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There have been many
conceptions about the nature of God. Indeed they
have ranged very much. The central conception is
however that God is useful,and valuable. He is
said to be capable of being and granting the
most valuable things to man. Thus we can list
all types of demands made on God.
i. The
Todas worship God and know Him as the milk
supplier to all.
ii.
Bagundians in Central Africa consider him as the
granter of health, wealth and success in war. So
do so many others including the Modern nations.
No one forget the prayers in churches and
mosques and temples and congregations for
Victory in War II.
iii.
Agricultural fertility is sought through prayer
from God. Most seasonal prayers and thanks
offerings are precisely these.
iv. Buddha
spoke about the conquest of lower desires
including the desire to live. Whether Buddha
even thought of God as capable of granting this
is very doubtful. Unfortunately add this also as
an example of persons seeking triumph over
desire. God as one who conquest over desire is
surely the opinion of some.
v. Mercy is
God according to Islam and Vaisnavism (Daya is
the inseparable nature of God.) To limit this to
Islam is being untrue to facts.
vi. Cosmic
oneness and Unity (Advaita) is said to be the
Idea of God in Brahmanism.
vii. Complete
Actuality (Actus Purus) is God. In him there is
no matter at all. Which restricts and limits His
nature.
viii. Complete
and continous Joy is said to be the idea of God
in Spinoza. He held that God is the one
substance which alone can explain all attributes
though the attributes are those through which
alone we know Him. Resignation to God is his
ethics.
ix. Kant held
God to be the source of the Highest Good.Nothing
is Good except the good will.
x. Mathew
Arnod claimed God to be the power that makes for
Righteousness. This is indeed the claim of
Zarathustra also. Some scholars forgets this
aspect.
xi. God is
held to be the ground of love between
individuals and referring this to Eduard
Hartmann as posing this view is to forget the
great sage Yanjnavalkya whose basic concept was
this.
These views are
unfortunately Stated by some shoclars as found
separately. I have shown in my Idea of God how
all these are implicit in the Upanisads.
Scholars talk of scale
Values and refer to the table of values or some
such similar table. The significant test of a
chosen value is whether an individual rejects
other values for it. This rejection is always to
be observed after enjoying a value so called. It
is posteriori decision that is to be observed.
God is sought after for all things but who seeks
Him for Himself is the question?
Many scholars rightly
take up the question that God is personified
value or the value of values.
The consideration of
Pantheism, Polytheism, Humanistic Godhead
Monotheism are clearly studies which reveal the
complex nature of the Idea of God.
Each one of these
theories draws attention to the significance of
God in relation to one view of reality. Thus
polytheism illustrates the uniform connection of
the God-idea with value experience as well as
the wealth and variety of that Experience. God
is in every function and operation of Nature and
manifesting Himself in each appropriate to it.
It reveals the multiplicity – the eternal
multiplicity in the nature of God.
Henotheism which is
called opportunistic monotheism also, or
katheno-theism, reveals the identity of the
Godhead in all the manifestations supremely
manifesting one cosmic function at a time. God
is unified powers, oneness in manyness,
manifesting His oneness in and through each one
of the many.
Monotheism is the view
that there is only One Creater or God of the
universe. Some persons consider that this
involves the view that God is also the cause of
the evil in this world -contrary forces to the
values-dis-values so to speak. This seems to be
the great barrier to the acceptance of
Monotheism. Some thinkers however are bold
enough to accept the view that all evel is
illusion, which will pass when the Godhead is
known.
Pantheism holds that
God is All that is (Sarvam Khalu idam Brahma);
this too is said to include the evil as such not
acceptable. This is both monism and monotheism.
Brightman rejects God could be the cause of evil
– evil being an actual experience and ultimate-
and thus rejects all philosophical attempt at a
System. Herein lies the basic contradiction
between dualistic religion and monistic
philosophy.
Agnistic realism holds
that God’s nature is unknowable beyond the means
of our knowledge, though there is no doubt that
He is the source of all being. This is said to
have been entertained lastly by Herbert Spencer.
Humanism is the view
that all knowledge is human knowledge, and has
this peculiar quality of seeking to know Reality
through human efforts and reason. It recognizes
that the human ideals are precisely realisable
in God- who is the above of all human values.
God is not separated either by ideals or
actualities which are beyond the human. Religion
must find its evidence in the facts of human
experience and understanding. It rejects firmly
all aspirations and ideals that are not
specifically recognized as human love, values
and good and so on. Dewy and American thinkers
have always counseled this nearness of God to
man and humanness of God. They would deny God
who is not human. Even Christianity is explained
on the principle of the humanity of God.
God is superhuman and
supernatural revealer of values which are not
amenable to reasoning is the conception of
transcendentalists. Kierkegaard, in recent
times, Calvin and Luther held that God is
revealed to man in a direct measure and as
transcendent to man in every sense. Love and
Grace and decending condescending waves of God’s
nature, not as flowing equal to equal, man to
man, fellowship or so.
There are some who hold
that God is a system of values -not a person of
love and so on. Impersonalism holds that this
system has to be known.
Evolutionists have
discovered that God could be said to be evolving
in the same way as man has. It is the tendency
of God to support or produce higher and
higher values, which is called the emergent
values in evolution – unknown predicates of
being, and deity. This naturalism or
evolutionism has been held by Sameul Alexander,
Wiemann and others.
God has been held to be
the revolutionary principle introducing change
in the very direction of evolution of man for
the continuity of evolution this is seen to
involve discontinuities requiring ingressions.
This view is that of Whitehead and others.
Indian thought has
provided a composite theory of God and Sri
Aurobindo has explained the evolutionary
possibilities of Deity (Refer Idea of God by
the author). |
