Is God Non-Physical?

[Nakosis]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

 

[Twilight Hue]

God is just a mental idea some people have.

No question god is inmaterial because God is just a generated thought.

The only physicality is the neurons firing in the brain.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

Whatever we say God is, if God interacted with the physical universe, then he would have physical effects that could be measured, theoretically.

 

[Terry Sampson]

I say:
(a) No,
(b) No.

 

[osgart]

Whatever we say God is, if God interacted with the physical universe, then he would have physical effects that could be measured, theoretically.

Any physical effect of a God would be interpreted naturalistically, and we would have no way of knowing it to be of a God.

 

[dybmh]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

Does anyone else find the gender specific pronoun in this message ironic? God has no material or form, but is a Dude?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Does anyone else find the gender specific pronoun in this message ironic? God has no material or form, but is a Dude?

Depends upon who's controlling the puppet.

 

[Nakosis]

Does anyone else find the gender specific pronoun in this message ironic? God has no material or form, but is a Dude?

What is the proper non-gender pronoun for God?

I would have normally used "their" instead of "his" in this case.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Does anyone else find the gender specific pronoun in this message ironic?

Not me. Why? Because we either refer to God in the second person singular (i.e. You or Thou) or the second person plural (i.e. You or Thou), or in the third person singular (He, She, or It) or the third Person plural (They).

The only sentence in the OP which uses the third person singular possessive form of He" is: "His existence is non-physical and is distinct from His creations." So, which version are you most comfortable with or which do you think is most accurate?"

• "Your existence is non-physical and is distinct from Your creations."
• "Thy existence is non-physical and is distinct from Thy creations."
• "His existence is non-physical and is distinct from His creations."
• "Her existence is non-physical and is distinct from Her creations."
• "Its existence is non-physical and is distinct from Its creations."
• "Their existence is non-physical and is distinct from Their creations."

 

[King Phenomenon]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

I think God has some physical characteristics, that being the earth and then when we start getting into the infinite universe God might start to look non-physical.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

What is the proper non-gender pronoun for God?

I would have normally used "their" instead of "his" in this case.

I usually use it, really.

 

[Terry Sampson]

when we start getting into the infinite universe he might start to look a little more non-physical.

Uhh, excuse me. What would the non-physical look like?

 

[King Phenomenon]

Uhh, excuse me. What would the non-physical look like?

I don't know. I was going to write God might start to feel non-physical. I don't know what that would feel like either. I also considered writing God might start to be thought of as non-physical. I'm not sure what those thoughts would be, look or feel like either. So I ended up going with the word look.

 

[sun rise]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

From my belief system, the Divine is unmanifest and manifest. From my belief system "God" exists in the beyond beyond which is not connected with the universe. God manifest as Avatar does interact.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

There is no science that proves someone who claims to be God in human form is really God in human form.

 

[George-ananda]

In my Advaita non-dual (God and creation are not-two) beliefs, God is pure immaterial infinite consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental meaning it is not composed of anything else. What it 'IS' is the ultimate mystery we can not get our minds behind. It is the ground basis of reality.

The material universe is then a thought-form of God. There is a spark of this immaterial consciousness (God) in all living things.

Advaita: Consciousness is fundamental and the material is a derivative of Consciousness

Materialism: The material is fundamental and consciousness is a derivative of the material

 

[King Phenomenon]

Uhh, excuse me. What would the non-physical look like?

For me God is the infinite universe. When I think of the infinite universe I start to feel uneasy and then I turn back to myself to seek comfort. So perhaps a non-physical God would be a feeling of uneasy. One may say well since I'm being affected in the physical then God is physical. If I had the ability to withstand being affected in a negative way and beyond perhaps I could see what a non-physical God would look like.

 

[LightofTruth]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

Man was created in the image of God, therefore God has an image. Immateriality has no image.

 

[VoidoftheSun]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

If God was material or even resembling a state of being such as ourselves, then it would be creation and not God. It would be a thing and not the source-of-things. It would be conditioned, and not Absolute.


Here is Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib (pbuh) speaking about God:

"Praise be to God who is proof of His existence through His creation, of His being eternal through the newness of His creation, and through their mutual similarities of the fact that nothing is similar to Him. Senses cannot touch Him and curtains cannot veil Him, because of the difference between the Maker and the made, the Limiter and the limited and the Sustainer and the sustained.
He is One but not by the first in counting, is Creator but not through activity or labour, is Hearer but not by means of any physical organ, is Looker but not by a stretching of eyelids, is Witness but not by nearness, is Distinct but not by measurement of distance, is Manifest but not by seeing and is Hidden but not by subtlety (of body). He is Distinct from things because He overpowers them and exercises might over them, while things are distinct from Him because of their subjugation to Him and their turning towards Him.
He who describes Him limits Him. He who limits Him numbers Him. He who numbers Him rejects His eternity. He who said "how" sought a description for Him. He who said "where" bounded him. He is the Knower even though there be nothing to be known. He is the Sustainer even though there be nothing to be sustained. He is the Powerful even though there be nothing to be overpowered."


We also learn pretty quickly that applying any kind of personification literally (instead of symbolically) is also not describing God but rather creation.
God is not a Him, He, His, Her, She, Hers or anything else like that. "it" is the closest you get but even "it" presumes that God can be somehow distinguished.

 

[VoidoftheSun]

As for the concept of personification, I equate it directly with what Christians called "Theomorphism" being the deification of man(kind). Various religious literature from both Abrahamic and Dharmic religions speak of this in different ways. Theophany is never God itself, such a notion is an incoherent absurdity because reality is always reality, reality doesn't enter into reality (when it already is and cannot be itself by definition, such a thing is a contradiction of terms and of it's very ontological meaning).
Theophany is always angels standing in for God, sometimes in the image of humans, sometimes more scarily (such as the 'wheels within wheels' to Ezekiel and the billions of eyes to Muhammad). Drawing a connection between mankind and God through the theophany of the Angel standing in for God, implies an aspect of Monism. As the Hermeticists spoke "As Above So Below, as within so without".
Furthermore as we read in opening chapter of Genesis in the Torah, man(kind) being made in the "image of God", another symbolic notion. Not relating to appearance but rather to consciousness itself, not the ego but the very thing that the ego "runs on" (like a computer program), same thing regarding physical/material world too.
These things will never be explained by the exoteric side of religion which will always either commit blatant idolatry (like treating God as a being or entity) or will simply scratch it's head. Atheists never help here, lol (cause they usually commit idolatry too by treating God as a being or entity).


Also I'll add that the concept of image, symbol, etc in relation to God is a very obviously mystical thing. It being literalized for instance by Christianity, does not stop it from being as such.
In the symbolic sense, we can contemplate many different "images of God" (theopathy) and come to all kinds of realizations about the nature of reality, because these kinds of images are there to do such things. They are not ends to themselves, because God is completely transcendent, formless, imageless, eternal, all-encompassing and the like. When we take the images and symbols to be literal (idolatry) then we destroy the whole purpose of such images and symbols. Same is true whatever religion one follows.

 

[Bear Wild]

What is the proper non-gender pronoun for God?

I would have normally used "their" instead of "his" in this case.

The proper pronoun is She!

Man was created in the image of God, therefore God has an image. Immateriality has no image.

So god looks like a Man? Not Woman? Not Raven, Not a bear? So you have seen God to know?