What is God?

[kflisovsky]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

 

[Christopher M Nance]

I believe that you can not describe God. Doing so down plays him, because our human words do nothing but limit him.

Even referring to God as a "Him" is putting limitations on God, as God transcends sexual identity. God made man after his own image, but he came before there was such a thing as male and female. The bible refers to God as Him, only because it is the language we best understand.

Really he is incomprehensible, as without him comprehension in itself would not exist.

That being said, I think that one could best describe him, by explaining his indescribableness.

"He" is:

illimitable, since there is nothing before him to limit him,
unfathomable, since there was nothing before him to fathom him,
immeasurable, since there was nothing before him to measure him,
invisible, since no one has seen him
eternal, since he exists eternally
unnameable, since no one was before him to give him a name.

God is immeasurable light, pure, holy, immaculate. Prefect in incorruptibility.

He is not corporeal and not incorporeal
God is not large or small
God is pure and transcends all.

 

[Gottservant]

God is Spirit.

Therefore, if you ask "what" is God, the answer is "the Holy Spirit". If you ask "who" is God, the answer is "Jesus". If you ask "where" is God, the answer is "God".

 

[juvenissun]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

To begin with, God is the authority which you think how He should be. In scientific term, you make assumptions on what God should be like. For example, a god should have power higher than human. etc.

After that, we use experience to modify the assumptions we made. For example, how much power should a god have? Should it be the same god who controls the flood and also the drought?

This would make us to have an idea on what God is. The more sophisticate we are, the more profound God becomes. For example, should a god be omnipotent? If so, how many gods should be there?

After all these, we will hit an upper barrier. And that is what all we can figure out about God on ourselves. And that set the limitation on the content of many many gods in many many religions.

Of course, the content of Christian God is way way beyond this limit. His nature is something no human can ever figure out.

 

[toolite]

God is "The Spirit" He is above all Spirits (souls, angels, higher beings, demons,satan)
God is Life (He is the only one that can give Life)
God is the "Light" He is the one who welcomes you into Heaven and Heaven is God... The Light is God's Presence.
God is Love ( He is the creator of Love and Compassion teaching us how to love unconditionally)

Glory To God

 

[theFijian]

God is Spirit.

Therefore, if you ask "what" is God, the answer is "the Holy Spirit". If you ask "who" is God, the answer is "Jesus". If you ask "where" is God, the answer is "God".

No, that's one of the worst formulations of the Trinity I've ever heard.

God is indeed a Spirit; infinite, eternal and immutable. In his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

 

[miamited]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

Hi Karl,

God is the Creator of all things. He made absolutely everything that has been made in all of His abode in the realm called heaven and in our realm.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[mark kennedy]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

There are generally four attributes that are incommunicable (unique to God alone):

1. Independence or aseity of God: God is absolute, sufficient unto himself
2. Immutability of God: God is changeless, depending on nothing outside his being.
3. Infinity of God: God is above all space and yet present in every part of it.
4. Unity of God: All aspects of God's nature and attributes are without begining or end.

These require a little more explanation but that's the 4 main attributes.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[gluadys]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

The New Testament gives us three succinct definitions of God with an accompanying conclusion:

John 4:24 God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1 John 1:5b-7 God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not know what is true, but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son, cleanses us from sin.

1 John 4:7-8, 16b, 20-21 Beloved let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ... God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them. ... Those who say "I love God" but hate their brothers and sisters are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.


One can philosophize about additional aspects of the nature of God (especially the Trinity), but to me, these are the core definitions rooted in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Spirit, light/truth, love.

 

[Iosias]

God is holy Being, try In Search of Deity by Macquarrie.

 

[Fascinated With God]

In the 1700's Georg Cantor, now considered a founding father of modern mathematics, was shunned by the mathematicians of his day but extoled by priests and pastors on pulpits across Europe. The reason why: his formulation of the idea of Absolute Infinity.

There are many kinds of infinity. There are an infinite number of integers, but then there are an infinite number of numbers between each integer, so there is an infinity squared of real numbers. And you can take infinity to higher powers, including infinity itself. And from there you can take infinity to the power of infinity to the power of infinity, taken an infinite number of times. It can go on and on without ending.

So logically the set of All--Absolute Infinity, must be beyond all possible mathematical constructions of infinity.

This clearly lends itself to belief in God and gives no support to atheists. They hate any discussion of Absolute Infinity.

Also, in modern Chaos Theory, it has been proven that true randomness does not exist, something Computer Scientists had noticed for decades earlier, that writing truly random random number generators was an astoundingly hard task. The is because the universe is ordered, and God is an inherent part of that order. Order and consciousness are built into the universe at an axiomatic level.

 

[ebia]

In the 1700's Georg Cantor, now considered a founding father of modern mathematics, was shunned by the mathematicians of his day but extoled by priests and pastors on pulpits across Europe. The reason why: his formulation of the idea of Absolute Infinity.

There are many kinds of infinity. There are an infinite number of integers, but then there are an infinite number of numbers between each integer, so there is an infinity squared of real numbers. And you can take infinity to higher powers, including infinity itself. And from there you can take infinity to the power of infinity to the power of infinity, taken an infinite number of times. It can go on and on without ending.

So logically the set of All--Absolute Infinity, must be beyond all possible mathematical constructions of infinity.

This clearly lends itself to belief in God and gives no support to atheists. They hate any discussion of Absolute Infinity.

Also, in modern Chaos Theory, it has been proven that true randomness does not exist, something Computer Scientists had noticed for decades earlier, that writing truly random random number generators was an astoundingly hard task. The is because the universe is ordered, and God is an inherent part of that order. Order and consciousness are built into the universe at an axiomatic level.

There are quite a number of mathematical errors in this post.

To begin with, the number of integers is aleph-null. Between any two integers there are aleph-null rationals. But there are still only aleph-null rationals in total. The relationship between the number of integers (countable) and the number of reals (uncountable) cannot be expressed in terms of a mathematical function such as squared.

 

[chilehed]

I suggest you prayerfully study the Summa Contra Gentiles, by St. Thomas Acquinas.

 

[LBP]

I don't think most believers can answer this "not so simple" question in a coherent manner. There must be an acceptance -- which most believers seem incapable of -- that whatever God fundamentally "is" is something completely beyond our capacity to grasp. A Christian can say that God has revealed himself through scripture and the life of Jesus, and thus we have this revelation as to what God is. But I don't believe that this revelation (which, by definition, presents God in understandable-to-human terms) comes close to communicating the unfathomable essence of God. There seems to be an innate need for many believers to reduce God to what the revelation conveys, as well as a level of discomfort with the notion of God as fundamentally unfathomable. They want God to fit comfortably into their notion of a Cosmic Father who very much resembles a human father. I have no problem with the notion of God as a mystery completely beyond my ability to grasp, except insofar as the Christian revelation may provide some clues. The God of the typical evangelical church always strikes me as way too small and way too un-mysterious, and debates as to "why my understanding of the Trinity is correct and yours is flat-out wrong" strike me as laugh-out-loud absurd.

 

[Gottservant]

God is defined by the question you ask, of Him.

 

[intojoy]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

God is light in whom there is no darkness neither shadow of turning, flawless perfection continually. He's the reason for my joy, for the my happiness, the reason that I sing, The Lord is my salvation.

 

[toLiJC]

What is God?

This is not a trick question, and is only my way of trying to get information.

I am a secular person wishing to appreciate how believers understand God. Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate or anything like that; and I'm not looking to be converted, either.

I would just really like to hear how believers answer this not-so-simple question.

Thanks.

Karl

God the Father is the system administrator of the boundless universe, He gives life to every soul and sustains it, because the souls are the universal users, that is why He is invisible to the humans, because He is inside/beyond all things and therefore cannot afford to be visible to them

Blessings

 

[ViaCrucis]

God is God. Beyond that it is speculation and conjecture.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[granpa]

God is "The Spirit" He is above all Spirits (souls, angels, higher beings, demons,satan)
God is Life (He is the only one that can give Life)
God is the "Light" He is the one who welcomes you into Heaven and Heaven is God... The Light is God's Presence.
God is Love ( He is the creator of Love and Compassion teaching us how to love unconditionally)

Glory To God

The New Testament gives us three succinct definitions of God with an accompanying conclusion:

John 4:24 God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1 John 1:5b-7 God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not know what is true, but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son, cleanses us from sin.

1 John 4:7-8, 16b, 20-21 Beloved let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ... God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them. ... Those who say "I love God" but hate their brothers and sisters are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.


One can philosophize about additional aspects of the nature of God (especially the Trinity), but to me, these are the core definitions rooted in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Spirit, light/truth, love.

2 of the most intelligent posts I have ever read on this forum.

It wont let me rep either of you.
For some reason there is no light bulb above your posts.

 

[Fascinated With God]

There are quite a number of mathematical errors in this post.

To begin with, the number of integers is aleph-null. Between any two integers there are aleph-null rationals. But there are still only aleph-null rationals in total. The relationship between the number of integers (countable) and the number of reals (uncountable) cannot be expressed in terms of a mathematical function such as squared.

Aleph-null is actually aleph-zero (in German zero and null are the same word, but not in English, so calling it null is very misleading).

Aleph numbers are closely related to powers, for example 2 to the power of aleph-zero equals aleph-one:

And in general

. So increasing aleph numbers are very much like increasing powers.

The point remains that Georg Cantor, the founder of Set Theory, stipulated that the process of constructing symbols to describe larger and larger infinities is itself an infinite process, thus logically, the set of all things, Absolute Infinity, must be larger than any infinity that can be constructed with symbols.

Clear proof of a Creator who is much larger than the visible universe. It is a subject that really gets atheists very emotional and angry.