The title of this entry is very carefully chosen- the nature of God- not an enquiry into the existence of God for one can categorically say that God does not exist, for to exist one must be finite- have a beginning and an end. God is, for lack of a better word, beyond existence with no beginning or end but is complete. As to the exact properties of God I cannot say as all meaning is dependent upon context and without experiencing God one cannot know the context, one cannot even say if God is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for everything that is good or bad can be bad or good depending on context.
In his Ethics, Spinoza explains the nature of God in a scientific manner, showing how everything that ‘is’ is an aspect of God, that the divine lies in the details, for it not to be would be ‘absurd’, yet Saint Augustine asks how can one come to God if one is within God? indeed Rumi wrote ‘he is closer to you than yourself’. Most come to God through prayer, however Kierkegaard points out that prayer does not change God, rather it changes one who prays which raises another question- does God take an active role or passive in the lives of man?
In mythology, the early Gods were made in the image of man and were petty and, well, ‘human, all too human’. Everything that ‘was’ was because of the Gods. Such early enquiries into the nature of the gods gave rise to science. Is it surprising that the culture and time period that gave us modern philosophy also gave us science?
Aristotle’s nature of the universe was held as sacred until Galileo Galilei showed that the earth orbited the sun, not visa-versa, thus disproving a thousand years of scientific fact. Fact itself is simply opinion that enough people agree on to call it ‘true’ and is not science, philosophy and theology the same? The search for a higher meaning, a truth? Is not the search for a unified theory the same as the search for intelligent design (a designer)?
Yet God is not solely a cerebral abstract, rather there is an emotional component to it. Two of the most important documents for me are Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne (he himself was broken– Jesus in the cross (no pun intended) between the finite and the eternal) and (I walked into this empty church, I had no place to go…the sweetest voice I ever heard came whispering to my soul/I don’t need to be forgiven for loving you so much). Here, I believe, is the crux of the matter- whilst God is a higher concept of the mind, it is often emotional need that drives one to God- many of the great theologians (Luther, Buhdda, the aforementioned et al) all suffered emotional distress that took them to God which means that, surely, the dogma surrounding God can be done away with and the teachings of the great religious figures be used as, well, gospel, for all the greats preach one thing, love, and surely everything else is irrelevant?
‘till next time!
thegreaterfool2016 