The Case For An Objective God

this is an essay i wrote a while back on the nature of God (which interests me much more then the question of whether God exists or not). some of the ideas in it may even be outdated for me, but i wanted to hear what the people here think about this.

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A lot of people would argue that God is transcendent to us, that he is not just human plus some powers. It seems, to me, that in order for this to be true, God would have to have a completely objective point of view. What makes our minds human is our subjectivity, the fact that as humans, we can only interpret things from our one single point of view, one solitary perspective, filtered through our own personality and who we are. We can never experience existence through someone else's mind or from outside of ourselves. What we think at any given moment, whether its shown to be wrong later, is what we believe to be the truth right now.

When I talk about God, I refer to him/her/it/them as "he" or "him", but this is simply an easier way to say it instead of saying him/her/it/them every time. Truthfully, it doesn't seem to me that sex would apply to God, at least not in the way that we think about it, but from here on out, I will refer to God in the masculine for the simple reason of saving time, and because most people probably recognize God as "him" anyway.

Also, this is not an argument on the existence or non-existence of God, but of his possible nature. Anytime God is referred to as if he exists should be qualified with "if God does exist".

Could God be a conscious, self aware being or entity of some sort? A lot of people seem to think of God this way, and perhaps it's just a metaphor of sorts, an easier way for people to think of such a far superior being; as being similar to themselves. It could be said that how people picture God is a sort of Rorschach test, as the nature of God seems to reflect whomever one is asking on the nature of God.

This may be true, but the same can be said of anything, as everything we encounter has to be subjectively interpreted by our individual minds. The impressions someone has of any person or object they run into can only be interpreted subjectively, and the way someone thinks of everything around them will have some reflection of who they are.

But could this explain the way God thinks? To me, saying that God experiences emotions such as love (for his creations) and is said to be the embodiment of what is good and righteous would suggest that God has a subjective mind. The fact that God has free will to make decisions seems to suggest a subjective mind. Did God weigh the decision in his mind whether to create the universe, favoring its existence over its non-existence, or was there no choice to it? Does God have preferences to certain things above other things? Can God disagree with something?

A subjective God, to me, makes it seem as if God is nothing but an ideologue, pushing his own agenda. That God wants certain things for us, that one thing should be considered right and something else considered wrong seems to humanize him. Perhaps it's our subjective human minds that have to rationalize God to have certain human attributes, such as emotions and preferences.

If God were to be all knowing, would he not have to be all understanding? To be all knowing and all understanding, he would be unable to hold any beliefs, because belief can only come from uncertainty, from faith that what is thought to be true is, in fact, true. For God to be all understanding, he would need to understand how each one of us feels, and understanding of emotions comes from empathy. If God is empathetic, God would then experience emotions. If God is truly interacting with us, would that not be desiring to change the way things happen? If God desires to change the outcome of existence, does God not then hold the belief that what he is doing will be better (or worse) then the way it had been before? If God is all knowing and all powerful, why would anything have to have been changed at all?

So how does one judge what God might possibly be like? Just as our view of God is very much a Rorschach test of our minds, Gods creation could be a Rorschach test of Gods mind. The universe itself could be said to be a reflection of how Gods mind works, much the way a painting, sculpture, or poem is a reflection of the way a person's mind works.

So, what could one take away from looking at the universe? It's vast, empty, and quite indifferent. The universe does not seem to hold any preference to any particular object or area. It's symmetrical, as in very evenly distributed, no space is favored with more or less matter then any other. Time passes, unconcerned with our pains, joys, and even our lives. Comets, gamma ray blasts, blazars, and radiation destroy entire worlds with impunity, unaware of whether anyone thought of them as beautiful, ugly, or deserving of their existence. Entire galaxies have been forming tumultuously, solar systems appear and obliterate unceremoniously. The universe spent most of its existence without us, and it will continue to exist once we're gone.

The universe does not miss that which has already been, and it does not anticipate that which might be.

Understanding the universe and exploring its farthest reaches is not a right. The universe does not care whether we comprehend it or not. And yet it works in a manner that can be understood. God, if he exists, seems to favor a universe that works on simple, rational, mathematical logic as oppose to arbitrary rules. From what's understood, these rules have always been in place, which seems to suggest that God does not capriciously change them on whim. It seems God, if he exists, has built the universe in a way that it can sustain itself without any observable interaction. God seems to take an objective, even indifferent approach to his creation.

So what is an objective God? An objective God could not have a single mind, because that would suggest that God can only perceive and experience things in one way. An objective God could not have any preference of one thing over another, which means an objective God would not have free will or the freedom to make decisions, as that would be preferring one outcome to another. An objective God would be a God of pure observances, either unaware or indifferent to our plights. An objective God would not experience any emotions or desires. Emotions, by definition, are subjective. How could God experience happiness or sadness if God did not hold the belief that something in particular was either right or wrong? How could God desire us to do something over another unless he subjectively believes it to be right? How could an all knowing God desire something for us if he did not know what the outcome already is?

God, I could argue, is just a fancy word for absolute truth as oppose to a conscious, self aware, decision making, and thinking entity. But that begs the question, why would God need to be objective rather then subjective? Can the truth be subjective? If so, then God, or the absolute truth, would be unable to fully comprehend other subjective minds. Can the absolute truth prefer one thing to another? If so, then it has a strange way of showing it. Can the absolute truth love something or disagree with another? If so, then are some things absolutely, truly better then other things? Can the absolute truth have intent? Is it consciously working towards some goal or outcome?

But most of all, can a subjective mind know the absolute truth? If not, then a subjective God would not be omniscient. How can anyone say what God, or absolute truth, is? If God is subjective, then is the absolute truth a subjective interpretation of his? Could there even be an absolute truth if God were not objective? Then, would existence not just be an interpretation of truth?