Theology From The Plain Part Four - Does It Make Sense To Think Of God As A Person?

In an earlier TFOP post I wrote that I use the word “God” both in reference to the totality all that is and also to a smaller portion of all that is that reflects its possible overall intention and ultimate direction.    Granted, the second definition requires much more of a leap of faith than the first!

However in either of these cases, but particularly focusing on the less controversial first meaning of “God”,  does it make sense to think of God as a person?  

If God is all, then it would make sense to think of God as more than a mere person.  And it would seem an act of extreme hubris to think that God is exactly like us, one small part of the all.  Yet it is also true that there are persons within the all - us for instance!.  So even if the totality of God is much more, or much different, than a version of exactly what we are (persons), personhood is certainly not something alien to God.

Therefore, is it acceptable to think of God as a person, or to attempt to interact with God in personal ways?  Through internal dialogue, speaking, intuitive feelings, or any kind of experience?

I think it does make sense to seek God personally, not so much because God is necessarily a person, but rather because I am a person.  The personhood of God could be a framework, a symbol, a language, a heuristic even, existing in my own mind that enables me to possibly interact meaningfully with the all.

So once again,  if I attempt to interact personally with God, it is not so much because God is a person, but because I am a person.   Personhood is a framework that this particular part of the cosmos (me) might use as an operating system to think about the cosmos as a whole.

One criticism I can think of is this - does this mean that I can anthropomorphize anything?   

First of all, anthropomorphizing things is not necessarily bad, but obviously when we stop trying to consider another entity on its own terms it can be dangerous.  The golden rule does not work so well if we are dealing with another life form with different needs than a human!  But when I am talking about God here, I am not talking about a tree or a lizard.  I am talking about all that is.  The cosmos as a whole.  Everything.  Any kind of possible communication would have to take a form that is specific to me - a kind of user interface adapted to the abilities of the user.

And secondly, I already have ways of interacting with a tree.  I can touch it, see it, etc. - which are also user interfaces for me.  To say a tree is "rough to the touch" says as much about my systems of perception as it does about the tree.  This subject is obviously a huge potential rabbit hole.....   But the main point is that I do not need to consider a tree a person in some way to interact with it.  However, I do not have a way of interacting with the cosmos as a whole.  I cannot zoom out to take much more of it in (much like a skin cell cannot zoom out to see the entire body), and I certainly cannot get outside of “all that is” both because of my limited abilities and because that is a meaningless concept anyway.  

Of course many would argue that whatever I think, I still do not have a way of interacting with the cosmos!  Point taken!  But if I want to take a leap of faith and assume that meaningful communication is even a remote possibility, then it makes sense that I would need a user interface of some kind.  And it makes sense that personhood might be that user interface for me, since I am a person.

So in conclusion, I am not suggesting that there is definitely a personal God out there.  That is beyond my ability to comment definitively on.  But I am saying that a personal God exists in me, because I am a person.  And if it is a meaningful endeavor to seek interaction with “all that is”, it certainly seems reasonable that personhood could be a user interface for me.

But is it a meaningful endeavor?  Is it possible that the personal God within me corresponds to something greater?  My thought is that, because our understanding of things must necessarily relate to our total experience of things as a part to the whole,  there may be room for a little leap of faith here.

Brief Blog Adventure

I have been debating whether Scripture is the infallible word of God with someone on Facebook. She continually claims that I am more interested in my own personal desires than truth. This is a frustrating obstacle to honest discourse right now. I realize that we all question the psychology driving each other's beliefs, but man, she and I don't even know each other.

These are the thoughts I sent to her in response to this claim. Do you have any thoughts or experiences along these lines?

"Finally, let me say that I have pursued answers with all the honesty I can muster. I will assume the same of you. Since I do not know you well, I question your judgement not your motivation. And you and I have come to different conclusions on the nature of Scripture. Being the son of a Baptist minister, I know what it is like to doubt oneself in the extreme when changing one's opinions about religion. Ironically, it is a growing faith in God, that if He exists He is good and will correct me with care if I am wrong, that has allowed me to question and change my thoughts. During many bouts of prayer, reflection, and self-doubt and many dark nights of the soul, I have always come again to the conclusion that we must live according to what we think is true, not according to what we are afraid might be true."

Of course, there is nothing wrong with an humble dose of what we hope might be true as well!

Daoism, Christianity, God and No-thing

These are excerpts from two thinkers considering the nature of something and nothing. The first is a mathematical physicist who loves storytelling and describes the universe more in terms of organism than of machine. The second is a Catholic theologian at Georgetown University who has authored many books attempting to reconcile evolution with religion. This is taken from an interview, so please forgive the grammatically scattershot transcription. The last excerpt is the 11th stanza from the Tao Te Ching. It is something else to ponder.

“Remember how elementary particles spontaneously erupt out of no-thing-ness, the ultimate realm of generation? Emptiness is permeated with the urgency to leap forth. The difficulty is with language: when we say emptiness, we fail to evoke any sense of awe for the truth of the matter.

We can use another word: the ground of being is generosity. The ultimate source of all that is, the support and well of being, is Ultimate Generosity. All being comes forth and shines, glimmers and glistens, because the root reality of the universe is generosity of being. That’s why the ground of being is empty: every thing has been given over to the universe; all existence has been given over to the universe; all existence has been poured forth; all being has gushed forth because Ultimate Generosity retains no thing.”

- Brian Swimme from The Universe is a Green Dragon

“....I'm talking about philosophical Daoism such as you find in the famous classic the Dao De Jing by the famous philosopher Laozi and according to the philosophy of Daoism ultimate reality -- called the Dao -- is humble, is unobtrusive, is not prominent, doesn't stick out but precisely because of that humility of ultimate reality it allows the rest of nature to emerge, and perhaps the best example given by the Dao De Jing is to imagine a circle, a wheel with spokes converging from a center and that center geometrically speaking is essentially nothing but yet this nothingness generates a wheel. Or think of the emptiness of a window which allows light to come in. It's this insight the Daoist philosophy had that that which is most effective is also the most unobtrusive, and they have the notion of the way which simply can be translated as effective non-interference so that which is most effective, most foundational to reality, is not going to be found among the object of ordinary experience, and I correlate this with the Christian notion of the humility of God and that's one of the themes that perhaps you found perhaps a bit strange. It's not one that you you might have grown up with and that many people have not grown up with in their religious experience but yet a case can be made and has been made by contemporary theology that this is the most characteristic feature of the God of Christianity, and the classic text for this is St. Paul's letter to the Philippines in which he puts an early Christian hymn which says Christ was in the form of God but did not want to cling to that status but emptied himself and took on the form of a slave and subsequent theological reflection has taken that to mean that ultimate reality is self-emptying, self-humbling reality and that fits nicely the new understanding of all the universe because a humble God would would not overwhelm the world, would not stick out prominently as one object among others which religion often looks for, and we're disappointed because we don't find that type of God. We find very unavailable that kind of God but the unavailability of God is a correlate of the fact that we find a universe which is constantly striving to become itself, that's how I understand from a religious point of view this is what evolution is about. Even the expanding universe that we live in as Penberg pointed out can be interpreted theologically as consonant with the theme of a God who lets the world become itself. God wills the independence of the world. And this is kind of like the God of Daoism or the ultimate reality.”

• John Haught, in an interview with Robert Wright. The full interview and many, many more from Wright's Meaning of Life series are here

And finally, a translation by S. Mitchell of stanza 11 from the Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu:

“We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.”