Toward a Personal Theology continued from 01.05.15

WHAT ABOUT GOD…

Russian Icon in a church in Smolensk

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share similar doctrinal beliefs about God.  All three religions are monotheistic.  Judaism insists that God, YHWH, is a single indivisible unity, a unity unlike any other entity.  Adherents traditionally don’t pronounce YHWH but in prayer use the word adonai which basically is the practice of speaking of God as “Lord” or “Master.”  Christians have no reservations about addressing God directly or saying the name when speaking about him. As a sign of special respect and adoration, they refer to God as “Lord” and “Master.”  The Trinity is the ultimate mystery in Christianity.  God is represented in “three persons,” God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the Father, but all three together are one God.  Muslims reject any notion that God, Allah, can be pictured, so no visual representations are allowed even in art and architecture. Implications in all three monotheistic religions indicate that God is male and is the infinitely supreme being in the universe, omnipotent and totally without flaw. The inscrutable Deity, He is the almighty Lord of all the worlds that he has created with the understanding that all the worlds that exist were created by Him.

Walking Buddha from Southeast Asia... in our back porch

The idea of a creator deity, especially a personal God, is incompatible with the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism, which stress the impermanence of all existences and phenomena of the world.  Buddhist teachings emphasize the importance of learning the correct way to live in an impermanent world, an impermanent society, beginning with the realization that everyone who is born has to die and all that exists will be extinguished.

Hindu good spirit bell from Bali hanging over the door in my office. 

The tongue is the clapper, and when the bell is typically hung outside, the wind moves it and makes a clattering noise when something evil comes along.

In Hinduism, the supreme, universal Absolute spirit is Brahman, and Brahman is Absolute Reality, the Godhead.  Everything that exists or can be described and attributed to life, all space and time, all matter and energy are included in Absolute Reality.  Absolute Reality is associated with, is tied to, the process of evolution.  In the process of evolution, man was not composed of any special material which has not been made use of again and again but of the same material as all the other animals.  Man, however, is not a mere physical object that can be positively or negatively conditioned, but is especially endowed.  Man has the gift of speech, the capacity to dream; and because man is self-aware, he has free will. Man has a value-sense. It is in the working out of a person’s value sense with relation to Absolute Reality that the religion has application to individual life.

Chinese scholar carved in ivory

Of course, there are other options in the matter of adopting a god concept, and among the options are belief that there is no god at all and an assumption that it is impossible to know whether or not there is god. Atheism and agnosticism are generally associated with anti-religious thought.  Agnosticism is an old concept, at least as old as Protagoras, a 5th-century Greek philosopher, but the word itself was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, from the Greek a for “without” and  gnosis for knowing. The idea is that humanity lacks the requisite knowledge and sufficient rational evidence to justify either belief: that there is god or that there is no god.  Atheism is a denial of the existence of god.

Mural in North Park

So, “You pays your money, and you takes your choice.”  

Homeless woman in Hillcrest... across from Mercy Hospital