Conceptions of God
Encyclopedia
The God
of monotheism
, pantheism
or panentheism
, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction:
Monotheist conceptions of god appear in the Hellenistic period
, out of predecessor concepts of monism
(mostly in Eastern religions) and henotheism
.
Since humans, plants and animals, rocks, mountains and so forth have been labeled as divine by various religions of the past, it can be argued that anything can be considered a god, and that there is no hard and fast criteria other than, perhaps, consensus of acknowledgement of divinity.
, Aristotle
discusses meaning of "being as being". Aristotle holds that "being" primarily refers to the Unmoved Mover
s, 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).
Aristotle's definition of God attributes perfection to this being, and as a perfect being can only contemplate upon perfection and not on imperfection, otherwise perfection would not be one of his attributes. God, according to Aristotle, is in a state of "stasis" untouched by change and imperfection. The "unmoved mover" is very unlike the conception of God that one sees in most religions. It has been likened to a person who is playing dominos and pushes one of them over, so that every other domino in the set is pushed over as well, without the being having to do anything about it. Although, in the 18th century, the French educator Allan Kardec
brought a very similar conception of God during his work of codifying Spiritism
, this differs to the interpretation of God in most religions, where he is seen to be personally involved
in his creation.
is the Hermetic
version of God
, to some and not to others. Alternatively, it has been called The One, The Great One, The Creator, The Supreme Mind, The Supreme Good, The Father, and The Universal Mother. The All is seen by some to be a panentheistic
conception of God, subsuming everything that is or can be experienced. One Hermetic maxim states "While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in All." (Three Initiates p. 95) The All can also seen to be hermaphroditic
, possessing both masculine and feminine qualities in equal part (The Way of Hermes p. 19 Book 1:9). These qualities are, however, of mental gender
, as The All lacks physical gender
.
According to Hermetic doctrine, The All is more complicated than simply being the sum total of the universe
. Rather than The All being simply the physical universe, it is said that everything in the universe is within the mind of The All, since The All can be looked at as Mind itself (Three Initiates pp. 96–7). The All's mind is thought to be infinitely more powerful and vast than humans can possibly achieve (Three Initiates p. 99), and possibly capable of keeping track of every particle
in the Universe. Despite The All being described as subsuming the universe, the possibility of there being things outside of The All is not excluded.
The All may also be a metaphor alluding to the godhead potentiality of every individual. "[ God] ... That invisible power which all know does exist, but understood by many different names, such as God, Spirit, Supreme Being, Intelligence, Mind, Energy, Nature and so forth." In the Hermetic Tradition, each and every person has the potential to become God, this idea or concept of God is perceived as internal rather than external. The All is also an allusion to the observer created universe. We create our own reality; hence we are the architect, The All. Another way would to be to say that the mind is the builder. Freemasonry often includes concepts of God as an external entity, however, esoteric masonic teachings clearly identify God as the individual himself: the perceiver. We are all God and as such we create our own reality. Although others believe God to be abstract. Meaning he is not seen in reality, but understood through deep contemplation. He is all around us everyday, just hiding in the miracles and beauty of our Earth.
, Christianity
and Islam
see God
as a being who created the world and who rules over the universe. God is usually held to have the following properties: holiness, justice, sovereignty, omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence, omnipresence, and immortality. It is also believed to be transcendent, meaning that God is outside space and time. Therefore, God is eternal and unable to be changed by earthly forces or anything else within its creation.
In the Abrahamic traditions there are many differences in how these properties are expressed. The importance placed upon those properties is often debated by each group. In the past, as well as modern times people have suggested each group is speaking of a different god, or that each individual human has his own personal conception of god; thus god can only be approximately known.
, the exclusive worship of the God of Israel (YHWH) as prescribed in the Torah
and practiced at the Temple of Jerusalem. Strict monotheism emerges in Hellenistic Judaism
and Rabbinical Judaism. Pronunciation of the proper name of the God of Israel came to be avoided in the Hellenistic era (Second Temple Judaism
),
and instead Jews refer to God as HaShem, meaning "the Name". In prayer and reading of scripture, the Tetragrammation YHWH) is substituted with Adonai ("my Lord").
Judaism
teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. God is the creator of both, but is Himself neither, and is beyond all constructs of space and time. There are two aspects of God: God Himself, who in the end is unknowable, and the revealed aspect of God, which created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind in a personal way. In Judaism, the principle statement of monotheism is the Shema, a passage in the Torah which states, "Listen, Israel, HaShem is our God HaShem is one." Maimonides
stated in his 13 principles of faith that God is the Creator and Guide of everything that has been created, that He is One, there is no unity in any manner like His, and He alone is God; that He is free from all the properties of matter and that there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever; that He is eternal, and is the first and the last; that He knows all the deeds of human beings and all their thoughts; that He rewards those who keep His commandments and punishes those that transgress them; and that at a time when it pleases God, He will revive the dead.
Over time, a Kabbalistic belief evolved that all of creation and all of existence is itself a part of God, and that we as humanity are unaware of our own inherent godliness and are grappling to come to terms with it. The standing view in Hasidism currently, is that there is nothing in existence outside of God - all being is within God, and yet all of existence cannot contain Him. Regarding this, Solomon
stated while dedicating the Temple
, "But will God in truth dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You."
Within Christianity
, the doctrine
of the Trinity
states that God
is a single being
that exists, simultaneously and eternally
, as a perichoresis
of three persons (personae, prosopa): Father (the Source, the Eternal Majesty); the Son (the eternal Logos
or Word, human as Jesus
of Nazareth
); and the Holy Spirit
(the Paraclete
or advocate). Some people have illustrated this concept by saying that the Father, Son and Spirit are one yet distinct, in the same way that ice, steam and water are one, yet distinctly different from each other. Since the 4th Century AD, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, this doctrine has been stated as "One God in Three Persons", all three of whom, as distinct and co-eternal "persons" or "hypostases
", share a single divine essence
, being, or nature. Following Thomas Aquinas
and others, the Son is described as eternally begotten by the Father. This generation does not imply a beginning for the Son or an inferior relationship with the Father. The Son is the perfect image of his Father, and is consubstantial with him. The Son returns that love, and that union between the two is the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and co-equal with the Father and the Son. Thus God contemplates and loves himself, enjoying infinite and perfect beatitude within himself. This relationship between the other two persons is called procession
. It should be noted that although the theology of the Trinity is accepted in most churches, there are theological differences, notably between Catholic and Orthodox thought on the procession of the Holy Spirit (see filioque). Many Christian communions do not accept the Trinitarian doctrine, at least not in its traditional form. Notable dissenting groups include the Jehovah's Witnesses
, Mormons
, Christadelphians
, Unitarians
, Arians
, and Adoptionists.
A view within Christianity that there were originally two beings in the Godhead, the Father and the Word that became the Son (Jesus the Christ). Binitarians normally believe that God is a family, currently consisting of the Father and the Son. Some binitarians believe that others will ultimately be born into that divine family. Hence, binitarians are nontrinitarian, but they are also not unitarian. Binitarians, like most unitarians
and trinitarians, claim their views were held by the original New Testament Church. Unlike most unitarians and trinitarians who tend to identify themselves by those terms, binitarians normally do not refer to their belief in the duality of the Godhead, with the Son subordinate to the Father; they simply teach the Godhead in a manner that has been termed as binitarianism.
The word "binitarian" is typically used by scholars and theologians as a contrast to a trinitarian theology: a theology of "two" in God rather than a theology of "three", and although some critics prefer to use the term ditheist or dualist instead of binitarian, those terms suggests that God is not one, yet binitarians believe that God is one family. It is accurate to offer the judgment that most commonly when someone speaks of a Christian "binitarian" theology the "two" in God are the Father and the Son... A substantial amount of recent scholarship has been devoted to exploring the implications of the fact that Jesus was worshipped by those first Jewish Christians, since in Judaism "worship" was limited to the worship of God" (Barnes M. Early Christian Binitarianism: the Father and the Holy Spirit. Early Christian Binitarianism - as read at NAPS 2001). Much of this recent scholarship has been the result of the translations of the Nag Hammadi
and other ancient manuscripts that were not available when older scholarly texts (such as Wilhelm Bousset's Kyrios Christos, 1913) were written.
. God is described in the Qur'an as: "Say: He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him." Muslims deny the Christian doctrine of the Trinity
and divinity of Jesus
, comparing it to polytheism
. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslim
s are not iconodules
and are not expected to visualize God. God is described and referred in the Quran by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).
Muslims believe that creation of everything in the universe is brought into being by God’s sheer command “‘Be’ and so it is.” and that the purpose of existence is to make God pleased, both by worship
and by good deeds. He is viewed as a personal God who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls Him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy
, to contact God who states “We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein
”
Allāh
( allāh) is the Arabic term with no plural
or gender
used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God" (with a capital G), while "[[ʾilāh]]" ( ellāh) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.
believe in a single
, imperishable God
, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. God is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty." Though inaccessible directly, God is nevertheless seen as conscious of his creation, with a mind, will and purpose. Bahá'ís believe that God expresses this will at all times and in many ways, including through a series of divine messengers referred to as Manifestations of God
or sometimes divine educators. In expressing God's intent, these manifestations are seen to establish religion in the world. Bahá'í teachings state that God is too great for humans to fully comprehend, nor to create a complete and accurate image. Bahá'u'lláh often refers to God by titles (e.g. the All-Powerful, or the All-Loving). Bahá'ís believe that this anthropomorphic
description of God amounts to Bahá'u'lláh, in his capacity as God's manifestation, abstracting him in language that human beings can comprehend, since direct knowledge of the essence of God is believed impossible.
to God and can only be discussed by what God is not. For example, we cannot say that God "exists" in the usual sense of the term, because that term is human defined and God's qualities such as existence may not be accurately characterized by it. What we can safely say is that it cannot be proven empirically or otherwise that God is existent, therefore God is not non-existent. Likewise God's "wisdom" is of a fundamentally different kind from limited human perception. So we cannot use the word "wise" to describe God, because this implies God is wise in the way we usually describe humans being wise. However we can safely say that God is not ignorant. We should not say that God is One, because we may not truly understand Gods nature, but we can state that there is no multiplicity in God's being. In the Holy Quran it is stated that God possess no quality of God's creation, which means that there cannot be a He or She used to describe God. To say that God is angered or feels any kind of emotion is a misunderstanding. Emotion is in common to all humans; it is what gives them their essence, though to feel love, anger, jealousy, or happiness clouds and misguides our judgment and may lead us to make a weak decision or do something unfair. Therefore One who sees all and can feel all does not need any emotion to make a decision. God is beyond emotion and other human biases.
The reason that this theology was developed was because it was felt that ascribing positive characteristics to God would imply that God could be accurately described with terms that were used to describe human qualities and perceptions. As humans cannot truly comprehend what kind of wisdom an eternal transcendent being might have, or what infinity might be like, we cannot in fact know or characterize his true nature. It is beyond human ability and would only mislead people. The proponents of this theory often experienced meditation
, which they viewed as the only effective way of having a personal relationship with God. It involved trying to reach beyond the words commonly used to describe him and his more ineffable
characteristics, and to comprehend in a mystical
manner the truths about him which could not be achieved through religious language. Thus many sages and saints of both monotheistic and other traditions described mystical trances, or rapture
s and stated they were unable to describe God or their vision
s fully.
. Some adherents of this position consider Trinitarianism to be a form of polytheism.
The vast majority of Christians have been and still are Trinitarian monotheists. Trinitarian monotheists believe in one god that exists as three interdependent persons who share the same substance/essence; the Christian version of this is called the Trinity. The Hindu version Trimurti
, differs from Christianity in holding that God has three aspects, though shown as anthropomorphs.
While the Hindu Trinity is not an unquestioned doctrine in Hinduism
, it is taught as one postulated understanding of the universe's divine order.
or a prime mover
is seen as a key distinction between Buddhism
and other views. Because of this, Buddhism
is sometimes described as a "spiritual
philosophy
" whose sole aim is the complete alleviation of personal distress
in samsara
, called nirvana
. The Buddha
explicitly rejects a creator
, denies endorsing any views on creation and states that questions on the origin of the world are worthless. Some theists beginning Buddhist meditation
believe that the notion of divinity is not incompatible with Buddhism, but belief in a Supreme personal creator is considered to pose a hindrance to the attainment of nirvana
, the highest goal of Buddhist practice.
Despite this non-theism, Buddhists consider veneration of the Noble ones very important although the two main schools of Buddhism differ mildly in their reverential attitudes. While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana
or arahanthood, through human efforts, Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the Dharmakaya
(a notion of transcedent divinity), who was born for the benefit of others, and not merely a human being. In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva
, Avalokiteshvara and hope to embody him.
Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology
), known as devas
, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara
, and not particularly wiser than us. In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them.
the concept of god is complex and depends on the particular tradition. The concept spans conceptions from absolute monism
to henotheism
, monotheism
and polytheism
. In majority of Vaishnavism
traditions, He is Vishnu
, god, and the text identifies this being as Krishna
, sometimes referred as svayam bhagavan
. The term isvara - from the root is, to have extraordinary power. Some traditional sankhya systems contrast purusha
(devine, or souls) to prakriti (nature or energy), however the term for sovereign god, ishvara is mentioned six times in the Atharva Veda, and is central to many traditions. For Sindhi
Hindus, who are deeply influenced by Sikhism
, God
is seen as the omnipotent cultivation of all Hindu gods and goddesses. In short the soul paramatma of all gods and goddesses are the omnipresent Brahman and are enlightened beings.
Brahman
is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being and everything beyond in this Universe. The nature of Brahman is described as transpersonal, personal and impersonal by different philosophical schools. The word "Brahman" is derived from the verb ((brh)) (Sanskrit: to grow), and connotes greatness and infinity.
Ishvara
is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller (i.e. God) in a monotheistic or the Supreme Being or as an Ishta-deva of monistic thought. Ishvara is a transcendent and immanent entity best described in the last chapter of the Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita, known as the Ishavasya Upanishad. It states "ishavasyam idam sarvam" which means whatever there is in this world is covered and filled with Ishvara. Ishvara not only creates the world, but then also enters into everything there is. In Saivite traditions, the term is used as part of the compound "Maheshvara" ("great lord") as a name for Siva
.
Bhagavan
literally means "possessing fortune, blessed, prosperous" (from the noun bhaga, meaning "fortune, wealth", cognate to Slavic bog "god"), and hence "illustrious, divine, venerable, holy", etc. In some traditions of Hinduism it is used to indicate the Supreme Being or Absolute Truth, but with specific reference to that Supreme Being as possessing a personality (a personal God). This personal feature indicated in Bhagavan differentiates its usage from other similar terms such as Brahman, the "Supreme Spirit" or "spirit", and thus, in this usage, Bhagavan is in many ways analogous to the general Christian and Islamic conception of God.
Lord Shiva is more often considered as first Hindu God. Mahadeva literally means "Highest of all god". Shiva is also known as Maheshvar, the great Lord, Mahadeva, the great God, Shambhu, Hara, Pinakadhrik, bearer of the axe and Mrityunjaya, conqueror of death. He is the spouse of Shakti
, the goddess. He also is represented by Mahakala and Bhairava, the terrible, as well as many other forms including Rudra
. Shiva is often pictured holding the damaru
, an hour-glass shape drum, shown below with his trishula. His usual mantra is om namah shivaya.
This must not be confused with the numerous devas
. may be roughly translated into English as deity
, demigod
or angel
, and can describe any celestial being or thing that is of high excellence and thus is venerable. The word is cognate to Latin deus for "god". The misconception of 330 million devas is commonly objected to by Hindu scholars. The description of 33 koti (10 million, crore
in Hindi
) devas is a misunderstanding. The word koti in Sanskrit translates to 'type' and not '10 million'. So the actual translation is 33 types and not 330 million devas. Ishvara as a personal form of God is worshiped and not the 33 devas. The concept of 33 devas is perhaps related to the geometry of the universe.
(unmanifested and unlimited "Boundless Being" or "Root of Existence", beyond the whole universe and beyond comprehension) from whom proceeds the Supreme Being
at the dawn of manifestation: The One, the "Great Architect of the Universe
". From the threefold Supreme Being proceed the "seven Great Logoi
" who contain within themselves all the great hierarchies that differentiate more and more as they diffuse through the six lower Cosmic Planes
. In the Highest World of the seventh (lowest) Cosmic Plane dwells the God of the solar systems in the universe. These great beings are also threefold in manifestation, like the Supreme Being; their three aspects are Will, Wisdom and Activity.
According these Rosicrucian
teachings, in the beginning of a Day of Manifestation a certain collective Great Being, God, limits Himself to a certain portion of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System
for the evolution of added self-consciousness
. In God there are contained hosts of glorious Hierarchies and lesser beings of every grade of intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience
to an unconsciousness
deeper than that of the deepest trance condition
.
During the current period of manifestation these various grades of beings are working to acquire more experience than they possessed at the beginning of this period of existence. Those who, in previous manifestations, have attained to the highest degree of development work on those who have not yet evolved any consciousness. In the Solar system, God's Habitation, there are seven Worlds differentiated by God, within Himself, one after another. Mankind's evolutionary scheme is slowly carried through five of these Worlds in seven great Periods of manifestation, during which the evolving virgin spirit
becomes first human and, then, a God.
and Nānak describes him as (from the Sanskrit nirākārā, meaning formless), akāl
(meaning eternal) and alakh
(from the Sanskrit alakśya, meaning invisible or unobserved). At the very beginning of the first composition of Sikh scripture is the figure "1" - signifying the unity of God. Nānak's interpretation of God is that of a single, personal and transcendental
creator with whom the devotee must develop a most intimate faith and relationship to achieve salvation
. Sikhism
advocates the belief in one god who is omnipresent and has infinite qualities. This aspect has been repeated on numerous occasions in the Gurū Granth Sāhib and the term ik ōaṅkār
signifies this. In the Sikh teachings, there is no gender for God. When translating, the proper meaning cannot be correctly conveyed without using a gender definition, but this distorts the meaning by giving the impression that God is masculine, which is not the message in the original script.
Nānak further emphasizes that a full understanding of God is beyond human beings. However, Nānak also describes God as being not wholly unknowable. God is considered sarav vi'āpak
(omnipresent) in all creation and visible everywhere to the spiritually awakened. Nānak stresses that God must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart" of a human being - that meditation
must take place inwardly to achieve enlightenment progressively. Nānak emphasizes this revelation in creation as crucial, as its rigorous application permits the existence of communication between God and human beings.
Sikh
s believe in a single god that has existed from the beginning of time and will survive forever. He/she is genderless, fearless, formless, immutable, ineffable, self-sufficient, not subject to the cycle of birth and death, and omnipotent.
God in Sikhism
is depicted in three distinct aspects, viz. God in himself, God in relation to creation, and God in relation to man. During a discourse with Siddhas, Hindu recluses, Guru Nanak in reply to a question as to where the Transcendent God was before the stage of creation replies, "To think of the Transcendent Lord in that state is to enter the realm of wonder. Even at that stage of sunn, he permeated all that void" (GG, 940).
God Father and his form is a point of light.
The Brahma Kumaris teach that once every 5,000 years in 1936, God Shiva himself comes down from Nirvana
, enters the body of diamond merchant Lekhraj Kripalani (1876-1969) in Hyderabad, Sindh, starts to speak the true Gita through his mouth to create the Golden Age
world.
as extraterrestrial life
. Many of these theories hold that intelligent beings 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 morality and encourage the development of civilization. (See e.g. Rael and Zecharia Sitchin
).
described God as infinite love: "God is not understood in His essence until He is also understood as Infinite Love. Divine Love is unlimited in essence and expression, because it is experienced by the soul through the soul itself. The sojourn of the soul is a thrilling divine romance in which the lover, who in the beginning is conscious of nothing but emptiness, frustration, superficiality and the gnawing chains of bondage, gradually attains an increasingly fuller and freer expression of love and ultimately disappears and merges in the Divine Beloved to realize the unity of the Lover and the Beloved in the supreme and eternal fact of God as Infinite Love."
of Alfred North Whitehead
(1861–1947), and Open theism is a theological movement that began in the 1990s, similar, but not identical, to Process theology.
In both views, 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. Process theology is compatible with panentheism
, the concept that God contains the universe (pantheism
) but also transcend
s it. God as the ultimate logician - God may be defined as the only entity, by definition, possessing the ability to reduce an infinite number of logical equations having an infinite number of variables and an infinite number of states to minimum form instantaneously.
. Another variant is that humanity itself will evolve
into a posthuman
God.
The concept of a posthuman god has become common in science fiction
. Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke
said in an interview, "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." Clarke's friend and colleague, the late Isaac Asimov
, postulated in his story "The Last Question
" a merger between humanity and machine intelligence that ultimately produces a deity capable of reversing entropy
and subsequently initiates a new Creation trillions of years from the present era when the Universe is in the last stage of heat death. In Frank Herbert
's science-fiction series Dune
, a messianic figure is created after thousands of years of controlled breeding. The Culture Series
, by Iain M. Banks, represents a blend in which a transhuman
society is guarded by godlike machine intelligences. A stronger example is posited in the novel Singularity Sky
by Charles Stross
, in which a future artificial intelligence is capable of changing events even in its own past, and takes strong measures to prevent any other entity from taking advantage of similar capabilities. Another example appears in the popular online novella The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
in which an advanced artificial intelligence uses its own advanced quantum brain to resolve discrepancies in physics theories and develop a unified field theory which gives it absolute control over reality, in a take on philosophical digitalism
.
defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: "God is Life, he is the essence of Life, or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what is God the father they almighty, creator of heaven and earth, we know it not by the effect of a learning or of some knowledge, we don’t know it by the thought, on the background of the truth of the world ; we know it and we can know it only in and by the Life itself. We can know it only in God."
This Life is not biological life defined by objective and exterior properties, nor an abstract and empty philosophical concept, but the absolute phenomenological life
, a radically immanent life that possesses in it the power of showing itself in itself without distance, a life that reveals permanently itself.
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
of monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
, pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
or panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction:
- as a powerful, human-like, supernatural being, or as the deification of an esotericEsotericismEsotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
, mystical or philosophical category; - the Ultimate, the summum bonumSummum bonumSummum bonum is an expression used in philosophy, particularly in medieval philosophy and in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, to describe the ultimate importance, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings ought to pursue. The summum bonum is generally thought of as being an end in...
, the Absolute InfiniteAbsolute InfiniteThe Absolute Infinite is mathematician Georg Cantor's concept of an "infinity" that transcended the transfinite numbers. Cantor equated the Absolute Infinite with God...
, the TranscendentTranscendence (religion)In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...
, or ExistenceExistenceIn common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
or BeingBeingBeing , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
itself; - the ground of being, the monisticMonismMonism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
substrate, that which we cannot understand, etc.
Monotheist conceptions of god appear in the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
, out of predecessor concepts of monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
(mostly in Eastern religions) and henotheism
Henotheism
Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...
.
Since humans, plants and animals, rocks, mountains and so forth have been labeled as divine by various religions of the past, it can be argued that anything can be considered a god, and that there is no hard and fast criteria other than, perhaps, consensus of acknowledgement of divinity.
Platonism
In his MetaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
discusses meaning of "being as being". Aristotle holds that "being" primarily refers to the Unmoved Mover
Unmoved mover
The unmoved mover is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action...
s, 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).
Aristotle's definition of God attributes perfection to this being, and as a perfect being can only contemplate upon perfection and not on imperfection, otherwise perfection would not be one of his attributes. God, according to Aristotle, is in a state of "stasis" untouched by change and imperfection. The "unmoved mover" is very unlike the conception of God that one sees in most religions. It has been likened to a person who is playing dominos and pushes one of them over, so that every other domino in the set is pushed over as well, without the being having to do anything about it. Although, in the 18th century, the French educator Allan Kardec
Allan Kardec
Allan Kardec is the pen name of the French teacher and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail . He is known today as the systematizer of Spiritism for which he laid the foundation with the five books of the Spiritist Codification.-Early life:Rivail was born in Lyon in 1804...
brought a very similar conception of God during his work of codifying Spiritism
Spiritism
Spiritism is a loose corpus of religious faiths having in common the general belief in the survival of a spirit after death. In a stricter sense, it is the religion, beliefs and practices of the people affiliated to the International Spiritist Union, based on the works of Allan Kardec and others...
, this differs to the interpretation of God in most religions, where he is seen to be personally involved
Immanence
Immanence refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence, in which the divine is seen to be manifested in or encompassing of the material world. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world...
in his creation.
Hermeticism
The AllThe All
The All is the Hermetic or panentheistic view of God, which is that everything that is, or at least that can be experienced, collectively makes up The All...
is the Hermetic
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
version of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, to some and not to others. Alternatively, it has been called The One, The Great One, The Creator, The Supreme Mind, The Supreme Good, The Father, and The Universal Mother. The All is seen by some to be a panentheistic
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
conception of God, subsuming everything that is or can be experienced. One Hermetic maxim states "While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in All." (Three Initiates p. 95) The All can also seen to be hermaphroditic
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...
, possessing both masculine and feminine qualities in equal part (The Way of Hermes p. 19 Book 1:9). These qualities are, however, of mental gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, as The All lacks physical gender
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
.
According to Hermetic doctrine, The All is more complicated than simply being the sum total of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. Rather than The All being simply the physical universe, it is said that everything in the universe is within the mind of The All, since The All can be looked at as Mind itself (Three Initiates pp. 96–7). The All's mind is thought to be infinitely more powerful and vast than humans can possibly achieve (Three Initiates p. 99), and possibly capable of keeping track of every particle
Subatomic particle
In physics or chemistry, subatomic particles are the smaller particles composing nucleons and atoms. There are two types of subatomic particles: elementary particles, which are not made of other particles, and composite particles...
in the Universe. Despite The All being described as subsuming the universe, the possibility of there being things outside of The All is not excluded.
The All may also be a metaphor alluding to the godhead potentiality of every individual. "
Abrahamic religions
JudaismJudaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
see God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
as a being who created the world and who rules over the universe. God is usually held to have the following properties: holiness, justice, sovereignty, omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence, omnipresence, and immortality. It is also believed to be transcendent, meaning that God is outside space and time. Therefore, God is eternal and unable to be changed by earthly forces or anything else within its creation.
In the Abrahamic traditions there are many differences in how these properties are expressed. The importance placed upon those properties is often debated by each group. In the past, as well as modern times people have suggested each group is speaking of a different god, or that each individual human has his own personal conception of god; thus god can only be approximately known.
Judaism
Jewish monotheism is a continuation of earlier Hebrew henotheismHenotheism
Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...
, the exclusive worship of the God of Israel (YHWH) as prescribed in the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
and practiced at the Temple of Jerusalem. Strict monotheism emerges in Hellenistic Judaism
Hellenistic Judaism
Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...
and Rabbinical Judaism. Pronunciation of the proper name of the God of Israel came to be avoided in the Hellenistic era (Second Temple Judaism
Second Temple Judaism
Second Temple Judaism refers to the religion of Judaism during the Second Temple period, between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 515 BCE, and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE This period witnessed major historical upheavals and significant religious changes that...
),
and instead Jews refer to God as HaShem, meaning "the Name". In prayer and reading of scripture, the Tetragrammation YHWH) is substituted with Adonai ("my Lord").
Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. God is the creator of both, but is Himself neither, and is beyond all constructs of space and time. There are two aspects of God: God Himself, who in the end is unknowable, and the revealed aspect of God, which created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind in a personal way. In Judaism, the principle statement of monotheism is the Shema, a passage in the Torah which states, "Listen, Israel, HaShem is our God HaShem is one." Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
stated in his 13 principles of faith that God is the Creator and Guide of everything that has been created, that He is One, there is no unity in any manner like His, and He alone is God; that He is free from all the properties of matter and that there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever; that He is eternal, and is the first and the last; that He knows all the deeds of human beings and all their thoughts; that He rewards those who keep His commandments and punishes those that transgress them; and that at a time when it pleases God, He will revive the dead.
Over time, a Kabbalistic belief evolved that all of creation and all of existence is itself a part of God, and that we as humanity are unaware of our own inherent godliness and are grappling to come to terms with it. The standing view in Hasidism currently, is that there is nothing in existence outside of God - all being is within God, and yet all of existence cannot contain Him. Regarding this, Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
stated while dedicating the Temple
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
, "But will God in truth dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You."
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, the doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...
of the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
states that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is a single being
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
that exists, simultaneously and eternally
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
, as a perichoresis
Perichoresis
Perichoresis is a term in Christian theology first found within the Church Fathers but now reinvigorated among contemporary figures such as C. Baxter Kruger, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf and John Zizioulas, amongst others. The term first appears in Gregory of Nazianzus but was explored more...
of three persons (personae, prosopa): Father (the Source, the Eternal Majesty); the Son (the eternal Logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
or Word, human as Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
of Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
); and the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
(the Paraclete
Paraclete
Paraclete means advocate or helper. In Christianity, the term most commonly refers to the Holy Spirit.-Etymology:...
or advocate). Some people have illustrated this concept by saying that the Father, Son and Spirit are one yet distinct, in the same way that ice, steam and water are one, yet distinctly different from each other. Since the 4th Century AD, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, this doctrine has been stated as "One God in Three Persons", all three of whom, as distinct and co-eternal "persons" or "hypostases
Hypostasis (religion)
In Christian theology, a hypostasis or person is one of the three elements of the Holy Trinity.In Christian usage, the Greek word hypostasis means beneath-standing or underpinning and, by extension, the existence of some thing...
", share a single divine essence
Ousia
Ousia is the Ancient Greek noun formed on the feminine present participle of ; it is analogous to the English participle being, and the modern philosophy adjectival ontic...
, being, or nature. Following Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
and others, the Son is described as eternally begotten by the Father. This generation does not imply a beginning for the Son or an inferior relationship with the Father. The Son is the perfect image of his Father, and is consubstantial with him. The Son returns that love, and that union between the two is the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and co-equal with the Father and the Son. Thus God contemplates and loves himself, enjoying infinite and perfect beatitude within himself. This relationship between the other two persons is called procession
Procession
A procession is an organized body of people advancing in a formal or ceremonial manner.-Procession elements:...
. It should be noted that although the theology of the Trinity is accepted in most churches, there are theological differences, notably between Catholic and Orthodox thought on the procession of the Holy Spirit (see filioque). Many Christian communions do not accept the Trinitarian doctrine, at least not in its traditional form. Notable dissenting groups include the Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
, Christadelphians
Christadelphians
Christadelphians is a Christian group that developed in the United Kingdom and North America in the 19th century...
, Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
, Arians
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
, and Adoptionists.
Binitarianism
A view within Christianity that there were originally two beings in the Godhead, the Father and the Word that became the Son (Jesus the Christ). Binitarians normally believe that God is a family, currently consisting of the Father and the Son. Some binitarians believe that others will ultimately be born into that divine family. Hence, binitarians are nontrinitarian, but they are also not unitarian. Binitarians, like most unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
and trinitarians, claim their views were held by the original New Testament Church. Unlike most unitarians and trinitarians who tend to identify themselves by those terms, binitarians normally do not refer to their belief in the duality of the Godhead, with the Son subordinate to the Father; they simply teach the Godhead in a manner that has been termed as binitarianism.
The word "binitarian" is typically used by scholars and theologians as a contrast to a trinitarian theology: a theology of "two" in God rather than a theology of "three", and although some critics prefer to use the term ditheist or dualist instead of binitarian, those terms suggests that God is not one, yet binitarians believe that God is one family. It is accurate to offer the judgment that most commonly when someone speaks of a Christian "binitarian" theology the "two" in God are the Father and the Son... A substantial amount of recent scholarship has been devoted to exploring the implications of the fact that Jesus was worshipped by those first Jewish Christians, since in Judaism "worship" was limited to the worship of God" (Barnes M. Early Christian Binitarianism: the Father and the Holy Spirit. Early Christian Binitarianism - as read at NAPS 2001). Much of this recent scholarship has been the result of the translations of the Nag Hammadi
Nag Hammâdi
Nag Hammadi , is a city in Upper Egypt. Nag Hammadi was known as Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, meaning "geese grazing grounds". It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about 80 kilometres north-west of Luxor....
and other ancient manuscripts that were not available when older scholarly texts (such as Wilhelm Bousset's Kyrios Christos, 1913) were written.
Islam
Islam's most fundamental concept is a strict monotheism called tawhīdTawhid
Tawhid is the concept of monotheism in Islam. It is the religion's most fundamental concept and holds God is one and unique ....
. God is described in the Qur'an as: "Say: He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him." Muslims deny the Christian doctrine of the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
and divinity of Jesus
Islamic view of Jesus
In Islam, Jesus is considered to be a Messenger of God and the Masih who was sent to guide the Children of Israel with a new scripture, the Injīl or Gospel. The belief in Jesus is required in Islam, and a requirement of being a Muslim. The Qur'an mentions Jesus twenty-five times, more often, by...
, comparing it to polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s are not iconodules
Iconodules
An iconodule is someone who espouses iconodulism, i.e. who supports or is in favor of religious images or icons and their veneration, and is in opposition to an iconoclast, someone against the use of religious images...
and are not expected to visualize God. God is described and referred in the Quran by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).
Muslims believe that creation of everything in the universe is brought into being by God’s sheer command “‘Be’ and so it is.” and that the purpose of existence is to make God pleased, both by worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
and by good deeds. He is viewed as a personal God who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls Him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, to contact God who states “We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein
Jugular vein
The jugular veins are veins that bring deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava.-Internal and external:There are two sets of jugular veins: external and internal....
”
Allāh
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
( allāh) is the Arabic term with no plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
or gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God" (with a capital G), while "[[ʾilāh]]" ( ellāh) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.
Bahá'í Faith
Bahá'ísBahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....
believe in a single
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
, imperishable God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. God is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty." Though inaccessible directly, God is nevertheless seen as conscious of his creation, with a mind, will and purpose. Bahá'ís believe that God expresses this will at all times and in many ways, including through a series of divine messengers referred to as Manifestations of God
Manifestation of God
The Manifestation of God is a concept in the Bahá'í Faith that refers to what are commonly called prophets. The Manifestations of God are a series of personages who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world for the progress and advancement of human morals and civilization...
or sometimes divine educators. In expressing God's intent, these manifestations are seen to establish religion in the world. Bahá'í teachings state that God is too great for humans to fully comprehend, nor to create a complete and accurate image. Bahá'u'lláh often refers to God by titles (e.g. the All-Powerful, or the All-Loving). Bahá'ís believe that this anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
description of God amounts to Bahá'u'lláh, in his capacity as God's manifestation, abstracting him in language that human beings can comprehend, since direct knowledge of the essence of God is believed impossible.
Negative theology
Some Jewish, Christian and Muslim Medieval philosophers, including Moses Maimonides and Pseudo-Dionysius, as well as many sages of other religions, developed what is termed as Apophatic theology or the Via Negativa, the idea that one cannot posit attributesAttributes of God
The Attributes of God in Christian theology are those characteristics of God revealed in the Bible.-Classification:Many Reformed theologians distinguish between the communicable attributes and the incommunicable attributes...
to God and can only be discussed by what God is not. For example, we cannot say that God "exists" in the usual sense of the term, because that term is human defined and God's qualities such as existence may not be accurately characterized by it. What we can safely say is that it cannot be proven empirically or otherwise that God is existent, therefore God is not non-existent. Likewise God's "wisdom" is of a fundamentally different kind from limited human perception. So we cannot use the word "wise" to describe God, because this implies God is wise in the way we usually describe humans being wise. However we can safely say that God is not ignorant. We should not say that God is One, because we may not truly understand Gods nature, but we can state that there is no multiplicity in God's being. In the Holy Quran it is stated that God possess no quality of God's creation, which means that there cannot be a He or She used to describe God. To say that God is angered or feels any kind of emotion is a misunderstanding. Emotion is in common to all humans; it is what gives them their essence, though to feel love, anger, jealousy, or happiness clouds and misguides our judgment and may lead us to make a weak decision or do something unfair. Therefore One who sees all and can feel all does not need any emotion to make a decision. God is beyond emotion and other human biases.
The reason that this theology was developed was because it was felt that ascribing positive characteristics to God would imply that God could be accurately described with terms that were used to describe human qualities and perceptions. As humans cannot truly comprehend what kind of wisdom an eternal transcendent being might have, or what infinity might be like, we cannot in fact know or characterize his true nature. It is beyond human ability and would only mislead people. The proponents of this theory often experienced meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, which they viewed as the only effective way of having a personal relationship with God. It involved trying to reach beyond the words commonly used to describe him and his more ineffable
Ineffability
Ineffability is concerned with ideas that cannot or should not be expressed in spoken words , often being in the form of a taboo or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with philosophy, aspects of existence, and similar concepts that are inherently "too great", complex, or...
characteristics, and to comprehend in a mystical
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
manner the truths about him which could not be achieved through religious language. Thus many sages and saints of both monotheistic and other traditions described mystical trances, or rapture
Rapture
The rapture is a reference to the "being caught up" referred to in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, when the "dead in Christ" and "we who are alive and remain" will be caught up in the clouds to meet "the Lord"....
s and stated they were unable to describe God or their vision
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s fully.
God as unity or Trinity
Muslims, Jews, and a small fraction of other nominal Christians are unitarian monotheists. Unitarian monotheists hold that there is only one "person" or one basic substance, in GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. Some adherents of this position consider Trinitarianism to be a form of polytheism.
The vast majority of Christians have been and still are Trinitarian monotheists. Trinitarian monotheists believe in one god that exists as three interdependent persons who share the same substance/essence; the Christian version of this is called the Trinity. The Hindu version Trimurti
Trimurti
The Trimurti is a concept in Hinduism "in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahmā the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver, and Śhiva the destroyer or transformer," These three deities have been called "the Hindu triad" or...
, differs from Christianity in holding that God has three aspects, though shown as anthropomorphs.
While the Hindu Trinity is not an unquestioned doctrine in Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, it is taught as one postulated understanding of the universe's divine order.
Buddhism
Denying the conceptual notion of a supreme GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
or a prime mover
Primum movens
Primum movens , usually referred to as the Prime mover or first cause in English, is a term used in the philosophy of Aristotle, in the theological cosmological argument for the existence of God, and in cosmogony, the source of the cosmos or "all-being".-Aristotle's ontology:In book 12 of his...
is seen as a key distinction between Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and other views. Because of this, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
is sometimes described as a "spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
" whose sole aim is the complete alleviation of personal distress
Dukkha
Dukkha is a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, discontent, unsatisfactoriness, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, social alienation, anxiety,...
in samsara
Samsara (Buddhism)
or sangsara is a Sanskrit and Pāli term, which translates as "continuous movement" or "continuous flowing" and, in Buddhism, refers to the concept of a cycle of birth , and consequent decay and death , in which all beings in the universe participate, and which can only be escaped through...
, called nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
. The Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
explicitly rejects a creator
Creator deity
A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...
, denies endorsing any views on creation and states that questions on the origin of the world are worthless. Some theists beginning Buddhist meditation
Buddhist meditation
Buddhist meditation refers to the meditative practices associated with the religion and philosophy of Buddhism.Core meditation techniques have been preserved in ancient Buddhist texts and have proliferated and diversified through teacher-student transmissions. Buddhists pursue meditation as part of...
believe that the notion of divinity is not incompatible with Buddhism, but belief in a Supreme personal creator is considered to pose a hindrance to the attainment of nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, the highest goal of Buddhist practice.
Despite this non-theism, Buddhists consider veneration of the Noble ones very important although the two main schools of Buddhism differ mildly in their reverential attitudes. While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
or arahanthood, through human efforts, Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the Dharmakaya
Dharmakaya
The Dharmakāya is a central idea in Mahayana Buddhism forming part of the Trikaya doctrine that was possibly first expounded in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñā-pāramitā , composed in the 1st century BCE...
(a notion of transcedent divinity), who was born for the benefit of others, and not merely a human being. In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
, Avalokiteshvara and hope to embody him.
Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology
Buddhist cosmology
Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries.-Introduction:...
), known as devas
Deva (Buddhism)
A deva in Buddhism is one of many different types of non-human beings who share the characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, living more contentedly than the average human being....
, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara
Samsara (Buddhism)
or sangsara is a Sanskrit and Pāli term, which translates as "continuous movement" or "continuous flowing" and, in Buddhism, refers to the concept of a cycle of birth , and consequent decay and death , in which all beings in the universe participate, and which can only be escaped through...
, and not particularly wiser than us. In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them.
Hinduism
In HinduismHinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
the concept of god is complex and depends on the particular tradition. The concept spans conceptions from absolute monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
to henotheism
Henotheism
Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...
, monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
and polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
. In majority of Vaishnavism
Vaishnavism
Vaishnavism is a tradition of Hinduism, distinguished from other schools by its worship of Vishnu, or his associated Avatars such as Rama and Krishna, as the original and supreme God....
traditions, He is Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
, god, and the text identifies this being as Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
, sometimes referred as svayam bhagavan
Svayam Bhagavan
Svayam Bhagavan , "The Lord" or Lord Himself, is a Sanskrit theological term. The term refers to the concept of absolute representation of the monotheistic God as Bhagavan within Hinduism....
. The term isvara - from the root is, to have extraordinary power. Some traditional sankhya systems contrast purusha
Purusha
In some lineages of Hinduism, Purusha is the "Self" which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are interpretations of the many facets of Purusha...
(devine, or souls) to prakriti (nature or energy), however the term for sovereign god, ishvara is mentioned six times in the Atharva Veda, and is central to many traditions. For Sindhi
Sindhi people
Sindhis are a Sindhi speaking socio-ethnic group of people originating from Sindh, a province Formerly of British India, now in Pakistan. Today Sindhis that live in Pakistan belong to various religious denominations including Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity...
Hindus, who are deeply influenced by Sikhism
Sikhism
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region, by Guru Nanak Dev and continued to progress with ten successive Sikh Gurus . It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world and one of the fastest-growing...
, God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is seen as the omnipotent cultivation of all Hindu gods and goddesses. In short the soul paramatma of all gods and goddesses are the omnipresent Brahman and are enlightened beings.
Brahman
Brahman
Brahman
In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...
is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being and everything beyond in this Universe. The nature of Brahman is described as transpersonal, personal and impersonal by different philosophical schools. The word "Brahman" is derived from the verb ((brh)) (Sanskrit: to grow), and connotes greatness and infinity.
Ishvara
Ishvara
Ishvara
Ishvara is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller in a theistic school of thought or the Supreme Being, or as an Ishta-deva of monistic thought.-Etymology:...
is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller (i.e. God) in a monotheistic or the Supreme Being or as an Ishta-deva of monistic thought. Ishvara is a transcendent and immanent entity best described in the last chapter of the Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita, known as the Ishavasya Upanishad. It states "ishavasyam idam sarvam" which means whatever there is in this world is covered and filled with Ishvara. Ishvara not only creates the world, but then also enters into everything there is. In Saivite traditions, the term is used as part of the compound "Maheshvara" ("great lord") as a name for Siva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
.
Bhagavan
Bhagavan
Bhagavan
Bhagavan, also written Bhagwan or Bhagawan, from the Sanskrit nt-stem literally means "possessing fortune, blessed, prosperous" , and hence "illustrious, divine, venerable, holy", etc.In some traditions of Hinduism it is used to...
literally means "possessing fortune, blessed, prosperous" (from the noun bhaga, meaning "fortune, wealth", cognate to Slavic bog "god"), and hence "illustrious, divine, venerable, holy", etc. In some traditions of Hinduism it is used to indicate the Supreme Being or Absolute Truth, but with specific reference to that Supreme Being as possessing a personality (a personal God). This personal feature indicated in Bhagavan differentiates its usage from other similar terms such as Brahman, the "Supreme Spirit" or "spirit", and thus, in this usage, Bhagavan is in many ways analogous to the general Christian and Islamic conception of God.
Mahadeva
Lord Shiva is more often considered as first Hindu God. Mahadeva literally means "Highest of all god". Shiva is also known as Maheshvar, the great Lord, Mahadeva, the great God, Shambhu, Hara, Pinakadhrik, bearer of the axe and Mrityunjaya, conqueror of death. He is the spouse of Shakti
Shakti
Shakti from Sanskrit shak - "to be able," meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the concept, or personification, of divine feminine creative power, sometimes...
, the goddess. He also is represented by Mahakala and Bhairava, the terrible, as well as many other forms including Rudra
Rudra
' is a Rigvedic God, associated with wind or storm, and the hunt. The name has been translated as "The Roarer", or "The Howler"....
. Shiva is often pictured holding the damaru
Damaru
A damaru or damru is a small two-headed drum shaped like an hourglass. The drum is typically made of wood, with leather drum heads at both ends; the damaru might also be made entirely out of human skulls...
, an hour-glass shape drum, shown below with his trishula. His usual mantra is om namah shivaya.
This must not be confused with the numerous devas
Deva (Hinduism)
' is the Sanskrit word for god or deity, its related feminine term is devi. In modern Hinduism, it can be loosely interpreted as any benevolent supernatural beings. The devs in Hinduism, also called Suras, are often juxtaposed to the Asuras, their half brothers. Devs are also the maintainers of...
. may be roughly translated into English as deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
, demigod
Demigod
The term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...
or angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
, and can describe any celestial being or thing that is of high excellence and thus is venerable. The word is cognate to Latin deus for "god". The misconception of 330 million devas is commonly objected to by Hindu scholars. The description of 33 koti (10 million, crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
) devas is a misunderstanding. The word koti in Sanskrit translates to 'type' and not '10 million'. So the actual translation is 33 types and not 330 million devas. Ishvara as a personal form of God is worshiped and not the 33 devas. The concept of 33 devas is perhaps related to the geometry of the universe.
Rosicrucian
The Western Wisdom Teachings present the conception of The AbsoluteAbsolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
(unmanifested and unlimited "Boundless Being" or "Root of Existence", beyond the whole universe and beyond comprehension) from whom proceeds the Supreme Being
Supreme Being
The term Supreme Being is often defined simply as "God", and it is used with this meaning by theologians of many religious faiths, including, but not limited to, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Deism. However, the term can also refer to more complex or philosophical interpretations of the...
at the dawn of manifestation: The One, the "Great Architect of the Universe
Great Architect of the Universe
The Great Architect of the Universe is a conception of God discussed by many Christian theologians and apologists. As a designation it is used within Freemasonry to neutrally represent whatever Supreme Being to which each member individually holds in adherence...
". From the threefold Supreme Being proceed the "seven Great Logoi
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
" who contain within themselves all the great hierarchies that differentiate more and more as they diffuse through the six lower Cosmic Planes
Plane (esotericism)
In esoteric cosmology, a plane, other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe....
. In the Highest World of the seventh (lowest) Cosmic Plane dwells the God of the solar systems in the universe. These great beings are also threefold in manifestation, like the Supreme Being; their three aspects are Will, Wisdom and Activity.
According these Rosicrucian
Rosicrucian
Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...
teachings, in the beginning of a Day of Manifestation a certain collective Great Being, God, limits Himself to a certain portion of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
for the evolution of added self-consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. In God there are contained hosts of glorious Hierarchies and lesser beings of every grade of intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
to an unconsciousness
Unconsciousness
Unconsciousness is the condition of being not conscious—in a mental state that involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Being in a comatose state or coma is a type of unconsciousness. Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a...
deeper than that of the deepest trance condition
Altered state of consciousness
An altered state of consciousness , also named altered state of mind, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking beta wave state. The expression was used as early as 1966 by Arnold M. Ludwig and brought into common usage from 1969 by Charles Tart: it describes induced...
.
During the current period of manifestation these various grades of beings are working to acquire more experience than they possessed at the beginning of this period of existence. Those who, in previous manifestations, have attained to the highest degree of development work on those who have not yet evolved any consciousness. In the Solar system, God's Habitation, there are seven Worlds differentiated by God, within Himself, one after another. Mankind's evolutionary scheme is slowly carried through five of these Worlds in seven great Periods of manifestation, during which the evolving virgin spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
becomes first human and, then, a God.
Unitarian Universalism
Concepts about deity are diverse among UUs. Some have no belief in any gods (atheism); others believe in many gods (polytheism). Some believe that the question of the existence of any god is most likely unascertainable or unknowable (agnosticism). Some believe that God is a metaphor for a transcendent reality. Some believe in a female god (goddess), a passive god (Deism), an Abrahamic god, or a god manifested in nature or the universe (pantheism). Many UUs reject the idea of deities and instead speak of the "spirit of life" that binds all life on earth. UUs support each person's search for truth and meaning in concepts of spirituality. Historically, Unitarianism was a denomination within Christianity.The term may refer to any belief about the nature of Jesus Christ that affirms God as a singular entity and rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Universalism broadly refers to a theological belief that all persons and creatures are related to a god or the divine and will be reconciled to a god (Universal Salvation).Sikhism
The Sikh term for God is VahigurūWaheguru
Waheguru is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God, the Supreme Being or the creator of all. It means "The Good/Best Teacher" in the Punjabi language. Wahi means "good" and "Guru" is a term denoting "teacher"....
and Nānak describes him as (from the Sanskrit nirākārā, meaning formless), akāl
Akal
Akal literally timeless, immortal, non-temporal, is a term integral to Sikh tradition and philosophy. It is extensively used in the Dasam Granth hymns by Guru Gobind Singh, who titled one of his poetic compositions Akal Ustat; i.e., In Praise of the Timeless One . However, the concept of Akal...
(meaning eternal) and alakh
Alakh Niranjan
Alakh Niranjan is a term in Hinduism and Sikhism where it is used a synonym for Creator, and to describe the characteristics of God and the Self, known as the Atman. Alakh means "sightless" and niranjan means "spotfree"...
(from the Sanskrit alakśya, meaning invisible or unobserved). At the very beginning of the first composition of Sikh scripture is the figure "1" - signifying the unity of God. Nānak's interpretation of God is that of a single, personal and transcendental
Transcendence (religion)
In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...
creator with whom the devotee must develop a most intimate faith and relationship to achieve salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
. Sikhism
Sikhism
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region, by Guru Nanak Dev and continued to progress with ten successive Sikh Gurus . It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world and one of the fastest-growing...
advocates the belief in one god who is omnipresent and has infinite qualities. This aspect has been repeated on numerous occasions in the Gurū Granth Sāhib and the term ik ōaṅkār
Ek Onkar
Ik Onkar is a central tenet of Sikh religious philosophy. It is a symbol of the unity of God in Sikhism, and is found on all religious scriptures and places such as Gurdwaras. Derived from Punjabi, Ik Onkār is the first phrase in the Mul Mantar referring to the existence of "one constant" taken to...
signifies this. In the Sikh teachings, there is no gender for God. When translating, the proper meaning cannot be correctly conveyed without using a gender definition, but this distorts the meaning by giving the impression that God is masculine, which is not the message in the original script.
Nānak further emphasizes that a full understanding of God is beyond human beings. However, Nānak also describes God as being not wholly unknowable. God is considered sarav vi'āpak
Sarav viapak
Sarav Viapak is a term used to describe omnipresence of God in Sikhism. It translates as an "all prevading god". In Sikhism, God is held to be without form, shape colour etc. It is present in every living being in Universe....
(omnipresent) in all creation and visible everywhere to the spiritually awakened. Nānak stresses that God must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart" of a human being - that meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
must take place inwardly to achieve enlightenment progressively. Nānak emphasizes this revelation in creation as crucial, as its rigorous application permits the existence of communication between God and human beings.
Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
s believe in a single god that has existed from the beginning of time and will survive forever. He/she is genderless, fearless, formless, immutable, ineffable, self-sufficient, not subject to the cycle of birth and death, and omnipotent.
God in Sikhism
Sikhism
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region, by Guru Nanak Dev and continued to progress with ten successive Sikh Gurus . It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world and one of the fastest-growing...
is depicted in three distinct aspects, viz. God in himself, God in relation to creation, and God in relation to man. During a discourse with Siddhas, Hindu recluses, Guru Nanak in reply to a question as to where the Transcendent God was before the stage of creation replies, "To think of the Transcendent Lord in that state is to enter the realm of wonder. Even at that stage of sunn, he permeated all that void" (GG, 940).
Prajapita Brahma Kumaris
According to Prajapita Brahma Kumaris religion, Shiva is incorporeal Supreme SoulSoul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
God Father and his form is a point of light.
The Brahma Kumaris teach that once every 5,000 years in 1936, God Shiva himself comes down from Nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, enters the body of diamond merchant Lekhraj Kripalani (1876-1969) in Hyderabad, Sindh, starts to speak the true Gita through his mouth to create the Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
world.
Extraterrestrial
Some comparatively new belief systems and books portray GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
as extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
. Many of these theories hold that intelligent beings 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 morality and encourage the development of civilization. (See e.g. Rael and Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune...
).
Meher Baba's teachings
The spiritual teacher Meher BabaMeher Baba
Meher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....
described God as infinite love: "God is not understood in His essence until He is also understood as Infinite Love. Divine Love is unlimited in essence and expression, because it is experienced by the soul through the soul itself. The sojourn of the soul is a thrilling divine romance in which the lover, who in the beginning is conscious of nothing but emptiness, frustration, superficiality and the gnawing chains of bondage, gradually attains an increasingly fuller and freer expression of love and ultimately disappears and merges in the Divine Beloved to realize the unity of the Lover and the Beloved in the supreme and eternal fact of God as Infinite Love."
Process philosophy and Open theism
Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophyProcess philosophy
Process philosophy identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have posited true reality as "timeless", based on permanent substances, whilst processes are denied or subordinated to timeless substances...
of Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
(1861–1947), and Open theism is a theological movement that began in the 1990s, similar, but not identical, to Process theology.
In both views, 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
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. 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. Process theology is compatible with panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, the concept that God contains the universe (pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
) but also transcend
Transcendence (religion)
In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...
s it. God as the ultimate logician - God may be defined as the only entity, by definition, possessing the ability to reduce an infinite number of logical equations having an infinite number of variables and an infinite number of states to minimum form instantaneously.
Posthuman
A posthuman God is a hypothetical future entity descended from or created by humans, but possessing capabilities so radically exceeding those of present humans as to appear godlike. One common variation of this idea is the belief or aspiration that humans will create a God entity emerging from an artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
. Another variant is that humanity itself will evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
into a posthuman
Posthuman
Posthuman may refer to:*Posthuman, a hypothetical future being whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by our current standards...
God.
The concept of a posthuman god has become common in science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
said in an interview, "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." Clarke's friend and colleague, the late Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, postulated in his story "The Last Question
The Last Question
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and was reprinted in the collections Nine Tomorrows , The Best of Isaac Asimov , Robot Dreams , the retrospective Opus 100 , and in Isaac Asimov: The...
" a merger between humanity and machine intelligence that ultimately produces a deity capable of reversing entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
and subsequently initiates a new Creation trillions of years from the present era when the Universe is in the last stage of heat death. In Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
's science-fiction series Dune
Dune (novel)
Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
, a messianic figure is created after thousands of years of controlled breeding. The Culture Series
The Culture
The Culture is a fictional interstellar anarchist, socialist, and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks which features in a number of science fiction novels and works of short fiction by him, collectively called the Culture series....
, by Iain M. Banks, represents a blend in which a transhuman
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
society is guarded by godlike machine intelligences. A stronger example is posited in the novel Singularity Sky
Singularity Sky
- External links :* at * * at Worlds Without End...
by Charles Stross
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction, Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. He was born in Leeds.Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera...
, in which a future artificial intelligence is capable of changing events even in its own past, and takes strong measures to prevent any other entity from taking advantage of similar capabilities. Another example appears in the popular online novella The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is a 1994 novella by Roger Williams, a computer programmer living in New Orleans. It deals with the ramifications of a powerful, superintelligent supercomputer that discovers a method of rewriting the "BIOS" of reality while studying a little known quirk of...
in which an advanced artificial intelligence uses its own advanced quantum brain to resolve discrepancies in physics theories and develop a unified field theory which gives it absolute control over reality, in a take on philosophical digitalism
Digital physics
In physics and cosmology, digital physics is a collection of theoretical perspectives based on the premise that the universe is, at heart, describable by information, and is therefore computable...
.
Phenomenological definition
The philosopher Michel HenryMichel Henry
Michel Henry was a French philosopher and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States of America, and Japan.- Biography :...
defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: "God is Life, he is the essence of Life, or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what is God the father they almighty, creator of heaven and earth, we know it not by the effect of a learning or of some knowledge, we don’t know it by the thought, on the background of the truth of the world ; we know it and we can know it only in and by the Life itself. We can know it only in God."
This Life is not biological life defined by objective and exterior properties, nor an abstract and empty philosophical concept, but the absolute phenomenological life
Phenomenological life
Phenomenological life is life considered from a philosophical and rigorously phenomenological point of view.- Phenomenological definition of life :...
, a radically immanent life that possesses in it the power of showing itself in itself without distance, a life that reveals permanently itself.