What are the Necessary Traits of a God?

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?




My own top four picks -- off the cuff, and in a spirit of refusing to quibble over things stupid to quibble over:

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy



Note: #1 -- "Loving Compasion" is either a necessary attribute of a deity or in certain (high technical) cases, you would not be able to distinguish between a god and mathematics.

Sunstone said:

snipped

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy

Click to expand...

Actually, those items pretty much conform to my own panentheist (not pantheist) view.

I would only, perhaps, add:

5) God is both "here" (immanent) and "more than here" (transcendent).
God is in the world and the world is in God - but unlike pantheism, God is "larger" than the cosmos and holds it within Himself. I think Augustine suggested the image of an ocean-soaked sponge (a God-soaked world) floating in an infinite sea (God).

steveb1 said:

Actually, those items pretty much conform to my own panentheist (not pantheist) view.

I would only, perhaps, add:

5) God is both "here" (immanent) and "more than here" (transcendent).
God is in the world and the world is in God - but unlike pantheism, God is "larger" than the cosmos and holds it within Himself. I think Augustine suggested the image of an ocean-soaked sponge (a God-soaked world) floating in an infinite sea (God).

Click to expand...

So to clarify, so you would absolutely reject the notion that something was a deity if it were not both "here and more than here"? Does that mean you reject the notion that the Christian God is a god? Or that the Muslim Allah is a god?

Sunstone said:

So to clarify, so you would absolutely reject the notion that something was a deity if it were not both "here and more than here"? Does that mean you reject the notion that the Christian God is a god? Or that the Muslim Allah is a god?

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Sunstone said:

So to clarify, so you would absolutely reject the notion that something was a deity if it were not both "here and more than here"? Does that mean you reject the notion that the Christian God is a god? Or that the Muslim Allah is a god?

Click to expand...

I do reject Yahweh/Jesus and Allah, not because they are not immanent and transcendent (their scriptures say that God/Jesus/Allah are here via the spirit/in our hearts, and more than here in heaven), but rather because they are said to be Creators. My own God-definition eschews the notion that God must be a Creator and/or an intervener.

This gets my God-definition off the theodicy hook - since God did not create the world, God cannot be blamed or praised for the world's origins and its current and past condition. For me this leaves God as an object of personal (mystical) experience - divine union mysticism (communion with/union with God or the Spirit) as the most pragmatic way of acquiring God-knowledge, since God-knowledge can't be derived from a world which "He" did not create in the first place.

Sunstone said:

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?

Click to expand...

Insufferable fashion sense...

Sunstone said:

Death to All Who Refuse To Read OPs with Understanding!
(Verily! They Shall be the First to be Eaten by the Aliens.)​

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?

Anything written below this sentence is optional reading...​

My own top four picks -- off the cuff, and in a spirit of refusing to quibble over things stupid to quibble over:

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy



Note: #1 -- "Loving Compasion" is either a necessary attribute of a deity or in certain (high technical) cases, you would not be able to distinguish between a god and mathematics.

Click to expand...

Supernatural powers. I'm pretty flexible with the other attributes but I can't imagine calling anything a God that didn't have at least one supernatural power.

Sunstone said:

Death to All Who Refuse To Read OPs with Understanding!
(Verily! They Shall be the First to be Eaten by the Aliens.)​

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?

Anything written below this sentence is optional reading...​

My own top four picks -- off the cuff, and in a spirit of refusing to quibble over things stupid to quibble over:

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy



Note: #1 -- "Loving Compasion" is either a necessary attribute of a deity or in certain (high technical) cases, you would not be able to distinguish between a god and mathematics.

Click to expand...

With sentience (having a subjective mind) comes the capacity for delusion (confusing the subjective for the objective.) Therefore, a god would also have the capacity for delusion. I can go along with this.

Sunstone said:

So to clarify, so you would absolutely reject the notion that something was a deity if it were not both "here and more than here"? Does that mean you reject the notion that the Christian God is a god? Or that the Muslim Allah is a god?

Click to expand...

The accepted definition of "God" in these structured religions leave waaay too much on the table. They limit themselves to only what they can catagorize and somewhat explain.

steveb1 said:

Actually, those items pretty much conform to my own panentheist (not pantheist) view.

I would only, perhaps, add:

5) God is both "here" (immanent) and "more than here" (transcendent).
God is in the world and the world is in God - but unlike pantheism, God is "larger" than the cosmos and holds it within Himself. I think Augustine suggested the image of an ocean-soaked sponge (a God-soaked world) floating in an infinite sea (God).

Click to expand...

I would also add that my understanding of panentheism has to include the idea that God is the "not here" as well. God, again Imho, has to be everything that we can describe and everything we can't. In other words, God is the known and the unknown; God is also the knowing and the not known.

Sunstone said:

Death to All Who Refuse To Read OPs with Understanding!
(Verily! They Shall be the First to be Eaten by the Aliens.)​

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?

Anything written below this sentence is optional reading...​

My own top four picks -- off the cuff, and in a spirit of refusing to quibble over things stupid to quibble over:

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy



Note: #1 -- "Loving Compasion" is either a necessary attribute of a deity or in certain (high technical) cases, you would not be able to distinguish between a god and mathematics.

Click to expand...

Judging by all the things caed "gods," the only necessary characteristic of a god that I've been able to find is that a god is an object of human worship.

Edit: I should probably add that I don't think this one trait is sufficient to call something a god. It always seems to be "object of human worship" plus something else... but the "something else" can vary wildly.

BSM1 said:

I would also add that my understanding of panentheism has to include the idea that God is the "not here" as well. God, again Imho, has to be everything that we can describe and everything we can't. In other words, God is the known and the unknown; God is also the knowing and the not known.

Click to expand...

In which case, surely, we can ignore the notion of God altogether, and get on with studying the known and seeking insight into the unknown, to see what it might yield.

I can't see how it can mean anything to describe, worship or obey "the unknown."

Sunstone said:

What, if anything, makes a god a god? Put differently, what -- if anything -- are the required and necessary traits of a god for it to be a god?

Anything written below this sentence is optional reading...​

My own top four picks -- off the cuff, and in a spirit of refusing to quibble over things stupid to quibble over:

1) Loving Compassion

2) Sentience

3) Choice (To say "will" is to invoke a nonsense word. "Will" is an operationally empty term.)

4) Efficacy



Note: #1 -- "Loving Compasion" is either a necessary attribute of a deity or in certain (high technical) cases, you would not be able to distinguish between a god and mathematics.[/B]​

Click to expand...

I don't know. What gods/goddesses seem to have in common is that they are mystic or supernatural. They are not explained easily if not attempted to be explained at all. They are profound insofar there physical or incarnations used in a manner to understand it. I wouldn't say all powerful and all knowing. Another similarity is it promotes or involves mystic experiences. So, it's a foundation or source. To some creator. To some life-force. And so forth.

Other than that, I don't know.

Sunstone said:

Well, I was more interesting in prescriptive responses as opposed to descriptive ones. But this is RF, so what the heck. Have at it.

Click to expand...

I didn't mean to suggest that wasn't prescriptive. I think it is.

In my religion, the gods are just the pillars of reality. Some of them provide order to the cosmos and others seek to destroy it by submerging it back into chaos. Both are needed for balance. They're beyond good and evil, love and hate. They don't necessarily care about humans or other living beings, either, although some do.

So it's not necessarily a trait that makes a deity a deity in my religion. It's what they do.