If you found out that, differently from what you thought before, God is or is not a person, how would your life change?
For me to find out that orthodoxy had a diametrically opposite new dialectical synthesis would be intellectually eyebrow raising. And too little too late.
I was thinking more along the lines of how it would affect your being - your being in the world. And then maybe that would lead to an understanding of God being the Ground of (a person's) being, though I don't know if that is what Tillich meant. But it doesn't come across to me as God being a person, but it may to others.
Interestingly one of the state sponsored protestant umbrella groups in China is called the Three Self Patriotic Movement.
That seems to acknowledge the Trinity without getting into notions of personhood.
The "self" in those cases refers to "self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating." From the Christian side of things (as opposed to the state side, because of course there are, um, issues), this is a healthy reaction against ongoing dependency on foreign churches. You know, the kind of unhealthy dependency that involves paternalism/colonialism on one side and prolonged infancy on the other side?
So nothing really to do with the Trinity, I'm afraid.
If you found out that, differently from what you thought before, God is or is not a person, how would your life change?
For me to find out that orthodoxy had a diametrically opposite new dialectical synthesis would be intellectually eyebrow raising. And too little too late.
I was thinking more along the lines of how it would affect your being - your being in the world. And then maybe that would lead to an understanding of God being the Ground of (a person's) being, though I don't know if that is what Tillich meant. But it doesn't come across to me as God being a person, but it may to others.
I thought Tillich meant it as I use it, that eternal nature is instantiated in God. If I somehow became convinced that God is a person, I can't see how that would change Tillich for me. Unless you mean somehow that my consciousness isn't just autonomous nature doing its thing, but an unnatural signal, field from God. I have Tillich and don't understand God as a person. And certainly not personal back to me in any way apart from zennily.
Interestingly one of the state sponsored protestant umbrella groups in China is called the Three Self Patriotic Movement.
That seems to acknowledge the Trinity without getting into notions of personhood.
The "self" in those cases refers to "self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating." From the Christian side of things (as opposed to the state side, because of course there are, um, issues), this is a healthy reaction against ongoing dependency on foreign churches. You know, the kind of unhealthy dependency that involves paternalism/colonialism on one side and prolonged infancy on the other side?
So nothing really to do with the Trinity, I'm afraid.
In summary it proposes three ways in which God has been perceived, these being
(1) God is a person and so personal (PP).
(2) God is non-personal, and so is not a person (NPNP).
(3) God is a personal non-person (PNP).
The first is what Brian Davies described as ‘theistic personalism’, and the last the God of classical theism. The author relates the second to a form of pantheism.
If you found out that, differently from what you thought before, God is or is not a person, how would your life change?
Your question seems to assume that unless there is a non-vague and non-tautological answer to that question, the issue of whether God is or is not a person is unimportant. That's not obviously the case. There is some connect between first-order ethics and behaviour and questions of basic theology but they're connected by layers of spirituality and meta ethics.
I think if I thought God were not personal it would be easier to be defeatist about whether ethical action is worth it. Hard to say at a level that isn't vague platitudes without working through several hundred paragraphs of metaethical argument.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
So when the Jews prayed pre-Jesus, it wasn't to a personal God (that they misunderstood as a Person)? Even though, of course, even if He's here, it's not personal on His part in any meaningful way. Did Jesus make God more personal for us? Going one way.
So when the Jews prayed pre-Jesus, it wasn't to a personal God (that they misunderstood as a Person)? Even though, of course, even if He's here, it's not personal on His part in any meaningful way. Did Jesus make God more personal for us? Going one way.
AIUI in Jewish theology God is also seen as personal but not a person. He is both immanent and transcendent.
Coming back to Christianity, that is the miracle of the incarnation - that God chose to humble himself and become man, that He came down to Earth and dwelt among us.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
I can't imagine Jewish theology seeing their (hoped for) messiah as 'not a person'.
To quote the Wikipedia for Jewish conceptions of God...
‘According to the rationalist Jewish theology articulated by Moses Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity—the cause and preserver of all existence.
Maimonides affirmed Ibn Sina's conception of God as the Supreme Being, both omnipresent and incorporeal,[7] necessarily existing for the creation of the universe’
I can't imagine Jewish theology seeing their (hoped for) messiah as 'not a person'.
To quote the Wikipedia for Jewish conceptions of God...
‘According to the rationalist Jewish theology articulated by Moses Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity—the cause and preserver of all existence.
Maimonides affirmed Ibn Sina's conception of God as the Supreme Being, both omnipresent and incorporeal,[7] necessarily existing for the creation of the universe’
Looks like a person to me. As He did to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Abraham and even Moses.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
I agree, so 'God... can be related to personally'. And even that He in His immanent omnipathy cannot not be invoked as nodding back at each of us - and shaking His head - in the pitch black, silent but for us.
If you found out that, differently from what you thought before, God is or is not a person, how would your life change?
Your question seems to assume that unless there is a non-vague and non-tautological answer to that question, the issue of whether God is or is not a person is unimportant. That's not obviously the case. There is some connect between first-order ethics and behaviour and questions of basic theology but they're connected by layers of spirituality and meta ethics.
I think if I thought God were not personal it would be easier to be defeatist about whether ethical action is worth it. Hard to say at a level that isn't vague platitudes without working through several hundred paragraphs of metaethical argument.
I asked the question precisely because the issue is important. @Martin54 said IIUC that he does not understand God as a person. I wondered if he used to, as I grew up in a Christianity where God is personal and we sang "You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart."
Nowadays, that is not my experience. Despite my affinity for the narratives of the relational God of the Tanakh, viewed, perhaps, through the Johannine theology of Love, I find that statements like "God does not do anything, but without God nothing gets done" make sense to me, and my experiences have led me to say that I do not always believe in God, but I always believe God is love. That is what I understand by God being the ground of (our) being. I don't know if that is what Tillich meant by the term.
If you found out that, differently from what you thought before, God is or is not a person, how would your life change?
Your question seems to assume that unless there is a non-vague and non-tautological answer to that question, the issue of whether God is or is not a person is unimportant. That's not obviously the case. There is some connect between first-order ethics and behaviour and questions of basic theology but they're connected by layers of spirituality and meta ethics.
I think if I thought God were not personal it would be easier to be defeatist about whether ethical action is worth it. Hard to say at a level that isn't vague platitudes without working through several hundred paragraphs of metaethical argument.
I asked the question precisely because the issue is important. @Martin54 said IIUC that he does not understand God as a person. I wondered if he used to, as I grew up in a Christianity where God is personal and we sang "You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart."
Nowadays, that is not my experience. Despite my affinity for the narratives of the relational God of the Tanakh, viewed, perhaps, through the Johannine theology of Love, I find that statements like "God does not do anything, but without God nothing gets done" make sense to me, and my experiences have led me to say that I do not always believe in God, but I always believe God is love. That is what I understand by God being the ground of (our) being. I don't know if that is what Tillich meant by the term.
Couldn't agree more @LatchKeyKid. I used to grovel before a personal God person, yes. I talk at a more idealized one occasionally. I answer for Him of course, as we all do. I address Him in His Persons and as 'God' for, as a collective noun of, all of Them. I have no idea if He's real behind all that construct. Rationally He isn't at all. I want Him to be.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
Not if “person” is understood to be synonymous with “human,” but “personal” (as in “personal relationship”) and “personality” are not necessarily limited to humans, which is how I generally hear those words used. As I said above, my dog and my cat have personalities, and they relate to each other and to us personally, but they are not “persons” (again, as I generally hear that word used and as I understand it ) because they are not human.
To my ears, saying God is a person is saying God is human, or at the least conflates Creator with creature. But that doesn’t mean God is an impersonal thing, like the Force. It just means that, for me at least, “person” isn’t a helpful word to use of God.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
This.
I don't get it at all, unless it is a way for those of us who come from places where person only = "human" to get around that linguistic restriction. Otherwise I don't understand it at all.
I’ve always thought of God as Spirit, but a Spirit to which my own spirit can relate, so I sort of go for the personal, non person definition.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
Same here. For me, saying God is personal or can be related to personally is very different from saying God is a person, and saying God is not a person in no way means that God doesn’t relate to us personally.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
This.
I don't get it at all, unless it is a way for those of us who come from places where person only = "human" to get around that linguistic restriction.
I wouldn’t say so much it’s a way of getting around a linguistic restriction as it is using words in a way they’re generally used and understood. In my experience where I live, “person” only = “human,” while “personal” and “personality” do not only = “human.”
I know that may sound odd to some, but hey, language.
I meant to say that when God interacts with us we perceive God as a person, but must recognise that God is not limited by personhood. Tha is what I have assumed the incarnation of God to mean.
I wouldn’t say so much it’s a way of getting around a linguistic restriction as it is using words in a way they’re generally used and understood. In my experience where I live, “person” only = “human,” while “personal” and “personality” do not only = “human.”
I know that may sound odd to some, but hey, language.
In my experience, person=human, but that's because all the persons I have met have been human. But I tend to view my experience of persons as being the same as humans as a consequence of my limited experience.
A person is a member of a kind of being who have continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and so on. I see no reason not to apply it to thinking, feeling, be-tentacled blobs from some distant planet. I don't think we have evidence that dolphins, great apes, or cats and dogs climb high enough up the rationality and self-awareness scale to count.
A person is a member of a kind of being who have continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and so on. I see no reason not to apply it to thinking, feeling, be-tentacled blobs from some distant planet.
Fair enough. To be clear, I’m not arguing against that definition/application, or saying there’s anything at all wrong with it.
I’m just saying that in my experience in the part of the Anglosphere where I live, if you simply said “God is a person,” I think the average person would hear that as meaning “God is a human being.” If you wanted that average person to understand what you meant, you’d likely need to say more: “God is a person, by which I mean God is a being with continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and the like.”
Personally (!) I wouldn’t say an angel is a person, but I would say that interaction by a person with an angel is personal: that is people engage with angels in a way which assumes angels are personal. Similarly I wouldn’t say God is a person, but our interaction with God is based on the understanding that he is personal viz. Abraham’s bargaining with God over Sodom and Gomorrah.
Well, now we're at the stage where, if we were writing a paper etc. we'd have to just choose a term and get on with it. "Person" is probably out due to the number of you who automatically equate it with human-hood, and I'd rule out "personal" as an adjective because if you go around saying "God is personal but not a person" or "God relates personally though he is not a person" the folks on my side of the linguistic net will be entirely confused. I'd be happy to settle for Lewis' "hnau" to designate the class of beings who normally possess intellect, self-awareness, a sense of morality, and so on and so forth--the stuff we've been discussing. But I would then go on to argue that God, along with angels, human beings, and potentially aliens (if we ever discover such), falls into that category of hnau. Indeed, I'd argue that our hnau-ness stems from his own.
Actually I suspect eldila are not hnau (I would have to check the books, who knows what Lewis intended) , but the idea of a word for any rational soul is good - I would say essential.
I would, perhaps, be careful about including or excluding the Persons of the Trinity in the definition.
Actually I suspect eldila are not hnau (I would have to check the books, who knows what Lewis intended) , but the idea of a word for any rational soul is good - I would say essential.
It may be a good idea, but essential? If it really were essential, it seems like we’d already have a word that clearly means that.
I find myself wondering if other languages have a single word that means the something like Lewis’s hnau, or that would encompass all self-aware, intelligent, capable or moral decisions beings, including humans and, say, angels, and perhaps even God. Greek? Latin? German?
I would just use "person", but if "person" is restricted to humans, then there are enough conceptual non-human entities, whether fictional or not, to make a more inclusive term essential.
@Nick Tamen I can't help thinking that in insisting that because for you a 'person' must mean a human, so it must be for the rest of us, you are expecting the world at large to accept what I venture to describe as a 'reverse Humpty Dumpty chassé' as being binding on the everyone else.
If it's any help in persuading you to re-consider, could I suggest that as humans are made in the image of God, saying 'person = human or God' does not commit you to 'person = human + any creature real or fictional that exhibits any sort of character, personality or individuality'.
Saying 'God is a person', 'the Father is a person', 'the Son is a person' or 'the Holy Spirit is a person' does not mean one is saying 'the Father is a human' or 'the Holy Spirit is a human'.
I explained why I think this on this thread over a week ago.
@Nick Tamen I can't help thinking that in insisting that because for you a 'person' must mean a human, so it must be for the rest of us, you are expecting the world at large to accept what I venture to describe as a 'reverse Humpty Dumpty chassé' as being binding on the everyone else.
I have repeatedly said I am not insisting that. Here for example:
A person is a member of a kind of being who have continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and so on. I see no reason not to apply it to thinking, feeling, be-tentacled blobs from some distant planet.
Fair enough. To be clear, I’m not arguing against that definition/application, or saying there’s anything at all wrong with it.
I have attempted to be very clear that what I am saying is that if “person” is used to include beings who are not human, there will be some (many?) English speakers who may misunderstand what is being communicated, because that isn’t a definition of “person” they know or use.
I would have thought that given the numerous discussions had on the Ship these many years about how the use of English, including what words are used for what concepts, can differ from place to place, the suggestion that the word “person” might not carry the same shades of meaning throughout the entire Anglosphere would be pretty noncontroversial.
You do not need to try to show me why I might find “person” to be an appropriate word for the concepts discussed in this thread. @Dafyd already did that when he provided the OED definition.
But if I’m trying to communicate effectively with someone, it’s not enough that I use words that I know mean the concept the concept I’m trying to convey. The words I use must also be words that my hearers or readers will recognize as conveying that concept. It’s that second part of communication that I’ve been saying may be inhibited by use of the word “person” in the sense discussed in this thread. And that’s why I’ve said use of “person” in that sense might be met with confusion and might require further explanation.
So, is the intentional entity that grounds infinite created natural and supernatural reality from eternity a person? Or is that one of those syntactic but non-semantic questions?
I don't know if it's helpful but the use of "person" to mean one of the three parts of God (ykwim) dates to the mid 13th century.
One of the OED definitions of "person" (II.4.c), dating to 1824, is "The human genitals; spec. the penis." It flags this as "Law" meaning I suppose it's a usage in legal documents/proceedings. So God is most definitely not a person in this sense, although some of his followers can be real dicks!
One of the OED definitions of "person" (II.4.c), dating to 1824, is "The human genitals; spec. the penis." It flags this as "Law" meaning I suppose it's a usage in legal documents/proceedings. So God is most definitely not a person in this sense, although some of his followers can be real dicks!
Comments
I was thinking more along the lines of how it would affect your being - your being in the world. And then maybe that would lead to an understanding of God being the Ground of (a person's) being, though I don't know if that is what Tillich meant. But it doesn't come across to me as God being a person, but it may to others.
Thanks. My total misunderstanding!
I thought Tillich meant it as I use it, that eternal nature is instantiated in God. If I somehow became convinced that God is a person, I can't see how that would change Tillich for me. Unless you mean somehow that my consciousness isn't just autonomous nature doing its thing, but an unnatural signal, field from God. I have Tillich and don't understand God as a person. And certainly not personal back to me in any way apart from zennily.
It would have been lovely if so.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11153-018-9694-x
In summary it proposes three ways in which God has been perceived, these being
(1) God is a person and so personal (PP).
(2) God is non-personal, and so is not a person (NPNP).
(3) God is a personal non-person (PNP).
The first is what Brian Davies described as ‘theistic personalism’, and the last the God of classical theism. The author relates the second to a form of pantheism.
I think if I thought God were not personal it would be easier to be defeatist about whether ethical action is worth it. Hard to say at a level that isn't vague platitudes without working through several hundred paragraphs of metaethical argument.
I think if that were to change, and God were a person, it would place limits on how I perceive God. It would make Him more like me and less like God.
AIUI in Jewish theology God is also seen as personal but not a person. He is both immanent and transcendent.
Coming back to Christianity, that is the miracle of the incarnation - that God chose to humble himself and become man, that He came down to Earth and dwelt among us.
To me saying God is personal but not a person is an exercise in cake eating and having.
To quote the Wikipedia for Jewish conceptions of God...
Looks like a person to me. As He did to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Abraham and even Moses.
I agree, so 'God... can be related to personally'. And even that He in His immanent omnipathy cannot not be invoked as nodding back at each of us - and shaking His head - in the pitch black, silent but for us.
I don't think most Jewish theology expects the Messiah to be God incarnate so him being a person is not a problem.
I asked the question precisely because the issue is important. @Martin54 said IIUC that he does not understand God as a person. I wondered if he used to, as I grew up in a Christianity where God is personal and we sang "You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart."
Nowadays, that is not my experience. Despite my affinity for the narratives of the relational God of the Tanakh, viewed, perhaps, through the Johannine theology of Love, I find that statements like "God does not do anything, but without God nothing gets done" make sense to me, and my experiences have led me to say that I do not always believe in God, but I always believe God is love. That is what I understand by God being the ground of (our) being. I don't know if that is what Tillich meant by the term.
Couldn't agree more @LatchKeyKid. I used to grovel before a personal God person, yes. I talk at a more idealized one occasionally. I answer for Him of course, as we all do. I address Him in His Persons and as 'God' for, as a collective noun of, all of Them. I have no idea if He's real behind all that construct. Rationally He isn't at all. I want Him to be.
To my ears, saying God is a person is saying God is human, or at the least conflates Creator with creature. But that doesn’t mean God is an impersonal thing, like the Force. It just means that, for me at least, “person” isn’t a helpful word to use of God.
This.
I don't get it at all, unless it is a way for those of us who come from places where person only = "human" to get around that linguistic restriction. Otherwise I don't understand it at all.
I know that may sound odd to some, but hey, language.
In my experience, person=human, but that's because all the persons I have met have been human. But I tend to view my experience of persons as being the same as humans as a consequence of my limited experience.
A person is a member of a kind of being who have continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and so on. I see no reason not to apply it to thinking, feeling, be-tentacled blobs from some distant planet. I don't think we have evidence that dolphins, great apes, or cats and dogs climb high enough up the rationality and self-awareness scale to count.
I’m just saying that in my experience in the part of the Anglosphere where I live, if you simply said “God is a person,” I think the average person would hear that as meaning “God is a human being.” If you wanted that average person to understand what you meant, you’d likely need to say more: “God is a person, by which I mean God is a being with continuous consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, intellect, and the like.”
I would, perhaps, be careful about including or excluding the Persons of the Trinity in the definition.
I find myself wondering if other languages have a single word that means the something like Lewis’s hnau, or that would encompass all self-aware, intelligent, capable or moral decisions beings, including humans and, say, angels, and perhaps even God. Greek? Latin? German?
If it's any help in persuading you to re-consider, could I suggest that as humans are made in the image of God, saying 'person = human or God' does not commit you to 'person = human + any creature real or fictional that exhibits any sort of character, personality or individuality'.
Saying 'God is a person', 'the Father is a person', 'the Son is a person' or 'the Holy Spirit is a person' does not mean one is saying 'the Father is a human' or 'the Holy Spirit is a human'.
I explained why I think this on this thread over a week ago.
I have attempted to be very clear that what I am saying is that if “person” is used to include beings who are not human, there will be some (many?) English speakers who may misunderstand what is being communicated, because that isn’t a definition of “person” they know or use.
I would have thought that given the numerous discussions had on the Ship these many years about how the use of English, including what words are used for what concepts, can differ from place to place, the suggestion that the word “person” might not carry the same shades of meaning throughout the entire Anglosphere would be pretty noncontroversial.
You do not need to try to show me why I might find “person” to be an appropriate word for the concepts discussed in this thread. @Dafyd already did that when he provided the OED definition.
But if I’m trying to communicate effectively with someone, it’s not enough that I use words that I know mean the concept the concept I’m trying to convey. The words I use must also be words that my hearers or readers will recognize as conveying that concept. It’s that second part of communication that I’ve been saying may be inhibited by use of the word “person” in the sense discussed in this thread. And that’s why I’ve said use of “person” in that sense might be met with confusion and might require further explanation.
One of the OED definitions of "person" (II.4.c), dating to 1824, is "The human genitals; spec. the penis." It flags this as "Law" meaning I suppose it's a usage in legal documents/proceedings. So God is most definitely not a person in this sense, although some of his followers can be real dicks!
Quoteworthy!