SOME WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT GOD
Karl E. Peters
Much discussion and debate has occurred about whether God is. I’ve always been more interested in what the word “God” might mean. Over the years I’ve developed a schema of ways to think about God. The following is that schema. The first item considers what some call the “formal definition” or characterization of whatever it is to which the world “God” can refer, that which is our ultimate concern.
1. Thinking about God is thinking about matters of ultimate concern (Paul Tillich) or ultimate commitment (Henry Nelson Wieman). I also use the words “Sacred,” “Divine,” and “Holy to talk about what concerns us ultimately.
“Ultimate” refers to whatever it is around which we organize our lives—the center of our existence. Seeking wealth can be God if it that around which we organize our lives. “Justice for all” can also be God.
Religions also think about what is ultimate in terms of the source of existence. God as creator.
2. Some ways of thinking about what is ultimate or God. Can we think of them as ultimate in the above two senses? All of them? If not all, which ones?
| Many | One | |
|
Personal
|
Polytheism. Many deities of ancient cultures. E.g. the Greeks. Henotheism. Many gods but only one is to worshipped or followed. Ancient Israel—Yaweh. “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” |
Monotheism. Judaism, Islam, traditional Christianity. A universal God of all peoples.
“A loving presence” (Terasa Cooley) |
|
Non-personal
|
“Polyism.” Forces of nature. Laws of nature (Sanborn Brown).
Possibilities for good. |
Monism. Hindu Brahman without form that gives rise to all forms of existence (including the gods). “Creative Process” (Henry Nelson Wieman, Karl Peters) “Unifying symbol for forces of nature and history that give rise to the human and make the human more humane” (Gordon Kaufman). “That principle in human existence which awakes our best potential” (V. V. Raman). |
3. God has been thought of
as Person, Power (force), Presence, Process, Possibilities, and Principle in relation to our lives and the world as we know it—and
as Mystery (Transcendent either to what we can know [epistemologically transcendent] or to the universe as a whole [ontologically transcendent]) to indicate that all our ideas are only just our ideas about God.