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Do you see God as Personal or Impersonal?

How to you understand God?

  • God is personal, he has personality

    Votes: 9 21.4%

  • God is impersonal, without any personality

    Votes: 8 19.0%

  • God is both personal and impersonal

    Votes: 18 42.9%

  • God is neither personal nor impersonal and I will explain why in my post.

    Votes: 7 16.7%
  • Total voters
    42
O

Onkara

Well-Known Member
Do you see God as personal; in the sense that God comes closer to having a persona and expresses Him/Her self personally in some way?

Or do you see God as Impersonal. In the sense that God is closer to a conscious energy or non-personal God?

a) What confirmed your choice, what advantages or disadvantages do you see from either?


b) How do you see your individual relationship with God based on your perspective?

c) If you consider yourself as an Agnostic perhaps you have a specific opinion also?
 
Baydwin

Baydwin

Well-Known Member
It's a hard question for me, she's just so alien.

I would have to say both though, I don't see her as impersonal because I feel the connection I have to her is intimate. But neither do I see her as personal because she's not like another human, any relationship between human and god can't be like one person to another, it's ultimately something... else, hard to put into words.
 
Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
Personal - as every individual's concept of god is, in some way, a reflection of their personality.
 
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sandandfoam

sandandfoam

Veteran Member
My god is pretty much a projection of mine, and so yes my god is to a degree personal. Says nothing much about God and quite a lot about me. Impersonal too.
 
O

Onkara

Well-Known Member
Thank you!

So how to worship a personal God? Is it comfortable knowing that it is "a reflection of their personality"? Or even knowing that you have taken the description of God's personality from scriptures or other sources?
 
Erebus

Erebus

Well-Known Member
Since I see all existence as literally being God, God is both personal and impersonal as existence will inevitably throw both personal and impersonal aspects of itself at you ;)
 
Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis

Reincarnation of 'Anti-religion'
Impersonal and personal are flip sides of another.Both are same.
Emptiness is form; form is emptiness. Apart from form, emptiness is not; apart from emptiness, form is not. Emptiness is that which is form, form is that which is emptiness.:D
 
O

Onkara

Well-Known Member
itwillend said:
I don't see God. So I can't answer.
Click to expand...
Replace "see" with which ever verb is required. I first chose "understand" then "know" and felt I was forcing the answer into epistemology where as I was hoping for a more practical daily approach.

Your answer is to the point and how you do understand it, so thank you.
------

Thank you all for your useful answers :)
 
D

Doodlebug02

Active Member
I see God as personal. Though I can see how He might be impersonal as well. I voted for the first option though. I believe God is personal because He came to the earth in the form of a human as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is both fully human and fully God. That and the Bible portrays God as having emotions.

(Matthew 21:12 NAB-A) Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
(Matthew 21:13 NAB-A) And he said to them, It is written: 'My house shall be a house of prayer,' but you are making it a den of thieves.

He clearly we see the Son of God, Jesus Christ, expressing anger - righteous anger.

(John 11:35 NAB-A) And Jesus wept.

And here we clearly see Him weeping. He is expressing deep sadness in this verse.

I am sure that there are examples of God the Father also expressing emotion but I don't know of any verses off the top of my head.
 
Just_me_Mike

Just_me_Mike

Well-Known Member
Onkarah said:
Do you see God as personal; in the sense that God comes closer to having a persona and expresses Him/Her self personally in some way?

Or do you see God as Impersonal. In the sense that God is closer to a conscious energy or non-personal God?

a) What confirmed your choice, what advantages or disadvantages do you see from either?


b) How do you see your individual relationship with God based on your perspective?

c) If you consider yourself as an Agnostic perhaps you have a specific opinion also?
Click to expand...
You don't have an option for this, but in my years of study, I am more convinced today than ever, that I just don't know...:shrug:
 
Mr Cheese

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Onkarah said:
Thank you!

So how to worship a personal God? Is it comfortable knowing that it is "a reflection of their personality"? Or even knowing that you have taken the description of God's personality from scriptures or other sources?
Click to expand...

wherever you go
there you are,......

how to truly worship God?
stop worshipping God....

or to put it simply
understand that all acts, all moments are of God
make lover and loved one...

so that there is no devotion
no worship

Beloved, I sought you
here and there,
asked for news of you
from all I met;
then saw you through myself
and found we were identical.
Now I blush to think I ever
searched for signs of you.

–Fakhruddin Iraq

The prayer of the monk is not perfect
until he no longer recognizes himself
or the fact that he is praying.


–St Anthony

The true solutions are not those which we force upon life
in accordance with our theories, but those which life
itself provides for those who dispose themselves to receive
the truth. Consequently our task is to dissociate
ourselves from all who have theories which promise clear-cut
and infallible solutions, and to mistrust all such theories,
not in a spirit of negativism and defeat,
but rather trusting life itself, and nature,
and if you will permit me,
God above all.

–Thomas Merton
 
Xafwak

Xafwak

XFWK
Onkarah said:
Do you see God as personal; in the sense that God comes closer to having a persona and expresses Him/Her self personally in some way?

Or do you see God as Impersonal. In the sense that God is closer to a conscious energy or non-personal God?

a) What confirmed your choice, what advantages or disadvantages do you see from either?


b) How do you see your individual relationship with God based on your perspective?

c) If you consider yourself as an Agnostic perhaps you have a specific opinion also?
Click to expand...

I think all conciousness has its own personality. This can be seen from animals including humans as well. Therefore I think, that for a god to be a conscious god, it needs a personality. If it were not conscious, it would be a force of nature rather than a deity.

The individual relationship with a god depends on how it views humans. Satan for example is willing to make deals and alliances with the dark ones.
 
Tiapan

Tiapan

Grumpy Old Man
The only equivalent to a "god" in my philosophy is that of nature itself, as such it is impersonal without personality or favor.

Cheers
 
O

Onkara

Well-Known Member
Xafwak said:
I think all conciousness has its own personality. This can be seen from animals including humans as well. Therefore I think, that for a god to be a conscious god, it needs a personality. If it were not conscious, it would be a force of nature rather than a deity.

The individual relationship with a god depends on how it views humans. Satan for example is willing to make deals and alliances with the dark ones.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum Xafwak!
That is an interesting additon "consciousness has its own personality". How do you related to Satan's personality, do you consider Him to have a personality, do you worhsip a personality or a form of no-personality (nirguna in Sanskrit)?
 
O

Onkara

Well-Known Member
Tiapan said:
The only equivalent to a "god" in my philosophy is that of nature itself, as such it is impersonal without personality or favor.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Hi Tipan, we see ourselves that we have personality. How does our personality fit into nature? It is just chemical or is it something more to you?

The point of this thread is because some beleive God has a personality other not and I am hoping to understand how God can have a personality from a philosophical and logical point of view as much as scriptural. If no God then of course it is harder to answer, but we can begin with ourselves.
 
Tiapan

Tiapan

Grumpy Old Man
I guess it boils down to the chemistry, however that is a rather simplistic description of something far more sophisticated. Bit like describing the Taj Mahal as only its constituent bricks, their arrangement in 4 dimensional space ie tertiary and quaternary structural macromolecular interrelationships are more appropriate perhaps. So yes I see it as a normal progression of evolution, fully explained (eventually) by natural laws of physics. The problem at the moment is defining how we go about measuring such esoteric phenomena.

Cheers
 
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