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The Concept of 'God'
Monotheistic Conceptions on God
Monotheists agree of the following things:
- God does not depend on anything else for 'his' existence
- God is self-conscious
- God is not identical with the world
- God is the greatest possible being
However, beyond this there is disagreement.
Ancient Greek Monotheism
Several Ancient Greek philosophers could be considered as monotheists as they would argue for all of the four points above. However, for those such as Plato or Aristotle, there was no beginning to the universe
They maintained that:
- The world has always existed (there was no first moment)
- It is necessarily true that the world exists
- Consequently God did not choose to create the world - it is as everlasting as 'he' is.
Nevertheless, the world still depends on God for the world is in time, is changing and imperfect whilst God is timeless, changeless and perfect. The Greeks believed that the imperfect, temporal world depended on the perfect, timeless existence of God. We could think of the changing world like a set of dominoes placed end to end and falling into each other. We could imagine that there was no first domino; that if you go back in time you will never find a beginning at which a finger set the chain in motion.
However, the dominoes depend on the table on which they are placed if they are to fall in a sequence. The Greek God is like the table: unchanging and not needing the dominoes for its existence and yet the dominoes need it. Thus the world depends for its continuing existence on God but God does not depend for his existence on the world. But this dependence of the world on God must not be confused with the idea that God created the world or brought the world into existence. On this view there was no creation (see above).
This Greek monotheism was very abstract and removed from religious experience. Aristotle's God did not even know what was going on in the world. Being timeless his knowledge could not change or grow and he was thus unaware of things that changed. This God knew all things that were necessarily true (e.g. 2+2=4, bears are animals) but not things that are not (e.g. London is the Capital City of England, gold is valuable, Tony Blair grins a lot) and being changeless 'he' certainly did not act in the world.
Jewish, Christian and Islamic Monotheism
Semitic monotheists (Jewish, Christian and Islamic) would also agree with the four key claims at the top of this sheet. However, they would argue that:
- The world has not always existed - it was created in or with time.
- The world only exists because God chose to create it.
- God exercises control over events in 'his' world.
Here the world only exists because God chose to create it. God could have chosen otherwise and there would have been no world. Also God knows what is going on in 'his' creation - indeed 'he' knows everything about the world - past, present and future. On top of that God acts in the world in historical events and people (e.g. Abraham, David, Moses, Jesus).
Even here there are disagreements. For example, Muslims traditionally have a much stronger view of God's control of the world than Christians and Jews. For a Muslim God (Allah) controls literally everything that ever happens whilst Christians and Jews often (though not always) feel that this leaves no room for human freedom. Also Christians want to claim that God actually became a human person in Jesus of Nazareth which Jews and Muslims would deny.
Hindu Monotheism
Hinduism is a very broad family of traditions which embraces polytheism, atheism, pantheism, panentheism, monism and monotheism.
Hindu monotheism embraces the idea that the world has no beginning (as Greek monotheism) but it rejects the claim that God had no choice whether the world existed or not. On the contrary God (Brahman) created the world (as Semitic monotheism claims). God could have timelessly chosen that no world exist and if 'he' had then it would have been the case that no world ever existed. As it happens God chose timelessly to create a world which has always existed. So there is no beginning to the world but it did not have to exist nor does it have to continue existing. It depends totally on God at every moment.
Non-Monotheistic Conceptions of Ultimate Reality
Advaita Vedanta Hinduism
There are three main schools of thought in Hindu Vedantic philosophers:
- Advaita Vedanta (the major philosopher being Shankara 788-820 CE)
- Vsistadvaita (the major philosopher being Ramanuja 1017-1137 CE)
- Dvaita (the major philosopher being Madhva 1197-1276 CE)
Now all these schools follow the Hindu holy texts known as the Vedas (Vedanta means "end of the Vidas") but they disagree on how to interpret them. Both Vsistadvaita and Dvaita maintain that God (Brahman) exists independently of the world (see above on monotheism). However, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism disagrees. Shankara taught that it looks like there is a world and God but this is an illusion. In reality nothing exists except God (Brahman). The reality is that everything is identical with God and with everything else - only Brahman exists.
This is a form of pantheism (everything is God) and of monism (everything is the same kind of thing). Shankara draws a sharp distinction between appearance and reality. The world appears to consist of separate physical objects (that tree, this car, me, you etc.) and God but the reality is very different - only one thing exists and that is Brahman. There are all sorts of philosophical difficulties with this view (as Shankara was aware) and Ramanuja and Madhva among others made some telling criticisms of it. The view is based on the one hand on certain religious experiences in which it seems to the person having the experience that they are one with everything and on the other hand on certain interpretations of the Vedas.
Jainism and Buddhism
Jains are atheists believing that there is no God. They believe that the ultimate reality is the consciousness or, in our lingo, the 'soul' of the individual person. The soul is omniscient (knows everything) and everlasting as well as being indestructible. The key to enlightenment is to perceive the truth of this.
Buddhists are traditionally atheists in the sense that whether there is a God or not is considered of no relevance to religion. Buddhism radically differs from Jainism however in that it thinks the Jain view of the soul as utterly mistaken. The soul is simply a collection of thoughts and mental states at a single moment of time. A moment later it would have changed and would thus be a different collection. Souls are certainly not everlasting, omniscient nor indestructible. To the traditional Buddhist everything is constantly changing (except Nirvana).
Comments
These notes are aimed at A Level Religious Studies students for the module 'RS10: Islam' and are based on are based on Keith Yandell's book, Philosophy of Religion: a contemporary introduction, Routledge, 1999.
Originally written by metro_gnome on TSR Forums.
