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What Attributes Does God Have?
- Thread starter rojse
- Start date
rojse
RF Addict
Pantheism or panpsychism, depending on what you wish to add to that sentence.
AlsoAnima
Friend
Perfectly made? Yes. Perfect? By no means.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
What Attributes Does God Have?
Hi rojse, the short answer is all and none, but if this is not satisfying please read on for the longer one..
The concept of God being the benevolent creator of the Universe and the concept of destroyer as some malevolent separate entity is a widely held one in the west, but there are other conceptual ideas in the eastern traditions whereby the concept of God represents the One that is All.. According to this latter understanding, there never was a creator of the Universe for it never had a beginning, for G-D is in fact ONE, eternally and infinitely so, and creation and destruction are mere dualistic complementary opposite conceptual attributes (from which all other attributes are derived) to describe ceaseless universal transformation of the ONE that is all that exists.
Nothing can be ever added to it, nor can anything ever be removed from it.
However, these dualistic complementary opposite attributes of a unitary source are also found in the Bible, for in Isaiah 45:7, one can find GOD (concept) to be metaphorically personalized to be seen saying, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
It would appear therefore that God, the ONE and All is the integral of all attributes on the one hand when seen as being immanent in all creation, and on the other, is simultaneously none of the differentiated attributes when seen as the transcendent underlying Unity.
BTW, It's also my suspicion that the metaphorical story of 'eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil' in Genesis, and the subsequent 'fall' is somehow connected with the beginning of mankind's loss of innocence of being one in harmony with the unitary nature of God, and as a result subsequently evolving a discriminating mind that perceives the One reality through a dualistic conceptualization process that ultimately produces a state of confusion and maya such as represented by the concept of Babylon. Christ on the other hand is offering "the Father and I are one" concept and a return to the understanding of the real true unitary nature of our being, i.e. the kingdom is within you.
Hi rojse, the short answer is all and none, but if this is not satisfying please read on for the longer one..
The concept of God being the benevolent creator of the Universe and the concept of destroyer as some malevolent separate entity is a widely held one in the west, but there are other conceptual ideas in the eastern traditions whereby the concept of God represents the One that is All.. According to this latter understanding, there never was a creator of the Universe for it never had a beginning, for G-D is in fact ONE, eternally and infinitely so, and creation and destruction are mere dualistic complementary opposite conceptual attributes (from which all other attributes are derived) to describe ceaseless universal transformation of the ONE that is all that exists.
Nothing can be ever added to it, nor can anything ever be removed from it.
However, these dualistic complementary opposite attributes of a unitary source are also found in the Bible, for in Isaiah 45:7, one can find GOD (concept) to be metaphorically personalized to be seen saying, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
It would appear therefore that God, the ONE and All is the integral of all attributes on the one hand when seen as being immanent in all creation, and on the other, is simultaneously none of the differentiated attributes when seen as the transcendent underlying Unity.
BTW, It's also my suspicion that the metaphorical story of 'eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil' in Genesis, and the subsequent 'fall' is somehow connected with the beginning of mankind's loss of innocence of being one in harmony with the unitary nature of God, and as a result subsequently evolving a discriminating mind that perceives the One reality through a dualistic conceptualization process that ultimately produces a state of confusion and maya such as represented by the concept of Babylon. Christ on the other hand is offering "the Father and I are one" concept and a return to the understanding of the real true unitary nature of our being, i.e. the kingdom is within you.
DadBurnett
Instigator
God's attributes are infinately beyond the concepts of the created human mind ...
Whatever we can say of God, God is infinitely more.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Both of which are God-concepts. You weren't asking about -isms.
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
What Attributes Does God Have?
Since humans are an evolved species, and...
God, as the prime mover, set things in motion for the universe, and eventually all species to evolve...
Attempts to ascribe any attributes to God by humans would be futile, as our perceptions are limited to what we experience, as humans.
IMHO
Since humans are an evolved species, and...
God, as the prime mover, set things in motion for the universe, and eventually all species to evolve...
Attempts to ascribe any attributes to God by humans would be futile, as our perceptions are limited to what we experience, as humans.
IMHO
rojse
RF Addict
Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
As an atheist who comes from a Jewish background, to me God is a concept, and while this concept embodies spiritual and moral ideals and trancsendence, my life-philosophy is that one cannot ignore the nature of reality as a result of clinging to idealism, in fact I believe it is very unhealthy to separate ideals and reality.
there are two agendas in the Hebrew bible, one that puts forward the idea that evil is separated from the creations of God, and is a result of other forces (such as man for example), the Hebrew bible which is not in complete separation from other ancient near eastern/Mesopotamian religious literature and philosophy portrays evil as a result of primal dark essences (or evil entities if you will), for example while the Babylonian epic the Enuma Elish speaks of the creation of the world from the body of the slain Tiamat, an elder goddess, the Hebrew Bible in the account of Genesis speaks of Tehom ('abyss' in English bibles) as one of the primal dark and chaotic conditions and aspects of the universe as God begins the work of creation.
the other Biblical agenda, is that in fact God is responsible for all, including evil. all is part of the creation of God, as we can find in the book of Isaiah: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
To me, both agendas come full circle, in one, God creates the world and its ideal zenith embodied in Eden out of cosmic sewage so to speak, high things spring out of darkness, or garbage. and in the other God creates all, the good and the bad.
as I see it, its a reflection of the nature of reality, and what to me is the impossibility to separate between idealism, realism, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, ecstasy and suffering.
as humans, we need to take the concept of God with responsibility, we cant mythologize it into a monotheistic version of a heathen god, who sits in a court and is busy with a bureaucracy of petty details. the concept must reflect the ideal thought and action in the frame of the realpolitik of our world and society.
there are two agendas in the Hebrew bible, one that puts forward the idea that evil is separated from the creations of God, and is a result of other forces (such as man for example), the Hebrew bible which is not in complete separation from other ancient near eastern/Mesopotamian religious literature and philosophy portrays evil as a result of primal dark essences (or evil entities if you will), for example while the Babylonian epic the Enuma Elish speaks of the creation of the world from the body of the slain Tiamat, an elder goddess, the Hebrew Bible in the account of Genesis speaks of Tehom ('abyss' in English bibles) as one of the primal dark and chaotic conditions and aspects of the universe as God begins the work of creation.
the other Biblical agenda, is that in fact God is responsible for all, including evil. all is part of the creation of God, as we can find in the book of Isaiah: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
To me, both agendas come full circle, in one, God creates the world and its ideal zenith embodied in Eden out of cosmic sewage so to speak, high things spring out of darkness, or garbage. and in the other God creates all, the good and the bad.
as I see it, its a reflection of the nature of reality, and what to me is the impossibility to separate between idealism, realism, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, ecstasy and suffering.
as humans, we need to take the concept of God with responsibility, we cant mythologize it into a monotheistic version of a heathen god, who sits in a court and is busy with a bureaucracy of petty details. the concept must reflect the ideal thought and action in the frame of the realpolitik of our world and society.
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Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Yes, but in doing so, you moved the goalposts.
rojse
RF Addict
I merely answered the question you posed in your response - what would I call "it"?
Not moving the goalposts - I still desire the OP to be answered by a variety of posters - but also taking an opportunity to explore a new tangent in the discussion
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Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
"Only" has to create? Have you ever tried to "create" a quark? I don't know what all the "necessary conditions" are for something to be God, but I'd have to say being uncreated tops the list. That is, to be God, a thing must not have to depend on anything else to sustain it in existence. I certainly believe God to be loving, all-knowing and everywhere-present, but I'm less sure about those being "necessary" qualities for a thing to be God. It's not impossible that the creator would be a capricious tyrant. Lucky for us, He's not.
Sorry for the delayed reply, I've been away for a while as my wife had a baby.
Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
My heart was strangely warmed while reading this. Frubals.
Anti-thesisofreason
Explorer
God is the Universe.
I like your definition, krishnakanta, but I need to ask you a stupid question.
Not a stupid question. Many in the west do not know much about Hinduism. Many do not even try to know. Theists or atheists, they get guided by the saying of the chuch.
One Transcedent, Par Brahma, is the One you are asking about. All is in this ONE, and this ONE is all. Hinduism, strictly speaking, monist, but accepts that the ONE can manifest as many.
There is One Sceince. Three main manifestations are physics, chemistry and biology; each supreme and omnipotent in its right, yet not antagonistic to the other two.
Every other applied sceince is rooted in one of these three and may draw sustenance from all of them.
So, do we have a Mono Sceince or Poly Sceince?
PS: Solid State Physics descrbes just one aspect of Physics, but not Physics comletely. Same, Krishna is not fully described just as Pitambar, One with the tellow raiment.
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