Everything about The Lord totally explained
God is the principal or sole
deity in
religions and other belief systems that
worship one deity.
God is most often conceived of as the
creator and overseer of the universe.
Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different
conceptions of God. The most common among these include
omniscience,
omnipotence,
omnipresence,
omnibenevolence (perfect
goodness),
divine simplicity,
jealousy, and eternal and necessary existence. God has also been conceived as being
incorporeal, a
personal being, the source of all
moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".
Al-Ghazali, and
Maimonides.
The capitalized form
God was first used in
Wulfila's Gothic translation of the
New Testament, to represent the Greek
Theos. In the
English language, the capitalization continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic "God" and "gods" in
polytheism. In spite of significant differences between religions such as
Christianity,
Islam,
Hinduism, the
Bahá'í Faith, and
Judaism, the term "God" remains an English translation common to all. The name may signify any related or similar monotheistic deities, such as the early monotheism of
Akhenaten and
Zoroastrianism.
Names of God
Conceptions of God can vary widely, but the word
God in English—and its counterparts in other languages, such as Latinate
Deus, Greek
Θεός, Slavic
Bog, Sanskrit
Ishvara, or Arabic
Allah—are normally used for any and all conceptions. The same holds for Hebrew
El, but
in Judaism, God is also given a proper name,
Yahweh, harking back to the religion's
henotheistic origins. God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the
personal nature of God, with early references to his name as
Krishna-
Vasudeva in
Bhagavata or later
Vishnu and
Hari, or recently
Shakti. In the
Bible, when the word "Lord" is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the personal
Hebrew name of god, Yahweh.
It is difficult to draw a line between proper names and
epitheta of God, such as the
names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, the
names of God in the Qur'an, and the various lists of
thousand names of God and
List of titles and names of Krishna in Vaishnavism.
Conceptions of God
Conceptions of God vary widely. Theologians and philosophers have studied countless conceptions of God since the dawn of civilization. The
Abrahamic conceptions of God include the
trinitarian view of
Christians, the
Kabbalistic definition of
Jewish mysticism, and the
Islamic concept of God. The
dharmic religions differ in their view of the divine: views of
God in Hinduism vary by region, sect, and caste, ranging from monotheistic to polytheistic; the view of
God in Buddhism is almost non-theist. In modern times, some more abstract concepts have been developed, such as
process theology and
open theism. Conceptions of God held by individual believers vary so widely that there's no clear consensus on the nature of God. The contemporaneous French philosopher
Michel Henry has however proposed a
phenomenological approach and definition of God as
phenomenological essence of
Life.
Existence of God
Many arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed and rejected by philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. In
philosophical terminology, such arguments concern schools of thought on the
epistemology of the
ontology of God.
There are many philosophical issues concerning the existence of God. Some definitions of God are sometimes nonspecific, while other definitions can be self-contradictory. Arguments for the existence of God typically include metaphysical, empirical, inductive, and subjective types, while others revolve around holes in evolutionary theory and order and complexety in the world. Arguments against the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Conclusions reached include: "God exists and this can be proven"; "God exists, but this can't be proven or disproven" (
theism in both cases); "God doesn't exist" (
strong atheism); "God almost certainly doesn't exist" (
de facto atheism); and "no one knows whether God exists" (
agnosticism). There are numerous variations on these positions.
A recent argument for the existence of God is
intelligent design, which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as
natural selection." It is a modern form of the traditional
argument from design, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the
Discovery Institute, believe the designer to be the
Abrahamic God.
Theological approaches
Theologians and philosophers have ascribed a number of attributes to God, including
omniscience,
omnipotence,
omnipresence, perfect
goodness, divine
simplicity, and
eternal and
necessary existence. God has been described as
incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all
moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable being existent.
Al-Ghazali, and
Maimonides.
The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the
arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as
Immanuel Kant,
David Hume and
Antony Flew, although Kant held that the
argument from morality was valid. The
theist response has been either to contend, like
Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "
properly basic"; or to take, like
Richard Swinburne, the
evidentialist position. Some
theists agree that none of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that
faith isn't a product of
reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by
Pascal as: "The heart has reasons which reason knows not of."
Most major religions hold God not as a metaphor, but a being that influences our day-to-day existences. Many believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings, and give them names such as
angels,
saints,
djinni,
demons, and
devas.
Theism and Deism
Theism holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal, and is personal, interested, and answers prayer. It holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and in some way present in the affairs of the world. Catholic theology holds that God is
infinitely simple and isn't involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence.
Open Theism, by contrast, asserts that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience doesn't mean the deity can predict the future. "Theism" is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, for example, monotheism or polytheism.
Deism holds that God is wholly
transcendent: God exists, but doesn't intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it. In this view, God isn't
anthropomorphic, and doesn't literally answer prayers or cause miracles to occur. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity.
Pandeism and
Panendeism, respectively, combine Deism with the Pantheistic or Panentheistic beliefs discussed below.
History of monotheism
The concept of monotheism sees a gradual development out of notions of
henotheism and
monolatrism. In the
Ancient Near East, each
city had a local patron deity, such as
Shamash at
Larsa or
Sin at
Ur. The first claims of global supremacy of a specific god date to the
Late Bronze Age, with
Akhenaten's
Great Hymn to the Aten (connected to
Judaism by
Sigmund Freud in his
Moses and Monotheism), and, depending on dating issues,
Zoroaster's
Gathas to
Ahura Mazda. Currents of
monism or monotheism emerge in
Vedic India in the same period, with for example the
Nasadiya Sukta. Philosophical monotheism and the associated concept of absolute
good and evil emerges in
Classical Antiquity, notably with
Plato (c.f.
Euthyphro dilemma), elaborated into the idea of
The One in
Neoplatonism.
According to The Oxford Companion To World Mythology (David Leeming, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 153), "The lack of cohesion among early Hebrews made monotheism - even monolatry, the exclusive worship of one god among many - an impossibility...And even then it can be argued that the firm establishment of monotheism in Judaism required the rabbinical or Talmudic process of the first century B.C.E. to the sixth century C.E.".
In
Islamic theology, a person who spontaneously "discovers" monotheism is called a
ḥanīf, the original
ḥanīf being
Abraham.
Austrian anthropologist
Wilhelm Schmidt in the 1910s postulated an
Urmonotheismus, "original" or "primitive monotheism", a thesis now widely rejected in
comparative religion but still occasionally defended in
creationist circles.
Monotheism and pantheism
Monotheists hold that there's only one god, and may claim that the one true god is worshiped in different religions under different names. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in
Hinduism. and
Sikhism(External Link
). Adherents of different religions, however, generally disagree as to how to best
worship God and what is
God's plan for mankind, if there's one. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they're the
chosen people or have exclusive access to
absolute truth, generally through
revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is
religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but doesn't deny the partial truth of other religions. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is
supersessionism, for example, the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is
relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example in Christianity is
universalism: the doctrine that
salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is
syncretism, mixing different elements from different religion. An example of syncretism is the
New Age movement.
Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God.
Panentheism holds that God contains, but isn't identical to, the Universe. The distinctions between the two are subtle, and some consider them unhelpful. It is also the view of the
Liberal Catholic Church,
Theosophy, Hinduism, Sikhism, some divisions of
Buddhism, some divisions of
Neopaganism and
Taoism, along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations.
Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God — which has wide acceptance in
Hasidic Judaism, particularly from their founder
The Baal Shem Tov — but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.
Dystheism and nontheism
Dystheism, related to
theodicy is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly-good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the
problem of evil. One such example would be
Satanism or the
Devil. There is no known community of practicing dystheists.
Nontheism holds that the universe can be explained without any reference to the supernatural, or to a supernatural being. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it's significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations. Many schools of
Buddhism may be considered non-theistic.
Scientific positions regarding God
Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "
non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the
supernatural, such as those relating to the
existence and
nature of God, are non-
empirical and are the proper domain of
theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world. Another view, advanced by
Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference." A third view is that of
scientism or
logical positivism: any question which can't be defined can't be answered by science and is therefore either nonsensical or isn't worth asking, on the grounds that only empirically answerable questions make sense and are worth attention.
Distribution of belief in God
As of 2000, approximately 53% of the world's population identifies with one of the three Abrahamic religions (33% Christian, 20% Islam, <1% Judaism), 6% with Buddhism, 13% with Hinduism, 6% with
traditional Chinese religion, 7% with various other religions, and less than 15% as non-religious. Most of these religious beliefs involve a god or gods.
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