God Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This article focuses on the concept of singular, monotheistic God. See deity, gods, or goddesses for details on divine entities in specific religions and mythologies.
God is a term referring to the supreme being, generally believed to be ruler or creator of, and/or immanent within, the universe. The concept of a singular God is characteristic of monotheism, but it is not always possible to draw a sharp distinction between some forms of monotheism and some forms of polytheism (see also henotheism).
Some concepts of God may include anthropomorphic attributes, while others hold it impossible or blasphemous to imagine God in any physical form. Some hold that God is necessarily morally good (see summum bonum). Negative theology holds that God cannot be described by any positive attributes at all, and some hold God to be entirely beyond human understanding.
A singular God is necessarily unique (but see Trinity, Dualism). Still, different traditions and understandings of the concept may cause disagreement among believers regarding the God revered by others. Belief in a single God may give rise to concepts of absolute morality, and also to a claim of exclusivity (see Chosen people).
Some espouse an exclusionist view, seeing the God venerated by others with different beliefs as inferior or nonexistent. Others hold an inclusionist view, assuming the God venerated by others to be the same God under a different name. Many people hold personal, sometimes even secular interpretations of God, typically in agreement with a concept of an "Absolute Infinite". Atheists do not believe in the existence of any singular God, gods or goddesses.
Etymology
The word God continues Old English/Germanic god (got in Gothic, Gott in modern German). The original meaning and etymology of the Germanic word god have been hotly disputed, though most agree to a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *ǵhutóm, which may either mean "invocation", related to Sanskrit hūta, or "libation", related to German Guss (English in-got), Greek khute, Sanskrit huta. The word was used to represent Greek theos, Latin deus in Bible translations, first in the Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas.
Capitalisation
of 1611 (Psalms 21:1,2): Occurrennce "LORD" and "God" (in the heading)]]
The development of English orthography was dominated by Christian texts. Capitalised "God" usually refers to the Judeo-Christian concept (including translation of arabic Allah). In early English bibles, The Tetragrammaton was rendered in capitals: "IEHOUAH" in William Tyndale's version of 1525 and "The LORD" in the King James Version of 1611. The KJV renders Elohim as "God", and Adonay YHWH (and in the New Testament, kurios ho theos) is translated as "Lord God". The use of capitalisation, like for a proper noun, has persisted, to disambiguate the concept of a singular God from pagan deities, or, in the Christian view, false idols, for which lowercase god was continued to be applied, mirroring the use of latin deus. Pronouns referring to God are also often capitalised, and traditionally in the masculine gender, i. e. "He", "His" etc.
Historically, the concept of a singular God is relatively recent. In the Ancient Orient, every city usually had its own local god, but worship of a single god did not imply denial of the existence of other gods. The Hebrew Ark of the Covenant adapted this practice to a nomadic lifestyle, paving the way for a singular God who was not constrained to a particular location. The cult of the solar god Aten is often cited as the earliest known example of monotheism, but even if Akhetaten's hymn to Aten praises this god as omnipotent creator, worship of other gods beside him never ceased. Other early examples of emerging monotheism around roughly 1000 BC include two late rigvedic hymns (10.129,130) to an abstract creator god, and zoroastrian Ahuramazda. The worship of polytheistic gods, on the other hand, much predates monotheism, possibly reaching back as far as the paleolithic. Today, monotheistic religions are numerically dominant (mainly due to the missionary efforts of Christianity and Islam), but polytheistim, and to a lesser extent also animism, survive. Sizeable minorities, mainly in industrialized countries, are secularized, agnostic or atheist.
The generic term God is often used as a proper name by adherents of most monotheistic faiths. Different names for God exist within different religious traditions.
Arguments for or against the existence of God date back to classical times. Ontological arguments argue God exists by necessity or definition - that God's existence can be determined from consideration of his, her, or its nature alone. Cosmological arguments contend that the existence of the universe is contingent upon the existence of God. Teleological arguments argue that the structure of aspects of the Cosmos, such that the high level of complexity seen in the universe or the apparent fine-tuning of physical constants, require a divine designer. Arguments from morality contend that the existence of 'good' and 'evil' imply the existence of God. A more comprehensive list of such arguments can be found in Arguments for the existence of God.
Alternately, there are a variety of arguments against the existence of God. The problem of evil argues that gratuitous suffering is inconsistent with an omnipotent but benevolent God. The argument from inconsistent revelations argues the diversity of different religious beliefs makes the 'truth' of any particular viewpoint on God highly improbable. Incompatible-properties arguments contend that many of the properties often assigned to God are logically inconsistent with each other. Some atheistic arguments follow a burden of proof line of reasoning, claiming that by default God does not exist, until empirically proven otherwise.
Fideism maintains that all these attempted proofs and disproofs of God's existence are misguided, as belief in God must depend on faith rather than any rational arguments or proofs. This argument makes the existence of God a spiritual "question" as opposed to an intellectual one. Fideists often quote scripture as support for their claim, such as .
Emergence of Monotheism
See also Monotheism.Names of God
See main article: Names of God.''The existence or non-existence of God
See also arguments for and arguments against the existence of God.The nature of God
Theology is the study of the religious belief. Theologians attempt to explicate (and in some cases systematize) beliefs; some express their own experience of the divine. Theologians ask questions such as: What is the nature of God? What does it mean for God to be singular? If people believe in God as a duality or trinity, what do these terms signify? Is God transcendent, immanent, or some mix of the two? What is the relationship between God and the universe, and God and mankind?
A few people use the word "monotheism" to refer to the belief in a single god and use "theism" to refer to any belief in god(s), i.e., monotheism or polytheism. Some theists believe in the existence of other less powerful immortal beings, but give them other names such as angels, demons, and devas in Hinduism.
Some people (such as atheists and logical positivists) find the concept of God meaningless or unnecessary. Agnostics and 'weak' Atheists neither believe nor disbelieve in God, instead saying that the answer to such a supernatural question is inherently unknowable and therefore irrelevant, though in popular usage it may refer simply to someone who has doubts on the matter. By the definition of Atheism, Agnostics are also atheists, as they lack belief in any god(s). Some Agnostics dispute this.
God as Unity or Trinity
Jews, Muslims, and a small fraction of Christians are unitarian monotheists. The vast majority of Christians have been and still are Trinitarian monotheists.
- Unitarian monotheists hold that there is only one "person" (so to speak), or one basic substance, in God. Some adherents of this position consider Trinitarianism to be a form of polytheism.
- Trinitarian monotheists believe in one god that exists as three distinct persons who share the same substance/essence; this Christian belief is called the Trinity. Compare with the Hindu Trimurti. Trinitarians hold that the three persons have the same purpose, holiness, and sovereignty, and therefore each can be worshiped as God, without violating the idea that there is only one God to which worship belongs.
- Mormons believe that there are three separate divine personages. One of these personages is a spirit without a body referred to as the Holy Ghost. The other two personages are spirits with perfected or glorified (often called celestial) bodies referred to as Heavenly Father (or less commonly "Elohim") and his son, Jesus Christ. Mormons hold that God is a Holy Man who advanced to his divine status through a repeatable process of progression. They believe that by following their religion's teachings, humans can literally become gods (sometimes phrased as "become like Heavenly Father") at some point after death and resurrection; this is also called Exaltation.
- Hasidic Jews hold that there are ten Sefirot (emanations) of God. Each of these are more distinct than a characteristic, but less distinct than a separate personage.
Conceptions of God
Judaism, Christianity and Islam see God as a single being who created the world and rules over the universe. God is usually held to have the properties of holiness (separate from sin and incorruptable), justness (fair, right, and true in all His judgements), sovereignty (unthwartable in His will), omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing), omnibenevolence (all-loving), and omnipresence (all-present).Jews, Christians and Muslims often conceive of God as a personal God, with a will and personality. However, many medieval rationalist philosophers of these religions taught that one should not view God as personal, and that such personal descriptions of God are only meant as metaphors. Some within these three faiths still accept these views as valid, although many of the laity today do not have a wide awareness of them.
In Eastern Christianity, it remains essential that God be personal; hence it speaks of the three persons of the Trinity. It also emphasizes that God has a will, and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict. The personhood of God and of all human people is essential to the concept of theosis or divinization.
In Vaishnavism and Shaivism, Hindus believe that God has six attributes:
- jñäna Omniscient
- aishvarya Sovereign
- shakti Strength
- bala Energetic
- vëry Immutable
- tèjas Resplendent
- Jnana (wisdom)
- Vairagya (dispassion)
- Yasas (fame)
- Aisvarya (divine powers)
- Sri (wealth)
- Dharma (righteousness)
Biblical definition of God
The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) characterizes God by these attributes: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6–7)The Hebrew Bible contains no systematic theology: No attempt is made to give a philosophical or rigorous definition of God, nor of how God acts in the world. It does not explicitly describe God's nature, exemplified by God's assertion in Exodus that "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live". It does, however, provide a poetic depiction of God and His relationship with people. According to the biblical historian Yehezkal Kaufmann, the essential innovation of Biblical theology was to posit a God that cares about people, and that cares about whether people care about Him. Most people believe that the Bible should be viewed as humanity's view of God, but theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel described the Biblical God as "anthropopathic", which means that one should read the Bible as God's view of humanity, and not as humanity's view of God.
Similarly, the New Testament contains no systematic theology: no attempt is made to give a philosophical or rigorous definition of God, nor of how God acts in the world. The New Testament does, however, provide an implicit theology as it teaches that God became human while remaining fully God, in the person of Jesus Christ, and that he subsequently sent the Holy Spirit. In this view, God becomes someone that can be seen and touched, and may speak and act in a manner easily perceived by humans, while also remaining transcendent and invisible. This appears to be a radical departure from the concepts of God found in Hebrew Bible. The New Testament's statements regarding the nature of God were eventually developed into the doctrine of the Trinity.
Aristotelian view of God
A separate article exists on the Aristotelian view of God. Much of this article discusses Aristotle's book on first philosophy, the Metaphysics, in which Aristotle discusses the meaning of "being as being". In brief, Aristotle holds that "being" primarily refers to the Unmoved Movers, and assigned one of these to each movement in the heavens. Each Unmoved Mover continuously contemplates its own contemplation, and everything that fits the second meaning of "being" by having its source of motion in itself, moves because the knowledge of its Mover causes it to emulate this Mover (or should).
Many medieval philosophers made use of the idea of approaching a knowledge of God through negative attributes. For example, we should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; all we can safely say is that God is not nonexistent. We should not say that God is wise, but we can say that God is not ignorant, i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge. We should not say that God is One, but we can state that there is no multiplicity in God's being. See apophatic theology. This article also discusses Aristotle discussion of Platonic theory, according to which ideas are the ultimate principles of Being.
More details can be found in the article on the Aristotelian view of God.
Kabbalistic definition of God
Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. Rather God is the creator of both, but is himself neither. But if God is so different than his creation, how can there be any interaction between the Creator and the created? This question prompted Kabbalists to envision two aspects of God, (a) God himself, who in the end is unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God who created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but complement one another. See the article on Kabbalah for a more detailed treatment of this subject.
Process theology and process philosophy definition of God
Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947).
In this view, God is not omnipotent in the classical sense of a coercive being. Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature. The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God and creatures co-create. God cannot force anything to happen, but rather only influence the exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. See the entries on process theology and panentheism.
The Ultimate
Arguably, Eastern conceptions of The Ultimate (this, too, has many different names) are not conceptions of a personal divinity, though certain Western conceptions of what is at least called "God" (e.g., Spinoza's pantheistic conception and various kinds of mysticism) resemble Eastern conceptions of The Ultimate.
The mathematician Georg Cantor identified God with the mathematical concept of the Absolute Infinite.
Modern Views
Some comparatively new belief systems and books portray God as an alien. Many of these theories hold that intelligent aliens from another world have been visiting Earth for many thousands of years, and have influenced the development of our religions. Some of these books posit that prophets or messiahs were sent to the human race in order to teach humanity morality, and to encourage our civilization to grow and develop.
Similar to this theory is the belief or aspiration that humans will create a God entity, emerging from an artificial intelligence. Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction writer, said in an interview that: It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.
Another variant on this hypothesis is that humanity or a segment of humanity will, through self-evolution, create a posthuman God from itself; for some examples, see cosmotheism, transhumanism or even prometheism.
; from the Sistine Chapel.]]
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