Who Is God? or the Gods John Cobb doesn’t believe in

I have been burning through my Summer reading list and I seem to have stumbled onto a rich vein of form! The odd thing is that they are all books with ‘God’ in the title. There are 5 (out of about 20) but they seem to have all ended up in the middle of stack. Here are the 5 I am chewing on right now:

- The PostModern God edited by Graham Ward

- God & Religion in the PostModern World by David Ray Griffin

- God : a guide for the perplexed by Keith Ward

- The Named God and the Question of Being by Stanley J. Grenz

- God Is Not One by Stephen Prothero

What is so fascinating to me in all of this is how widely dispersed use of the word ‘God’ can be. You can mean a whole bunch of different things when you say ‘God’ and only a fool would assume to know what another means when they invoke that title/name. [I touched on this a while ago in 'I'm not sure most Christians know that']

It made me think back to a section in John Cobb’s introductory book when he clearly outlined what he didn’t mean when he said ‘God’. What follows is a verbatim reproduction of that section. What I would love to hear is what you don’t mean when you say ‘God’. This will be a fun little experiment in clarification done negativa,.

1. God as Cosmic Moralist. At its worst this notion takes the form of the image of God as divine lawgiver and judge, who has proclaimed an arbitrary set of moral rules, who keeps records of offenses, and who will punish offenders. In its more enlightened versions, the suggestion is retained that God’s most fundamental concern is the development of moral attitudes. This makes primary for God what is secondary for humane people, and limits the scope of intrinsic importance to human beings as the only beings capable of moral attitudes. Process theology denies the existence of this God.

2. God as the Unchanging and Passionless Absolute. This concept derives from the Greeks, who maintained that “perfection” entailed complete “immutability,” or lack of change. The notion of “impassibility” stressed that deity must be completely unaffected by any other reality and must lack all passion or emotional response. The notion that deity is the “Absolute” has meant that God is not really related to the world. The world is really related to God, in that the relation to God is constitutive of the world— an adequate description of the world requires reference to its dependence on God—but even the fact that there is a world is not constitutive of the reality of God. God is wholly independent of the world: the God-world relation is purely external to God. These three terms—unchangeable, passionless, and absolute—finally say the same thing, that the world contributes nothing to God, and that God’s influence upon the world is in no way conditioned by divine responsiveness to unforeseen, self-determining activities of us worldly beings. Process theology denies the existence of this God.

3. God as Controlling Power. This notion suggests that God determines every detail of the world. When a loved one dies prema turely, the question “Why?” is often asked instinctively, meaning “Why did God choose to take this life at this time?” Also, when humanly destructive natural events such as hurricanes occur, legal jargon speaks of “acts of God.” On the positive side, a woman may thank God for the rescue of her husband from a collapsed coal mine, while the husbands of a dozen other women are lost. But what kind of a God would this be who spares one while allowing the others to perish? Process theology denies the existence of this God.

4. God as Sanctioner of the Status Quo. This connotation characterizes a strong tendency in all religions. It is supported by the three previous notions. The notion of God as Cosmic Moralist has suggested that God is primarily interested in order. The notion of God as Unchangeable Absolute has suggested God’s establishment of an unchangeable order for the world. And the notion of God as Controlling Power has suggested that the present order exists be cause God wills its existence. In that case, to be obedient to God is to preserve the status quo. Process theology denies the existence of this God.

5. God as Male. The liberation movement among women has made us painfully aware how deeply our images of deity have been sexually one-sided. Not only have we regarded all three “persons” of the Trinity as male, but the tradition has reinforced these images with theological doctrines such as those noted above. God is totally active, controlling, and independent, and wholly lacking in receptiveness and responsiveness. Indeed, God seems to be the archetype of the dominant, inflexible, unemotional, completely independent (read “strong”) male. Process theology denies the existence of this God.

Please let me know what you DON’T mean when you say ‘God’… and make sure to frame it in the negative !

-Bo Sanders

13 comments

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cammoblammo

Just like me, God is male, white and sports a stylin' beard. We are both badly in need of a haircut. I just wish I could fire lightning around like God. Although if I could I wouldn't need God, would I?

When God looks like that it means I'm anthropomorphising my wishful thinking so I can project my desires on to everyone else around me. God becomes the fairy godfather who happens to like the things I like and hate the things I hate.

I don't know what to expect when I step away from that picture and just let God be God.

lonetomato808

(Shameless plug, feel free to delete)I wrote a post recently about how a friend of mine asked me if I still believed in God. It took me a while to respond and here's why (from the post):"I knew that the God that my friend was asking me about was the traditional Judeo-Christian idea about God – an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity. But I don’t know that I believe in that God anymore and so I couldn’t simply say, “yes.”

(from: http://lonetomato808.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/364-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-god-part-two/)

JanG

What I don't mean when I say "God" is this: a wimp who can't take my relatively puny anger or, indeed, fury. I don't mean a stereotyped bearded man in white bathrobe, etc., who carries around a ledger of crimes and heresies. God did not give us intellectual, moral, ethical, or emotional curiosity just to knock us down and tell us the material world is one big fake. A god who/that understands and "speaks" in Higgs bosuns or strings isn't sentient in the way we consider sentience. Thus, we are always many steps behind God.

Even though I'm just one of the gang in the congregation, and even though I have no idea what different kinds of theology mean from an academic point of view, I don't see God as the judgmental meanie shown in various books of the Bible -- nor do I see God as fawning upon one race or creed, either. I also do not see God as having just one son (or child) but as having all of us humans, who can aspire to more than we are by treating everyone else as equals.

This is an interesting exercise, more challenging than I thought at the outset!

Woodylovesjesus

@JanG Absolutely! We are all God's precious and beloved children!

For me I have noticed the difficulty from breaking away from seeing God as sexually-male. Every time I've been referring to God I try to use gender neutral terms. It has been challenging but I have been relishing the experience because i think this goes with the territory. God is not supposed to be something that can be easily labeled, described, or named. The Hebrews expressed this tension very clearly and respectfully in the old testament. I think in a way this comment applies to all 5 of your points because God in a way can be all of those things, some or none. God is to huge and mysterious to pin certain attributes, especially with our limited abilities to do so!

dangarvin

God as elector. Some to salvation and some to damnation. I deny the existence of this god.

God as impassive/impartial judge. Some to salvation and some to damnation. I deny the existence of this god.

God as wanton creator. Purposely spawning billions of lives, human or otherwise, knowing that most would live short and painful lives followed by a (all too often) long and painful death. I deny the existence of this god. Toss in the ignominy of eternal conscious torment after the horrifying life and death and you've got a god I so heartily deny that language fails me in trying to describe the magnitude of my denial.

I suppose that means I am a heretic, a process person or, depending on who you ask, both. ;-)

timothydown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WybvhRu9KU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL600CA1381A02E508 :)

...and I would change the "he's" in the song to yet another "God."

MarshallPease

God as something distinct from my experience, the object of my experience, and the reality behind the object of my experience. Not just "me", of course.

Stephen Barkley

God as the Titillator of Your Sub-Sect. I'm a little worn out with people who think that the goal in life is to get together, work up a feeling, and experience God (usually accompanied by some sub-par derivative emo-rock). God must be concerned with more than that.(Reading that through before hitting "Post", I realize how condescending that sounds. I'm only frustrated because I've lived there too long.)

BoSanders moderator

@Stephen Barkley That is so interesting - because for SO many people that I know, that is EXACTLY the thing about God that they love so much!!

They love that they can go to church, join their voices with so many others (they are not alone) and feel God move among them. That feeling is pinnacle for them. -Bo

@BoSanders Yeah, I love going to church and joining my voice with others—I've been a worship leader & pastor in a pentecostal setting for about 15 years now. I believe corporate worship is important.

I just don't like the idea that feeling God move in corporate worship is the pinnacle of spirituality. It's a fine feeling—one I believe I've experienced—but I'd take helping a struggling person find a place to rent (for example) over subjective shivers any day.

Mark Andrew

"Why is God?" ~ a great question to ponder

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