Does Theology Make God An Impersonal Force?

[Yozavan]

Does theology make God an impersonal force?

In the words of Nebuchadnezzar: " none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest Thou?" Daniel 4:35.

This concept is the consensus of traditional theologians and Christian philosophers, and the parameters of the debate. For brevity, I'll put it simply as God's sovereignty is beyond human understanding or manipulation

If God is a personal being, whose sovereignty is ungovernable apart from His will , completely independent from the will of others, then theology seems to define a static will, an impersonal force.

Focus of debate:

1) Theology cannot define an active will, a dynamic sovereign will, so it settles for a static one, an impersonal one.

2) Does theology, by default of limitation, reduce God to an impersonal force?

3) If theology is indeed, as a matter of necessity, reducing God to an impersonal force, then an impersonal force is its only stock and store. Quoth the raven, nevermore.

Addendum:I'm not familiar with Catholic theologians, but several Protestant theologians have lamented how theology reduces God to an impersonal force. I'd feel remise without adding that detail. An Impersonal god is not my own devising, but rather the sentiment of such theologians as Charles Hodge, Matthew Henry and John Brown, to name a few.

[JehovahsWitness]

... they never allowed Him the distinction in the first place. Now do you understand???

So... arguing Christian are the ones that allow God to be what he is? Is that your point ... God can only be a person if a group of humans don't argue doctrine?

Have I understood correctly?

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Yozavan in post #17]

My question definitely could have been incoherent (or at least not related to your point), as I’m trying to figure out exactly what point(s) you are trying to make. I do believe (through reason, not assumption) that God is a person (or, actually, tri-personal). I also believe God’s will is dynamic, sovereign, and authoritative (although those mean different things to different people, so that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know). I just don’t see why one would think theology necessarily settles for a static, impersonal will. I agree with theophile that no logos could fully contain or express its subject, but I don’t think this process necessarily makes the subject impersonal or void of personhood (but that may be more a semantic difference than anything else). I agree that theology, wrongly pursued, can wrongly take the place of the Person of God. I don't think it does this by its very nature, though.

[Yozavan]

Either the Gospel works as advertised, or the cross of Christ has no effect...

Okay, I think I understand: Is your point that if people argue about doctrine, Christianit is null and void?

That is precisely the point Paul makes, our faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, 1 Corinthians 2:5.

Study 1 Corinthians 1:17-25. Surely, this isn't too baffling. This isn't an esoteric trip!

[Yozavan]

Does theology make God an impersonal force?

In the words of Nebuchadnezzar: " none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest Thou?" Daniel 4:35.

This concept is the consensus of traditional theologians and Christian philosophers, and the parameters of the debate. For brevity, I'll put it simply as God's sovereignty is beyond human understanding or manipulation

If God is a personal being, whose sovereignty is ungovernable apart from His will , completely independent from the will of others, then theology seems to define a static will, an impersonal force.

Focus of debate:

1) Theology cannot define an active will, a dynamic sovereign will, so it settles for a static one, an impersonal one.

2) Does theology, by default of limitation, reduce God to an impersonal force?

3) If theology is indeed, as a matter of necessity, reducing God to an impersonal force, then an impersonal force is its only stock and store. Quoth the raven, nevermore.

The argument I take you to be making is that theology, which is essentially the rational effort to codify and express God (theos) in words (logos), as such has as its goal the containment of what is uncontainable, i.e., putting a person in words, and in the process necessarily makes its subject impersonal or voided of personhood.

You could replace God in this argument with any person and the same would hold. e.g., the study of Yozavan (Yozovanology) would have the same effect, and necessarily cut off the surplus that is your personhood, reducing you to something that is ultimately impersonal, i.e., a set of interrelated words; a system of ideas. (Further, the same would hold for geology and any other field. The rocks that it studies essentially lose their rock-hood once put into words...)

Is that fair?

If so, I would say that is generally true. No logos could fully contain or express its subject, especially if that subject is a person, which includes, as you suggest, a sovereignty that is ungovernable apart from its own will (or in more simple terms, free choice, and the limitlessness that this entails).

The problem I see though is that God does not have free choice (as if God has a certain arbitrariness at God's core...). Nor is God a person as such, insofar as a person means something along the line of a conscious individual. I would rather say that God is pure will (or better, spirit) rooted in an unwavering (/highly static!) purpose that makes God, in fact, highly scrutable and suited to words. (This is the knowability of God, and how God traverses the gap from impersonal to personal. i.e., a spirit we can all personally join in and become part of... One that can personally reach us and change our lives through those devoted to it.)

Recognizing what that unwavering purpose is gives theology real meaning, since its job is to express that will and purpose through a logos that can then become action and real impact on the world... (Focusing more on the activating versus reductive power of logos...) (Take as a prime example Solomon, when he calls for the sword to find the true mother of the child. That is real theology, not all the philosophical mumbo-jumbo most of us identify as such...)

This kind of theology is the only way to bring God to life, versus a theology that necessarily destroys its subject on arrival per the argument you laid out.

In other words, I fundamentally disagree with the parameters you set for the debate

You seem to grasp the dilemma: " personhood is replaced by a system of ideas ", yet negate it de facto by stipulating, " God is not a conscious will, but rather pure will, and hence highly scrutable".

Well, to be fair, you asserted the dilemma by de facto stipulating that God has personhood and that "God's sovereignty is beyond human understanding or manipulation," so I just responded in kind

And to be precise, I didn't say God is pure will (and as such arbitrary / elusive), but rather pure will grounded in unwavering purpose, i.e., spirit. This is what makes God's will knowable and highly translatable to words (the Word / Logos), and for us to say and act with relative confidence "Thy will be done," and to bring theology to life.

I believe the spirit of your argument is : Sovereignty has no autonomy, and Divine personality and will, are not independent from religious scrutiny, but on the contrary, God's personhood can be known through methodical interpretation of His modus operandi.

Yes, this purpose / will can be known through "methodical interpretation of His modus operandi" in the bible. It takes essential form in Genesis 1 and is consistently portrayed throughout.

I generally agree with your broader summary of my argument as well, but depends what you mean by things like "sovereignty has no autonomy". My position is that God is not an arbitrary (/autonomous) will but rather has unwavering (/static) purpose at God's core. As for God's sovereignty, I would say that this is by no means guaranteed, as most theologies assume, but is a personal choice. (Whether God rules our hearts and minds - and the world around us - requires our commitment. Otherwise God remains what God was in the beginning - just a wispy spirit, i.e., a purpose-driven will without any real power or manifestation.)

I also question the continued application of personhood to God, but this may just be semantics. (The idea of a conscious being out there named God is highly suspect.)

This pure will seems elusive! Innumerable theological sects have their own style of scrutiny. God's personality can hardly reflect them all.

Some of these theological sects may simply be wrong. Most of them get too absorbed and stuck in traditional theology and the system of ideas they've devised and lose sight of the more important common ground they all share. (Debating the nature of God or God's foreknowledge or whatever else and losing the forest for the trees.)

They may portray it differently, but few, I think, would ultimately argue with the unwavering purpose that God represents, call it love, love of neighbor, affirmation of life, or whatever else.

The broader point I tried to make before is that the theology you are critiquing (that of the systematizers) is misguided or at least subordinate. Real or primary theology should be speaking and doing the Word of God. (And I say this as one who loves to build systems and engage in such theoretical exercises...)

I found your quip fascinating: " Well, to be fair, you asserted the dilemma by de facto stipulating that God has a personhood ..."

Every creed I am aware of considers God a person, especially Trinitarian apologetics! I didn't anticipate having to prove God is a person, which you seem to deny altogether. I can only wonder how you interpret the verbs the Bible assigns Him: says, thinks, feels!


Perhaps, you reckon God an Entity devoid of personhood; so utterly foreign to human thought, that personhood is an anthropomorphic sacrilege. Well now, this would rid our bridge entirely, Genesis 1:26,27, and render such verses as 2 Corinthians 6:18 an enigmatic farce!

It seems you're arguing that God is an impersonal force with an agenda, that intends Itself to be understood through the agency of theological wrangling. A sacred brawl of wits, to determine what the It is?


2nd century theologians used Greco-Roman philosophy to structure theological pursuit. This perceived need for a secular arbitrator has never left our Christian universities. I'm only reintroducing an 18th century contemplation: does theology make God an impersonal force?

This dispute was haphazardly dismissed then, is perplexingly incoherent to Christians now, and is being rapidly plowed through in my class, as a trivial footnote.


It is what it is

[JehovahsWitness]

Okay, I think I understand: Is your point that if people argue about doctrine, Christianit is null and void?

That is precisely the point Paul makes, our faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, 1 Corinthians 2:5.

Well, if all those WORDS in your OP comes down to our faith should be based on God then it seemed uou made it unnecessarily complicated but yes I agree , our faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

There that was easy!

[theophile]

I found your quip fascinating: " Well, to be fair, you asserted the dilemma by de facto stipulating that God has a personhood ..."

Every creed I am aware of considers God a person, especially Trinitarian apologetics! I didn't anticipate having to prove God is a person, which you seem to deny altogether. I can only wonder how you interpret the verbs the Bible assigns Him: says, thinks, feels!

God's essential form is spirit. That's how God is described in Genesis 1:2 when God is first presented to us. A spirit hovering over a watery deep. From whence that spirit came, and what other reality God may consist of, we can only speculate. But that's what I take as a starting point, since it's the starting point provided.

Now is a spirit a person? Our assumption should be that these are different kinds of things until we're told otherwise, and we should try to delineate them. (The application of human actions / verbs to God doesn't prove anything. The bible personifies everything from snakes to the earth itself, but we all know these aren't persons and don't take the bible literally on such things, do we?)

As for the delineation, we see that a spirit can 'inhabit' a person as it does pigs and others in various biblical stories, and can also be cast out, hence it is separable. Similarly, people can be 'in' a spirit, as the Catholics like to say, which again suggests difference in kind. (Can a person be 'in' another person? Intercourse aside? Are we to assume that the spirit-person suppresses / contains the original person like popular possessions depict, or that they somehow merge so that two persons literally become one? Or is something else going on that is less sci-fi / mystical in nature and more relatable to our everyday experience?...)

I don't think spirits are persons or have personhood, even though they are personified in the bible. I would say instead that spirits are something very real that we experience everyday and even refer to in common parlance. For example, the spirit of capitalism. Such a spirit has unwavering values and purpose at its core (in this case, personal wealth and its pursuit). It can ebb and flow in power as it possesses people. It can stir movement(s) and take on a life of its own (hence the bible's personification...). But it is not a person.

And I don't think God (or any other spirit) takes on personhood just because the spirit of God dwells in a person. Take Jesus for example. Jesus was a person. He was a person in the spirit of God. As such he became one with God and is God. But God is not as such reducible to Jesus. There are others, persons and non-persons, who are also in the spirit of God. Like in Genesis 1, the earth is in the spirit of God when it brings forth plants of every kind. God (I would argue) is the full network of those in the spirit at any given time. More a collective than a singular individual, all working in accord.

So as for trinitarianism, I would say there is very much a trinity at play here, but not the traditional one. Rather, it's one constituted by the Father (spirit / seed), the Mother (material womb), and the Child (the fruit of their union). Traditional theology is patriarchal and as such has downplayed and ignored the Mother in all this.

Note: In the NT, this trinity takes the form of the spirit of God (the Father), Mary (the Mother), and Jesus (the Child). The primordial version in Genesis 1 consists of the spirit of God (the Father), tehom / the deep (the Mother), and the light (the Child). (As we all know from John 1, Jesus is the light. See also the etymology of tehom and her connection to Tiamat, a Babylonian sea goddess that the biblical authors were clearly invoking.)

Perhaps, you reckon God an Entity devoid of personhood; so utterly foreign to human thought, that personhood is an anthropomorphic sacrilege. Well now, this would rid our bridge entirely, Genesis 1:26,27, and render such verses as 2 Corinthians 6:18 an enigmatic farce!

No. God's essential form is spirit which I think makes God highly knowable and relatable. I very much resist any notion that God is "utterly foreign" to us. As for the passages you cite, I think they both reinforce the trinity I described above. Take Genesis 1:26-27 for instance, where God says "Let US make humankind in OUR image," male and female... For starters, who is the 'us' that God is referring to if not the spirit of God and tehom, and the collective they've formed together? And why describe the resulting image as male and female unless it is to point us to the fundamental union between these that had been working together up to this point in the creation of all things? ...

It seems you're arguing that God is an impersonal force with an agenda, that intends Itself to be understood through the agency of theological wrangling. A sacred brawl of wits, to determine what the It is?

I think that's fairly accurate of the spirit of God. A spirit is very much like an (impersonal) idea that takes on a life of its own. But like I said of Jesus, persons can be in the spirit and this makes them one with God. Hence there is a very 'personal' side to this. Very real people we can commune with and that are the face of God on earth. I just don't think God is a person per se in the sense of a conscious, deliberate individual.

And the 'it', again, is obvious. See Genesis 1 for its essential form. Here we see God's unwavering purpose is the creation of a world filled with life of every kind. That's what all God's works are bent towards: life, and creating its conditions. Hence later teachings that God is love or love of neighbor, which is simply an extension of this.

The "sacred brawl" you mention is a thing, but it's more about the detailed application of this unwavering purpose, which is not always clear-cut. Like, when is it time to take life in order to save life? What if there is still one good person amongst all the evil-doers? Should we spare them in hope of their redemption? ...

While there absolutely should be debate about such things, the unwavering purpose still stands, and this is what should drive any final decisions.

[Yozavan]

I found your quip fascinating: " Well, to be fair, you asserted the dilemma by de facto stipulating that God has a personhood ..."

Every creed I am aware of considers God a person, especially Trinitarian apologetics! I didn't anticipate having to prove God is a person, which you seem to deny altogether. I can only wonder how you interpret the verbs the Bible assigns Him: says, thinks, feels!

God's essential form is spirit. That's how God is described in Genesis 1:2 when God is first presented to us. A spirit hovering over a watery deep. From whence that spirit came, and what other reality God may consist of, we can only speculate. But that's what I take as a starting point, since it's the starting point provided to us.

Now is a spirit a person? Our assumption should be that these are different kinds of things until we're told otherwise, and we should try to delineate them. (The application of human actions / verbs to God doesn't prove anything. The bible personifies everything from snakes to the earth itself, but we all know these aren't persons and don't take the bible literally on such things, do we?)

As for the delineation, we see that a spirit can 'inhabit' a person as it does pigs and others in various biblical stories, and can also be cast out, hence it is separable. Similarly, people can be 'in' a spirit, as the Catholics like to say, which again suggests difference in kind. (Can a person be 'in' another person? Intercourse aside? Are we to assume that the spirit-person suppresses / contains the original person like popular possessions depict, or that they somehow merge so that two persons literally become one? Or is something else going on that is less sci-fi / mystical in nature and more relatable to our everyday experience?...)

I don't think spirits are persons or have personhood, even though they are personified in the bible. I would say instead that spirits are something very real that we experience everyday and even refer to in common parlance. For example, the spirit of capitalism. Such a spirit has unwavering values and purpose at its core (in this case, personal wealth and its pursuit). It can ebb and flow in power as it possesses people. It can stir movement and take on a life of its own (hence the bible's personification...). But it is not a person.

And I don't think God takes on personhood just because the spirit of God dwells in a person. Take Jesus for example. Jesus was a person. He was a person in the spirit of God. As such he became one with God and is God. But God is not as such reducible to Jesus. There are others, persons and non-persons, who are also in the spirit of God. Like in Genesis 1, the earth is in the spirit of God when it brings forth plants of every kind. God (I would argue) is the full network of those in the spirit. More a collective than a singular individual...

So as for trinitarianism, I would say there is very much a trinity at play, but not a traditional one. Rather, it's one constituted by the Father (spirit / seed), the Mother (material womb), and the Child (the fruit of their union). Traditional theology is patriarchal and as such has downplayed and ignored the Mother in all this.

Note: In the NT, this trinity takes the form of the spirit of God (the Father), Mary (the Mother), and Jesus (the Child). The primordial Genesis 1 version consists of the spirit of God (the Father), tehom / the deep (the Mother), and the light (the Child). (As we know from John 1, Jesus is the light.) (See also the etymology of tehom to see her connection to Tiamat, a Babylonian sea goddess and mother figure that Mary takes the place of in the NT.)

Perhaps, you reckon God an Entity devoid of personhood; so utterly foreign to human thought, that personhood is an anthropomorphic sacrilege. Well now, this would rid our bridge entirely, Genesis 1:26,27, and render such verses as 2 Corinthians 6:18 an enigmatic farce!

No. God's essential form is spirit which I think makes God highly knowable and relatable. I very much resist any notion that God is "utterly foreign" to us. As for the passages you cite, I think they both reinforce the trinity I described above. Take Genesis 1:26-27 for instance, where God says "Let US make humankind in OUR image," male and female... For starters, who is the 'US' that God is referring to if not the spirit of God and tehom? And why describe the resulting image as male and female unless it is to point us to the fundamental union between the spirit of God and tehom / the sea that had been working together up to this point in the creation of all things?

It seems you're arguing that God is an impersonal force with an agenda, that intends Itself to be understood through the agency of theological wrangling. A sacred brawl of wits, to determine what the It is?

I think that's fairly accurate of the spirit of God. A spirit is very much like an (impersonal) idea that takes on a life of its own. But like I said of Jesus, persons can be in the spirit and this makes them one with God. Hence there is a very 'personal' side to this. Very real people we can commune with and that are the face of God. I just don't think God is a person per se in the sense of a conscious, deliberate individual.

The 'it', again, is obvious. See Genesis 1 for its essential form. Here we see God's unwavering purpose is the creation of a world filled with life of every kind. That's what all God's works are bent towards. Life, and creating its conditions. Hence later teachings that God is love or love of neighbor.

The "sacred brawl" you mention is a thing, but it's more about the detailed application of this unwavering purpose, which is not always clear-cut. Like, when is it time to take life in order to save life? What if there is still one good person amongst all the evil-doers? Should we spare them in hope of their redemption?... There absolutely should be debate about such things. But the unwavering purpose still stands, and should drive the ultimate outcome.

I'm using my phone. Haven't figured out how to quote what I want without quoting the whole shebang. Maybe I'll buy a laptop one day .

Sir, I admire your spirit! Your affection for the sacred brawl is captivating. I'm accustomed to the drudgery of Protestant dogmatism, and in that vein I anticipate the usual crass maneuvering.


I forget how charmingly clever a Catholic can be. I must admit an admiration for Catholic thinkers. Were I a Christian, I'd be a Catholic! Not only do you guys have the best cathedrals, but even yall's theology is a cathedral of sorts.

I can't argue with your spirit. Moses was told to remove his shoes on holy ground. Who am I to leave them on.

[onewithhim]

I agree that most religions paint God as either a monster throwing people into flames, or as an individual that has no interest in us here on Earth. Many people believe that a person can never get to know God. However, God Himself practically begs us to listen to Him---a very personal force.

"This is what Jehovah has said, your Repurchaser, the Holy One of Israel: I, Jehovah, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit yourself, the one causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk. O if only you would actually pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea." (Isaiah 48:17,18) NWT; see also Young's Literal Translation.

According to this, He is not an "impersonal force." He cares about each one of us.