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Abba
Guest
If God exists; why would He be a personal God?
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Loboto-Me
Guest
The first thing that comes to mind is that he declares that he knew each of us by name and knows each hair on our head…
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jpjd
Guest
Because not only did He create us, he gave us life – He is our Father. And so we have a personal relationship of love with our Father.
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Johnnyduffy
Guest
God is all loving and loves each one of us personly he died for you as if you were the only person on earth.
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John7
Guest
because Jesus
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bmonk
Guest
We have come to know God, first through Moses and the prophets and the experience of Israel, and now even more through Jesus–and we have learned that he is a personal God.
To ask why is like asking you why you speak English, or why you have skin: Because you do. It’s the way it is.
But, you might also consider how an impersonal God could or would create different persons like you and me.
To ask why is like asking you why you speak English, or why you have skin: Because you do. It’s the way it is.
But, you might also consider how an impersonal God could or would create different persons like you and me.
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tonyrey
Guest
It is often argued that it is anthropomorphic to believe God is personal but to believe God is impersonal implies that we are superior to God by virtue of our power of reasoning - which is absurd. There is no evidence that impersonal objects have insight into the nature of reality whereas the success of science is ample evidence that we outstrip every other form of existence (of which we are aware). God is not personal in precisely the same way as we are but Jesus used the image of the loving Father because it is the closest analogy that is readily understood by children as well as adults. That image is the most appropriate because since we are made in the image of God we must reflect even to a minute extent His nature - not only in our power of reason but also in our capacity for unselfish love. Reality is not anthropocentric but ratiocentric!
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Ridgerunner
Guest
The concept of God includes omniscience and that He is the Creator of all things. If not, He would not be God. But if He is those things, He necessarily created us, keeps us in existence and knows everything about us. Is there any good reason to believe, then, that He would not be a personal God? Did He create us, keep us in existence and know us down to the last atom and synapse for pointless entertainment?
The notion of God includes infinity. If He is infinite, He does not need diversion or entertainment. Therefore, His purpose with us must be a different thing. If He is (as the notion of God includes) perfect in everything, then He is perfect in love. If so, how could He fail to love us?
To me, that’s a personal God. I can’t see it any other way.
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shoe
Guest
I think that God is a “personal God” for the simple reason that He has “personality,” which is to say that God is an intelligent, sentient, living being. And since God has created humans as personal beings, He naturally would have the ability to communicate with them on a personal level (something He has been doing since the beginning). Both the Old and New Testaments frequently describe God’s relationship to mankind in personal terms such as Father, Shepherd, Counselor, etc. I think that the “prodigal son” story provides a good example of God’s personal love toward human beings in that even when humans are not on their best behavior, God surrounds His creation, His children, with His mercy, loving kindness, and forgiveness.
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Abba
Guest
My goodness! I’m having what he’s having.
I like that understanding that it would follow given that God is intelligent and wise he would be personal. Beautiful! May Our Lord bless you abundantly! You and eveyone here at CAF are in my humble prayers.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
I don’t understand why you think its appropriate to make a theological statement to a question looking for a philosophical answer? Its mind-boggling to me.
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Jim_Baur
Guest
Philosophically speaking, about all we can get to about a god is that it exists, and designed the universe.
The rest is from Revelation. God the Father has revealed Himself, His Son, and the Spirit.
Then we get into His loving covenant with us.
I as a practicing Roman Catholic believe in a God that loves me. As Mother Teresa would say, He thirsts for my love and the love of all 7,000,000,000 humans beings.
Then we develop our ideas of person, fatherhood and family from His revelation.
The rest is from Revelation. God the Father has revealed Himself, His Son, and the Spirit.
Then we get into His loving covenant with us.
I as a practicing Roman Catholic believe in a God that loves me. As Mother Teresa would say, He thirsts for my love and the love of all 7,000,000,000 humans beings.
Then we develop our ideas of person, fatherhood and family from His revelation.
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Kismetji
Guest
A God has to be a person because without personhood all other features characteristic of gods would lose their justification. A non-person cannot love or be loved, nor does he have to be worshipped as there is no one to be pleased by that worship. A non-person cannot dispense mercy, or represent the moral law as anything but a set of meaningless codes. Instead what we see in nearly all theistic religions is a surrender to the will, the pure freedom and autocracy of God, not to laws of nature or random chance - but the wishes and assents of God. A non-person cannot be admired the way gods are characteristically admired, for their bravery, their beauty, their grace and the skill with which they lead human beings on through time and place in a personal, devotional sway. This is seen all throughout history. A non-person cannot be praised, for praise is personal. Furthermore, the personal stamp which pervades all things, would be non-existent if it did not stem from some higher form of personality. Animism was no accident. It is the right attitude to take in seeing all as personal in its own, unique way, and all this flows necessarily in God being a person.
Take away all this content, and what you are left with is a nothingness. Perhaps it is a vibrant, mystic nothingness; but a nothingness nonetheless which has been paired down to a merely philosophical, and not a robustly theological, account of God.
The reason some people speak of ‘God’ in hollowed out terms is that they have preserved the word, but invoked a concept that is completely other and hitched it to that word, so that they might preserve some of the necessary conditions of God (eternality, say), without giving a consistent account of God, for that would, as I said above, require personhood. So, in truth there is no such thing as an impersonal God. Anymore than there is a female bachelor. That is simply an abuse of language which we all can readily discern in taking the time to reflect on “God” and “Person.” We see that there is a one-to-one fit, just like there is a one-to-one fit in the concepts “killing” and “dying” - that is, the latter is contained in the former. However, there is no such one-to-one fit with “God” and “Being.” One might mystically/scholastically argue that God is Being, but Being does not exhaust the very concept God, as he is more than being: he includes all or at least some of the content I’ve just mentioned, and that content depends on God being a person.
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onenow1
Guest
He came to us in a most personal way as a baby,and enforces God’s statement. Gen 1: 26 " Let us make man in our image after our likeness;
Peace and God Bless
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fhansen
Guest
Because He’s superior to ourselves, who possess personhood-and personhood is superior to it’s alternative: a vague pantheistic concept of an unknowable, transcendent, distance, aloof non-person.
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runningdude
Guest
Because we only know of God because God revealed Himself as a personal God to humanity. It would be intellectually dishonest to consider any other proof of God’s existence to valid.
On its face, this sounds like begging the question: “I believe in God, because I believe in God.”
However, its more like “I know my brother exists because I exist, because he said ‘Hi’ to me”. We know God exists, because He says “Hi!”
On its face, this sounds like begging the question: “I believe in God, because I believe in God.”
However, its more like “I know my brother exists because I exist, because he said ‘Hi’ to me”. We know God exists, because He says “Hi!”
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Abba
Guest
Hello bmonk,
The fact that we are different persons does not seem to be sufficient to imply an impersonal God.
Some may argue that how He ‘could’ is because He has the power. Why He ‘would’ does not necessarily imply an impersonal God. We can absorb variety in creation, rocks, trees, animals, etc… Even within their own species there are varieties. Animals are unique. My dog is not like any other dog. There is even difference in clones and twins.
The fact that we are different persons does not seem to be sufficient to imply an impersonal God.
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Abba
Guest
Good idea, we should define what we mean by God in this thread. Well, at least we mean He is omniscient and Creator.
Well, Albert Einstein and some of our readers would argue that He would not necessarily be bothered with us little specks of the universe. Even though He created us it does not necessarily follow that he is nessarily conscious of us and actively keeping us in existence. He could have created us and left us to subsist in accordance to laws that maintain our existence independent of Him. In other words, He may have created us and is not necessarily conscious of us.
Albert Einstein:
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
Can you clarify your point here? I am not really following. Thank you.
Bold and underlining is mine.
I like this. If God is perfect then He is perfect in Love and if He is perfect in love - how could he fail to love us. We need to add another concept of God here: Perfect. So, we understand by God as we are speaking of Him in this thread as Perfect, Creator and Ominiscient.
This of course raises a question Ridgerunner. Given God is perfect, how is he perfect in everything? Is He a perfect thief, a perfect liar, a perfect alcoholic? Is he perfectly good and perfectly bad?
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Abba
Guest
I think excellent deductions and arguments can be made not only for his existence (which many question) but also for certain attributes of God, such as; ominiscient, perfect, good, and one (see Plato).
Exactly, :yup: We get our idea, concept, perception etc… of PERSON from revelation and not at all from philosophy. Father Jean Galot notes that it was at the Council of Chalcedon that the concept of Person as distinguished from Nature was introduced to humanity. He notes that not even Aristotle distinguished the person from nature. Given this we need to turn to revelation to understand what is a person.
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tonyrey
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