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Unlock This CourseLook around you. Everything you can see will one day change or end. So is there anything deeper, something that everything else depends on? That is the question of ultimate reality. People give three main kinds of answer: it is God (or gods), it is something real that is not a God, or there is nothing beyond the physical universe.
Key terms:
For theists, God is the ultimate reality. Many of them believe in a personal God. This does not mean God is a human being. It means God is more like a person than a force: God knows, cares and acts, and people can have a relationship with God, for example through prayer.
Six words are often used to describe what God is like. Learn all six.
All-powerful. Nothing is too hard for God, so God could make the universe and can act within it.
All-knowing. God knows everything, including each person's thoughts and actions.
All-loving and good. God cares for what God has made and wants what is best for it.
Without beginning or end. God was never made and will never stop existing.
Beyond and outside the universe. God is not limited by space or time and cannot be fully understood by humans.
Present and active within the universe. God is close to people and involved in the world.
Transcendent and immanent can look like opposites, but many believers say God is both: far greater than the universe, yet close to every person. Believers also differ in what they stress. Some picture God mainly as a loving parent or a judge. Others say that human words can only point towards God and never fully describe God.
Not every religious tradition puts a personal God at the centre. These traditions are often called non-theistic. There are two main ideas.
Some believers say ultimate reality is not a 'someone' at all. It is the one source and ground of everything, beyond all description. It has no personality, so it does not think, plan or judge as a person would. Some Hindus understand ultimate reality in this way.
Others say that what is ultimate is a truth about how things are, or a law that runs through all life, such as the idea that actions bring results. Nobody made this law. The aim is to understand it and live by it. Buddhists do not believe in a creator God and focus on a truth of this kind.
People who hold these beliefs are still religious. They may meditate, follow a moral code and seek a goal beyond this life. Their main aim is to understand this reality or truth and live by it, and many do not rely on a creator God to save them.
Non-religious people do not all think alike.
Being non-religious does not mean having no sense of wonder. Many non-religious people feel awe at the night sky or at the natural world. They do not think that feeling points to anything beyond the universe.
Theists disagree about how many gods there are. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism are monotheistic. The religions of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt were polytheistic. Hinduism has many gods and goddesses, yet many Hindus say they are all forms of one ultimate reality, so it does not fit neatly under either label. A third view is henotheism: worshipping one god without denying that other gods exist.
Here is a one-line taste of each religion. Your own religion's lesson will teach it properly.
Do not mix up transcendent (beyond the universe) and immanent (within it). Do not say every religion believes in God: some religious people believe in an ultimate reality that is not a God. Do not write that atheists and agnostics are the same. An atheist believes there is no God. An agnostic says we do not or cannot know.
Paper 1 style question. Parts (a) and (b) test AO1. Parts (c) and (d) test AO1 and AO2.
(a) Identify three words that believers use to describe the nature of God. [3 marks]
(b) Outline two reasons why some people believe in one God. [4 marks]
(c) Explain why there are different beliefs about ultimate reality. [6 marks]
(d) 'There can only be one God.' Evaluate this statement, showing you have considered different points of view. In your answer you should refer to at least one religion. [12 marks]
(a) 1. Omnipotent (1). 2. Omniscient (1). 3. Benevolent (1). (Eternal, transcendent or immanent would also score.)
(b) Some people believe in one God because of revelation (1), as they hold that God has shown people what God is like and their scriptures state that God is one (1). Others point to the unity of the universe (1), because one ordered whole with the same laws everywhere suggests a single source (1).
(c) Theists believe ultimate reality is God. Many believe in a personal God who is omnipotent and benevolent, because they hold that God has revealed this in scripture and they feel they can know God through prayer.
Other religious people are non-theistic. They believe ultimate reality is an impersonal absolute, or a law or truth about how things are. This is because their tradition teaches people to understand that truth and live by it, not to rely on a God.
Atheists believe there is no God. Many humanists are physicalists, who say the physical universe is all there is, so for them nothing lies beyond the universe and its laws of nature. Agnostics say we do not or cannot know, because they find the evidence is not enough to decide.
(d) Plan. For: monotheists say God has revealed that God is one; an omnipotent God cannot share power with another; the unity of the universe points to a single source.
Against: polytheists see many gods in the different powers of nature; some believers say many gods are faces of one reality, so 'one or many' is too simple; non-theistic traditions say ultimate reality is not a God; atheists say there is no God at all, so the statement is wrong from the start.
Your religion: add teachings from your own religion, by name, on the side they fit.
Possible conclusion: judge each point as you go, then pick a side. For example: I agree in part. If God means an all-powerful being there could only be one, but that does not prove such a God exists.
In part (d), look at the word 'only'. You can challenge it from two directions: people who believe in more than one god, and people who believe in none. Using both shows you have covered every part of the statement.