Philosophers: Is God a person?

Answer 1

This can be debated and argued, as it is simply opinion.

I believe that God is not an energy or a creative force, but has a distinct sense of intellect and will--a person.

Answer 2

The two common beliefs are:
-God is a spiritual being beyond time and space (and hence isn't a person)
or
-God is completely made up (and hence isn't a person)

So either way, there's very little chance that God was/is an person of any kind. Jesus, on the other hand, probably was a person that actually existed, but just not in the supernatural way that the Bible describes him.

Answer 3

That's a perspectivistic question commanding normative assumption for a concept which has no norm in language as used by all and any people, i.e. some may agree to a description, but the experience for the personal individuals notion is scientifically unknowable. i.e. 'Is a God...'

The Will is positive, the Judgment is negative.

Answer 4

For thousands of years we have used words to communicate. Other than 'body language' it has been just about the only way to express our thoughts, our heart.

Even our most holy works have had to use words to explain the great mystery we are born into...to explain our very life!

Because it is virtually impossible for us to understand the mysteries all around us, we have tried to put labels on everything. This helps to lessen our child-like fear of the unknown.

"God" has been labeled just like you have been labeled "Third P".

We cannot possibly know what God/life is. To me life seems to boil down to our capacity for love. How much do we love and forgive? How open are we to allow life to unfold in all it's glory. Do we kill with words and unkind deeds? Are we 'good for goodness sake' and not just so we get to go to "heaven"??? Rather greedy, I would say.

So is God a person. I would say, no. God is life/mystery.

Answer 5

You have probably heard someone saying that God is a person, since as we are normally surrounded by persons, we quickly tend to think that everyone and everything falls into that concept. This, of course, is something implanted since early childhood in most of us.

I even read articles from very educated and articulated writers that use the expression "the human person", and I am still waiting to meet one person that it is not human... of course, I do not live in Toontown or Disney Studios where I think is more likely to get acquainted with animals and things that act, behave and talk as persons.

Following this trend, it is only natural that, by default, many people actually think of God as if He were a person.

Some religions, for example, teach that the Trinity consists of three persons and one only God.

But is it true?

Starting from the very word "person", which comes from Latin origin and has to do with theatrical perfomances, we must then go deep in our analysis so we can reach at where the truth is.

In the Oxford Dictionary this explanation is given:

`Person. (Latin=persona) a mask used by a player, a character acted; in later use, a human being; connected by some with the Latin personare "to sound through". A part played in a drama, or in life; hence, function, office, capacity; guise, semblance; character in a play or story'.

As you probably know, in ancient Greece and Rome, same as in other cultures as the Chinese and Japanese, theatrical roles were played by men, even when the character to be represented was that of a woman. Hence, masks where required to achieve the illusion, both in voice and face.

But added to this, there is a problem when you look in the Bible and find out that many times the word "person" was used when referring to different kinds of beings, although in the original text nothing has to do with the word person as we understand it now.

So, we discover that KVJ translates to "person" the Hebrew word adam='man', a gender (Jonah 4:11); ish='man', a male (2 Kings 10:7); enosh='mortal' (Judges 9:4); methim='men' (Psa. 26:4); nephesh='soul' (Gen. 14:21); nephesh adam='soul of man' (gender) (Num. 31:35).

There is no way that any of these terms can be properly used as God. The only other word employed in the Hebrew that was translated as "person", is panim='face'. Eighteen of the twenty occurrences of panim which are translated "person" employ it in the phrase "regard" or "accept persons", and it is evident that the term here does not relate so much to an individual, but as of a status of material possesions, whether such be 'high' or 'low', 'rich' or 'poor'.

In clear opposition to the notion that God could be a person, the Divine Master Himself declares:

"God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship [Him] in spirit and in truth." John 4:24

Furthermore, in His revelations of this Third Era, the Lord explains to us:

"This is the time for comprehension, of the illumination of the spirit and the mind, when man will finally seek Me spiritually, because he will acknowledge that God is not a person nor an image, but the Universal Spirit, unlimited and absolute."

Answer 6

God is a cluster of pure cosmic energy... much beyond the comprehension of human beings! Only enlightened souls... human beings who gained enlightenment understand the gist of cosmic life... the entire cosmic structure! Only after one gains enlightenment does the entire system of the cosmos dawn upon mankind... never before!

God is not the form of human beings... nor is it Sakaar in nature (having form)! God Almighty is always Nirakaar (formless). God Almighty exists from the beginning of time. The entire Cosmos is the creation of God Almighty. It is God Almighty that explodes with a big bang... resulting in formation of the entire Cosmos!

And what is God Almighty? The entire cluster of all souls’ atmans in their pure pristine original form is what we know as God Almighty. The moment god explodes with a big bang... all souls atmans scatter all over the Cosmos with unimaginable speeds! This confirms the saying that God is everywhere.

The traveling souls' atmans gather impurities on the way similar as the rolling ball gathers moss. To cleanse self of the impurities within... these souls’ atmans manifest a living form one after another! The impure souls' atmans are required to travel a cosmic life span of 8.4 million manifestations... an earthly journey of 96.4 million years!

Every soul atman is God Almighty in minuscule form... the attributes of both being the same! If a grain of sand is an individual soul atman... the whole mound God Almighty! This explains why God Almighty is manifest everywhere in the cosmos through the individual souls' atmans. The soul atman within every human being is a portion of God Almighty.

Just before the big bang... God Almighty is the size of half a thumb. And what is this half a thumb? The entire cluster of purified souls' atmans in the Cosmos is the size of half a thumb. This results from the dissolution of the entire old cosmos. The entire Cosmos after dissolution reduces to the size of half a thumb... God Almighty himself!

Bhagavad Gita... the most sacred Scripture of Hinduism on Mother Earth explicitly gives this definition of God Almighty. Everything about the Cosmos, the evolution of human beings, the big bang theory, the dissolution of the Cosmos (aka Pralaya in Hinduism), gaining of enlightenment by human beings... is all made clear in the sacred Bhagavad Gita! More on God - http://www.godrealized.com/god.html

Answer 7

A person has to be human. If so, then a gender.

A formless, attributeless, unbegun, unending Being cannot be any of these.

No, God is Not a person. It can however, manifest as anything.

Answer 8

God is a creation to give meaning to life. So no, not a person.

Answer 9

I thought he was supposed to be a god, not a person

Answer 10

I remember in theology course I took, "Person" was defined as someone who possessed intellect and will.

If God exists, I suppose he fulfills those requirements.