Notions of God

There are multiple religious and philosophical ideas that translate into the concept of God. That God is supremely good, created the universe, knows everything and can do all, is transcendent and immanent in the world, and loves humans are the common notions of God. Most Christians believe God revealed Himself as Jesus (see Trinity). In the Hebrew Bible, God is not a unified concept. The Christians’ attitude to this apparent inconsistency has been that God, unchanging, revealed Himself to Israel.

Rationalists of the 19th century saw the Bible as a history of Judaism that developed naturally without divine intervention. They perceived God in stages, starting as the head of a tribe pantheon and eventually assuming all of the attributes of God’s fellow divinities. But they chose God’s chosen people, Israel. According to these critics, the goodness, love, and mercy of God came late. God’s name has recently extended to an entirely different sort; hence, a philosopher may consider the unifying notion in his philosophy as God.

Western Concepts of God

The thought of God in the West has ranged from Aristotle’s detached, transcendent demiurge to Spinoza’s pantheism. Theism has impacted much of Western religious belief, and it explains that the creator and sustainer of the universe is infinite in knowledge, power, extension, and moral perfection. Though genderless, traditionally, God is male.

The perceptions of God in Western philosophy and religion are intertwined. Augustine and Aquinas, for example, sought to bring more rigour and consistency to religious notions of God. Others, like Hegel and Leibniz, accepted religious ideas deeply and constructively. Like Hume and Nietzsche, even those who criticised God dealt with religious notions.
Both Judaism and Islam have also had an impact on Western philosophy. Orthodox forms of all three faiths accept theism; however, each has diverse views. Philosophy has a similar range of diversity.

Historical overview

Let us explore different schools of thought, starting with the Greek notion of God.

Greek

The Ionian Greeks attempted to understand the fundamental nature of the universe, its change, and its permanence. The change was apparent to Heraclitus, as opposed to Parmenides. The Pythagoreans saw order and permanence in mathematics, elevating it to the ultimate being. The Stoics identified divine reason with the order.

According to Plato’s philosophy, God is transcendent—the greatest and the perfect being who creates a universe using eternal forms or archetypes. Material imperfections limit order and purpose in His universe. Moreover, greater divine purposes misunderstood by humans aren’t the only flaws. Just because certain things are evil, God is not the author. We may deduce that God is the creator of the wicked’s punishments since they benefit the wicked. God, in Himself, is good and unchangeable. According to Plato, God is not the source of moral goodness; whatever is good, is good in itself. Otherwise, there would be an infinite regress. 

In Aristotle’s view, God is passively responsible for the changes in the world. Everything has order and purpose, which points to God’s divine existence. We know about the universe from contingent things, but God knows them before they exist. God, the highest being, contemplates the worthiest object, Himself. As an unmoved mover, He is unaware of the world. God’s pure form is immaterial and perfect; hence, he cannot change. God is the apex of being and knowledge; God is eternal. Aristotle also philosophised that time and change are eternal, and as such, the unmoved mover must be so as well. God must be immaterial to be eternal as only immaterial things are unchangeable. Since God is immaterial, He does not extend into space.

The divine source of the universe is Plotinus’ Neo-Platonic God (204/5–270 AD). God timelessly creates the universe. The process required consciousness and will, which Plotinus claimed to limit God. The first emanation (nous) is the highest, and successive emanations become less real. Also, evil is stuff without form and hence has no existence. To understand God, one must consider him impersonal. This negative expression of God lasted into the Middle Ages. Plotinus stated several ideas, including the one about virtue and truth in God, even though God is beyond description. Connection with the divine is ecstatic and mystical for Plotinus. His views influenced Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart (1260–1327).

Early Christian Thought

Christianity has confirmed that the Trinity is plural, within the unity as per the belief implied in Judaism. Early Christians thought Greek philosophy was unworthy of God. As per Early Christian Thought, the universe is an expression of God’s thought, however imperfect. God, who is above all words and categories, is ultimately unknowable. Since Aristotle’s predicates and categories assume substance, they cannot apply to God.

Mediaeval Thought

According to Al-Farabi (875–950 AD), the universe is in things. Objects are dependent on whether they can exist or not. Avicenna (Ibn Sina; 980–1037 AD) distinguished between God, the necessary being, and other contingent things. Anselm (1033–1109) raised the ideal concept by using it as the basis for his renowned argument. Averroes (Ibn Rushd; 1126–1198) stated God created the universal mind.

It was Maimonides (1135–1204) who accepted creation. Bonaventura (John of Fidanza, 1221–1274) argued that God created the universe but did not know himself. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) accepted Aristotle’s and the Christian revelation to know God. Aristotle rejected the neoPlatonic idea of a hierarchy of reality, according to which lower existences are less real. A shadow of the divine God is at the top of the hierarchy since He is perfect. For this reason, he is changeless.

According to John Duns Scotus (1265–1308), the will is primary in humans and God. William of Ockham (1285–1347) believed that omnipotence meant God could do anything. Human-divine unity must be supranational, said Meister Eckhart.

Conclusion

Classical theists think God is not completely defined, and it is against God’s transcendent nature to characterise him. Robert Barron explains why a two-dimensional thing cannot conceive three-dimensional humans. However, most Eastern religious philosophies (particularly Pantheism) see God as a force present in all phenomena.

In Advaita Vedanta, the reality is unitary, qualityless, changeless, and nirguna (without form). The Advaitins give the notion of saguna Brahman or Ishvara. Ishvara is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent.