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Belief, Blog, God, Musings, Philosophy, Reflections, religious belief, Tao, Thoughts, Unitarian Universalist
There are so many definitions of God.
In Exodus in the Old Testament, God tells Moses his name is ‘I Am That I Am’. In the Torah the word for God is Yaweh. Often times translated as ‘I Will Be What I Will Be’ or ‘He Causes to be’. The Buddhists believe in the existence of an ‘Enlightened Being’, who vows to save all sentient beings from their sufferings. These traditions see God as personally involved in our daily life.
In other religions or philosophies such as the Tao, what we westerners would consider God is not a ‘name’ or a ‘thing’ but the underlying natural order of the universe whose ultimate essence is difficult to describe. The Tao is thus “eternally nameless”.
The definition or image of God is unique to each individual. As unique as a fingerprint – no two alike. When I was a child visiting my grandparent’s churches, the images of God was depicted as a virile elderly white man with long flowing white hair and beard. In some images he looked angry while other images he looked benevolent. Even as a child, this image didn’t work for me.
I have long translated ‘God’ as un-nameable, un-knowable and present in all things. Larger than this life, larger than this world, God is un-fathomable to the human mind. God has no beginning, no end. To me, God is everything that is good in the world. No one narrative or description is large enough to depict its meaning. No human word or combination of words will ever come close to defining God. So given the inadequacies of my language, I still use the word God, knowing it is naming something bigger than a mere word or my imagination will ever conceive.
For some people it is easier for them to say what God isn’t; ‘God isn’t male’, ‘God isn’t female’, ‘God isn’t human’, ‘God isn’t all seeing’, ‘God doesn’t judge’, ‘God doesn’t exist’…
It is easier for me to say, ‘God is.’
Just a thought from the pew.