The many names of God

@Flamvell Rose,

Flamvell Rose;104098 wrote:

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, (it seems that) the names applied to God are synonymous names, meaning that these names mean exactly the same thing about his goodness and wisdom. Though it is said that these names are the same in reality but different in idea, I believe that it is contrary. Those from many religions ultimately worship the same being that we call "God", but because because a few ideas are differed believe that their religion is infact the correct and only religion that should be lived by. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

Bertrand Russell writes in his autobiography that when he was sent to jail for conscientious objection to World War I, his jailer asked him his religion while filling out a form. Russell replied, "I am an atheist". His jailer looked puzzled, and then said, "It doesn't matter. We all believe in the same God". Russell remarks that this remark kept him cheerful for the rest of the day (he was released in the evening).

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104107 wrote:

Bertrand Russell writes in his autobiography that when he was sent to jail for conscientious objection to World War I, his jailer asked him his religion while filling out a form. Russell replied, "I am an atheist". His jailer looked puzzled, and then said, "It doesn't matter. We all believe in the same God". Russell remarks that this remark kept him cheerful for the rest of the day (he was released in the evening).

I had a similar thing happen to me. A customer asked what religion I was, and not wanting to get into a huge debate with her, I told her that I've always found the teachings of Buddhism to be valuable. She gave a very relieved laugh and touched my shoulder and said, "Oh good, at least you believe in God."

All I could do was smile and nod . . .

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104107 wrote:

Bertrand Russell writes in his autobiography that . . . Russell replied, "I am an atheist".

Wasn't this 'agnostic,' actually, rather than 'atheist?' (and not knowing of that word had puzzled the jailer) I have been asked, on a number of occasions here, whether I was 'Christian' or not. I always answer with the likes of, "In a way yes, in another way, no." Then, depending on who it might be asking, my social relation with them, and such being considered, I might add that 'your normal, relatively mainstream Christian wouldn't consider me to be a fellow Christian with a ten-foot pole, though, even.' (maybe that's because I do not consider Yeshua to have been anything other than just a normal human being like you and I)

Regarding the names of a deity, we will run into some problems (and those of you who have heard this a thousand times now, can skip over this part) if, when using English, we use the word "God." If we were to use the word "god," it'd be fine. The reason is that the god-model of the Jewish belief-system, while being referred, or alluded to, by a good number of epithets, has only one name, namely, YHWH. The Muslem god-model, interestingly enough following the same line of practice, uses a generic term, "Allah," as a name for its model. The Egyptian god-model had names for each member of that trinity. The Cannanite god-model had its specific and non-exchangable name.

Therefore what we will find, is that we do indeed, after all, have different god-models, and that to the degree we find that the description/prescription of any particular god-model does not union with another model, we have two different god-models. Therefore it is in no way true that mainstream Christians hold the same god-model as mainstream Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, or Gnostics do.

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@Flamvell Rose,

I can understand how religions with multiple "God-like" figures are completely different, but when it comes to the Religions that have one supreme "God" I see the same god but a different name. The ideas and principals concerning him are a little different, but ultimately there is one "god" being worshiped. Even though I see the same god others may not. So who knows whether or not it's the same God?

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@Flamvell Rose,

The differences (assuming Abrahamic religion is the subject) are the prophets of each of them. I agree that they are similar, but it might be easier to assume religious superiority considering the small differences (it's easier to make a less-broad assumption). Any monotheistic religion might share characteristics with another.
It is a Hindu and Sikh view for the most part that all religions essentially worship the same god. As for Monotheistic religion, the one major difference is that the Christian god is at the same time an indivisible Trinity.

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@Leonard,

The jailer and TickTock's friends were both right.

If people have it in their minds that their religion is the only right religion, they've missed something. We all have our own paths. Who cares if one says "God" and another something else. It's language. It's not terribly important.

What matters is the practice. Are you kind to others? Do you make a conscious effort to be better toward your fellow man?

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;104279 wrote:

The jailer and TickTock's friends were both right.

If people have it in their minds that their religion is the only right religion, they've missed something. We all have our own paths. Who cares if one says "God" and another something else. It's language. It's not terribly important.

What matters is the practice. Are you kind to others? Do you make a conscious effort to be better toward your fellow man?

Faith is more a matter of right action than right belief. All human conceptions of the notion of god are incomplete and partial: pointers to something beyond that transcends human experience and reason.
There is one god, who is called by many names- Gandhi

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@prothero,

I don't know how many times I've referenced the old Buddhist wisdom: don't mistake the finger for the moon.

Right belief is important because it helps facilitate right action. We just cannot confuse ourselves into thinking that right belief can only be expressed with one metaphysical outlook.

As for transcending experience, I take it you mean something like mundane experience?

---------- Post added 11-18-2009 at 10:28 AM ----------

Leonard;104203 wrote:

It is a Hindu and Sikh view for the most part that all religions essentially worship the same god.

Don't forget that the Baha'i also keep that teaching as a mater of doctrine. It is also often implied in other western monotheisms.

Leonard;104203 wrote:

As for Monotheistic religion, the one major difference is that the Christian god is at the same time an indivisible Trinity.

Not necessarily. There were Christians prior to the introduction of the Trinity...

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@Flamvell Rose,

It is unclear whether "God" is a name, or it is a description. It is not as if God was being called, "Mr. God" (which would be a name). There are certain properties associated with the word, "God" without which what is being said to be God could not be God. For example, God could not be mortal. Would the word, "Allah" necessarily have the very same associated properties as the word, "God"? All persons who are named, "John" need not have the same properties to be called, "John". But how about the term, "God". Notice, by the way, that the term, "god" is not the same as the term, "God". Zeus was a god. But is God a god?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104325 wrote:

It is unclear whether "God" is a name, or it is a description.,,,There are certain properties associated with the word, "God" without which what is being said to be God could not be God. ....not the same as the term, "God". Zeus was a god. But is God a god?

I think even here you are going to run into trouble. No two people even from the same religion (say Christianity) actually have an identical conception of divine nature or divine action.

What are the properties of god without which "could not be God"?
Your response is likely to be omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, immutability and/or impassiblity. Yet each of this divine qualities is brought into question in each faith. Particularly in twentienth century religous philosophy and theology many hold that these greek philosophical notions of perfection and medieval scholastic interpretations of scripture are in error.
The world "god" means many different things to many different people.

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@prothero,

prothero;104353 wrote:

I think even here you are going to run into trouble. No two people even from the same religion (say Christianity) actually have an identical conception of divine nature or divine action.

How would you know such a thing? I bet lots of people from the same religion have the same conception, or near enough so that it doesn't matter. Of course, you would have to test for that. But how would you know it a-priori? It is an empirical matter.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104356 wrote:

How would you know such a thing? I bet lots of people from the same religion have the same conception, or near enough so that it doesn't matter. Of course, you would have to test for that. But how would you know it a-priori? It is an empirical matter.

Well I have spent a lot of time in a lot of different churches discussing such matters and I have yet to find two. I did not mean for it to be a scientific or empirical assertion but I suppose it is. It could be falsified. It was more a rhetorical flourish that conceptions of the divine are many and varied. There is no single accepted notion of divine nature and action. There probably is no generally accepted conception at all.
It is part of what makes it so difficult to talk about it. Different people are using the term "god", "allah", ect. in such different ways with such different meanings. Even people from the same faith or same culture and professing to be adherents of the same religion. Even people attending the same church have vastly different views. Churches are primarily about community not about creeds.

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@prothero,

prothero;104359 wrote:

Well I have spent a lot of time in a lot of different churches discussing such matters and I have yet to find two. I did not mean for it to be a scientific or empirical assertion but I suppose it is. It could be falsified. It was more a rhetorical flourish that conceptions of the divine are many and varied. There is no single accepted notion of divine nature and action. There probably is no generally accepted conception at all.
It is part of what makes it so difficult to talk about it. Different people are using the term "god", "allah", ect. in such different ways with such different meanings. Even people from the same faith or same culture and professing to be adherents of the same religion. Even people attending the same church have vastly different views. Churches are primarily about community not about creeds.

This is a question of fact, and is unlikely to be settled by debate. A lot would obviously depend on how different, or how much the same, the conceptions are. I don't think it is true that, "we all believe in the same God". The Pope and a very religious Muslim likely do not.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104363 wrote:

This is a question of fact, and is unlikely to be settled by debate. A lot would obviously depend on how different, or how much the same, the conceptions are. I don't think it is true that, "we all believe in the same God". The Pope and a very religious Muslim likely do not.

I think it depends on where one is starting from.
Surely you are not saying there is a different "god" for each religion. Are you saying there is a vastly different conception of god in each religion?
Are you saying there is no "god" just human conceptions of such an imaginary being?

The conceptions of the divine in Islam, Judaism and Chrisitianity are more similiar than say between Buddhism and Christianity?
Most theists are going to be monotheists these days, meaning they will hold that there both is a god and that god is one. They may feel their personal or their religious preference has a better grasp on the nature of god and divine action in the world.

I would hold there is a mystical element in each of the relgious traditions that teaches that god is transcendent beyond any human conception of divine nature. Human conceptions of the divine are but imperfect symbols pointing to a transcendent sacred. Neti, Neti, not this, not that.

It is human to want to touch the sacred and the holy but the deeper elements in the tradition understand these are but symbols to a reality beyond the material and beyond reason.

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@prothero,

prothero;104374 wrote:

It is human to want to touch the sacred and the holy but the deeper elements in the tradition understand these are but symbols to a reality beyond the material and beyond reason.

I sometimes think that it is human to want to imagine that there is something sacred and holy out there, and the reason that mysticism and notions of transcendency arise, indeed, must arise, is that there is, simply, nothing out there and we're just dog-paddling in the void. This is unacceptable to many people, so they imagine there just has to be more to it all. It is not a matter of something so utterly beyond our human imagining that words fail us, it is that we're just making stuff up to fill some sort of void that is inherent in our mere existence.

Perhaps there is no reality beyond the material and beyond reason. Perhaps this is it. We are born, we wander around accomplishing this, that, or the other thing for a certain number of years, and then we wink out of existence, and there is no more of us left anywhere at all except in the memories of those we leave behind, and who will also eventually vanish taking with them even the memory of who we once were until at last it is as if we never even existed at all.

But then again, maybe wings, harps and a halo await us. Or some of us, anyway. Individual results may vary.

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@prothero,

prothero;104374 wrote:

I think it depends on where one is starting from.
Surely you are not saying there is a different "god" for each religion. Are you saying there is a vastly different conception of god in each religion?
Are you saying there is no "god" just human conceptions of such an imaginary being?

The conceptions of the divine in Islam, Judaism and Chrisitianity are more similiar than say between Buddhism and Christianity?
Most theists are going to be monotheists these days, meaning they will hold that there both is a god and that god is one. They may feel their personal or their religious preference has a better grasp on the nature of god and divine action in the world.

I would hold there is a mystical element in each of the relgious traditions that teaches that god is transcendent beyond any human conception of divine nature. Human conceptions of the divine are but imperfect symbols pointing to a transcendent sacred. Neti, Neti, not this, not that.

It is human to want to touch the sacred and the holy but the deeper elements in the tradition understand these are but symbols to a reality beyond the material and beyond reason.

Yes. I am saying that the conception of God for Christians is very much different from that of Muslims, and different from that of the Jews, but not as different as that from the Muslims. But, the Abrahamic religions, are much more different from Hinduism or Buddhism than they are from one another. I am talking of conceptions, of course. Whether there is a God (or gods) is a different issue.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104400 wrote:

Yes. I am saying that the conception of God for Christians is very much different from that of Muslims, and different from that of the Jews, but not as different as that from the Muslims. But, the Abrahamic religions, are much more different from Hinduism or Buddhism than they are from one another. I am talking of conceptions, of course. Whether there is a God (or gods) is a different issue.

Well some look for the differences.
I tend to look for the commonalities.
In all Western Theologies
God is one- monotheism
God is the creator- in some way responsible for the existence of the universe
God is a rational agent and the universe is rationally intelligible because man is "created in the image"
God is a moral agent and empathy and compassion are the basis of ethics.
God can be "known, revealed" in some respects and is beyond human understanding "transcendent" in other respects.
In its most simple form there is a god, he deserves our praise and we best serve god by serving our fellow man and living in relative harmony with nature.
People of all faiths can work together to feed the hungry, clothe and shelter the poor, heal the sick and comfort the afflicted. The differences in doctrine, practice, ritual, sacred scripture and prophets are minor and of relatively little significance when understood in the context of faith as trust, hope, and as a call to action in this world.

Religious pluralism, interfaith cooperation and cross cultural tolerance is the path to the religious understanding of the future.

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@Flamvell Rose,

no one knows who they are worshiping without having had direct contact with their 'god'. they can only form a concept or arrive at an opinion or subscribe to a theory or accept someone else's ideal, etc.

how does a person form a relationship with their god then?

nothing is left but what the prophets have said, and whichever of them a person chooses to believe. so they can go by heresay concerning what god wants and approves of, accepting it as truth, and then develop some relationship with the concept of their god as they see it/him/she to be, based on knowing a little about what it/she/he expects or dislikes etc.

isnt it ironic, from that god's point of view (or those gods' points of view) how funny people must look worshiping someone who doesnt even exist?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;104325 wrote:

It is unclear whether "God" is a name, or it is a description. . . All persons who are named, "John" need not have the same properties to be called, "John". But how about the term, "God". Notice, by the way, that the term, "god" is not the same as the term, "God". Zeus was a god. But is God a god?

I'll quote the above--in stepping stone fashion--but am responding to the thread in general.

OK, I kind of jumped, thinking that most will have known what I had skipped . . . I may have been mistaken to do so. A thorough check on the English word "God," will show us that it was a common noun which had been capitalized so as to stand in place of the proper noun (a personal name) for the god of the Old Testament, viz. YHWH (otherwise read as Yahweh, Yehovah, Jehovah, or possibly Yahwoo)(1)

The English word "God," then came into being as a proper noun, a personal name of that Jewish god. The description/prescription of this particular god will be found in the works which do just that--describe and prescribe that god. Regardless of whatever similarities may be clearly found, alluded to, or deduced indirectly, the specific descriptions entailed as descriptions of YHWH, YHWH's said, specifically expressed sayings, specifically executed actions, and especially given law code and prophecy (all which simultaneously prescribe YHWH), will most clearly demonstrate that YHWH is not Baal, is not Dagon, is not Rah, is not Zeus, is not a trinity of any nature, is not Allah (as described/prescribed by Islamic works), is not the sun, and so on and so forth.

kennethamy is correct. The differences are fatal. YHWH very specifically states that there is only one true god, YHWH himself, among any number of gods. YHWH very specifically states that his name is YHWH, and there is no other. YHWH gave very specific and expressed terms of worship which only, he will accept, and which mostly amounted to a legal code with a formal ceremonious practice. YHWH made it pretty clear that he would especially bless only the seed of Issac, and not that of Ishmael, nor those of other nations. It is clear enough, without stronger rebut, that YWHW is not the god called by later, early Christians. It is very clear, without rebut, that YHWH is not the god who called on Mohammad.

Each god-model has a body of data which builds that god-model (description/prescription). To afterwards describe and know that previously described/prescribed deity, one has to go by the data source which does so. By doing that, we will find that just because one religious belief-system has a single deity, and any other religious belief-system may have a single deity, it does not mean that we can automatically see the separate god-models as being one and the same god-model--the data bases will show that the models are mutually exclusive.

1. The short form is Yah, or Jah--as seen the phrase 'hallalujah,' or the name Yeshua, etc.

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The many names of God

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