God

god

God

God

"God is love." "God is the eschatological hope." "God is the ground of our being." "God is my co-pilot." "God is a psychological crutch, a human invention." "My God! Did you see that?" "Oh God! What will we do now?"

All these expressions, and many more, have been employed to describe or invoke the name of the deity. Atheists have been known to ask the God in which they do not believe to "damn" someone, or send them to the hell they do not believe exists. The phrase "oh my God," expressed with the proper inflection, is always good for a laugh on the soundtrack of television sitcoms. "Oh God..." can express horror, ecstasy, wonder, awe, and delight.

But who, or what, is God?

The answer depends, of course, on whom you ask. But most definitions may be lumped into one of five general categories.

God As Revealed Personality

This is the God of monotheistic religion, the God who exists outside of time and space but who stepped through the veil to reveal himself to humankind. (The masculine pronoun is used here because in this tradition, God has universally been pictured and referred to as male. Lately there is a movement, especially in traditionally liberal seminaries and denominations, toward gender-inclusive language. Such language would dictate the use of words such as "Godself" rather than "himself." But because of the overwhelming use of masculine language in historical monotheism, it has been retained here to better fit the tradition.)

In spite of the great separation, both of substance and sin, that exists between Creator and Creation, God "appeared."

In Judaism, God used various mediums to shade his appearance. Sometimes he spoke through angels, theophanies, or prophets. He spoke to Moses through a burning bush. Often he communicated to priests at the Tent of Meeting when they "cast the Urim and Thummim," which appear to be some sort of sacred dice. Once he spoke through Balaam's donkey.

All these intermediaries were not used because God was "playing hard to get" or being mysterious. There was a very practical reason God had to "filter" himself. In Exodus 33, Moses pleaded with God, "Show me your glory." God's reply was simple. "No one may see me and live."

Moses was hidden in the cleft of a rock and allowed to see God's "after glow." But from that time on, Moses would wear a veil over his face after he came from meetings with the Almighty because "his face was radiant."

In Christianity, God reveals himself further by "taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7). "The Word was made flesh and lived for a while among us" (John 1:14). "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3).

The primary revelation of Jesus Christ was followed by another revelation through the written word. "All Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful...." (2 Timothy 3:16).

Islam recognizes both of these revelations, even calling Jews and Christians "people of the book." The Qur'an reminds us, "We believe in... what has been revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes, and in the books given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, from their Lord" (Sura 3:84).

But Muhammad taught that both Jews and Christians rejected the revealed God. Islam teaches that a final revelation was given, that revelation being the holy Qur'an, dictated to Muhammad, who could neither read nor write, by an angel. The Qur'an obtained its final form over a period of only eighteen years after the Prophet's death. Allah, "the God," has made his final revelation, has called for the world to submit to his will ("Muslim" means "one who submits" to the will of Allah), and awaits the world's response.

Other world religions, to a lesser degree, contain an element of revelation. The "thirty-three million Gods" of Hinduism are all revelations of the face of the Unknowable. Ahura Mazda spoke through the prophet Zarathustra. Indigenous religions often communicate with God through animal spirits.

But the common denominator of this expression of divinity is that such a great gulf exists between Creator and Creation that intermediaries, sent from the one who wishes to reveal himself, are necessary.

God As First Cause

This definition, often referred to as Deism, was popular in the eighteenth century and among the founding fathers of the United States. Although they are usually thought of as men of Christian convictions, Thomas Jefferson and the rest generally thought of God in terms described today as that of a watchmaker.

If you are walking down a lane and find a watch keeping perfect time, you have to assume someone made that watch, wound it up, got it going, and then, for whatever reason, walked away. It's simply too big a leap to think the watch was made by accident or somehow pulled itself together out of raw materials. Its function is obvious, and it works perfectly. The only conclusion any logical person can reach is that somewhere, hidden from view, is a watchmaker who made the watch and set it to working. Perhaps he is hiding somewhere behind a tree and watching to see what you do with his masterpiece. But since you can't see him anywhere, it could be that he simply left his creation behind and walked away to another task. You don't know anything about him except that he makes good watches. There is no evidence except for the watch he left behind. Even his existence is pure deduction. There seems to be no better way of explaining the watch you hold in your hand. The watchmaker is revealed only by his craftsmanship.

This theory illustrates the belief that God must be the first cause, the one before and behind the "Big Bang" of Creation. "The heavens reveal the glory of God," says the psalmist. "The skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1). Those who hold this position believe it is too great a leap to conceive of Creation without a Creator. The universe is simply too complex not to have been planned by a mind. There may not be evidence that God is in communication with us. After all, we have only the word of prophets and preachers for that. But any logical person has to deduce that if a simple thing like a watch can't pull itself together out of nothing, certainly it's too much to expect of a universe.

This position has a way of creeping unnoticed into our minds. No less a scientist than Stephen Hawking, one of the preeminent astrophysicists of our day, ends his book, A Brief History of Time, with these words:

However, if we do discover a complete theory [of Creation], it should in time be understood in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.

God As Cultural Phenomenon

Man makes religion, religion does not make man.... Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people....

The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.

These words, written by Karl Marx, represent the view that God is a human invention, cast in different shapes by different cultures, usually to buttress systems of social power hierarchies. Sigmund Freud wrote that belief in God was a "universal obsessional neurosis." He considered God to be a cosmic projection of our love/hate relationship with our parents.

Others picture God as a cultural crutch, noting that when a president wants to persuade people that he means well, he ends his speech with the stirring words, "God bless America!" The president probably isn't being hypocritical. He really does want God to bless America. But the obligatory cheer doesn't hurt, either. After all, in the United States, where some polls say 88 percent of the people believe in God, who is going to argue against asking God to bless the "good guys"? It's subtle and sincere. And it works.

There are many reasons that some consider such cultural use of God harmful. In India, belief in God produced a caste system that kept people in their social place. The same thing happened in pre-Civil War America when many plantation owners believed God ordained slavery. Some believe the Roman Catholic Church culture and Islam's Allah invented a male God to subjugate women.

Because every culture has arguably produced a God created in its own image, it's easy to come to the conclusion that God is a cultural invention. Those who hold to this belief generally refer to themselves as atheists, declaring, just like Marx, that God is an invention of humankind, a cultural phenomenon.

God As Myth

Myths are guide paths into human experience, left by those who have gone before. They are stories illustrating truths, often richly layered. Adults often read highly entertaining children's stories on quite another layer than that of adventure story. Like poetry, sometimes they express the inexpressible.

Western society's math-and-science craze has produced a very literal-minded group of readers whose common conception is that myths are really nothing more than entertaining lies, and that the recording of history has always been a factual endeavor. Many insist, for example, that those who wrote scripture either were lying outright or must have been recording fact, even though the authors may have been writing within a mythological or metaphorical genre and didn't intend for their stories to be taken literally. Ample evidence supports the theory that even the author of Genesis did not think God really created the world in six days.

Jesus used to teach with great insight when he began his parable-myths with the phrase, "A certain man went out to...." He didn't warn his listeners he was making up the story. They knew that. What he was interested in was the truth the story conveyed.

So all this doesn't mean myths are not true. It means instead that they can be at least as true as literal fact. Poets and artists understand this. But many others do not. Myths can convey more insight through an "Aha!" experience than a straight telling of the facts because facts do not always convey the essence of the reality they are trying to express.

Such is the case, some believe, with the idea of God. It is not that calling God a myth means God does not exist. It just means that God exists in a form less expressible than mere facts can convey.

In Hindu thought, for instance, Brahman is completely indescribable (see Brahman/Atman). "No tongue can spoil it," is how the sages put it. Brahman is not even a God. Brahman is more a principle. Brahman came before language, so how can words pin him/her/it down? Even pronouns fail because Brahman is not just a noun. The thirty-three million gods of India are merely faces of the indescribable.

When Moses spoke to God at the burning bush, he asked, in essence, "Who are you?" The answer came back, "I Am."

Later, more literal scholars tried to insist God was really saying, "I cause to be." In other words, "I am the Creator." But that kind of scholarship misses the point and only confuses the insight of the original myth by adding a layer of cultural baggage.

Those who claim God is a myth are saying that God exists in a form we are unable to understand and describe, because God comes before language and patterns of thought. The only way to see God, according to this view, is to come at God obliquely through the lens of mythology. Not "God is..." but "God is like...."

God As Expression of the Unknown

Historically, unanswered questions have been left to God. What caused a mountain to rise from a plain? Manitou. How did we get fire? Agni. What force was responsible for the disappearance of strange animals? Noah's flood. Who causes lightening? Thor.

Religions form along the borders of the unknown. The whole science vs. religion argument often has at its core the unstated assumption that as science pushes back the boundary of human knowledge, there is no longer any need for God. The expression "God of the gaps" arises from this notion: God resides in the gaps of human knowledge—gaps that are gradually decreasing in size as knowledge increases. People who hold this view generally believe God is the historical answer to questions better answered by scientific research. The place to find truth, they imply, is not in the church, synagogue, or mosque, but in the laboratory.

But another category of folks, who also see God as an expression of the unknown, see no threat from scientific knowledge to the notion of God. There exists in the cosmos, they say, that which cannot be analyzed under a microscope. What is love? Why does compassion still exist in this Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest universe? Why are some poems "better" than others? What is quality? Why, in spite of everything, do some people believe they actually talk to God? And, wonder of wonders, that God talks back? They aren't all crazy. How can it be explained?

These questions point to answers existing in the realm of the spiritual, not the material. And science is not equipped to examine things it cannot replicate in the laboratory under carefully prepared conditions.

This leads some people to the conclusion that there must be something out there greater than humans. To these people, "God" becomes a term to explain the unexplainable. Miracles, answered prayer, and coincidences compel us, according to this view, to believe we are not alone. God is not to be explained under this way of thinking. God's existence is simply to be accepted.

Many who belong to organized religions hold this belief, even when confronted by theologians and orthodox teachers. "In the unknown, God exists. And that settles it for me."

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