across is that “Atheism fails to take into account many aspects

of life, especially cause and effect, the reality that people can conceive of God, the

feeling within us that we SHOULD do the right thing, and the presence of design in

nature.” The cause and effect namely states that God is the first cause, the cause that

started it all. The cause and effect again coincides with my belief that God is ultimate

reality. A big aspect of life one, that atheists fail to take into account, is that of right and

wrong. With God being the ultimate reality, He has shown us that there is an absolute

right and wrong along with consequences. Last, we have that the existence of evil in the

world argues against the existence of God. Atheists face a big predicament when they

point at things in the world and say, “God would not allow this evil to take place.” The

issue with that statement is that there can be no such thing as evil apart from the existence

of God. Without God, without a moral lawgiver, we would not have any real standards by

which we might deem something to be evil. We would not be able to convincingly say,

“Kidnapping children and murdering them is evil.” In an atheistic world where no moral
laws exist, there could be no such thing as evil. The existence of evil is the number one

reason most atheists give as to why they don’t believe in God. They are convinced that

there is evil. They point to things like slavery, racism, rape, kidnapping, murder, and say,

“These things are evil.” Which we can all agree is true. Well, it is this evil that actually

exists that verifies there is an actual, objective, moral law in the universe. But there can

be no such thing as an objective moral law apart from a moral law giver, which

ultimately is God.

Second model of reality

Buddhism and Hinduism are just two of the religions that are expressed in the second

model of reality. The second model of reality states that “Everything” is God. You are

God; I am God; animals are God and the entire universe is God. Because everybody is

divine, there is no right and wrong in the world. It also makes claim that because you are

God, you cannot cease to exist; you must be reincarnated. Although on first glance both

Buddhism and Hinduism appear to be the same, they really are not. Buddhism pulls

aspects from all three models of reality while Hinduism falls only within the second

model. While they are different in many aspects, their challenges appear to be the same;

absolute good and evil, or right and wrong. While Buddhism flat out states its views on

good and evil and Hinduism more or less skirts the issue, the end result is the same. They

both end up contradicting themselves. If Buddha claims that right and wrong actually do

exist, then he has undermined his contention that God does not exist. The existence of

absolute right and wrong supports dramatically the claim that God in fact does exist. In

Hinduism if everything is good and divine, and therefore perfect, how can it claim its
belief of the second model of reality? Again my view of God as ultimate reality holds

against these challenges mainly due to the fact that they are inconsistent in their beliefs.

Third Model of Reality

Christianity, Judaism and Islam make up 50 percent of the world’s religious beliefs and

all fall into the third model of reality. These religions all believe in a perfect Being (God)

outside the universe. They believe that when we die, we die physically and at the end of

history we will be resurrected. Lastly, like the previous model of reality, all believe in

right and wrong, but they believe in right and wrong because the perfect Being has

contacted mankind and communicated to us what is right and wrong. The major

challenge that Christianity deals with is that of suffering. According to Christianity, God

is love. If that is true, then how can Christians account for all the evil and suffering in the

world? My view of God is ultimate reality can be defended by two simple words: free

will. God does not impede people from exercising their free will. For example, if people

state that God should stop evil and suffering, then should He not stop all evil and

suffering in the world? If He were to only stop some of it, then it is safe to assume we

would again be back where we started still asking why it exists. If we want God to stop

evil and suffering, then He must stop all of it. Where is the problem in this one might ask,

especially if it means stopping a murder or a catastrophe, even someone from being

raped. The problem is what happens to someone who has never committed evil, but has

simply at one point in time thought it? It can be said that evil is destructive and vicious

whether is it acted out or not. Hatred and bigotry in someone’s heart is wrong. With that

being said, if God is to stop all evil, then He must stop that person from thinking his own
thoughts. To do that, God would have to remove his freedom of thought. Additionally, I

dare you to name one person on earth that has not thought something evil? God would

then be required to stop all people from exercising their free will. Obviously, this is

something God has chosen not to do. Another reasoning for evil and suffering in the

world is that it is quite possible that God uses the suffering to do good. In other words,

He produces patience through tribulation (Rom. 5:3). Or He may desire to save someone

through it.

Throughout these last few paragraphs one thing has ceased to change and that is that God

is the ultimate reality. The greatest sacrifice someone can make for another person is to

die for him or her. Jesus did that for all of us so that we could fully know God's love for

us.
 Work Cited

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