Is there anything in the concepts of deity that is not arbitrary?

[Maya Kaath]

I think our conceptions of deity are arbitrary at times. We "use" deity for a variety of purposes. To make ourselves feel better about our own failings, or to justify behaviors and attitudes we hold.

I note that the scriptures of revealed religions are pretty consistent in their conception of God, which is pretty remarkable considering that they're conveying ideas about a non-material being to an audience that is hyper-aware of its material environment and that interprets spiritual principle through the filter that material environment provides.

The scriptures consistently tell us two things that may seem, from our vantage point, to be contradictory: God is beyond our material conception and yet we are created in His image. As Bahá'u'lláh puts it, "...I knew My love for thee. Therefore I have created thee, engraved on thee My image and revealed to thee My beauty." This opens up a universe of ideas about human identity to explore and is part of a progression of ideas about the relationship between humanity and the divine into which Bahá'u'lláh also tosses the idea that "He hath known God who hath known himself." He then proceeds to elevate self-knowledge to a primary place in human purpose. It is of crucial importance, He says, that each of us "should know his own self and recognize that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement, wealth or poverty." (The Tarazat or Effulgences)

This is not a new idea for it is at the core of all revealed Religion. Krishna says that the Atman (soul) is God's spirit in man and Christ carefully explains that we should refer to our own best behavior in order to understand God, then, in turn, uses His characterization of God as a loving parent to prescribe exemplary human behavior. Because God is loving to all, Christ says, "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets." In the next verse, He goes a step farther and points to this compassionate behavior as the way to spiritual life: “Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matthew 7:12-14)

This is, of course, only one example of the linkage between the qualities (or "names") of God and the qualities God (whether you call Him Brahman, Ahura Mazda, Allah, Yahweh or Ra) is asking human beings to acquire and nurture (and thereby, evolve.) There is an ancient passage from the Chandogya Upanishad that expresses this connection between God and human: There is a Spirit which is mind and life, light and truth and vast spaces. He contains all works, and all desires, and all perfumes, and all tastes. He enfolds the whole Universe, and in silence is loving to all. This is the Spirit that is in my heart, smaller than a grain of rice, or a grain of barley, or a grain of mustard seed, or a kernel of a grain of mustard seed. This is the Spirit that is in my heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than Heaven itself, greater than all these worlds. This is the Spirit that is in my heart. This is Brahman.

So there are clearly some core concepts of deity that do not fit any definition of arbitrary I'm familiar with. However, it's obvious that we've historically made deity one of the chief victims of human whimsy and have draped our self-serving ideas over the deity like tinsel on a Christmas tree.

 

[nazz]

I don't think so.

We may and often have to choose to restrict ourselves to some family of conceptions of deities in order to even meaningfully talk about them.

But when push comes to shove, deities may or may not have some sort of humanly understandable attributes; may have or lack a role in the creation of existence; may have or lack a plan for it; may be symbolic or literal; may be finite or infinite; natural or supernatural; mundane or cosmic.

In short, there is no clear requisite or restriction for anything at all being considered a deity, except perhaps that someone must raise the matter and declare whatever a deity.

What do you think?

The two attributes that seem ubiquitous for all deities is immortality and great power.

 

[LuisDantas]

The two attributes that seem ubiquitous for all deities is immortality and great power.

Perhaps. I'm not sure about them either, though.

Are the Kami of Shinto (which many people insist should be considered deities) immortal, or necessarily very powerful?

Are the protector spirits of some religions?

Are pagan deities in general?

I just don't know, but I have a hunch that not always.

 

[nazz]

Perhaps. I'm not sure about them either, though.

Are the Kami of Shinto (which many people insist should be considered deities) immortal, or necessarily very powerful?

Are the protector spirits of some religions?

Are pagan deities in general?

I just don't know, but I have a hunch that not always.

I'm not sure either. But definitely most deities share these basic attributes.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

I don't think so.

We may and often have to choose to restrict ourselves to some family of conceptions of deities in order to even meaningfully talk about them.

But when push comes to shove, deities may or may not have some sort of humanly understandable attributes; may have or lack a role in the creation of existence; may have or lack a plan for it; may be symbolic or literal; may be finite or infinite; natural or supernatural; mundane or cosmic.

In short, there is no clear requisite or restriction for anything at all being considered a deity, except perhaps that someone must raise the matter and declare whatever a deity.

What do you think?

There might be no God (a self-aware super being). Or if God does exist, It could have created the universe, or It could have sprung from the quantum computer that is the universe along with the Big Bang as a sort of natural super AI. With either of the latter, God is obviously laissez-faire since we don't have any evidence for either except from inadmissible hearsay evidence--to use the legal lingo. So, in both divine cases, God would be a passive observer. But the creator God would be willful with wants and desires, thus the motivation to initiate Creation which also implies a purpose for us--anything else, like creating angels, It could have done instantly instead of spreading it out over 13 billion years. In that case, willfulness wouldn't be an arbitrary divine quality.

And in either divine case, watchfulness would have to be a quality since that, as a minimum, is what a conscious entity would do merely by being conscious, and the only thing It could do without disrupting rational, natural law, which as mentioned above, there's no evidence for. But if the (for the moment) will-less God is only watching, why is it remaining silent except for the same reason as the willful God is--in which case It's silence and inaction would have to be the result of will, which would in effect make them the same from our standpoint, or even from It's standpoint from the time of the Big Bang.

(BTW, if there is no God, it's the same from our standpoint as well, at least in this life.)

So to answer your question, if God exists, it would have to be willful if for no other reason than to be silent, and it would have to be watchful.

This springs from a 50/50 assumption that God exists. From there we can make logical speculations from said assumption that God is silently watching, but those speculations only apply to the God scenario.

 

[Nakosis]

I think someone has to either worship it or fear it. Otherwise there's not much point in it being a deity.

 

[asier9]

Yes, and why don't you already understand why? Even if you have no exposure to scholastic philosophy you should be able to understand the necessity for a God having non arbitrary characteristics by simple inspection of the question.

For example God cannot be contingent. If God--and while I speak of God using personal pronouns here, I am actually speaking of an order of reality, which we call also term (capital B) Being, that is necessary to explain the cause of contingent, i.e. material, reality without inconsistencies-- were himself subject to cause and effect than appealing to such a concept would benefit us nothing in terms of an explanation for reality. Therefore if what we mean by God has any actual meaning in reality than God cannot be contingent, and since this is the case he also cannot be complex, e.g. made of parts. To use Aquinas' language God is pure act. Only such a God as this can act as a logically necessary explanation for material reality. As it turns out the Judeo-Christian God, who appears in history fits this definition perfectly, but that is an answer to a different question. Here we are not asking what God is real, but simply what God must be like if he were real. To to be clear if God were real then he couldn't have arbitrary characteristics. Now if you are talking about gods who are simply human inventions, then yes they can be arbitrary as the plethora of such gods already demonstrates in fact. But why waste your time asking such a question in the first place? God only matters if he really exists, and so again if he does exist then he must have certain totally non-arbitrary characteristics.

 

[Edwin]

• I don't have any concept of anything that you could call "a concept of God". To me "God" is just a meaningless word. I have no concept of anything to call "creator of everthing but itself". To me that's just a meaningless phrase. I'd be happy to have a concept of something to call "a concept of God", but for the life of me, I can't conjure up in my brain any concept of anything for "God" or "creator of the universe" to refer to. I'm also unable to believe anybody else has any such concept either. I believe if they really had a concept to call "a concept of God", they could describe the concept to me and I could have it too. I can only think it's like there was no concept for the 'emperor's new clothes', but the people believed there was, and didn't have the courage to admit even to themselves to that there really wasn't. I think all people who think they have a concept to call "a concept of God" are like those people in that story.

 

[asier9]

• I don't have any concept of anything that you could call "a concept of God". To me "God" is just a meaningless word. I have no concept of anything to call "creator of everthing but itself". To me that's just a meaningless phrase. I'd be happy to have a concept of something to call "a concept of God", but for the life of me, I can't conjure up in my brain any concept of anything for "God" or "creator of the universe" to refer to. I'm also unable to believe anybody else has any such concept either. I believe if they really had a concept to call "a concept of God", they could describe the concept to me and I could have it too. I can only think it's like there was no concept for the 'emperor's new clothes', but the people believed there was, and didn't have the courage to admit even to themselves to that there really wasn't. I think all people who think they have a concept to call "a concept of God" are like those people in that story.

It is hilarious that you wrote this right under my post when I provided a perfectly coherent concept of God. Don't you people have any interest in philosophy? Perhaps you do but you are more than willing to leave that big chunk in the middle of Western Philosophy called Scholasticism. However I would argue that you can't really understand modern philosophy if you don't understand the scholastic issues they most early modern philosophy was responding to.

So two comments on this: First, of course we need philosophy because science isn't something that can be validated through the scientific method itself. There is always a larger worldview at play, which I call one's mythological commitment exactly because such worldviews must necessarily consist of extra-scientific beliefs. And secondly it appears that people who want to make a mythological commitment out of science itself, grotesquely distorting it in the process, are more than willing to sweep all the difficult objections under the rug which is why I am guessing they don't bother to really understand scholastic philosophy in the first place and where they make a pretext of it at all it is almost certainly always only a strawman.

 

[Quintessence]

I'm not sure either. But definitely most deities share these basic attributes.

Not really. Considering god-concepts are theoretically innumerable, there is no way to assess what characteristics "most" of them would have. Speaking just for my own theism, the overwhelming majority of my gods are not immortal, and they are not what outsiders would consider to be "great powers" either. Though honestly, I think that assessing something as a "great power" is meaningless given it's a subjective assessment and entirely relative. All things have "great power" in their own right.

I think someone has to either worship it or fear it. Otherwise there's not much point in it being a deity.

And yet there is a point. Deifying something essentially says "I value that" or "I respect that." It's been deemed worthy of worship. That doesn't mean you actively worship the thing you've deified. With respect to polytheistic theologies, it is simply impossible to actively worship all of the gods. You actively worship the ones that are most important to you or your community at any given time. But within that, you continue to recognize the gods you do not actively worship as gods, or as things that are of value.

 

[SKC007]

The truth is, "God is made in Man's Image" and will take on the form of whatever image Man decides it to be.

 

[SKC007]

The truth is: "God is made in Mans image and takes on the form of whatever image Man decides it to be."

 

[Trimijopulos]

Deifying something essentially says "I value that" or "I respect that."
[...]
But within that, you continue to recognize the gods you do not actively worship as gods, or as things that are of value.

It appears to me that you have created an oxymoron.

If for having gods one has to deify something, one cannot recognize as gods what one has not deified.

The verb “deify” is in essence meaningless for the simple reason that nothing can be deified if the god/God idea has not been invented yet.

How did it happen and the gods’ idea was originally produced?

The op is asking: “Is there anything in the concepts of deity that is not arbitrary? It takes for granted the fact that the deities are concepts, which they are not. Theology did not invent gods; the gods are not the concepts of the theologians.
Theology used the “earthly lords” of the folklore, of the popular legends, and presented them as “heavenly lords”. Thus we are dealing with a group, a tribe or a race of gods. The Aesir constitute a nation of gods and so do the Vanir (both living on earth).
There is nothing arbitrary in the deities because theology has to satisfy the gods of the legends, existing already, in order to be popular.
Which were the first deities worshiped?
The genitals of the mother (the pubic triangle was the symbol of the mother for thousands of years) and of the fathering god (the phallic symbols accompanying the pubic triangle).
What are men still worshipping?
A mother (Virgin Mary) and a father (Yahweh) whose union produced a son.

 

[LuisDantas]

With respect to polytheistic theologies, it is simply impossible to actively worship all of the gods. You actively worship the ones that are most important to you or your community at any given time. But within that, you continue to recognize the gods you do not actively worship as gods, or as things that are of value.

You know, that leads to a couple of considerations that probably should seem obvious in hindsight, but are of some practical value to me anyway.

1.Polytheism in a community has the practical result of leading people to announce (to themselves at least) where their current priorities and values are.

That is often a good thing, since it leads people to be more conscious of their own commitments (without denying them the option of changing their minds), as well as making it that much easier for people to be aware of each other's values (and therefore that much better prepared to establish meaningful and respectful relationships and communications).


2. Monotheism, whatever merits or accuracy it might have, is at least potentially plagued by the disadvantage of losing those benefits of polytheism just discussed. Worshipping Athena implies that you value and seek wisdom. Worshipping the creator of all of existence does not mean that you don't, but it certainly removes that automatic emphasis on that value.

That is not necessarily a reason to avoid or leave it, but it might be wise for monotheists to emphasize clarity of values, commitment, meanings and communication that much more than they would were they polytheists.

IMO, there is a hint of a suggestion there that monotheism may not be as good a fit for some (many?) people as polytheism would be. There is such a thing as being overwhelmed by attempting to go in too many directions at once.

 

[LuisDantas]

It appears to me that you have created an oxymoron.

If for having gods one has to deify something, one cannot recognize as gods what one has not deified.

The verb “deify” is in essence meaningless for the simple reason that nothing can be deified if the god/God idea has not been invented yet.

How did it happen and the gods’ idea was originally produced?

Well, to me at least it seems that the idea that gods must not be invented/recognized/deified "on the spot" is also arbitrary. I am not seeing that contradiction.

The op is asking: “Is there anything in the concepts of deity that is not arbitrary? It takes for granted the fact that the deities are concepts, which they are not.

Since I happen to be the op creator, I can tell you that no, it does not.

It does instead take for granted that there are concepts of deity, which I think is safe enough a premise.

Theology did not invent gods; the gods are not the concepts of the theologians.

That is unproven at best.

Theology used the “earthly lords” of the folklore, of the popular legends, and presented them as “heavenly lords”. Thus we are dealing with a group, a tribe or a race of gods. The Aesir constitute a nation of gods and so do the Vanir (both living on earth).
There is nothing arbitrary in the deities because theology has to satisfy the gods of the legends, existing already, in order to be popular.

It seems to me that you are using a fairly specific, perhaps a bit too restricted, understanding of what theology is.

 

[Trimijopulos]

It is hilarious that you wrote this right under my post when I provided a perfectly coherent concept of God. Don't you people have any interest in philosophy? Perhaps you do but you are more than willing to leave that big chunk in the middle of Western Philosophy called Scholasticism. However I would argue that you can't really understand modern philosophy if you don't understand the scholastic issues they most early modern philosophy was responding to.

Scholasticism is based on neo-platonism which in its turn is based on Platonism of that scumbag Plato who went to study theology in Egypt where gods were said to produce offspring through masturbation.

Do you have any idea of how theology came to be?

 

[Muffled]

But how would you know? How do know what God is like?

I believe I know Him personally.

 

[asier9]

Scholasticism is based on neo-platonism which in its turn is based on Platonism of that scumbag Plato who went to study theology in Egypt where gods were said to produce offspring through masturbation.

Do you have any idea of how theology came to be?

You are clearly somebody who will believe anything he wants and rationalize by any means whatever it is you want to believe.

 

[Trimijopulos]

You are clearly somebody who will believe anything he wants and rationalize by any means whatever it is you want to believe.

Let alone who I am. That is irrelevant. The point is what I am saying.

So, I repeat the question: Do you have an idea of how theology came to be?

Are you aware of the fact that when theologians decided to remove the female element from the creation of humans the only alternative way they could think of was to produce offspring by means of having the male god masturbate?

Theologians have not changed much since then because Virgin Mary has been ousted from the holy trinity.

 

[Cephus]

It is hilarious that you wrote this right under my post when I provided a perfectly coherent concept of God.

Which means no more than saying someone provided a perfectly coherent concept of a unicorn. That has no bearing on the actual existence of this conceptual critter. When speaking of real entities, you cannot simply define them into existence, assigning them arbitrary characteristics that you have no way of demonstrating they actually have. When talking about gods, theists simply make up a character that they like, they cannot point to any means of knowing that this character they have invented is actually real, or that it has the characteristics they assign to it.