Concepts of God

God is Ultimate Reality

My concept of God is Ultimate Reality, all that is knowable and unknowable. Other concepts include: all that is, Ultimacy, I AM THAT I AM, The All, the Great Spirit, the Alpha and the Omega.  God answers our prayers for spiritual strength. Faith in God (Ultimate Reality) inevitably leads to grace.

Define your Terms

Who or what is God?  There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people.  Most children ask this question. Many adults assume they know the answer.   People who claim not to believe in God will easily say they believe in the power of love.   And some who profess to love God on their holy day will go kill innocents on Monday.  Whether or not a person believes in God is less important than how they define God.  This essay is my answer to the question: who or what is God.        

People seem to expend a lot of energy arguing about the presence or absence of God without ever defining their terms.  Most arguments about God stem from lack of common definition.  Define your terms! we hear. Science operates with precise definitions.  In contrast, when speaking of religion and mystical experience, some concepts are beyond precision because they are beyond any possibility of perception.  Religious language is metaphysical language. Infinity and eternity are not knowable.

In a way, this essay is a small attempt to define God, a concept that is, by many peoples’ definitions, paradoxically indefinable.

Once again, I try to use words to explain that which cannot be explained.  Even using the word infinite is misleading; because by giving it definition, one receives the impression that it can be known, which it cannot.  We simply agree on a term that defines an unimaginably large space. But no one can know infinity.  At best, we are just made aware of our ignorance.

Perhaps other religious philosophies are more to the point when they profess that there is no God.  Instead of using this confusing term, many Buddhists speak of love and compassion, enlightenment, nature, nirvana.  They give discreet names to various phenomena that people of other faiths traditionally lump into one entity they call God.

 Problems with Naming God

Some believe the name of God has been corrupted so badly or has so much extraneous baggage attached to it that it's better to not use this term. Others, such as some Jews, find that the concept of God is so much grander that the name could ever convey, so the do not use the word God and some instead substitue G_D.

Sallie McFague, author of Model’s of God, says that religious language is metaphorical.  Christians refer to God as Lord and Father, only out of convention.  There is no reason not to refer to God as Mother, Lover, Friend, as in other traditions.

God is not the Great Meddler, who intervenes in counter-natural ways, punishing the faithless with floods or rewarding true believers with cash and other fabulous prizes.   God is not a male entity who loves heterosexuals more than homosexuals or men more than women, or women more than tigers, or tigers more than fleas or fleas more than algae.  God does not answer prayers for material goods. Rather God answers our prayers for spiritual strength.

Names for God:  All names for God are just symbols pointing in the deirection of something grander than anything we can conceive of. Some of these names are: Ultimacy, A higher power, Yahweh (Hebrew), Wakan Tanka (Plains Indians), Gaia, Great Spirit, Osiris (Ancient Egyptian), Voodoo (African), Source, Flow, Universe, Goddess, The Force, Tao, Mind, Beloved, Spiritual Electricity, Lord, Immortal, The One, Unity, Silence, Savior, Protector, Divine, Sacred Unity, Ultimate, G_D, Being, Izzy.

Purpose of God: People's understanding of God often comes from their perception of God, which is shaped by their environment. Oftern, people’s concept of God is that force that protects and sustains people.   God is the entity that allows us to exist, that protects and sustains us. God is savior.  And what saves people changes depending on circumstances, history and needs.

Changing View of God: How people perceive of God has changed over the millenia. People of hunter-gatherer societies saw God in the fruits and berries and in the animals/game that sustained them.  People of early agricultural societies perceived the Divine as a nurturing, like a woman.  Other agricultural societies saw many aspects of the divine, conceived of as various gods. The Sun god provides light energy to grow the plants and the Rain god provides moisture.  In early cities, God was seen as a single figure, someone like an authoritative ruler who could unite all people in a common cause.  Classical civilizations viewed God as a male, much like the preist-kings who ruled society. How we see God depends on the lenses we use, which depends on the context of where we live.

• When people lived as hunter-gatherers, gathering food from the bounty of nature, God appeared to live in the animals, the plants and in nature.
• As they moved into warring tribes, God seemed a war leader. 
• As people became agricultural, God appeared as the Sun and the moon, the entities that ruled the seasons, created the rain, which in turn provided food.
• The gods of the Greeks and Romans were perceived as having power over people, but these gods were often viewed as capricious, bratty-like
• As people moved into cities and political power consolidated into a single leader, people began to think of God as a single, powerful, king-like entity.
• When people began killing and destroying each other, they needed peace and love to sustain and protect them, so God was seen as love.
• Some people believe that laws protect them. These people worship the Bible.
• Some people believe that free market enterprise is our salvation that has brought health, longevity and entertainments.
• Recently, as science has taught us more about ecology and systems science, and we have learned more about the interdependence of life on Earth, the Earth itself has been perceived as our sustainer and protector. As a result of this new information, many worship Earth as God.
• For some people, reason and the scientific method have protected and sustained them.  For those people, rationalism is God.
• For others who are well fed, healthy and free of wars, sustenance and protection is from art and creation.  For them, God is creation and beauty.
• For people who feel the brokenness and division of society, God is Unity, a oneness of purpose.
• For those who feel their salvation is in their genes, their children are their Saviors, their God.  (I believe this explains this huge popularity of the birth story of Christmas.)  Some who worship their offspring claim to worship no god, but to love science and see the value of the Selfish Gene, as so eloquently described by Richard Dawkins.

God is Ultimate Reality - Universal Definition of God

God is perceived in many ways, goes by many names and many concepts, but one idea is central to most cultures at most times, and that is the notion that God is Ultimate Reality with the abillity to save or destroy.

God is whatever has power to protect or destroy you.

God is Love

         Collectively, we may never agree on a single definition for God.  Maybe we can agree that God is the power that sustains and protects us.  I realize that the universe and God are far too grand, too complex to ever hope to understand, let alone define.   However, I do have an everyday, shorthand, working definition of God that gives me guidance and a measure of comfort.  God is Love, Wisdom, and Grace.  

         “My religion is compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama

         The first part, God is Love, has been said by many sages from all traditions throughout the ages.  Religion is often about the Rule of Reciprocity, the Golden Rule, or about being kind to your neighbor. 

         I believe that God is more than love, or perhaps that true love is more than mere benevolent wishes and actions for another.  True love is grounded in wisdom.  It is knowing another person’s needs.  A desire to do well does not suffice.  For example, a mother may desire to give her child everything it desires, and in so doing give the child cookies.  Without wisdom to know better, a loving mother feeding her child a diet of cookies alone will eventually malnourish the child.

         I also believe that God is Grace, and by grace I mean hope, faith, optimism, energy, courage, and joy.  Babies seem to be born with the grace of God. Perhaps that is why Jesus said for adults to be like children.  Many adults lose this grace, perhaps through loss of love, or physical pains that alienate them.   But grace can be recovered through faith in a higher being.  Grace gives the energy and joy to do what is compassionate and wise. 

 God Continues to Evolve

•  God (Ultimate Reality) continues to evolve and new, more complex properties emerge.   The evolution of God is like the blossoming of a flower: new petals are revealed over time. 

• The evolution of God is also like the creation of a nautilus shell - newer and bigger structures spiral outward.