Derech Hashem- God's Oneness

This is class is very interesting because it talks about the ways of god. Each class shows a different aspect of god, or it goes into more detail about a subsection, or it explains why god might do certain things.  It is based on a book called "The Way of God" that bases a large amount of the knowledge about god by knowing that fact that god is one.
Monotheism is actually good because it promotes unity between many of the nations.  There are other nations, such as Muslims and certain types of Christianity, that worship this one god.  Our teacher brought us a source that everybody know from the Passover Haggadah where it says, " Who is one? God is one." From this we bring up the question, doesn't everybody know that God is one? No, they don't.  Everybody has heard that god is one, however, most don't know for a fact that there is one god. This knowledge that god is one is so important because knowledge can be equated to love.

There are 5 major mistakes that people make about god's oneness.

1. Supernatural forces can be used against god.
The way that god set up the world, makes it completely unable to be used against him.  God can't be forced into anything. Since god created the rules, he is above the rules and can either follow them or break them whenever he chooses.
People sometimes ask trick questions or paradoxical questions about god, such as, can god make a four sided triangle? No, he can't, because by the way god defined it, it would then be a square. Can god make 5 be more than 10. No, because the way god defined 'amounts,' 5 can't be 10 unless you add 5 more.

2. Evil things oppose god's will.
Evil things only operate that way because god wants them to.  Christians make this mistake in thinking that god has to fight against evil. This isn't true because god is the one who created evil in the first place.

3. Things in this world operate according to nature.
God primarily runs the world in two different ways.  Either through, what we call "luck" or coincidence, or through reward and punishment.  In every situation, god chooses the proper one to use because that is how he wants the world to run.

4. There is a god for good and a god for evil.
Zoroastrians believed this and called the good one, Ahura Mazda and the evil one, Ahriman. They believe that the good one is the god of spirituality and the evil one, the god of the physical.  This is incorrect because physicality doesn't go against god because he was the one who created it.
God is the one and only force who rules this world and can do anything.  It is god who decides what is going to happen in his world.

5. God can be served through idol worship.
Most people don't believe in this anymore because most of the pagans converted to a monotheistic religion.  We call this avodah zara, strange worship.  Any type of fulfilling the desire of anything that isn't god is considered avodah zara.

The job of people is to realize that god is in every single thing and we should fulfill his will because he created us and this world.  This world was created for us to recognize god. I hope I was able to simplify and help you understand this complicated concept. Shalom V'lehitraot!