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{{Short description|Principal object of faith in monotheism}}
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{{About|the supreme being in monotheistic belief systems|powerful supernatural beings considered divine or sacred|Deity|God in specific religions|Conceptions of God|other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2019}}
{{multiple image
| footer = Left to right, top to bottom: representations of God in ], ], ], ], ], and ]
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| image1 = Michelangelo, Creation of Adam 06.jpg
| image2 = Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, Allah.jpg
| image3 = Tetragrammaton Sefardi.jpg
| image4 = 051907 Wilmette IMG 1404 The Greatest Name.jpg
| image5 = Naqshe Rostam Darafsh Ordibehesht 93 (35).JPG
| image6 = Vishnu Kumartuli Park Sarbojanin Arnab Dutta 2010.JPG
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In ] belief systems, '''God''' is usually viewed as the supreme being, ], and principal object of ].<ref name="Swinburne"/> In ] belief systems, ] is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the ] or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped".<ref>{{multiref | {{Cite dictionary |entry=god |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}} | {{Cite dictionary |entry=God |dictionary=Merriam-Webster English Dictionary |archive-date=20 February 2023 |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230220102221/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god |url-status=live}} }}</ref> Belief in the existence of at least one god is called ].<ref>{{multiref | {{Cite dictionary |entry=Theism |url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/theism |access-date=2023-11-13 |dictionary=Dictionary.com |archive-date=2 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202194557/https://www.dictionary.com/browse/theism? |url-status=live}} | {{Cite dictionary |entry=Theism |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theism |access-date=2023-11-13 |dictionary=Merriam-Webster English Dictionary |archive-date=14 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514194441/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theism |url-status=live}} }}</ref>
]'s depiction of God in the painting ''Creation of the Sun and Moon'' in the ]]]
], the eighth incarnation of ], one of the manifestations of the ultimate reality or God in Hinduism]]
:''This article discusses the term God in the context of ] and ]. See ], ] or ]es for details on ] usages. See ] for terms used in other languages or specific faiths. See ] for non-religious meanings.''


] vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the ].<ref name="Plantinga" /> ] rejects the belief in any deity. ] is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or ]. Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence.<ref name="Swinburne">{{Cite book |last=Swinburne |first=R. G. |author-link=Richard Swinburne |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |editor-last=Honderich |editor-first=Ted |editor-link=Ted Honderich |chapter=God}}</ref> God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator, ], and ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as ] and ] of the material creation,<ref name="Swinburne" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bordwell |first=David |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church |publisher=Continuum |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-860-12324-8 |pages=84}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church |via=IntraText |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130303003725/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM |archive-date=3 March 2013 |access-date=30 December 2016}}</ref> while ] holds that God is the universe itself. God is sometimes seen as ], while ] holds that God is not involved with humanity apart from creation.
'''God''' denotes a ] who is believed by ] to be the sole creator and ruler of the ]. Conceptions of God can vary widely, despite the use of the same term for them all.


Some traditions attach spiritual significance to maintaining some form of relationship with God, often involving acts such as ] and ], and see God as the source of all ].<ref name="Swinburne" /> God is sometimes described without reference ], while others use terminology that is gender-specific. God is referred to by different ] depending on the language and cultural tradition, sometimes with different titles of God used in reference to God's various attributes.
The God of ], ] or ], or the supreme deity of ] religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction: as a powerful, human-like, supernatural being, or as the deification of an ], ] or philosophical category, the ], the '']'', the ], the ], or ] or ] itself, the ], the ] ], etc. The more abstract of these positions regard any ] mythology and iconography associated with God either sympathetically as mere ], or ] as ].


==Etymology and usage==
] and ]s have studied countless conceptions of God since the dawn of civilization. The question of the ] classically falls under the branch of ] known as ], but is also one of the key discussions taking place within the field of the ].
{{Main|God (word)|l1 = ''God'' (word)}}
] bears the earliest known reference (840&nbsp;BCE) to the Israelite God Yahweh.]]


The earliest written form of the Germanic word ''God'' comes from the 6th-century ] {{lang|la|]}}. The English word itself is derived from the ] *ǥuđan. The reconstructed ] form {{PIE|*ǵhu-tó-m}} was probably based on the root {{PIE|*ǵhau(ə)-}}, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke".<ref>The ulterior etymology is disputed. Apart from the unlikely hypothesis of adoption from a foreign tongue, the OTeut. "ghuba" implies as its preTeut-type either "*ghodho-m" or "*ghodto-m". The former does not appear to admit of explanation; but the latter would represent the neut. pple. of a root "gheu-". There are two Aryan roots of the required form ("*g,heu-" with palatal aspirate) one with meaning 'to invoke' (Skr. "hu") the other 'to pour, to offer sacrifice' (Skr "hu", Gr. χεηi;ν, OE "geotàn" Yete v). ].</ref> The Germanic words for ''God'' were originally ], but during the process of the ] of the ]s from their indigenous ], the words became a ].<ref name="BARNHART323">Barnhart, Robert K. (1995). ''The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: the Origins of American English Words'', p. 323. ]. {{ISBN|0062700847}}.</ref> In English, capitalization is used when the word is used as a ], as well as for other names by which a god is known. Consequently, the capitalized form of ''god'' is not used for multiple gods or when used to refer to the generic idea of a ].<ref>]; "God n. ME < OE , akin to Ger gott, Goth guth, prob. < IE base *ĝhau-, to call out to, invoke > Sans havaté, (he) calls upon; 1. any of various beings conceived of as supernatural, immortal, and having special powers over the lives and affairs of people and the course of nature; deity, esp. a male deity: typically considered objects of worship; 2. an image that is worshiped; idol 3. a person or thing deified or excessively honored and admired; 4. in monotheistic religions, the creator and ruler of the universe, regarded as eternal, infinite, all-powerful, and all-knowing; Supreme Being; the Almighty"
==Etymology==
</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419052813/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/God |date=19 April 2009 }}; "God /gɒd/ noun: 1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe. 2. the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute. 3. (lowercase) one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs. 4. (often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the God of mercy. 5. Christian Science. the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle. 6. (lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol. 7. (lowercase) any deified person or object. 8. (often lowercase) Gods, Theater. 8a. the upper balcony in a theater. 8b. the spectators in this part of the balcony."</ref>
] (] 5:9)]]
The word ''God'' continues ] ''god'' (''guþ, gudis'' in ], ''gud'' in modern ]n and ''Gott'' in modern ]), from ] ''*{{unicode|ǥuđan}}''. The original meaning and ] of the Germanic word ''god'' has been hotly disputed, though most agree to a reconstructed ] form ''*khutóm'', which is the neuter ] of the root ''*khu-'', which likely meant "]", "]". The origin of the word ''God'' also comes from the ] in the form of ''khoda'' or ''khuda'', which was then used by other ] and ] tribes in the form of ''gudda''.(see ) Compare:
* ] ''Kadavul'' = "god".
* ] ''khoda'', ''khuda'' = "god".
* ] ''hu-'' = "to sacrifice," "to invoke the gods".
* ] ''khu-'', ''kheu-'' = "to pour".
* ]- Waheguru (see ])
* Common Germanic strong verb ''*geutan'' (] ''gēotan'') = "to pour", English '']''.


The English word ''God'' and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all.
The connection between these meanings is likely via the meaning "pour a ]." Another possible meaning of ''*khutóm'' is "invocation," related to ] ''hūta''.


'']'' means 'god' in Hebrew, but ] and ], God is also given a personal name, the ] YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an ] or ] deity, ].<ref name="Parke-Taylor2006">{{cite book |last1=Parke-Taylor |first1=G. H. |title=Yahweh: The Divine Name in the Bible |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0889206526 |page=4}}</ref> In many English translations of the ], when the word ''LORD'' is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.<ref name="Barton2006">{{cite book |author=Barton |first=G. A. |title=A Sketch of Semitic Origins: Social and Religious |publisher=Kessinger Publishing |year=2006 |isbn=978-1428615755}}</ref> ] or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Jews and Christians in the interjection "]", meaning 'praise Jah', which is used to give God glory.<ref name="Loewen2020">{{cite book |last1=Loewen |first1=Jacob A. |title=The Bible in Cross Cultural Perspective |date=1 June 2020 |publisher=William Carey |isbn=978-1645083047 |page=182 |edition=Revised}}</ref> In ], some of the Hebrew titles of God are considered ].
The same root appears in the names of three related ], the ]s, the ] and the ]. These names may be derived from an eponymous chieftain ] who was subsequently deified. He also sometimes appears in early Medieval sagas as a name of ] or one of his descendants, a former king of the Geats (''Gaut(i)''), an ancestor of the ] (''Guti''), of the Goths (''Gothus'') and of the royal line of ] (''Geats'') and as a previous hero of the ] (''Gapt''). The ] form of Odin, ''Godan'', may derive from cognate ] ''*{{unicode|ǥuđánaz}}''.


{{tlit|ar|]}} ({{langx|ar|الله}}) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews meaning 'the God', while {{tlit|ar|]}} ({{lang|ar|إِلَٰه}}, plural {{tlit|ar|`āliha}} {{lang|ar|آلِهَة}}) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/faithgod.html |title=God |work=Islam: Empire of Faith |publisher=PBS |access-date=18 December 2010 |archive-date=27 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327034958/http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/faithgod.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>"Islam and Christianity", ''Encyclopedia of Christianity'' (2001): Arabic-speaking ] and ]s also refer to God as ''Allāh''.</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Allah |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam Online |last=Gardet |first=L.}}</ref> ] also use a ] for God.
The word ''God'' was used to represent ] ''Theos'', ] ''Deus'' in ] translations, first in the Gothic translation of the ] by ]. For the etymology of ''deus'', see *]. Greek ''theos'' is probably unrelated, and of uncertain origin. ] tentatively connected Baltic and Germanic words for "spook," ultimately cognate with Latin ''fumus'' "smoke." See ] and ] for discussions of the Hebrew names for God.


In ], ] is often considered a ] concept of God.<ref>Levine, Michael P. (2002). ''Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity'', p. 136.</ref> God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the ], with early references to his name as ]-] in ] or later ] and ].<ref name="Hastings541">{{Harvnb|Hastings|1925–2003|p=540|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kaz58z--NtUC&pg=PA540&vq=Krishna&cad=1_1}}.</ref> ] is the term used in ].<ref>McDaniel, June (2013), A Modern Hindu Monotheism: Indonesian Hindus as 'People of the Book'. The Journal of Hindu Studies, Oxford University Press, {{doi|10.1093/jhs/hit030}}.</ref>
=== Capitalization ===
] 23:1,2): Occurrence of "<font style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</font>" (and "God" in the heading)]]


In ], ] is conceived as the ] of the universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it.
The development of English orthography was dominated by ] texts. Capitalized, "God" was first used to refer to the Judeo-Christian concept and may now signify any monotheistic conception of God, including the translations of the ] '']'' and the African ] '']''.
* ''Adonai ]'' as "Lord <font style="font-variant:small-caps">God</font>"
* ''] ]'' as "<font style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</font> God"
* ''κυριος ο θεος'' As "<font style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</font> God" (in the New Testament)


] is the name for God used in ]. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form ''Mazdā-'', nominative ''Mazdå'', reflects Proto-Iranian ''*Mazdāh (female)''. It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its ] cognate {{tlit|sa|medhā}} means 'intelligence' or 'wisdom'. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect ] ''*mazdhā-'', from ] mn̩sdʰeh<sub>1</sub>, literally meaning 'placing (''dʰeh<sub>1</sub>'') one's mind (''*mn̩-s'')', hence 'wise'.{{Sfn|Boyce|1983|p=685}} Meanwhile ] are also in use.<ref>Kidder, David S.; Oppenheim, Noah D. The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam confidently with the cultured class, p. 364.</ref>
The use of capitalization, as for a proper noun, has persisted to disambiguate the concept of a singular ''God'' from ] deities for which lower case ''god'' has continued to be applied, mirroring the use of Latin ''deus''. Pronouns referring to God are also often capitalized and are traditionally in the masculine ], i.e. "He", "His" etc. However, in more recent times, some people have referred to God in feminine terms, such as "She" and "Her". (See: ]).


] ({{langx|pa|{{IAST|vāhigurū}}}}) is a term most often used in ] to refer to God.<ref>Duggal, Kartar Singh (1988). ''Philosophy and Faith of Sikhism'', p. ix.</ref> It means 'Wonderful Teacher' in the Punjabi language. ''Vāhi'' (a ] borrowing) means 'wonderful', and '']'' ({{langx|sa|{{IAST|guru}}}}) is a term denoting 'teacher'. Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all description. The most common usage of the word ''Waheguru'' is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other—''Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh'', "Wonderful Lord's ], Victory is to the Wonderful Lord."
== Names of God ==
], in ] (1100 BC to AD 300), ] (10th Century BC to 0) and modern Hebrew scripts.]]{{see details|Names of God}}


''Baha'', the "greatest" name for God in the ], is Arabic for "All-Glorious".<ref>Baháʾuʾlláh, Joyce Watanabe (2006). A Feast for the Soul: Meditations on the Attributes of God : ... p. x.</ref>
The noun ''God'' is the proper English name used for the deity of monotheistic faiths. Different names for God exist within different religious traditions:
* ] is the unique name of God used in ], and also by most non-Muslim Arabs. ''ilah'', cognate to northwest Semitic ], is the generic word for a God (any deity), Allah contains the article, literally "The God". Also, when speaking in English, Muslims often translate "Allah" as "God". One Islamic tradition states that Allah has ] while others say that all good names belong to Allah.
* ] asserts ], (The Ultimate Oneness) as supreme one and ] the Incarnation of Ekam. There are also several separate lesser gods who were all later unified into ].
* ] Hebrew: 'YHVH' (יהוה), and ] are some of the names used for God in various translations of the Bible (all translating the same four letters - ]). El, and the plural/majestic form ''Elohim'', is another term used frequently, though ''El'' can also simply mean ''god'' in reference to deities of other religions. Others include El Shaddai, ], Amanuel, and Amen. When Moses asked "What is your name?" he was given the answer ''Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh,'' which literally means, "I am that I am," as a parallel to the tetragrammaton YHWH. See ] for Jewish names of God. Most Orthodox Jews, and many Jews of other denominations, believe it wrong to write the word "God" on any substance which can be destroyed. Therefore, they will write "G-d" as what they consider a more respectful symbolic representation. Others consider this unnecessary because English is not the "]" (ie, Hebrew), but still will not speak the Hebrew representation written in the ], "yih-yah", aloud, and will instead use other names such as Adonai (my lord).
:: In early English Bibles, the ] was rendered in capitals: "IEHOUAH" in ]'s version of 1525. The ] of 1611 renders. '']'' as "The <font style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</font>", also as "Jehovah", see Psalms 83:18; Exodus 6:3.
* '']'' as "God" (literally "gods"); often used to present the ]
* The ] (meaning the Father, the Son (] ]), and the ]/"]") denotes God in almost all mainstream Christianity. Arab Christians will often also use Allah to refer to God.
* God is called ''Igzi'abihier'' (lit. "Lord of the Universe") in the ] Church.
* ] is the name of God in the ].
* The ] name for "God" is ], which occurs in the ] name ] ("the mountain of God").
* The ] name for "God" is ''Niskam''.
* Some churches (], ]) are using "the One" alongside "God" as a more gender-neutral way of referring to God (See also ]).
* ] is the term used for God among the Hindus. In ], it means the Supreme Lord. Most ]s worship the personal form of God or ], as ], ], or directly as the Supreme Cosmic Spirit ] through the ]. A common prayer for Hindus is the ], which is a hymn describing the one thousand names of God. Ishvara must not be confused with the numerous deities of the Hindus. In modern Hindi, Ishvara is also called ].
* Baquan is a phonetical pronunciation for God in several Pacific Islander religions.
* ] is non-theistic: Instead of extolling an anthropomorphic creator God, ] employed ] to avoid speculation and keep the undefined as ineffable. Buddha believed the more important issue was to bring beings out of suffering to liberation. Enlightened ones are called ]s or Buddha (e.g, the ''Buddha'' ]), and are venerated. A ] is an enlightened being that has chosen to forego entering into ] to help others to become enlightened, though there is no reason for there to only ever be one, and no reason that any ordinary human may not become a bodhisattva. Buddhism also teaches about the ]s or heavenly beings who temporarily dwell in states of great happiness.
* ]s invoke the five paramethis: ], ], ], ], ]. The arhantas include the 24 ] from ] to ]. But Jain philosophy as such does not recognize any Supreme Omnipotent creator God.
* ] worship God with the name Akal (the Eternal) or Omkar (See ]). Help of the ]s is essential to reach God.
* In ], names used for God include ''Anami Purush'' (nameless power) and ''Radha Swami'' (lord of the soul, symbolized as ]).
* The ] refers to God using the local word for God in whatever language is being spoken. In the Bahá'í Writings in Arabic, Allah is used. Bahá'ís share some naming traditions with Islam, but see "Bahá" (Glory or Splendour) as The ] of God. God's names are seen as his attributes, and God is often, in prayers, referred to by these titles and attributes.
* ] worship ].


Other names for God include ]<ref>Assmann, Jan. ''Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies'', Stanford University Press 2005, p. 59.</ref> in ancient Egyptian ] where Aten was proclaimed to be the one "true" supreme being and creator of the universe,<ref>] (1980). ''Ancient Egyptian Literature'', Vol. 2, p. 96.</ref> ] in ],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Afigbo |first1=A. E |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/61361536 |title=Myth, history and society: the collected works of Adiele Afigbo |last2=Falola |first2=Toyin |date=2006 |publisher=Africa World Press |isbn=978-1592214198 |location=Trenton, New Jersey |language=En-us |oclc=61361536 |access-date=11 March 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523094823/https://search.worldcat.org/title/61361536 |url-status=live}}</ref> and ] in ].<ref name="Buckley 2002">{{cite book |last=Buckley |first=Jorunn Jacobsen |title=The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0195153855 |publication-place=New York |oclc=65198443}}</ref><ref name=Nashmi>{{Citation |last=Nashmi |first=Yuhana |title=Contemporary Issues for the Mandaean Faith |website=Mandaean Associations Union |date=24 April 2013 |url=http://www.mandaeanunion.com/history-english/item/488-mandaean-faith |access-date=28 December 2021 |archive-date=31 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031155605/http://www.mandaeanunion.com/history-english/item/488-mandaean-faith |url-status=live}}</ref>
== History of monotheism ==
{{main|Monotheism}}


==General conceptions==
The religions that are monotheistic today are often thought of as having been of relatively recent historical origin — although efforts at comparison are usually beset by claims of most religions to being very ancient or eternal. Eastern religions, especially in ] and ], that have concepts of ], are notably difficult to classify along ] notions of monotheism vs. ]. Attempting to compare the two is much like asking how many sides a circle has when comparing to a square, in that it makes no sense.


===Existence===
In the ], many cities had their own local god, though this henotheistic worship of a single god did not imply denial of the existence of other gods. The ] ] is supposed (by some scholars) to have adapted this practice to a ]ic lifestyle, paving their way for a singular God. Yet, many scholars now believe that it may have been the Zoroastrian religion of the ] that was the first monotheistic religion, and the Jews were influenced by such notions (this controversy is still in debate).
{{Main|Existence of God}}
{{See also|Theism|Atheism|Agnosticism}}
] summed up ] as proofs for God's existence. Painting by ], 1476.]]
]'' (1770) argues that belief in God is based on fear, lack of understanding and ].]]


The existence of God is a subject of debate in ], ] and ].<ref>See e.g. ''The Rationality of Theism'' quoting ], "God is not 'dead' in academia; it returned to life in the late 1960s." They cite the shift from hostility towards theism in Paul Edwards's ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1967) to sympathy towards theism in the more recent '']''.</ref> In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of ] (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ] (study of the nature of ] or ]) and the ] (since some definitions of God include "perfection").
The iconoclastic cult of the Egyptian solar god ] was promoted by the ] ] (Amenophis IV), who ruled between 1358 and 1340 BC. The Aten cult is often cited as the earliest known example of monotheism, and is sometimes claimed to have been a formative influence on early Judaism, due to the presence of Hebrew slaves in Egypt. But even though ]'s ] offers strong evidence that Akhenaten considered Aten to be the sole, omnipotent creator, Akhenaten's program to enforce this monotheistic world-view ended with his death; the worship of other gods beside Aten never ceased outside his court, and the older polytheistic cults soon regained precedence.


]s refer to any argument for the existence of God that is based on ''a priori'' reasoning.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/ |title=Ontological Arguments |publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=27 December 2022 |archive-date=25 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525190107/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Notable ontological arguments were formulated by ] and ].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Kreeft |editor-first=Peter |title=Summa of the Summa |year=1990 |publisher=Ignatius Press |pages=65–69 |first=Thomas |last=Aquinas}}</ref> ]s use concepts around the origin of the universe to argue for the existence of God.
Other early examples of monotheism include two late ] hymns (10.129,130) to a ] creator god, ], a ] hymn to ], an earlier aspect of Shiva often referred to by the ancient Brahmans as Stiva, a masculine fertility god, which expressed ], and is still chanted today; the ] ] and Chinese ]. The worship of polytheistic gods, on the other hand, is seen by many to predate monotheism, reaching back as far as the ]. Today, monotheistic religions are dominant, though other systems of belief still exist.


The ], also called "argument from design", uses the complexity within the universe as a proof of the existence of God.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/ |entry=Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |orig-date=2005 |date=10 June 2005 |last1=Ratzsch |first1=Del |last2=Koperski |first2=Jeffrey |title=Teleological Arguments for God's Existence |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-date=7 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191007141418/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/ |url-status=live}}</ref> It is countered that the ] required for a stable universe with life on earth is illusory, as humans are only able to observe the small part of this universe that succeeded in making such observation possible, called the ], and so would not learn of, for example, life on other planets or of ] that did not occur because of different ].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/ |title=Fine-Tuning |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University |access-date=December 29, 2022 |date=Aug 22, 2017 |archive-date=10 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231010234820/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Non-theists have argued that complex processes that have natural explanations yet to be discovered are referred to the supernatural, called ]. Other theists, such as ] who believed ] was acceptable, have also argued against versions of the teleological argument and held that it is limiting of God to view him having to only intervene specially in some instances rather than having complex processes designed to create order.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chappell |first1=Jonathan |year=2015 |title=A Grammar of Descent: John Henry Newman and the Compatibility of Evolution with Christian Doctrine |journal=Science and Christian Belief |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=180–206 |doi= |pmid= |bibcode=}}</ref>
== Theology ==
Theologians attempt to explicate (and in some cases systematize) beliefs; some express their own experience of the divine. Theologians ask questions such as, 'What is the nature of God?' 'What does it mean for God to be singular?' 'If people believe in God as a duality or trinity, what do these terms signify?' 'Is God transcendent, immanent, or some mix of the two?' 'What is the relationship between God and the universe, and God and humankind?'


The ] states that this universe happens to contain special beauty in it and that there would be no particular reason for this over aesthetic neutrality other than God.<ref>{{cite book |author=Swinburne |first=Richard |title=The Existence of God |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0199271689 |edition=2nd |pages=190–91}}</ref> This has been countered by pointing to the existence of ugliness in the universe.<ref>{{cite book |title=The existence of God |publisher=Watts & Co. |page=75 |edition=1}}</ref> This has also been countered by arguing that beauty has no objective reality and so the universe could be seen as ugly or that humans have made what is more beautiful than nature.<ref>''Minority Report'', H. L. Mencken's Notebooks, Knopf, 1956.</ref>
It is also important to note that most major religions hold God not as a metaphor, but a being that influences our day-to-day existences. This is to say that people who have rejected the teachings of such religions typically view God as a metaphor or stand-in for the common aspirations and beliefs all humans share, rather than a sentient part of life; whereas organized religion tends to believe the opposite.
* ] holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal, and is personal, interested and answers prayer. It holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and in some way present in the affairs of the world. Catholic theology holds that God is ] and is not involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence. ], by contrast, asserts that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean he can predict the future. "Theism" is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, i.e., monotheism or polytheism.
* ] holds that God is wholly transcendent: God exists, but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary for God to create it. In this view, God is not ], and does not literally answer prayers or cause miracles to occur. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity.
* Monotheism holds that there is only one God, and/or that the one true God is worshipped in different religions under different names. It is important to note, however, that monotheists of one religion can, and often do, consider the monotheistic god of a different religion to be a false god. For instance, many Christian fundamentalists consider the God of Islam (Allah) to be a false god or demon. However, theologians and linguists argue that "Allah" is merely the Arabic word for "God," and not the literal name of a specifically Muslim God (this is more clearly shown by the fact that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews refer to God as "Allah" with no problem whatsoever). To Muslims, the Bible is a holy scripture and Jesus is a Holy Prophet, so Islam is considered a continuation of Christianity. Many Jews consider the ] of Christianity (Jesus) to be a false god and some monotheists (notably fundamentalist Christians) hold that there is one ] God, and that all gods of other religions are actually demons in disguise (as in verse 14). Eastern religious believers and ]s are more likely to assume those of other faiths worship the same God as they, just under a different name and/or form. Muslims believe that Jesus, although the Messiah and one of the holy Prophets, is not the son of God, because relating God to any partners or spouses or offspring is considered blasphemy and apostasy.
* Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God. Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe. The distinctions between the two are subtle, and some consider them unhelpful. It is also the view of the ], ], Hinduism, ], some divisions of Buddhism, and ], along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations. ], Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God - which has wide acceptance in ], particularly from their founder ] - but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.
* ] is a form of theism which holds that God is malevolent as a consequence of the ]. Dystheistic speculation is common in theology, but there is no known church of practicing dystheists. See also ].
* ] holds that the universe can be explained without any reference to the supernatural, or to a supernatural being. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it is significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations.


The ] argues for the existence of God given the assumption of the objective existence of ]s.<ref>{{cite book |title=Atheism: A Philosophical Justification |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1992 |pages=213–214 |author=Martin, Michael |isbn=978-0877229438}}</ref> While prominent non-theistic philosophers such as the atheist ] agreed that the argument is valid, they disagreed with its premises. ] argued that there is no basis to believe in objective moral truths while biologist ] theorized that the feelings of morality are a by-product of natural selection in humans and would not exist independent of the mind.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Craig |first1=William Lane |title=The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology |last2=Moreland |first2=J. P. |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |isbn=978-1444350852 |page=393}}</ref> Philosopher ] argued that a subjective account for morality can be acceptable. Similar to the argument from morality is the ] which argues for the existence of God given the existence of a conscience that informs of right and wrong, even against prevailing moral codes. Philosopher ] instead argued that conscience is a social construct and thus could lead to contradicting morals.<ref>{{cite book |author=Parkinson |first=G. H. R. |title=An Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1988 |isbn=978-0415003230 |pages=344–345}}</ref>
Most believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings, and give them names such as angels, saints, ], demons, and ]s.
* - Catholic Encyclopedia article
== Conceptions of God ==
{{cleanup-date|December 2005}}


] is, in a broad sense, the rejection of ] in the existence of deities.<ref>Nielsen 2013</ref><ref>Edwards 2005"</ref> ] is the view that the ]s of certain claims—especially ] and religious claims such as ], the ] or the ] exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable.<ref>], an English biologist, was the first to come up with the word ''agnostic'' in 1869 {{Cite book |last=Dixon |first=Thomas |title=Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2008 |location=Oxford |page=63 |isbn=978-0199295517}} However, earlier authors and published works have promoted an agnostic points of view. They include ], a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher. {{cite web |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/protagor.htm |title=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Protagoras (c. 490 – c. 420 BCE) |access-date=6 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014181706/http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/protagor.htm |archive-date=14 October 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Hepburn">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2005 |title=Agnosticism |encyclopedia=] |publisher=MacMillan Reference US (Gale) |last=Hepburn |first=Ronald W. |orig-date=1967 |editor=Borchert |editor-first=Donald M. |edition=2nd |volume=1 |page=92 |isbn=978-0028657806 |quote=In the most general use of the term, agnosticism is the view that we do not know whether there is a God or not.}} (p. 56 in 1967 edition).</ref><ref name="RoweRoutledge">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1998 |title=Agnosticism |encyclopedia=] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQ-GhVWTH84C&q=agnosticism&pg=PA122 |last=Rowe |first=William L. |author-link=William L. Rowe |isbn=978-0415073103 |editor-first=Edward |editor-last=Craig |access-date=11 November 2020 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523094732/https://books.google.com/books?id=VQ-GhVWTH84C&q=agnosticism&pg=PA122 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2012 <!--|access-date=22 July 2013--> |entry=agnostic, agnosticism |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=3rd}</ref> ] generally holds that God exists objectively and independently of human thought and is sometimes used to refer to any belief in God or gods.
=== Abrahamic conceptions ===
]: God creates ] (Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel)]]


Some view the existence of God as an empirical question. ] states that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference".<ref name="Dawkins">{{cite news |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Dawkins |title=Why There Almost Certainly Is No God |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html |access-date=10 January 2007 |work=The Huffington Post |date=23 October 2006 |archive-date=6 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181006010610/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html |url-status=live}}</ref> ] argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Demon Haunted World |page=278 |last=Sagan |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Sagan |year=1996 |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0345409461}}</ref> Some theologians, such as ], argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the ].<ref name="mcgrath2005">{{cite book |author=McGrath |first=Alister E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9dr6167AJ8C |title=Dawkins' God: genes, memes, and the meaning of life |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2005 |isbn=978-1405125390}}</ref><ref name="barackman2001">{{cite book |author=Barackman |first=Floyd H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jb5aRB7OxWsC |title=Practical Christian Theology: Examining the Great Doctrines of the Faith |publisher=Kregel Academic |year=2001 |isbn=978-0825423802}}</ref>
Judaism, 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 properties of holiness (separate from sin and incorruptible), justice (fair, right, and true in all His judgments), ] (unthwartable in His will), omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing), omni benevolence (all-loving), omnipresence (present everywhere at the same time), and immortality (eternal and everlasting). He is also believed to be transcendent, meaning that He is outside space and outside time, and therefore eternal and unable to be changed by earthly forces or anything else within His creation.


] ] argued that science and religion are not in conflict and proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "]" (NOMA).<ref>{{cite book |title=Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms |last=Gould |first=Stephen J. |page=274 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |year=1998 |isbn=978-0224050432}}</ref> In this view, questions of the ], such as those relating to the ] and nature of God, are ]-] and are the proper domain of ]. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.<ref name="Dawkins-Delusion">{{cite book |title=The God Delusion |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Dawkins |year=2006 |publisher=Bantam Press |location=Great Britain |isbn=978-0618680009}}</ref> ] and co-author ] state in their 2010 book, '']'', that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science and without invoking divine beings.<ref>{{cite book |author=Hawking |first1=Stephen |url=https://archive.org/details/granddesign0000hawk |title=The Grand Design |last2=Mlodinow |first2=Leonard |publisher=Bantam Books |year=2010 |isbn=978-0553805376 |page= |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>Krauss, L. ''A Universe from Nothing''. Free Press, New York. 2012. {{ISBN|978-1451624458}}.</ref>
Jews, Christians and Muslims often conceive of God as a ], with a will and personality. However, many ] philosophers felt that one should not view God as personal, and that such personal descriptions of God are only meant as metaphors, as it was widely viewed that God's transcendence meant that He could not act in the lives of ordinary people.


===Oneness===
In ], it remains essential that God be personal; hence it speaks of the three ''persons'' of the ]. It also emphasizes that God has a will, and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict. However, this point is disputed by Oriental Orthodox Christians, who hold that God the Son has only one will of unified divinity and humanity (see ]). The personhood of God and of all human people is essential to the concept of ] or deification.
{{Main|Deity|Monotheism|Henotheism}}
]


A deity, or "god" (with ] ''g''), refers to a supernatural being.<ref name="OBrien">{{cite book |last1=O'Brien |first1=Jodi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC |title=Encyclopedia of Gender and Society |publisher=Sage |year=2009 |isbn=978-1412909167 |location=Los Angeles |page=191 |access-date=28 June 2017 |archive-date=13 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113144056/https://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC |url-status=live}}</ref> ] is the belief that there is only one deity, referred to as "God" (with uppercase ''g''). Comparing or equating other entities to God is viewed as ] in monotheism, and is often strongly condemned. ] is one of the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/ |title=BBC – Religion: Judaism |website=www.bbc.co.uk |access-date=31 August 2022 |archive-date=5 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220805174338/https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Islam's most fundamental concept is '']'', meaning 'oneness' or "uniqueness'.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Allah, Tawhid |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |last=Gimaret |first=D.}}</ref> The first ] is an ] that forms the basis of the religion and which non-Muslims wishing to convert must recite, declaring that, "I testify that there is no deity except God."<ref>Mohammad, N. 1985. "The doctrine of jihad: An introduction". '']'' 3(2): 381–397.</ref>
==== Biblical definition of God ====
God according to the Bible is characterized not just as Creator, but also as the "Heavenly Father". God "defines" himself several times in the Bible.


In Christianity, the ] describes ] as one God in ], ] (]), and ].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.whataboutjesus.com/grace/actions-god-series/what-trinity?page=0,0 |title=What Is the Trinity? |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219020335/http://www.whataboutjesus.com/grace/actions-god-series/what-trinity?page=0%2C0 |archive-date=19 February 2014}}</ref> In past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula ''Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus'' (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the '']''.
The ] (which would later be incorporated into the Christian or Protestant ]) characterizes God by these attributes: "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (] 34:6-7)


] is viewed differently by diverse strands of the religion, with most Hindus having faith in a ] (''Brahman'') who can be manifested in numerous chosen deities. Thus, the religion is sometimes characterized as ''Polymorphic Monotheism''.<ref>{{cite web |author=Lipner |first=Julius |date= |title=Hindu deities |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/beginners-guide-asian-culture/hindu-art-culture/a/hindu-deities |access-date=6 September 2022 |archive-date=7 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907001823/https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/beginners-guide-asian-culture/hindu-art-culture/a/hindu-deities |url-status=live}}</ref> ] is the belief and worship of a single god at a time while accepting the validity of worshiping other deities.<ref>Müller, Max. (1878) ''Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion: As Illustrated by the Religions of India''. London, England: Longmans, Green and Company.</ref> ] is the belief in a single deity worthy of worship while accepting the existence of other deities.<ref>{{citation |last=McConkie |first=Bruce R. |title=] |page=351 |year=1979 |edition=2nd |location=Salt Lake City, Utah |publisher=Bookcraft |author-link=Bruce R. McConkie}}.</ref>
Even earlier in that same book, God reveals what is to become his people's intimate name for him, Yahweh, YHWH or Jehovah, meaning "I am who I am", "I will be what I will be". Moses asks God in ] 3:13 who he should say has sent him, if the Egyptians ask for God's name. This self-definition expresses God's dependable nature, faithfulness and worthiness of trust of his people. It is shortened to "I Am"; this name is probably the derivative for the name Lord Almighty (often written LORD), the Hebrew sounding similar. Jesus was nearly stoned for blasphemy in John 8:58-59, for applying this phrase to himself, and therefore claiming to be God.


===Transcendence===
The Torah contains no systematic theology: No attempt is made to give a ] or rigorous definition of God, nor of how God acts in the world. It does not explicitly describe God's nature, exemplified by God's assertion in Exodus that "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live". Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible are the words omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent used to define God in a systematic sense.
{{See also|Pantheism|Panentheism}}
] is the aspect of God's nature that is completely independent of the material universe and its physical laws. Many supposed characteristics of God are described in human terms. ] thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, led many medieval philosophers approach to knowledge of God through negative attributes, called ]. For example, one should not say that God is wise, but can say that God is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge). Christian theologian ] writes that one has to understand a "personal god" as an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Alister |last=McGrath |author-link=Alister McGrath |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction |publisher=Blackwell |year=2006 |isbn=978-1405153607 |page=205}}</ref>


] holds that God is the universe and the universe is God and denies that God transcends the Universe.<ref>{{cite web |date=17 May 2007 |title=Pantheism |url=https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/spr2008/entries/pantheism/ |access-date=11 September 2022 |publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |archive-date=11 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220911224648/https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/spr2008/entries/pantheism/ |url-status=live}}</ref> For pantheist philosopher ], the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature.<ref>{{cite book |last=Curley |first=Edwin M. |year=1985 |title=The Collected Works of Spinoza |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0691072227}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/spinoza/ |entry=Baruch Spinoza |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |orig-date=2001 |date=21 August 2012 |last1=Nadler |first1=Steven |title=Baruch Spinoza |access-date=6 December 2012 |archive-date=13 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221113053208/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/spinoza/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Pantheism is sometimes objected to as not providing any meaningful explanation of God with the German philosopher ] stating, "Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism."<ref>{{cite web |date=1 October 2012 |title=Pantheism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/ |access-date=18 November 2022 |publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |archive-date=15 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180915080407/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/ |url-status=live}}</ref> ] holds that God was a separate entity but then ].<ref name="Dawe">{{cite book |author=Dawe |first=Alan H. |title=The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything |year=2011 |isbn=978-0473201142 |page=48 |publisher=Alan H. Dawe}}
Although Scripture does not describe God systematically, it does provide a poetic depiction of God and His relationship with people. According to the Biblical historian ], the essential innovation of Biblical theology was to posit a God that cares about people, and that cares about whether people care about Him. Some people believe that the Bible should be viewed as humanity's view of God, but theologian ] described the Biblical God as "anthropopathic", which means that one should read the Bible as God's view of humanity, and not as humanity's view of God.
</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Bradley |first=Paul |title=This Strange Eventful History: A Philosophy of Meaning |year=2011 |isbn=978-0875868769 |page=156 |publisher=Algora |quote=Pandeism combines the concepts of Deism and Pantheism with a god who creates the universe and then becomes it.}}</ref> ] holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.<ref>Culp, John (2013). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016023813/http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=panentheism|date=16 October 2015}} ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Spring.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Rogers |first=Peter C. |title=Ultimate Truth, Book 1 |year=2009 |isbn=978-1438979687 |page=121 |publisher=AuthorHouse}}</ref>


===Creator===
Similarly, the New Testament contains little systematic theology: little or no philosophical or rigorous definition of God is given, nor of how God acts in the world; however John's gospel states: "''God is light''" (] 1:5), before he states: "''God is love''" (John 4:8) and: "''God is a Spirit''" (John 4:24). The author of the ] presents a more grim side of the deity when he states: "''For our God is a consuming fire.''" (Hebrews 12:29).
{{See also|Creator deity}}
]]]


God is often viewed as the cause of all that exists. For ]s, ] variously referred to divinity, the first being or an indivisible origin.<ref>Fairbanks, Arthur, Ed., "The First Philosophers of Greece". K. Paul, Trench, Trubner. London, England, 1898, p. 145.</ref> The philosophy of ] and ] refers to "]", which is the first principle of reality that is "beyond" being<ref>Dodds, E. R. "The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic 'One'". ''The Classical Quarterly'', Jul–Oct 1928, vol. 22, p. 136.</ref> and is both the source of the Universe and the ] purpose of all things.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brenk |first=Frederick |date=January 2016 |title="Theism" and Related Categories in the Study of Ancient Religions |chapter=Pagan Monotheism and Pagan Cult |chapter-url=https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/147/abstract/pagan-monotheism-and-pagan-cult |publisher=], University of Pennsylvania |location=Philadelphia |volume=75 |issue=4 |access-date=5 November 2022 |archive-date=6 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506035740/https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/147/abstract/pagan-monotheism-and-pagan-cult |url-status=live}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220303063811/https://samreligions.org/2014/12/30/theism-and-related-categories-in-the-study-of-ancient-religions/ |date=3 March 2022 }}</ref> ] theorized a ] for all motion in the universe and viewed it as perfectly beautiful, immaterial, unchanging and indivisible. ] is the property of not depending on any cause other than itself for its existence. ] held that there must be a ] guaranteed to exist by its essence—it cannot "not" exist—and that humans identify this as God.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=From the necessary existent to God |first=Peter |last=Adamson |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Adamson |encyclopedia=Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OeVribsJbgUC |year=2013 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0521190732 |page=170}}</ref> ] refers to God creating the laws of the Universe which then can change themselves within the ]. In addition to the initial creation, ] refers to the idea that the Universe would not by default continue to exist from one instant to the next and so would need to rely on God as a ]. While ] refers to any intervention by God, it is usually used to refer to "special providence", where there is an extraordinary intervention by God, such as ]s.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Providence.aspx#1O101-Providence |title=Providence |encyclopedia=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions |access-date=2014-07-17 |archive-date=17 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110417135306/http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Providence.aspx#1O101-Providence |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Creation, Providence, and Miracle |url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/creation-providence-and-miracle |publisher=] |access-date=2014-05-20 |archive-date=13 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170513180211/http://www.reasonablefaith.org/creation-providence-and-miracle |url-status=live}}</ref>
The New Testament provides an implicit theology as it teaches that God interacted directly with people, in the person of Jesus, and that he subsequently sent the Holy Spirit. In this view, God becomes someone that can be seen and touched, and may speak and act in a manner easily perceived by humans, while also remaining transcendent and invisible. This may appear to be a radical departure from the concepts of God found in Hebrew Bible. Most Christians believe the New Testament's statements regarding the nature of God can be directly codified into the doctrine of the ].


===Benevolence===
==== Kabbalistic definition of God ====
{{See also|Deism|Thirteen Attributes of Mercy}}
Mainstream Orthodox Judaism teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. They teach that God is the creator of both, but is himself neither. But if God is so different from his creation, how can there be any interaction between the Creator and the created? This question prompted early Kabbalists (Jewish ]) to envision two aspects of God, (a) God himself, who in the end is unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God who created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind in a personal way. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but complement one another, similar to a creation inside a persons mind.
Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it,<ref name="lemos">{{cite book |last=Lemos |first=Ramon M. |title=A Neomedieval Essay in Philosophical Theology |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2001 |isbn=978-0739102503 |page=34}}</ref> such as answering prayers or producing miracles. Deists sometimes attribute this to God having no interest in or not being aware of humanity. Pandeists would hold that God does not intervene because God is the Universe.<ref name="Fuller">{{cite book |author=Fuller |first=Allan R. |title=Thought: The Only Reality |year=2010 |isbn=978-1608445905 |page=79 |publisher=Dog Ear}}</ref>


Of those theists who hold that God has an interest in humanity, most hold that God is ], omniscient, and benevolent. This belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. ], which is related to ], is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the ].
This view has been developed further in ] and anti-nomian circles, however. Kabbalah teaches that in order to create the universe, God "withdrew," and created the universe within the space from which "He" contracted. It is taught in the ] that God, at the beginning of creation, shattered ten ספירות ("sephiroth") or כלים ("kaylim" or "vessels") scattering their fragments throughout the universe. (Physicist-theologian ] makes a correlation between this view and ] in ''Genesis & The Big Bang''.) The ] — represented by the so-called עץ חיים ("Etz Hayim" or "]") — are comprised of different vessels embodying various emanations of God's being.


===Omniscience and omnipotence===
With this in mind, the Kabbalist ], explained that all creation contained ניצוץ ("nitzutz" or "holy sparks") — the remnants and shards of the sephiroth/kaylim which God had shattered — and offered a theological purpose known as תיקון עולם ("]" or "rectifying the world") which states that humanity's duty is to recognize the holy sparks inherent in all creation and to elevate them by performing מצוות ("]"), otherwise regarded as the fulfilment of Biblical obligations. This view gave rise to the concept of ] in Judaism: The notion that God is inherent in all things, and is corroborated by the Jewish principle בצלם אלוהים ("b'tzelem Elohim" or "in the image of God"), inferring that all humanity is created with God inherent. The concept derives from Genesis 9:6 (serving as a Biblical proof-text for the position), "For in the image of God He made man." Thus, suggested Luria, by doing mitzvoth directed towards our fellow human being, we recognize the nitzutz within them, and thus sanctify and elevate their inherent Godliness.
] (all-powerful) is an attribute often ascribed to God. The ] is most often framed with the example "Could God create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?" as God could either be unable to create that stone or lift that stone and so could not be omnipotent. This is often countered with variations of the argument that omnipotence, like any other attribute ascribed to God, only applies as far as it is noble enough to befit God and thus God cannot lie, or do what is contradictory as that would entail opposing himself.<ref>{{Cite book |publisher=World Wisdom |isbn=978-1933316499 |title=Christianity/Islam : perspectives on esoteric ecumenism : a new translation with selected letters. |location=United Kingdom |year=2008 |last1=Perry |first1=M. |last2=Schuon |first2=F. |last3=Lafouge |first3=J. |page=135}}</ref>


Omniscience (all-knowing) is an attribute often ascribed to God. This implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, either their ] might be illusory or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient.<ref name="Wierenga">Wierenga, Edward R. "Divine foreknowledge" in ]. ''The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy''. Cambridge University Press, 2001.</ref> ] limits God's omniscience by contending that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future and ] holds that God does not have ], so is affected by his creation.
This notion is exemplified rather well by a Jewish nursery school song <blockquote>] is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere. Up, up, down, down, right, left, and all around. Here, there, and everywhere, Hashem is truly there.</blockquote>Over time, this view evolved into the belief that all of creation and all of existence was in fact God itself, 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 neo-Hasidism, currently, is that there is nothing in existence other than God. I.e., all being is God. As it is stated in the ancient Kabbalistic incantation, אין עוד מילבדו ("Ain od milvado") — "There is nothing but God." Thus, it has become understood that God used God's self to form the universe. Rather than a contraction and the creation of something "other" in the void which God created, it is as though God punched a doughnut-hole in God's self and used the remaining "]" to form all of creation.


===Other concepts===
This paradigm shift is well documented by ], a ] Hasidic rabbi and founder of ] and its neo-Hasidic progeny, in his book ''Wrapped In A Holy Flame'':
] of theistic personalism (the view held by ], ], ], ], ], and most ]) argue that God is most generally the ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html |title=www.ditext.com |access-date=7 February 2018 |archive-date=4 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204214255/http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html |url-status=live}}</ref>


God has also been conceived as being ] (immaterial), a ] being, the source of all ], and the "greatest conceivable existent".<ref name=Swinburne/> These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including ],<ref name=Edwards /> ],<ref name="Edwards">]. "God and the philosophers" in ]. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. {{ISBN|978-1615924462}}.</ref> and ],<ref name=Plantinga>]. "God, Arguments for the Existence of", ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Routledge, 2000.</ref> respectively.
<blockquote>I'd like to say we are in the shift to the place where everything is God, pantheism. The understanding that has come from mysticism and from people on the cusp of periods moving from past to present, people talking about primary experience, is that the body and the soul cannot be separated. It shouldn't be that they should be fighting one another, that you have too get rid of one in order to get the other. We want Wholeness, a holistic understanding, now. I believe that people are moving from theism to pantheism. There are some who don't like the word ''pantheism'', the idea that God is everything. They prefer the word ''panentheism'', which means that God is ''in'' everything. I, however, don't think that the distinction is real. What was the objection that people had to pantheism, God is everything? "Are you going to tell me that the excrement of a dog is also God?" And the answer to this would be —"Yes." What is wrong with that? It is only from the human perspective that we see a difference between that and ''challah''. On the sub molecular level, on the atomic level, they all look the same. And if you look from a galactic perspective, what difference is there between one and the other? So if "God is everything," why are you and I here? Because we are the appearance of God in this particular form. And God likes to appear in countless forms and experience countless lives.


==Non-theistic views==
If you would have mentioned this point of view when theism was dominant, you might have been killed. The theists would complain, "What you are saying is that there are no differences anymore? Does that mean that everything is right, everything is kosher? Where are the differences?" And those are good questions. We are not so far advanced yet that we can explain all these things, but deep down, the deepest level of the pattern is that God is everything. So it's not that God ''created'' the world but that God ''became'' the world.</blockquote>
Another progenitor of neo-Hasidism, ], further describes the evolution of pantheistic thought in the Hasidic world, as well, in his book ''Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology''


====Islamic concept of God==== ===Religious traditions===
] has ], holding that soul substances (]) are uncreated and that time is beginningless.<ref>Nayanar, Prof. A. Chakravarti (2005). ''Samayasāra of Ācārya Kundakunda''. Gāthā 10.310, New Delhi, India: Today & Tomorrows Printer and Publisher. p. 190.</ref>
''Main article'': ]


Some interpretations and traditions of ] can be conceived as being ]. ] the specific monotheistic view of a ]. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the ].<ref>Thera, Narada (2006). ''"The Buddha and His Teachings"'', Jaico Publishing House. pp. 268–269.</ref><ref>Hayes, Richard P., "Principled Atheism in the Buddhist Scholastic Tradition", ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', 16:1 (1988: Mar) p. 2.</ref> Also, major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as ], ], ], and ], consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers.<ref>Cheng, Hsueh-Li. "Nāgārjuna's Approach to the Problem of the Existence of God" in Religious Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June 1976), Cambridge University Press, pp. 207–216.</ref><ref>Hayes, Richard P., "Principled Atheism in the Buddhist Scholastic Tradition", ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', 16:1 (1988: Mar.).</ref><ref>Harvey, Peter (2019). "Buddhism and Monotheism", Cambridge University Press. p. 1.</ref> However, as a non-theistic religion, Buddhism leaves the existence of a supreme deity ambiguous. There are significant numbers of Buddhists who believe in God, and there are equally large numbers who deny God's existence or are unsure.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Khan |first=Razib |date=June 23, 2008 |title=Buddhists do Believe in God |url=https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/buddhists-do-believe-in-god |magazine=Discover |publisher=Kalmbach Publishing |access-date=26 April 2023 |archive-date=26 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426041330/https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/buddhists-do-believe-in-god |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/buddhist/ |title=Buddhists |website=Pew Research Center |publisher=The Pew Charitable Trusts |access-date=26 April 2023 |archive-date=26 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426041330/https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/buddhist/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
] (] ''allāhu'' الله) is the Arabic word for "God", and is used by Arabic-speaking ], ] and ] and ]s alike.


Chinese religions such as ] and ] are silent on the existence of creator gods. However, keeping with the tradition of ], adherents worship the spirits of people such as ] and ] in a similar manner to God.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/confucianism/ |title=Confucianism |website=National Geographic |publisher=National Geographic Society |access-date=26 April 2023 |archive-date=26 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426232307/https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/confucianism/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/taoism/ |title=Taoism |website=National Geographic |publisher=National Geographic Society |access-date=26 April 2023 |archive-date=26 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426232309/https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/taoism/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
==== Negative theology ====
''Main article: ].''


===Anthropology===
Some Jewish, Christian and Muslim ] philosophers, including ] and ], as well as many sages of other religions, developed what is termed as ] or the ], the idea that one cannot posit 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 existant, 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 he 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 his nature, but we can state that there is no multiplicity in God's being.
{{See also|Evolutionary origin of religions|Evolutionary psychology of religion|Anthropomorphism}}
Some atheists have argued that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined and embellished over generations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Culotta |first1=E. |year=2009 |title=The origins of religion |journal=Science |volume=326 |issue=5954 |pages=784–787 |bibcode=2009Sci...326..784C |doi=10.1126/science.326_784 |pmid=19892955 |issn=0036-8075}}</ref>


] argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from ], which is, in his opinion, more like a modern ] than other religious systems.<ref name="boyer">{{cite book |title=Religion Explained |isbn=978-0465006960 |year=2001 |last=Boyer |first=Pascal |author-link=Pascal Boyer |url=https://archive.org/details/religionexplaine00boye |url-access=registration |quote=Admittedly, the Greek gods were extraordinarily anthropomorphic, and Greek mythology really is like the modern soap opera, much more so than other religious systems. |pages=–243 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York}}</ref>
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.


] and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' ] in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.<ref name="ducasteljurgensen">{{cite book |last1=du Castel |first1=Bertrand |title=Computer Theology |last2=Jurgensen |first2=Timothy M. |publisher=Midori Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0980182118 |location=Austin, Texas |pages=221–222 -us |author-link=Bertrand du Castel}}</ref>
The same path is known in ] tradition as ], literally "not this nor that".


Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. ] also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Barrett-Conceptualizing-a-Nonnatural-Entity.pdf |title=Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts |year=1996 |last=Barrett |first=Justin |journal=Cognitive Psychology |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=219–47 |doi=10.1006/cogp.1996.0017 |pmid=8975683 |s2cid=7646340 |access-date=20 November 2015 |archive-date=19 March 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319064701/http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Barrett-Conceptualizing-a-Nonnatural-Entity.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>
The proponents of this theory often experienced ] which they viewed as one of the only effective ways of having a personal relationship with God. It involved trying to reach beyond the words commonly used to describe Him and His more ] characteristics, and to comprehend in a ] manner the truths about Him which could not be achieved through religious language. Thus many sages and saints of both monotheistic and other traditions experienced mystical trances, or ]s and stated they were unable to describe God or their ]s fully.


Likewise, ] was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.<ref name="supernature">{{cite journal |last=Rossano |first=Matt |year=2007 |title=Supernaturalizing Social Life: Religion and the Evolution of Human Cooperation |url=http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/mrossano/recentpubs/Supernaturalizing.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Human Nature |location=Hawthorne, New York |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=272–294 |doi=10.1007/s12110-007-9002-4 |pmid=26181064 |s2cid=1585551 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303101304/http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/mrossano/recentpubs/Supernaturalizing.pdf |archive-date=3 March 2012 |access-date=25 June 2009}}</ref>
==== God as unity or Trinity ====
Muslims, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses and a small fraction of other nominal Christians are ''unitarian monotheists''. The vast majority of Christians have been and still are ''Trinitarian monotheists''.
* Unitarian monotheists hold that there is only one "person" (so to speak), or one basic substance, in God. Some adherents of this position consider Trinitarianism to be a form of polytheism.
* 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 ], differs from Christianity in holding that God has three aspects, though shown as anthromorphs. Trinitarians hold that the three persons of God have the same purpose, holiness, and sovereignty, and therefore each can be worshipped as God, without violating the idea that there is only truly one God to which worship belongs. The ] denomination of Hinduism also hold that belief and believe that worship of any aspect of God is equivalent. Although not a perfect analogy, the other denominations of Hinduism, ] and ] would be considered unitarian monotheistic faiths.
* Ayyavazhi says ] is the unity of ], ] and a human. ''(See:])''
* ]s believe that there are three separate divine personages (i.e., beings). One of these personages is a spirit without a body referred to as the "Holy Ghost". The other two personages are beings with ''perfected'' or ''glorified'' (often called ''celestial'') bodies referred to as ] (or less commonly "Elohim") and his son, Jesus Christ. They believe that through the mercy of Jesus Christ and by following their religion's teachings, humans are eligible to become gods (sometimes phrased as "become like Heavenly Father") at some point after death and ]; this is also called ].
* ] believe that ] is both God the Father and God the Son, made manifest in human flesh as the reincarnation of Jesus, while the Holy Spirit is seen to dwell within all believers (of Rastafari), and within all people (believed by some).
* Hasidic Jews hold that there are ten ] (emanations) of God. Each of these are more distinct than a characteristic, but less distinct than a separate personage.
* ] is the metaphysical position that all is of one essential essence, substance or energy. Monism can be inclusive of other interpretations of God.
* Dualism is the idea of two, nearly equal divine entities, one being the good God, and the other being an evil god, or ]. All beings are under the influence of one side, or the other, if they know it or not. ] is an example of dualism.


===Neuroscience and psychology===
==== Binitarianism ====
{{See also|Jungian interpretation of religion}}
''']''': 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 ], but they are also not unitarian. Binitarians, like most ] and ], claim their views were held by the original New Testament Church. Unlike most unitarians and ]s 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.
Johns Hopkins researchers studying the effects of the "spirit molecule" ], which is both an endogenous molecule in the human brain and the active molecule in the psychedelic ], found that a large majority of respondents said DMT brought them into contact with a "conscious, intelligent, benevolent, and sacred entity", and describe interactions that oozed joy, trust, love, and kindness. More than half of those who had previously self-identified as atheists described some type of belief in a higher power or God after the experience.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2020/fall/psychedelics-god-atheism/ |title=A spiritual experience |date=17 September 2020 |access-date=11 October 2022 |quote= |archive-date=19 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019233542/https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2020/fall/psychedelics-god-atheism/ |url-status=live}}</ref>


About a quarter of those afflicted by ]s experience what is described as a religious experience<ref>{{cite news |last=Sample |first=Ian |title=Tests of faith |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/feb/24/1 |access-date=15 October 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=23 February 2005 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523094847/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/feb/24/1 |url-status=live}}</ref> and may become preoccupied by thoughts of God even if they were not previously. Neuroscientist ] hypothesizes that seizures in the temporal lobe, which is closely connected to the emotional center of the brain, the ], may lead to those afflicted to view even banal objects with heightened meaning.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ramachandran |first1=Vilayanur |last2=Blakeslee |first2=Sandra |title=Phantoms in the brain |edition= |pages=174–187 |year=1998 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=0688152473 |language=English}}</ref>
"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”... 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<!-- I don't know what &amp does, but "mdash" was visible on the page before I took it out. -->&mdash;as read at NAPS 2001). Much of this recent scholarship has been the result of the translations of the '']'' and other ancient manuscripts which were not available when older scholarly texts (such as W. Bousset's ''Kyrios Christos'', 1913) were written.


Psychologists studying feelings of awe found that participants feeling awe after watching scenes of natural wonders become more likely to believe in a supernatural being and to see events as the result of design, even when given randomly generated numbers.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Kluger |first=Jeffrey |title=Why There Are No Atheists at the Grand Canyon |url=https://science.time.com/2013/11/27/why-there-are-no-atheists-at-the-grand-canyon/ |access-date=12 October 2022 |magazine=Time |date=27 November 2013 |archive-date=19 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019233537/https://science.time.com/2013/11/27/why-there-are-no-atheists-at-the-grand-canyon/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
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.


==Relationship with humanity==
=== Conceptions of God in Hinduism ===
{{anchor|Relationship with creation}}
]'''. Found first in the Vedic scriptures of Hinduism, Aum has been seen as the first manifestation of the unmanifest ] (the single Divine Ground of Hinduism) that resulted in the phenomenal universe]]
]'' by ]]]
* The ] word for God, that is used most commonly, is Ishvara (''{{IAST|īśvara}}'', originally a title comparable to "Lord" or "Excellency"). Hindus believe that '''Ishvara''' is only One. This must not be confused with the numerous deities of the Hindus known as ], are said to number up to 330 million. ''{{IAST|Deva}}'' may be translated into English as "god", "deity", "demi-god", "]" or any celestial being or thing of high excellence, and hence is venerable. The word is, in fact, cognate to Latin ''deus'' "god".
* The ] school of Hindu philosophy also has a notion of a Supreme Cosmic Spirit called ], pronounced as "brəh mən". '''Brahman''' is (at best) described as that infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, incorporeal, transcendent and immanent reality that is the divine ground of all existence in this universe. Brahman is actually undescribable. It is at best, "Sat" + "Chit" + "Ananda", ie, Infinite Truth, Infinite Consciousness and Infinite Bliss. Brahman may be called as God, or better, as Godhead.
* A major branch of Hinduism, ], served as the fertile grounds from which one of the first monistic philosophies of God was developed. According to Advaitins, '''Brahman''' is the only Ultimate Reality in this world, and everything else is an illusion. They believe that ] is that complex illusionary power of Brahman which causes the Brahman to be seen as the distinct material world. When man tries to know the attributeless Brahman with his mind, under the influence of Maya, Brahman becomes God ('''Ishvara''' as described as above). God is Brahman with Maya. He is ] or Brahman with positive attributes. He is one and unique. He is omniscient, omnipresent, incorporeal, independent, creator of the world, its ruler and also destroyer. He is eternal and unchangeable. He rules the world with his Maya. However, while God is the Lord of Maya and she (ie, Maya) is always under His control, living beings (], in the sense of humans) are the servants of Maya (in the form of ignorance). This ignorance is the cause of the unhappiness and sin in the mortal world. While God is Infinite Bliss, humans are miserable. God (Ishvara) always knows the unity of the Brahman substance, and the Mayic nature of the world. There is no place of a Satan or devil in Hinduism, unlike Abrahamic religions. Advaitins explain the misery because of '''ignorance'''. God or Ishvara can also be visualized and worshipped in anthromorphic form like Vishnu, Krishna or Shiva. The Advaita Vedanta philosophy continues with the view that once one becomes aware of the ''unity of being'' of Godhead, he will then be able to see beyond the illusions of division and separation from Godhead, and recognize his or her own inherent unity with the Brahman. See ].
* In the two largest branches of Hinduism, Shaivism and Vaishnavism, it is believed that '''Ishvara''' and Brahman are identical, and God is in turn anthromorphically identified with Shiva or Vishnu. God, whether in the form of Shiva or Vishnu has six attributes. However, the actual number of auspicious qualities of God, are '''countless''', with the following six qualities being the ''most important''.
* The number six is invariably given, but the individual attributes listed vary. One set of attributes (and their common interpretations) are:
** ''Jñāna'' (Omniscience), defined as the power to know about all beings simultaneously;
** ''Aishvarya'' (], derived from the word Ishvara), which consists in unchallenged rule over all;
** ''Shakti'' (Energy), or power, which is the capacity to make the impossible possible;
** ''Bala'' (Strength), which is the capacity to support everything by will and without any fatigue;
** ''Vīrya'' (Vigor), or valour which indicates the power to retain immateriality as the supreme being in spite of being the material cause of mutable creations; and
** ''Tejas'' (Splendor), which expresses his self-sufficiency and the capacity to overpower everything by his spiritual effulgence; (''cited from ''Bhakti Schools of Vedanta'', by Swami Tapasyānanda.'')
* A second set of six characteristics are
** ''Jñāna'' (Omniscience),
** ''Vairagya'' (]),
** ''Yashas'' (Fame),
** ''Aishvarya'' (Sovereignty, derived from the word Ishvara),
** ''Srī'' (Glory) and
** ''Dharma'' (]).
* Other important qualities attributed to God are ''Gambhīrya'' (grandeur), ''Audārya'' (generosity), and ''Kārunya'' (compassion).
* Chanted prayers, or ]s, are central to Hindu worship. Many mantras are from the sacred ]s, and in Sanskrit. Among the most chanted mantras in Hinduism are the ] (a prayer to ] that dates from the time of the ] and describes him as the ''Universal Brahman''), ] (a Vedic hymn to ], an earlier aspect of Shiva that also describes Him as Brahman) and the ] mantra, (another Vedic hymn that initially was meant as a prayer to the Sun, an aspect of Brahman but has other interpretations. It is now interpreted as a prayer to the impersonal absolute Brahman).
* The followers of ] like to conceive the divine power of the Ishvara as a female goddess, the divine mother called ] or ]. Another famous hymn, ], describes the 1000 names of ], worshipped as God the Divine Mother.
* It is important to add that in Hinduism (''Sanatana Dharama'') God is considered the Supreme Being, and many views of God range from panentheism to dualism to ] and monotheism. His appearance, in its entirety, cannot be comprehended by the common man. His appearance with form is only a manifestation of certain characteristics. The various forms of God or deities which apparently give ] Hinduism a character of polytheism, are regarded as mundane manifestations of One Brahman or Ishvara, only to facilitate his devotional worship.
* Ayyavazhi prefers almost a similar theory to Advaita Vedanta. However, ], one notable ] branch disagrees and focuses on panentheism. Furthermore, it rejects the ] illusion theory by stating that if God is real, then His creation must be real and not illusory.


===Worship===
In Hinduism there are two principal methods of worship:
{{See also|Worship|Prayer|Supplication}}
Theistic religious traditions often require worship of God and sometimes hold that the ] is to worship God.<ref name="patheos1">{{cite web |url=http://www.patheos.com/Library/Islam/Beliefs/Human-Nature-and-the-Purpose-of-Existence.html |title=Human Nature and the Purpose of Existence |publisher=Patheos.com |access-date=29 January 2011 |archive-date=29 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110829020001/http://www.patheos.com/Library/Islam/Beliefs/Human-Nature-and-the-Purpose-of-Existence.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{qref|51|56|b=y}}.</ref> To address the issue of an all-powerful being demanding to be worshipped, it is held that God does not need or benefit from worship but that worship is for the benefit of the worshipper.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/practices/salat.shtml |title=Salat: daily prayers |publisher=BBC |access-date=12 April 2022 |archive-date=22 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322040017/https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/practices/salat.shtml |url-status=live}}</ref> ] expressed the view that God does not need his supplication and that, "Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness."<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Philosophy of Gandhi: A Study of his Basic Ideas |first=Glyn |last=Richards |publisher=Routledge |year=2005 |isbn=1135799342}}</ref> Invoking God in prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Depending on the tradition, God can be viewed as a personal God who is only to be invoked directly while other traditions allow praying to intermediaries, such as ]s, to ] on their behalf. Prayer often also includes ] such as ]. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a ] states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-426-3787.htm |title=Allah would replace you with a people who sin |publisher=islamtoday.net |access-date=13 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014174102/http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-426-3787.htm |archive-date=14 October 2013}}</ref> ] for the sake of God is another act of devotion that includes ] and ]. ] of God in daily life include mentioning interjections ] when feeling gratitude or ], such as repeating ]s while performing other activities.


===Salvation===
# To worship God through meditation on a deity (]).
{{Main|Salvation}}
# To worship God without deity worship.(eg. non-anthromorphic symbols such as ], ], Ayyavazhi, or through meditation)
] religious traditions may believe in the existence of deities but deny any spiritual significance to them. The term has been used to describe certain strands of Buddhism,<ref>Rigopoulos, Antonio. ''The Life and Teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi'' (1993), p. 372; Houlden, J. L. (Ed.), ''Jesus: The Complete Guide'' (2005), p. 390.</ref> Jainism and ].<ref>de Gruyter, Walter (1988), ''Writings on Religion'', p. 145.</ref>


Among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with God disagree as how to best worship God and what is ] for mankind. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the ] or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through ] or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is ]. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Baháʼí Faith, Hinduism,<ref>See Swami Bhaskarananda, ''Essentials of Hinduism'' (Viveka Press, 2002), {{ISBN|1884852041}}.</ref> and Sikhism.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1350&english=t&id=57718 |title=Sri Guru Granth Sahib |publisher=Sri Granth |access-date=30 June 2011 |archive-date=28 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728045943/http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1350&english=t&id=57718 |url-status=live}}</ref> The ] preaches that ]s include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of ] and education of humanity. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is ], i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is ], where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being ]: the doctrine that ] is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is ], mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the ] movement.
The early ] presented the conception of the Divine Teacher, guru on earth. Indeed, there is an understanding in some Hindu sects that if the devotee were presented with the guru and God, first he should pay respects to the guru since the guru had been instrumental in leading him to God. Hence many gurus have the epithet of ], a term often confused with God.


==Epistemology==
:: Hari Bhakti Vilasa mantra ( 4.344)
:: Prathamam tu gurum pujya tatas caiva mamarcanam
:: Kuran siddhim avapnoti hy anyatha nisphalam bhavet
:: ''One does not directly worship one's God. One must begin by the worship of the Guru. Only by pleasing the Guru and gaining his mercy, can one offer anything to God. Thus, before worshiping God, one must always worship the Guru.''


===Faith===
See also ].
{{Main|Faith}}
] is the position that in certain topics, notably theology such as in ], faith is superior than reason in arriving at truths. Some theists argue that there is value to the risk in having faith and that if the arguments for God's existence were as rational as the laws of physics then there would be no risk. Such theists often argue that the heart is attracted to beauty, truth and goodness and so would be best for dictating about God, as illustrated through ] who said, "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-heart-has-its-reasons-that-reason-does-not-know |title=The Heart Has Its Reasons That Reason Does Not Know |publisher=National Catholic Register |last=D’Antuono |first=Matt |date=1 August 2022 |access-date=1 June 2023 |archive-date=8 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608024610/https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-heart-has-its-reasons-that-reason-does-not-know |url-status=live}}</ref> A hadith attributes a quote to God as "I am what my slave thinks of me."<ref>{{cite book |title=A Treasury of Hadith: A Commentary on Nawawi's Selection of Prophetic Traditions |publisher=Kube Publishing Limited |year=2014 |page=199 |author=Ibn Daqiq al-'Id |isbn=978-1847740694}}</ref> Inherent intuition about God is referred to in Islam as '']'', or "innate nature".<ref>{{Citation |last=Hoover |first=Jon |title=Fiṭra |date=2016-03-02 |url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/*-COM_27155 |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE |access-date=2023-11-13 |publisher=Brill |doi=10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_com_27155 |archive-date=28 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228111034/https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/*-COM_27155 |url-status=live}}.</ref> In Confucian tradition, Confucius and ] promoted that the only justification for right conduct, called the Way, is what is dictated by Heaven, a more or less anthropomorphic higher power, and is implanted in humans and thus there is only one universal foundation for the Way.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://aeon.co/essays/the-influential-confucian-philosopher-you-ve-never-heard-of |title=The Second Sage |publisher=Aeon |access-date=24 March 2023 |archive-date=24 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324222651/https://aeon.co/essays/the-influential-confucian-philosopher-you-ve-never-heard-of |url-status=live}}</ref>


=== Christian Monism === ===Revelation===
{{Main|Revelation}}
Within the body of Christian belief, the only well-known developed system of monism is found within the recently developed (1975) teachings of the book known as ] (ACIM). The philosophical system of ACIM presents what appears to be a unique synthesis of Hindu monistic ] teachings, blended with the early Christian teaching of the universal-fatherhood-of-God belief. In this philosophy God retains the traditional Christian role of an ''All loving, all forgiving Father'', as portrayed in the Christian allegory of the ], yet God is also attributed with the qualities of complete ''oneness'' with all of mankind. The apparent contrast between the existence of this ''oneness'' with God, and the common belief in human separation from God, is explained by the belief that man's apparent separation from God is a mere ''illusion'', an illusion that can be overcome by gaining a full understanding of, and by adopting an unfailing practice of, the dynamics of Christian forgiveness.
{{See also|Prophet}}
Revelation refers to some form of message communicated by God. This is usually proposed to occur through the use of ]s or ]s. ] argued for the need for revelation because even though humans are intellectually capable of realizing God, human desire can divert the intellect and because certain knowledge cannot be known except when specially given to prophets, such as the specifications of acts of worship.<ref>Çakmak, Cenap. ''Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO 2017, {{ISBN|978-1610692175}}, p. 1014.</ref> It is argued that there is also that which overlaps between what is revealed and what can be derived. According to Islam, one of the earliest revelations to ever be revealed was "If you feel no shame, then do as you wish."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Siddiqui |first=A. R. |title=Qur'anic Keywords: A Reference Guide. |publisher=Kube Publishing Limited |year=2015 |pages=53 |isbn=9780860376767}}</ref> The term ] is used to refer to knowledge revealed about God outside of ] or ] revelation such as scriptures. Notably, this includes studying nature, sometimes seen as the ].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://silas.psfc.mit.edu/Faraday/ |title=Michael Faraday: Scientist and Nonconformist |last=Hutchinson |first=Ian |date=14 January 1996 |quote=] believed that in his scientific researches he was reading the book of nature, which pointed to its creator, and he delighted in it: 'for the book of nature, which we have to read is written by the finger of God.' |access-date=30 November 2022 |archive-date=1 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201001723/http://silas.psfc.mit.edu/Faraday/ |url-status=live}}</ref> An idiom in Arabic states, "The Qur'an is a Universe that speaks. The Universe is a silent Qur'an."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hofmann |first=Murad |title=Islam and Qur'an |publisher=Amana publications |year=2007 |pages=121 |isbn=978-1590080474}}</ref>


=== The Ultimate === ===Reason===
On matters of theology, some such as ], take an ] position, where a belief is only justified if it has a reason behind it, as opposed to holding it as a ].<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Michael |last=Beaty |year=1991 |title=God Among the Philosophers |url=http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=53 |journal=The Christian Century |access-date=20 February 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070109162529/http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=53 |archive-date=9 January 2007}}</ref> ] holds that one should not opinionate beyond revelation to understand God's nature and frown upon rationalizations such as ].<ref name=Halverson-36>{{Harvtxt|Halverson|2010|page=}}.</ref> Notably, for ] such as the "Hand of God" and ], they neither nullify such texts nor accept a literal hand but leave any ambiguity to God, called '']'', without ].<ref name="Hoover 2020">{{cite book |author-last=Hoover |author-first=John |year=2020 |chapter=Early Mamlūk Ashʿarism against Ibn Taymiyya on the Nonliteral Reinterpretation (''taʾwīl'') of God’s Attributes |chapter-url=https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3741348 |editor1-last=Shihadeh |editor1-first=Ayman |editor2-last=Thiele |editor2-first=Jan |title=Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill |series=Islamicate Intellectual History |volume=5 |pages=195–230 |doi=10.1163/9789004426610_009 |isbn=978-9004426610 |s2cid=219026357 |issn=2212-8662 |access-date=13 November 2022 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406075456/https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3741348 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Halverson-3637>{{harvtxt|Halverson|2010|pages=}}.</ref> ] provides arguments for theological topics based on reason.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |last1=Chignell |first1=Andrew |title=Natural Theology and Natural Religion |date=2020 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/natural-theology/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |access-date=2020-10-09 |edition=Fall 2020 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |last2=Pereboom |first2=Derk |archive-date=18 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218132535/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/natural-theology/ |url-status=live}}.</ref>
Arguably, Eastern conceptions of ] (this, too, has many different names), except for Shaivism and Vaishnavism, which do focus on a personal God, are not conceptions of a ''personal'' divinity, though certain Western conceptions of what is at least ''called'' "God" (e.g., ] pantheistic conception and various kinds of mysticism) resemble Eastern conceptions of The Ultimate. Christian theologian ], in the first volume of his ] defines God as being that factor about which we have, in his language, ]. In this view, ], ], God, or ] all have legitimate grounds to be called ].


==Specific characteristics==
=== Aristotelian definition of God ===
{{See also|Attributes of God (disambiguation)}}
''Main article: ].''


===Titles===
In his ], ] discusses meaning of "being as being". Aristotle holds that "being" primarily refers to the ]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).
{{Main|Names of God}}
{{See also|Names of God in Islam}}
], in Chinese ]]]


In the ] tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood".<ref>Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler and Kaufman, Gordon D., "God", Ch 6, in Taylor, Mark C., ed., ''Critical Terms for Religious Studies'' (University of Chicago, 1998/2008), pp. 136–140.</ref> Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are titles for God, who revealed his personal name as ] (often vocalized as ''Yahweh'' or ''Jehovah'').<ref name="Parke-Taylor2006"/> One of them is '']''. Another one is '']'', translated 'God Almighty'.<ref>Gen. 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; Ex. 6:31; Ps. 91:1, 2.</ref> A third notable title is '']'', which means 'The High God'.<ref>Gen. 14:19; Ps. 9:2; Dan. 7:18, 22, 25.</ref> Also noted in the ] and ] Bibles is the name "]".<ref>Exodus 3:13–15.</ref><ref name="Parke-Taylor2006"/>
Aristotle's "unmoved mover" is very unlike the conception of God which one sees in most religions. It has been likened to a person who is playing ]s 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. This differs to the interpretation of God in most religions, where he is seen to be ] in his creation.


God is described and referred in the ] and hadith by certain ], the most common being '']'', meaning 'Most Compassionate', and ''Al-Rahim'', meaning 'Most Merciful'.<ref name="Ben">{{Cite book |last=Bentley |first=David |title=The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book |publisher=William Carey Library |year=1999 |isbn=978-0878082995}}</ref> Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the ].
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.


], a tradition in Hinduism, has a ].
In the 18th century, the French educator ] brought a very similar conception of God during his work of codifying ].


=== Modern views === ===Gender===
{{Main|Gender of God}}
==== Process philosophy and Open Theism ====
The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical Western philosophy, transcends bodily form.<ref>{{cite book |last=Aquinas |first=Thomas |title=Summa Theologica |section=First part: Question 3: The simplicity of God: Article 1: Whether God is a body? |url=http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm |publisher=New Advent |access-date=22 June 2012 |archive-date=9 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109160402/http://newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/confessionsaugu00shedgoog |title=The Confessions of Augustine |publisher=Warren F. Draper |year=1885 |editor=Shedd |editor-first=William G. T. |section=Chapter 7}}</ref> ] religions commonly attribute to each of ''the gods'' a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical Western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an ] statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last1=Lang |first1=David |title=Why Matter Matters: Philosophical and Scriptural Reflections on the Sacraments |year=2002 |publisher=Our Sunday Visitor |chapter=Why Male Priests? |isbn=978-1931709347 |first2=Peter |last2=Kreeft}}</ref>
* ] is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical ] of ] (1861–1947).
* ], a theological movement that began in the 1990s, is similar, but not identical, to Process theology.


Biblical sources usually refer to God using male or paternal words and symbolism, except {{Bibleverse|Genesis||1:26–27|KJV}},<ref>Pagels, Elaine H. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123111512/http://holyspirit-shekinah.org/_/what_became_of_god_the_mother-1.htm|date=23 November 2010}} Signs, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Winter 1976), pp. 293–303.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Coogan |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/godsexwhatbi00coog/page/175 |title=God and Sex. What the Bible Really Says |publisher=Twelve. Hachette Book Group |year=2010 |isbn=978-0446545259 |edition=1st |location=New York; Boston, Massachusetts |page= |chapter=6. Fire in Divine Loins: God's Wives in Myth and Metaphor |quote=humans are modeled on ''elohim'', specifically in their sexual differences. |access-date=5 May 2011 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2_gPKQEACAAJ&q=god+and+sex}}</ref> {{Bibleverse|Psalm||123:2–3|KJV}}, and {{Bibleverse|Luke||15:8–10|KJV}} (female); {{Bibleverse|Hosea||11:3–4|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse|Deuteronomy||32:18|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse|Isaiah||66:13|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse|Isaiah||49:15|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse|Isaiah||42:14|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse|Psalm||131:2|KJV}} (a mother); {{Bibleverse|Deuteronomy||32:11–12|KJV}} (a mother eagle); and {{Bibleverse|Matthew||23:37|KJV}} and {{Bibleverse|Luke||13:34|KJV}} (a mother hen).
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. See the entries on ], ], and ].


In ], ] is "Ajuni" (Without Incarnations), which means that God is not bound to any physical forms. This concludes that the All-pervading Lord is Gender-less.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sikhwomen.com/equality/GodsGender.htm |title=God's Gender |website=www.sikhwomen.com |access-date=5 December 2023 |archive-date=5 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231205122743/http://www.sikhwomen.com/equality/GodsGender.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> However, the ] constantly refers to God as 'He' and 'Father' (with some exceptions), typically because the Guru Granth Sahib was written in north Indian ]s (mixture of ] and ], Sanskrit with influences of Persian) which have no neutral gender. From further insights into the Sikh philosophy, it can be deduced that God is, sometimes, referred to as the Husband to the Soul-brides, in order to make a patriarchal society understand what the relationship with God is like. Also, God is considered to be the Father, Mother, and Companion.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gurbani.org/articles/webart270.htm |title=IS GOD MALE OR FEMALE? |website=www.gurbani.org |access-date=5 December 2023 |archive-date=5 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231205122754/https://www.gurbani.org/articles/webart270.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>
==== Posthuman God ====
Similar to this theory is the belief or aspiration that humans will create a God entity, emerging from an ].
], world-renowned ] author, 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 ], postulated in his story "]" a merger between humanity and machine intelligence that ultimately produces a deity capable of reversing ] and subsequently initiates a new Creation trillions of years from the present era when the Universe is in the last stage of ]. In ]'s science-fiction series ], a messianic figure is created after thousands of years of controlled breeding.


===Depiction===
Another variant on this hypothesis is that humanity or a segment of humanity will create or ] into a ] God by itself; for some examples, see ], ], and ].
{{See also|Incorporeality|God the Father in Western art}}
] (left) with the ring of kingship. (Relief at ], 3rd century CE)]]


In Zoroastrianism, during the early ], ] was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the ]. Zoroastrian ], which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback, which is found in Sassanian investiture.{{Sfn|Boyce|1983|p=686}}
==== Extraterrestrials ====
Some comparatively new belief systems and books portray God as ]. 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. ]). ], co-discoverer of the structure of ], suggested that life on Earth ] because of what he considered to be a miniscule timeframe allotted by scientists for the ] of life on Earth.


Deities from Near Eastern cultures are often thought of as ] entities who have a human like body which is, however, not equal to a human body. Such bodies were often thought to be radiant or fiery, of superhuman size or extreme beauty. The ancient deity of the ] (]) too was imagined as a transcendent but still anthropomorphic deity.<ref name=Transcendent>Williams, Wesley. "A Body Unlike Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and Early Islam". Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 129, no. 1, 2009, pp. 19–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40593866 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221118183524/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40593866 |date=18 November 2022 }}. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.</ref> Humans could not see him, because of their impurity in contrast to Yahweh's holiness, Yahweh being described as radiating fire and light which could kill a human if looking at him. Further, more religious or spiritual people tend to have less anthropomorphic depictions of God.<ref name=Shaman/> In Judaism, the ] often ascribes human features to God, however, many other passages describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is ], meaning it overly lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as ], reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in a historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is taboo, and arguably heretical.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}
==== Phenomenological definition ====
The philosopher ] defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: "God is Life, he is the essence of ], or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what is God, 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." (''I Am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity'').


] cosmogony often depicts the creator god of the Old Testament as an evil lesser deity or ], while the higher benevolent god or ] is thought of as something beyond comprehension having immeasurable light and not in time or among things that exist, but rather is greater than them in a sense. All people are said to have a piece of God or ] within them which has fallen from the immaterial world into the corrupt material world and is trapped unless ] is attained.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bataille |first1=Georges |author-link1=Georges Bataille |title=Base Materialism and Gnosticism |journal=Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939 |date=1930 |page=47}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Marvin |last=Meyer |first2=Willis |last2=Barnstone]] |title=The Gnostic Bible |publisher=Shambhala |chapter=The Secret Book of John |url=http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-meyer.html |date=June 30, 2009 |access-date=2021-10-15 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423033025/http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-meyer.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=Rebecca |last=Denova |title=Gnosticism |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Gnosticism/ |encyclopedia=World History Encyclopedia |date=April 9, 2021 |access-date=2021-10-15 |archive-date=22 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220222101411/https://www.worldhistory.org/Gnosticism/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
This Life is not biological life defined by objective and exterior properties, nor an abstract and empty philosophical concept, but the absolute ], a radically immanent life which possesses in it the power of showing itself in itself without distance, a life which reveals permanently itself.


] in the ] from the ], {{circa|850}}]]
==== The Rosicrucian conception of God ====
Early Christians believed that the words of the ] 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God.<ref name="James Cornwell page 24">Cornwell, James (2009) ''Saints, Signs, and Symbols: The Symbolic Language of Christian Art'', {{ISBN|081922345X}}. p. 2.</ref> However, later depictions of God are found. Some, such as the ], are depiction borrowed from Jewish art. Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize ] in ].<ref name="James Cornwell page 24" /> Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of man in the image of his own (thus allowing humans to transcend the other animals). It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted.<ref name="Adolphe Napoléon Didron pages 169">Didron, Adolphe Napoléon (2003), ''Christian iconography: or The history of Christian art in the middle ages'', {{ISBN|0-7661-4075-X}}, p. 169.</ref> By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French ]s, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the ] on the famous ] of ] is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in ]'s ] {{circa|1305}} in ].<ref name="ReferenceA">], at the top of the triumphal arch, ''God sending out the angel of the Annunciation''. See Schiller, I, figure 15.</ref> In the 14th century the ] carried a depiction of God the Father in the ]. By the early 15th century, the ] had a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the ], which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The ] by ], begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The ] of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, such as the large Genesis ] by the Hamburg painter ], continued to use the old depiction of Christ as '']'' in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as ]. In a Trinitarian ], God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms.<ref>Earls, Irene (1987). ''Renaissance art: a topical dictionary'', {{ISBN|0313246580}}, pp. 8, 283.</ref> In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the ] specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list,<ref>Tarasov, Oleg (2004). ''Icon and devotion: sacred spaces in Imperial Russia'', {{ISBN|1861891180}}. p. 185.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/moscow_1666.htm |title=Council of Moscow – 1666–1667 |access-date=30 December 2016 |archive-date=13 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213222311/http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/moscow_1666.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as ''logos'', not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
''Main article: ]''


], Istanbul]]
According to ]'s ''The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception'', and in ], 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 ] for the evolution of added self-].
In Islam, Muslims believe that God (]) is beyond all comprehension, and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Muslims tend to use the least anthropomorphism among monotheists.<ref name="Shaman">Shaman, Nicholas J.; Saide, Anondah R.; and Richert, Rebekah A. "Dimensional structure of and variation in anthropomorphic concepts of God". Frontiers in psychology 9 (2018): 1425.</ref> They are not ] and have religious calligraphy of titles of God instead of pictures.<ref name=":3">{{cite book |author=Lebron |first=Robyn |title=Searching for Spiritual Unity...Can There Be Common Ground? |year=2012 |isbn=978-1462712625 |page=117 |publisher=Crossbooks}}</ref>


==See also==
Heindel states that in the Solar system, God's Habitation, there are ] differentiated by God, within Himself, one after another.
{{Portal|Mythology|Philosophy|Religion}}
Rosicrucians teach that the, above referred, seven Worlds belong to the lowest of the seven "Cosmic Planes". The Worlds and Cosmic Planes are not one above another in space, but the seven Cosmic Planes inter-penetrate each other and all the seven Worlds. They are states of spirit-matter, permeating one another, so that God and the other great Beings pervade every part of their own realms and realms of greater density than their own, including our world. All matter in our world is complex.
{{div col|small=no}}

* {{look from|God}}
===Parodies of God and religion===
* ]
==== The Pastafarian explanation of God ====
* ]
{{main|Flying Spaghetti Monster}}
* ]

In a ] of religious belief, ] defines Him as a ''']'''. The followers of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) call themselves ]. Canonical beliefs of FSM set forth by Henderson are:

*An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, starting with a ], ]s and a "]" <nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki>.
*], ], ], and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of ] since the ].
*All evidence pointing towards evolution was intentionally planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM tests Pastafarians' faith by making things look older than they really are.
*Pastafarian ] includes, at least, one ] ] and one ] ].

==== The Invisible Pink Unicorn ====
{{main|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}

The ''']''' is an internet phenomenon originating in the usenet group ], intended to parody the many subjectively contradictory claims made by ]s about the existence and nature of deities. "Her" primary characteristics (invisibility and pinkness) are intentionally in conflict, and her "physical" manifestation (as a unicorn) is, as a well-known mythical concept, critically reflective upon theistic beliefs.

== Notes and references ==
* ], <cite>While Most Americans Believe in God, Only 36% Attend a Religious Service Once a Month or More Often</cite>
* ], <cite>The 2004 Political Landscape Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized - Part 8: Religion in American Life</cite>
* ], <cite>Nigeria leads in religious belief</cite>
* ], <cite>The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience</cite>, Palgrave/St Martin's Press, 2001.
* ], <cite>God: A Biography</cite>, Knopf, 1995; .
* ], <cite>A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam</cite>, Ballantine Books, 1994.
* ], <cite>The Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe within you. Avatar Publications, 2005. .
* ], ''Systematic Theology'', Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951).
*]<cite>God's Existence Boon to Scholars</cite>.

== Popular culture ==
''See ].''

== See also ==
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==References==
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{{Reflist}}


==Bibliography==
<p></p>
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* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Boyce |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Boyce |title=Ahura Mazdā |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Iranica |location=New York |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |year=1983 |volume=1 |pages=684–687}}
* ]
* {{cite book |last1=Bunnin |first1=Nicholas |last2=Yu |first2=Jiyuan |title=The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy |year=2008 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-0470997215 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LdbxabeToQYC |access-date=14 October 2020 |archive-date=15 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230815224620/https://books.google.com/books?id=LdbxabeToQYC |url-status=live}}
* ]
* ], ''The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience'', Palgrave/St Martin's Press, 2001. {{ISBN|1403964572}}.
* ]
* ], ''The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief'', Free Press, 2006. {{ISBN|0743286391}}.
* ]
* ], ''God: A Biography'', Vintage, 1996. {{ISBN|0679743685}}.
* ]
* ], ''A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam'', Ballantine Books, 1994. {{ISBN|0434024562}}.
* ]
* ], ''Systematic Theology'', Vol. 1 (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951). {{ISBN|0226803376}}.
* ]
* {{cite book |last1=Halverson |first1=J. |title=Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism |year=2010 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0230106581 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IYzGAAAAQBAJ |access-date=28 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523094748/https://books.google.com/books?id=IYzGAAAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}
* ]
* {{citation |last=Hastings |first=James Rodney |author-link=James Hastings |editor-first=John A. |editor-last=Selbie |title=Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics |volume=4 |publisher=Kessinger |location=Edinburgh, Scotland |year=1925–2003 |orig-date=1908–1926 |quote=The encyclopedia will contain articles on all the religions of the world and on all the great systems of ethics. It will aim at containing articles on every religious belief or custom, and on every ethical movement, every philosophical idea, every moral practice. |isbn=978-0766136731 |url=<!-- |access-date=5 March 2008--> |page=476}}
* ]
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==External links==
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* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190421081921/http://www.islam-info.ch/en/Who_is_Allah.htm |date=21 April 2019 }}
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* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219080545/http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/Understanding_God.asp |date=19 December 2010 }}
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{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219080545/http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/Understanding_God.asp |date=19 December 2010 }}
== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
* Cheung, Vincent (2003).
* Draye, Hani (2004). . Retrieved ].
* Haisch, Bernard (2006). .
* . Retrieved ].
* Nicholls, David (2004). . Retrieved ].
* Salgia, Amar (1997) Retrieved ].
* Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English .
* Shaivam.org (2004). . Retrieved ].
* Schlecht, Joel (2004). . Retrieved ].
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004). . Retrieved ].
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005). . Retrieved ].
* Students of Shari'ah (2005). . Retrieved ].
* - e-book about common in prophecies in different religions and understanding of God
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* . A gnostic belief system


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TOM CRUISE AND ROGER MURPHY WERE SEEN KISSING OUTSIDE OF A SCIENTOLOGY CENTER

Latest revision as of 02:53, 20 December 2024

Principal object of faith in monotheism

This article is about the supreme being in monotheistic belief systems. For powerful supernatural beings considered divine or sacred, see Deity. For God in specific religions, see Conceptions of God. For other uses, see God (disambiguation).

Left to right, top to bottom: representations of God in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoroastrianism, and Vaishnava Hinduism

In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism.

Conceptions of God vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God. Atheism rejects the belief in any deity. Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation, while pantheism holds that God is the universe itself. God is sometimes seen as omnibenevolent, while deism holds that God is not involved with humanity apart from creation.

Some traditions attach spiritual significance to maintaining some form of relationship with God, often involving acts such as worship and prayer, and see God as the source of all moral obligation. God is sometimes described without reference to gender, while others use terminology that is gender-specific. God is referred to by different names depending on the language and cultural tradition, sometimes with different titles of God used in reference to God's various attributes.

Etymology and usage

Main article: God (word)
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite God Yahweh.

The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *ǵhu-tó-m was probably based on the root *ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke". The Germanic words for God were originally neuter, but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form. In English, capitalization is used when the word is used as a proper noun, as well as for other names by which a god is known. Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity.

The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all.

El means 'god' in Hebrew, but in Judaism and in Christianity, God is also given a personal name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh. In many English translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Jews and Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning 'praise Jah', which is used to give God glory. In Judaism, some of the Hebrew titles of God are considered holy names.

Allāh (Arabic: الله) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews meaning 'the God', while ʾilāh (إِلَٰه, plural `āliha آلِهَة) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Muslims also use a multitude of other titles for God.

In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a monistic concept of God. God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari. Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa is the term used in Balinese Hinduism.

In Chinese religion, Shangdi is conceived as the progenitor of the universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it.

Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā means 'intelligence' or 'wisdom'. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning 'placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)', hence 'wise'. Meanwhile 101 other names are also in use.

Waheguru (Punjabi: vāhigurū) is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means 'Wonderful Teacher' in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means 'wonderful', and guru (Sanskrit: guru) is a term denoting 'teacher'. Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all description. The most common usage of the word Waheguru is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other—Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh, "Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord."

Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baháʼí Faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".

Other names for God include Aten in ancient Egyptian Atenism where Aten was proclaimed to be the one "true" supreme being and creator of the universe, Chukwu in Igbo, and Hayyi Rabbi in Mandaeism.

General conceptions

Existence

Main article: Existence of God See also: Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism
Thomas Aquinas summed up five main arguments as proofs for God's existence. Painting by Carlo Crivelli, 1476.
The System of Nature (1770) argues that belief in God is based on fear, lack of understanding and anthropomorphism.

The existence of God is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being or existence) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection").

Ontological arguments refer to any argument for the existence of God that is based on a priori reasoning. Notable ontological arguments were formulated by Anselm and René Descartes. Cosmological arguments use concepts around the origin of the universe to argue for the existence of God.

The teleological argument, also called "argument from design", uses the complexity within the universe as a proof of the existence of God. It is countered that the fine tuning required for a stable universe with life on earth is illusory, as humans are only able to observe the small part of this universe that succeeded in making such observation possible, called the anthropic principle, and so would not learn of, for example, life on other planets or of universes that did not occur because of different laws of physics. Non-theists have argued that complex processes that have natural explanations yet to be discovered are referred to the supernatural, called god of the gaps. Other theists, such as John Henry Newman who believed theistic evolution was acceptable, have also argued against versions of the teleological argument and held that it is limiting of God to view him having to only intervene specially in some instances rather than having complex processes designed to create order.

The argument from beauty states that this universe happens to contain special beauty in it and that there would be no particular reason for this over aesthetic neutrality other than God. This has been countered by pointing to the existence of ugliness in the universe. This has also been countered by arguing that beauty has no objective reality and so the universe could be seen as ugly or that humans have made what is more beautiful than nature.

The argument from morality argues for the existence of God given the assumption of the objective existence of morals. While prominent non-theistic philosophers such as the atheist J. L. Mackie agreed that the argument is valid, they disagreed with its premises. David Hume argued that there is no basis to believe in objective moral truths while biologist E. O. Wilson theorized that the feelings of morality are a by-product of natural selection in humans and would not exist independent of the mind. Philosopher Michael Lou Martin argued that a subjective account for morality can be acceptable. Similar to the argument from morality is the argument from conscience which argues for the existence of God given the existence of a conscience that informs of right and wrong, even against prevailing moral codes. Philosopher John Locke instead argued that conscience is a social construct and thus could lead to contradicting morals.

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable. Theism generally holds that God exists objectively and independently of human thought and is sometimes used to refer to any belief in God or gods.

Some view the existence of God as an empirical question. Richard Dawkins states that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference". Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old. Some theologians, such as Alister McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method.

Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argued that science and religion are not in conflict and proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world. Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their 2010 book, The Grand Design, that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science and without invoking divine beings.

Oneness

Main articles: Deity, Monotheism, and Henotheism
Trinitarians believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons sharing a single nature or essence.

A deity, or "god" (with lowercase g), refers to a supernatural being. Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, referred to as "God" (with uppercase g). Comparing or equating other entities to God is viewed as idolatry in monotheism, and is often strongly condemned. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world. Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid, meaning 'oneness' or "uniqueness'. The first pillar of Islam is an oath that forms the basis of the religion and which non-Muslims wishing to convert must recite, declaring that, "I testify that there is no deity except God."

In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. In past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas.

God in Hinduism is viewed differently by diverse strands of the religion, with most Hindus having faith in a supreme reality (Brahman) who can be manifested in numerous chosen deities. Thus, the religion is sometimes characterized as Polymorphic Monotheism. Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god at a time while accepting the validity of worshiping other deities. Monolatry is the belief in a single deity worthy of worship while accepting the existence of other deities.

Transcendence

See also: Pantheism and Panentheism

Transcendence is the aspect of God's nature that is completely independent of the material universe and its physical laws. Many supposed characteristics of God are described in human terms. Anselm thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, led many medieval philosophers approach to knowledge of God through negative attributes, called Negative theology. For example, one should not say that God is wise, but can say that God is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge). Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that one has to understand a "personal god" as an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."

Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God and denies that God transcends the Universe. For pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature. Pantheism is sometimes objected to as not providing any meaningful explanation of God with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stating, "Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism." Pandeism holds that God was a separate entity but then became the universe. Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.

Creator

See also: Creator deity
God Blessing the Seventh Day, 1805 watercolor painting by William Blake

God is often viewed as the cause of all that exists. For Pythagoreans, Monad variously referred to divinity, the first being or an indivisible origin. The philosophy of Plato and Plotinus refers to "The One", which is the first principle of reality that is "beyond" being and is both the source of the Universe and the teleological purpose of all things. Aristotle theorized a first uncaused cause for all motion in the universe and viewed it as perfectly beautiful, immaterial, unchanging and indivisible. Aseity is the property of not depending on any cause other than itself for its existence. Avicenna held that there must be a necessarily existent guaranteed to exist by its essence—it cannot "not" exist—and that humans identify this as God. Secondary causation refers to God creating the laws of the Universe which then can change themselves within the framework of those laws. In addition to the initial creation, occasionalism refers to the idea that the Universe would not by default continue to exist from one instant to the next and so would need to rely on God as a sustainer. While divine providence refers to any intervention by God, it is usually used to refer to "special providence", where there is an extraordinary intervention by God, such as miracles.

Benevolence

See also: Deism and Thirteen Attributes of Mercy

Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it, such as answering prayers or producing miracles. Deists sometimes attribute this to God having no interest in or not being aware of humanity. Pandeists would hold that God does not intervene because God is the Universe.

Of those theists who hold that God has an interest in humanity, most hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. This belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil.

Omniscience and omnipotence

Omnipotence (all-powerful) is an attribute often ascribed to God. The omnipotence paradox is most often framed with the example "Could God create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?" as God could either be unable to create that stone or lift that stone and so could not be omnipotent. This is often countered with variations of the argument that omnipotence, like any other attribute ascribed to God, only applies as far as it is noble enough to befit God and thus God cannot lie, or do what is contradictory as that would entail opposing himself.

Omniscience (all-knowing) is an attribute often ascribed to God. This implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, either their free will might be illusory or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient. Open Theism limits God's omniscience by contending that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future and process theology holds that God does not have immutability, so is affected by his creation.

Other concepts

Theologians of theistic personalism (the view held by René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and most modern evangelicals) argue that God is most generally the ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality.

God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent". These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides, Augustine of Hippo, and Al-Ghazali, respectively.

Non-theistic views

Religious traditions

Jainism has generally rejected creationism, holding that soul substances (Jīva) are uncreated and that time is beginningless.

Some interpretations and traditions of Buddhism can be conceived as being non-theistic. Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a creator deity. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early Buddhist texts. Also, major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti, and Buddhaghosa, consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers. However, as a non-theistic religion, Buddhism leaves the existence of a supreme deity ambiguous. There are significant numbers of Buddhists who believe in God, and there are equally large numbers who deny God's existence or are unsure.

Chinese religions such as Confucianism and Taoism are silent on the existence of creator gods. However, keeping with the tradition of ancestor veneration in China, adherents worship the spirits of people such as Confucius and Laozi in a similar manner to God.

Anthropology

See also: Evolutionary origin of religions, Evolutionary psychology of religion, and Anthropomorphism

Some atheists have argued that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined and embellished over generations.

Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.

Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.

Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.

Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.

Neuroscience and psychology

See also: Jungian interpretation of religion

Johns Hopkins researchers studying the effects of the "spirit molecule" DMT, which is both an endogenous molecule in the human brain and the active molecule in the psychedelic ayahuasca, found that a large majority of respondents said DMT brought them into contact with a "conscious, intelligent, benevolent, and sacred entity", and describe interactions that oozed joy, trust, love, and kindness. More than half of those who had previously self-identified as atheists described some type of belief in a higher power or God after the experience.

About a quarter of those afflicted by temporal lobe seizures experience what is described as a religious experience and may become preoccupied by thoughts of God even if they were not previously. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran hypothesizes that seizures in the temporal lobe, which is closely connected to the emotional center of the brain, the limbic system, may lead to those afflicted to view even banal objects with heightened meaning.

Psychologists studying feelings of awe found that participants feeling awe after watching scenes of natural wonders become more likely to believe in a supernatural being and to see events as the result of design, even when given randomly generated numbers.

Relationship with humanity

Praying Hands by Albrecht Dürer

Worship

See also: Worship, Prayer, and Supplication

Theistic religious traditions often require worship of God and sometimes hold that the purpose of existence is to worship God. To address the issue of an all-powerful being demanding to be worshipped, it is held that God does not need or benefit from worship but that worship is for the benefit of the worshipper. Mahatma Gandhi expressed the view that God does not need his supplication and that, "Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness." Invoking God in prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Depending on the tradition, God can be viewed as a personal God who is only to be invoked directly while other traditions allow praying to intermediaries, such as saints, to intercede on their behalf. Prayer often also includes supplication such as asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance. Sacrifice for the sake of God is another act of devotion that includes fasting and almsgiving. Remembrance of God in daily life include mentioning interjections thanking God when feeling gratitude or phrases of adoration, such as repeating chants while performing other activities.

Salvation

Main article: Salvation

Transtheistic religious traditions may believe in the existence of deities but deny any spiritual significance to them. The term has been used to describe certain strands of Buddhism, Jainism and Stoicism.

Among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with God disagree as how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Baháʼí Faith, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The Baháʼí Faith preaches that divine manifestations include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.

Epistemology

Faith

Main article: Faith

Fideism is the position that in certain topics, notably theology such as in reformed epistemology, faith is superior than reason in arriving at truths. Some theists argue that there is value to the risk in having faith and that if the arguments for God's existence were as rational as the laws of physics then there would be no risk. Such theists often argue that the heart is attracted to beauty, truth and goodness and so would be best for dictating about God, as illustrated through Blaise Pascal who said, "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." A hadith attributes a quote to God as "I am what my slave thinks of me." Inherent intuition about God is referred to in Islam as fitra, or "innate nature". In Confucian tradition, Confucius and Mencius promoted that the only justification for right conduct, called the Way, is what is dictated by Heaven, a more or less anthropomorphic higher power, and is implanted in humans and thus there is only one universal foundation for the Way.

Revelation

Main article: Revelation See also: Prophet

Revelation refers to some form of message communicated by God. This is usually proposed to occur through the use of prophets or angels. Al-Maturidi argued for the need for revelation because even though humans are intellectually capable of realizing God, human desire can divert the intellect and because certain knowledge cannot be known except when specially given to prophets, such as the specifications of acts of worship. It is argued that there is also that which overlaps between what is revealed and what can be derived. According to Islam, one of the earliest revelations to ever be revealed was "If you feel no shame, then do as you wish." The term general revelation is used to refer to knowledge revealed about God outside of direct or special revelation such as scriptures. Notably, this includes studying nature, sometimes seen as the Book of Nature. An idiom in Arabic states, "The Qur'an is a Universe that speaks. The Universe is a silent Qur'an."

Reason

On matters of theology, some such as Richard Swinburne, take an evidentialist position, where a belief is only justified if it has a reason behind it, as opposed to holding it as a foundational belief. Traditionalist theology holds that one should not opinionate beyond revelation to understand God's nature and frown upon rationalizations such as speculative theology. Notably, for anthropomorphic descriptions such as the "Hand of God" and attributes of God, they neither nullify such texts nor accept a literal hand but leave any ambiguity to God, called tafwid, without asking how. Physico-theology provides arguments for theological topics based on reason.

Specific characteristics

See also: Attributes of God (disambiguation)

Titles

Main article: Names of God See also: Names of God in Islam
99 names of Allah, in Chinese Sini

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood". Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are titles for God, who revealed his personal name as YHWH (often vocalized as Yahweh or Jehovah). One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, translated 'God Almighty'. A third notable title is El Elyon, which means 'The High God'. Also noted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles is the name "I Am that I Am".

God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning 'Most Compassionate', and Al-Rahim, meaning 'Most Merciful'. Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the Baháʼí Faith.

Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has a list of titles and names of Krishna.

Gender

Main article: Gender of God

The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical Western philosophy, transcends bodily form. Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical Western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.

Biblical sources usually refer to God using male or paternal words and symbolism, except Genesis 1:26–27, Psalm 123:2–3, and Luke 15:8–10 (female); Hosea 11:3–4, Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Psalm 131:2 (a mother); Deuteronomy 32:11–12 (a mother eagle); and Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 (a mother hen).

In Sikhism, God is "Ajuni" (Without Incarnations), which means that God is not bound to any physical forms. This concludes that the All-pervading Lord is Gender-less. However, the Guru Granth Sahib constantly refers to God as 'He' and 'Father' (with some exceptions), typically because the Guru Granth Sahib was written in north Indian Indo-Aryan languages (mixture of Punjabi and Sant Bhasha, Sanskrit with influences of Persian) which have no neutral gender. From further insights into the Sikh philosophy, it can be deduced that God is, sometimes, referred to as the Husband to the Soul-brides, in order to make a patriarchal society understand what the relationship with God is like. Also, God is considered to be the Father, Mother, and Companion.

Depiction

See also: Incorporeality and God the Father in Western art
Ahura Mazda (depiction is on the right, with high crown) presents Ardashir I (left) with the ring of kingship. (Relief at Naqsh-e Rustam, 3rd century CE)

In Zoroastrianism, during the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm, which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback, which is found in Sassanian investiture.

Deities from Near Eastern cultures are often thought of as anthropomorphic entities who have a human like body which is, however, not equal to a human body. Such bodies were often thought to be radiant or fiery, of superhuman size or extreme beauty. The ancient deity of the Israelites (Yahweh) too was imagined as a transcendent but still anthropomorphic deity. Humans could not see him, because of their impurity in contrast to Yahweh's holiness, Yahweh being described as radiating fire and light which could kill a human if looking at him. Further, more religious or spiritual people tend to have less anthropomorphic depictions of God. In Judaism, the Torah often ascribes human features to God, however, many other passages describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic, meaning it overly lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides, reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in a historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is taboo, and arguably heretical.

Gnostic cosmogony often depicts the creator god of the Old Testament as an evil lesser deity or Demiurge, while the higher benevolent god or Monad is thought of as something beyond comprehension having immeasurable light and not in time or among things that exist, but rather is greater than them in a sense. All people are said to have a piece of God or divine spark within them which has fallen from the immaterial world into the corrupt material world and is trapped unless gnosis is attained.

Use of the symbolic Hand of God in the Ascension from the Drogo Sacramentary, c. 850

Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God. However, later depictions of God are found. Some, such as the Hand of God, are depiction borrowed from Jewish art. Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art. Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of man in the image of his own (thus allowing humans to transcend the other animals). It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted. By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco c. 1305 in Padua. In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry had a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, such as the large Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ. In a Trinitarian Pietà, God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Synod specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list, mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as logos, not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.

Arabic script of "Allah" in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

In Islam, Muslims believe that God (Allah) is beyond all comprehension, and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Muslims tend to use the least anthropomorphism among monotheists. They are not iconodules and have religious calligraphy of titles of God instead of pictures.

See also

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