How is the idea of the Christian God better than the idea of a non-personal God?

[OBuscador]

The OP was edited, hopefully now make some sense!

 

[OBuscador]

What is your idea of 'better'? What considerations do you, personally, take into account in determining whether one conception of God is better or worse than another conception?

this is a good question, I would say I could not consider a better view for both being that we do not know the best for another! Fall into my own trap.

I rewrote a part of the OP.

 

[Sanoy]

Hello Sanoy, thnks for reply. Mind is also matter, love and other emotions are chemical reactions of the brain. In fact with this question I do not want to prove that the "impersonal god" is better than a personal god even though I have more preferences for the idea of believing that the universe is all there is and that the idea of a personal and transcendent god is no better or superior than a "pantheistic god" (that is the Cosmos), I say this because some theists have told me that their particular "God" is above others or that there is no other true deity outside theirs.

The idea that mind is matter has not been shown to even be likely true, and the concept has hard logical problems to boot. That said, I am going to try to avoid going through that because I think it will take us too far off course.

• Okay so if our god is the matter, then that god is contingent on the big bang et all cosmological theories of origin. In contrast, the Christian God is a maximally great being and exists 'a se' (aseity), he is not contingent, he is the unmoved mover that created all matter. So if matter god, lets call him Deus (deism) exists, God created him.
  
• Deus is not logically necessary as I can imagine a world with no matter, he could fail to exist. But the Christian God cannot fail to exist.
  
• Due to the second law of thermodynamics our universe will eventually reach equilibrium and Deus will be permanently asleep, if not dead. God will never cease to be, and due to his personal interaction He can ensure that we never cease to be either.
• We cannot harm God, or the standard He sustains by his nature, love, mercy, justice etc. Deus is matter, and if mind is the arrangement of chemical processes and arrangement of matter then God's mind can be changed by men through direct manipulation of Deus's mind, simply by gathering rocks. And because of this, Deus cannot stand as a paradigm of anything, because he is always changing.
  
• Deus is irrelevant, he doesn't solve our hard problems of mind and existence. He is like a Boltzmann Brain that randomly came to be and will randomly disappear.

 

[Freodin]

The idea that mind is matter has not be shown to even be likely true, and the concept has hard logical problems to boot. That said, I am going to try to avoid going through that because I think it will take us too far off course.

• Okay so if our god is the matter, then that god is contingent on the big bang et all cosmological theories of origin. In contrast, the Christian God is a maximally great being and exists 'a se' (aseity), he is not contingent, he is the unmoved mover that created all matter. So if matter god, lets call him Deus (deism) exists, God created him.
  
• Deus is not logically necessary as I can imagine a world with no matter, he could fail to exist. But the Christian God cannot fail to exist.
  
• Due to the second law of thermodynamics our universe will eventually reach equilibrium and Deus will be permanently asleep, if not dead. God will never cease to be, and due to his personal interaction He can ensure that we never cease to be either.
• We cannot harm God, or the standard He sustains by his nature, love, mercy, justice etc. Deus is matter, and if mind is the arrangement of chemical processes and arrangement of matter then God's mind can be changed by men through direct manipulation of Deus's mind, simply by gathering rocks. And because of this, Deus cannot stand as a paradigm of anything, because he is always changing.
  
• Deus is irrelevant, he doesn't solve our hard problems of mind and existence. He is like a Boltzmann Brain that randomly came to be and will randomly disappear.

Interestingly, I think all of your objections here are based on a misunderstanding or even misrepresentation of both "materialism" as well as "pantheism".

I guess I can understand where this misunderstanding originates from: theists, especially those who adhere to a creator deity, tend to believe in a transcendent god. In their view, there is a clear distinction between what is "god" and what is "not-god".

In the materialist, and even more in the pantheist view, this is a false distinction. "God" is everything, not just a distinct part of this "everything".
As such, "God" cannot be contingent on anything, because that "anything" would then also be (part of) God.

But in the opposite way, a lot of things that we observe in our existence can be said to be contingent on (parts of) this greater, overall existence. As such, they cannot be attributes of this "god" as a whole. "Personhood" can be seen as such an attribute, and so this pantheistic can be said to be non-personal.


I can understand such a view, and in a way I even support it. I simply do not understand the use of the term "God" for such a concept, especially when you consider the other, more dominant theistic variants.

 

[Sanoy]

Interestingly, I think all of your objections here are based on a misunderstanding or even misrepresentation of both "materialism" as well as "pantheism".

I guess I can understand where this misunderstanding originates from: theists, especially those who adhere to a creator deity, tend to believe in a transcendent god. In their view, there is a clear distinction between what is "god" and what is "not-god".

In the materialist, and even more in the pantheist view, this is a false distinction. "God" is everything, not just a distinct part of this "everything".
As such, "God" cannot be contingent on anything, because that "anything" would then also be (part of) God.

But in the opposite way, a lot of things that we observe in our existence can be said to be contingent on (parts of) this greater, overall existence. As such, they cannot be attributes of this "god" as a whole. "Personhood" can be seen as such an attribute, and so this pantheistic can be said to be non-personal.


I can understand such a view, and in a way I even support it. I simply do not understand the use of the term "God" for such a concept, especially when you consider the other, more dominant theistic variants.

I definitely misunderstand it, Pantheism has such a broad use. I can only rely on the particular persons version. According to the OP's description of Pantheism it is not reality but this universe.

"when I say a impersonal god I mean about an pantheist god or a god who is the "All" and universality of the beings of the universe, a god that is not open to the personal relationship that an individual may have with a personal god, being that as I said, this god is "All" of this universe, that this god is the generative nature and everything that is in the natural world and that this same nature creates the beings that have ideas of all things (even of nature itself)."

 

[Freodin]

I definitely misunderstand it, Pantheism has such a broad use. I can only rely on the particular persons version. According to the OP's description of Pantheism it is not reality but this universe.

"when I say a impersonal god I mean about an pantheist god or a god who is the "All" and universality of the beings of the universe, a god that is not open to the personal relationship that an individual may have with a personal god, being that as I said, this god is "All" of this universe, that this god is the generative nature and everything that is in the natural world and that this same nature creates the beings that have ideas of all things (even of nature itself)."

I cannot speak for the OP, and this concept is indeed a broad one.
It may be that he equates "this universe" with "reality" (it does have the meaning of "everything there is", even if we today have come to talk about "different universes").
Or it may be that he includes potential extra- or pre- "our current material universe"... whatevers in the general concept of "universe".

Let's see if he has something to say about that.

But as far as I understand pantheism, it would indeed use the absolute idea of "everything" as its basis.

Still, the general difference between the transcendent deity of theism, the all-encompassing deity of pantheism and the all-encompassing non-deity of materialism remains.

I fear the misunderstanding of this distinction is behind a lot of the criticism that theists have about either pantheism or materialism, and it is great to see someone who understands this problem.

 

[zippy2006]

Still, the general difference between the transcendent deity of theism, the all-encompassing deity of pantheism and the all-encompassing non-deity of materialism remains.

I fear the misunderstanding of this distinction is behind a lot of the criticism that theists have about either pantheism or materialism, and it is great to see someone who understands this problem.

How in particular does the theist misunderstand the distinction? What exactly is the confused theist's error?

I guess I can understand where this misunderstanding originates from: theists, especially those who adhere to a creator deity, tend to believe in a transcendent god. In their view, there is a clear distinction between what is "god" and what is "not-god".

In the materialist, and even more in the pantheist view, this is a false distinction. "God" is everything, not just a distinct part of this "everything".
As such, "God" cannot be contingent on anything, because that "anything" would then also be (part of) God.

I don't think contingency reduces to a part/whole problem. If the pantheist believes that everything is contingent then they also believe that God is contingent, and plenty of pantheists believe that everything is contingent. The pantheist's God may not be contingent on the big bang, but this doesn't mean that their God isn't contingent.

 

[Freodin]

How in particular does the theist misunderstand the distinction? What exactly is the confused theist's error?

Basically, they show this misunderstanding every time they make a distinction regarding the pantheist God at all.

Like when Sanoy said in one of his criticisms: "Deus is matter, and if mind is the arrangement of chemical processes and arrangement of matter then God's mind can be changed by men through direct manipulation of Deus's mind, simply by gathering rocks."
Here, he make a distinction between "God" or "the mind of God" and "men" changing God.
But in pantheism, there is no distiction, no separation between "God" and "men" (or "rocks"). These are not seperate entities, but only hierarchical ones (I hope this is clear.)
So it wouldn't be "distinct entity men" influencing "distinct entity God", but "entity God doing what entity God does".

I don't think contingency reduces to a part/whole problem. If the pantheist believes that everything is contingent then they also believe that God is contingent, and plenty of pantheists believe that everything is contingent. The pantheist's God may not be contingent on the big bang, but this doesn't mean that their God isn't contingent.

I didn't say that pantheists believe that everything in contingent. I thought it was quite clear. I did say that God cannot be contingent on anything, and God is "everything"... so everything cannot be contingent.

This should be rather obvious, because there cannot be any ambiguity in "everything".

 

[OBuscador]

The idea that mind is matter has not been shown to even be likely true, and the concept has hard logical problems to boot. That said, I am going to try to avoid going through that because I think it will take us too far off course.

• Okay so if our god is the matter, then that god is contingent on the big bang et all cosmological theories of origin. In contrast, the Christian God is a maximally great being and exists 'a se' (aseity), he is not contingent, he is the unmoved mover that created all matter. So if matter god, lets call him Deus (deism) exists, God created him.
  
• Deus is not logically necessary as I can imagine a world with no matter, he could fail to exist. But the Christian God cannot fail to exist.
  
• Due to the second law of thermodynamics our universe will eventually reach equilibrium and Deus will be permanently asleep, if not dead. God will never cease to be, and due to his personal interaction He can ensure that we never cease to be either.
• We cannot harm God, or the standard He sustains by his nature, love, mercy, justice etc. Deus is matter, and if mind is the arrangement of chemical processes and arrangement of matter then God's mind can be changed by men through direct manipulation of Deus's mind, simply by gathering rocks. And because of this, Deus cannot stand as a paradigm of anything, because he is always changing.
  
• Deus is irrelevant, he doesn't solve our hard problems of mind and existence. He is like a Boltzmann Brain that randomly came to be and will randomly disappear.

I can not see this contrast in the personal God, I could also say that the Judeo-Christian God is contingent in the sacred books that were written by some Hebrews in the Bronze Age. I can also say that Allah is a maximally great being and exists 'a se' (aseity), he is not contingent, he is the unmoved mover that created all matter. Why are you somehow equating the deist god with a personal god? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I do not worry too much about the idea that the universe has to have an inherent purpose since I think the universe exists by itself and I can not see a cause or reason for future purpose in it. I don't think that tomorrow when I look at the sky I will find stars organized in such a way that something supernatural could say "I am here, and I have a purpose for all this." The Muslim could also say but Allah cannot fail to exist.

I do not bother with the idea of the ultimate destruction of the universe, the idea that there is a final justice (eternal torture for the disobedient and eternal happiness in heaven or Tian for those who obeyed such a god) and I think that the idea of heaven and hell ties some people to fear and blind obedience, to me the idea of a heaven is totally hypothetical and also irrelevant. What matters is what we do here and now.

And how do you know that this God exists and that he is sustained by these standards? I have no problem with such changes, since I do not believe in a kind of immutable and infinite god.

 

[zippy2006]

Basically, they show this misunderstanding every time they make a distinction regarding the pantheist God at all.

Like when Sanoy said in one of his criticisms: "Deus is matter, and if mind is the arrangement of chemical processes and arrangement of matter then God's mind can be changed by men through direct manipulation of Deus's mind, simply by gathering rocks."
Here, he make a distinction between "God" or "the mind of God" and "men" changing God.
But in pantheism, there is no distiction, no separation between "God" and "men" (or "rocks"). These are not seperate entities, but only hierarchical ones (I hope this is clear.)
So it wouldn't be "distinct entity men" influencing "distinct entity God", but "entity God doing what entity God does".

Okay, thanks, I see what you are saying. Granted, I don't know if this is a common mistake since I have really never seen it made. Perhaps this is just due to the fact that I haven't penetrated into pantheist circles in many years.

I didn't say that pantheists believe that everything in contingent.

No, you didn't, but I did. More specifically, I said that some pantheists believe that everything is contingent in which case God is contingent. The necessary existence of the cosmos was common in older versions of pantheism, but nowadays it is not uncommon to reject such a position:

Historically the majority of pantheists have regarded the universe as Infinite, metaphysically perfect, necessarily existent, and eternal (or some subset thereof) and—taking these attributes as the characteristic marks of divinity—that has formed one very important reason for thinking that the universe itself is in fact God.

In more recent times, however, there have arisen naturalistic or scientific forms of pantheism which reject or are neutral about these characteristics and, while they remove one important set of reasons for thinking the cosmos divine, so long as others remain, the amputation in itself seems insufficient reason to refuse the label ‘pantheist’ to such views. Any methodology which limits itself to empirical science will presumably find it hard to attribute anything like infinitude or necessary existence to the cosmos, while approaches which do find a role for such features will need to be careful that they understand them in an appropriate fashion. (For example, it is doubtful that mere infinite extent, or infinite divisibility, in space and time would be sufficient to merit that the universe be called divine.) But with these caveats aside the pantheist is not without arguments for believing that the universe as a whole displays marks of metaphysical perfection.

SEP - Pantheism​

I did say that God cannot be contingent on anything, and God is "everything"... so everything cannot be contingent.

Whereas I would say that the necessary being of God is more central to theism than pantheism.

 

[OBuscador]

I can understand such a view, and in a way I even support it. I simply do not understand the use of the term "God" for such a concept, especially when you consider the other, more dominant theistic variants.

Let's see if he has something to say about that.

I use the term "God" (in the absence of a better word) just by saying that the universe has not yet been fully understood, and not by the conventional theist idea that God is a supreme, supernatural being, the universe and so on. Perhaps this is the greatest incoherence that many see in pantheism and even the pantheists themselves.


In fact the only thing I have to say is that at this time, is that pantheists do not believe in any supernatural divinity. Unfortunately, pantheists often use the word God (as I have said, for want of a better word) as synonymous with the universe or everything.

 

[Freodin]

Okay, thanks, I see what you are saying. Granted, I don't know if this is a common mistake since I have really never seen it made. Perhaps this is just due to the fact that I haven't penetrated into pantheist circles in many years.

Neither did I, so it is possible that I am completely misrepresenting pantheists here.

And this mistake is easy to miss, I grant you that. I haven't seen many discussions with pantheists here, but it crops up in almost every argument about materialism, when the critics of materialims try to reduce it to "mere" matter.

No, you didn't, but I did. More specifically, I said that some pantheists believe that everything is contingent in which case God is contingent. The necessary existence of the cosmos was common in older versions of pantheism, but nowadays it is not uncommon to reject such a position:

Again, I cannot speak for any pantheist here, and we would have to go to the people who hold these specific positions to clarify, but I dare say that here you make the very mistake that you say you never see made.

It is possible that some pantheists think that this "our" expression of existence is "necessary", but in my own understanding I would say that this is a huge limitation of "pan"-theist in general. It would be "existence" (already difficult to define) itself that is necessary, not the form it takes. Making a distiction between forms of existence would be a misunderstanding of pantheism.

Whereas I would say that the necessary being of God is more central to theism than pantheism.

That depends on what form the "necessity" takes. What is included?
I admit that I don't think that the argument from necessary existence is conclusive or even complelling. But here again, it can only conclude that there must be a necessary existence... but not what form it takes.

 

[Sanoy]

I can not see this contrast in the personal God, I could also say that the Judeo-Christian God is contingent in the sacred books that were written by some Hebrews in the Bronze Age. I can also say that Allah is a maximally great being and exists 'a se' (aseity), he is not contingent, he is the unmoved mover that created all matter. Why are you somehow equating the deist god with a personal god? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I do not worry too much about the idea that the universe has to have an inherent purpose since I think the universe exists by itself and I can not see a cause or reason for future purpose in it. I don't think that tomorrow when I look at the sky I will find stars organized in such a way that something supernatural could say "I am here, and I have a purpose for all this." The Muslim could also say but Allah cannot fail to exist.

I do not bother with the idea of the ultimate destruction of the universe, the idea that there is a final justice (eternal torture for the disobedient and eternal happiness in heaven or Tian for those who obeyed such a god) and I think that the idea of heaven and hell ties some people to fear and blind obedience, to me the idea of a heaven is totally hypothetical and also irrelevant. What matters is what we do here and now.

And how do you know that this God exists and that he is sustained by these standards? I have no problem with such changes, since I do not believe in a kind of immutable and infinite god.

God would not be contingent on the writing of a book. As the creator of matter he would logically exist before the writer. Muslims use the old and new testament. When we say maximally great we mean objectively maximally great, so there are no 2 MGB's there is only 1 correctly identified MGB and many mistaken MGBs. Due to God's general revelation to all mankind via his divine attributes a Muslim can apprehend Gods divine nature and reach the same conclusion, calling Him by a different name. As St Augustus said "There are wolves within and sheep without". That said I thought your question was over why the Christian God is greater than Deus? You need God to create Deus, so it is better to have God, because without him there is no Deus.

Because Deus can fail to exist, there must be an explanation for why Deus does exist. And because Deus could fail to exist it would be better to have a personal God that cannot fail to exist.

You may not bother with the destruction of the universe, but you asked why God is better than Deus, and eternal life is part of that. I do not believe in ECT (Eternal conscious torment), and I don't think scripture actually teaches ECT. Through textual study, it seems to clearly indicate Annihilation.

How do I know God exists? I have seen angels, I have been attacked by demons (like the movies), I have been healed before surgery, I have seen my prayers answered, and greater than all these I have the witness of the Spirit in me that testifies of God. Since Deus could have failed to exist, how do you know that he indeed does exist? It seems the world where Deus exists and the world where Deus doesn't exist is empirically equivalent, so how do you know Deus exists?

What is so great about Deus?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Thank you Quid est Veritas? Well, I actually think that the explanation of that matter was responsible for the matter itself (the immanent energy, which I called the non-personal God in the topic) is no less coherent than saying that an omnipotent deity created or which is responsible or controls in a certain way everything that happens in our universe, I can not imagine that everything that is material was created by a non-material and "personal" entity or the "I Am", that according to many theists who say that consciousness can not come into existence through non-consciousness that intelligence and knowledge exist because it was the work of an omniscient being, consciousness could not have been created by a bioenergy or any other energy of the universe? Does that mean I killed that cat in the box? But do people know that such a cat is in the box or not? How do you know if such a cat exists?

Well, unless you missed my point, we have no empirical evidence that something can exist without being consciously thought of. Everything we think exists, is only so thought because humans are aware of it. So there is no evidence that anything can exist outside of contemplation of a Consciousness. It is a catch-22, but means that the idea of matter existing outside of, or irrespective to, perception of said matter, is a a priori construction that goes against any attainable evidence. What exists must have been perceived, in a sense; so what has not been perceived, cannot be shown to exist. This is why the idea that we can 'discover' things that we assume already exist, implies that we are working in a metaphysical model under some form of Consciousness. This is in fact what Empiricism thus implies - which was no problem to the mediaeval clerics that invented Scientific Method, but is problematic to a modern materialist who would trumpet 'evidence', but willing to assume things like this in the teeth thereof- where no evidence is, nor can be, forthcoming.

I think there may be a moment in the future when scientists will discover a form or theory that explains how the theory of creation will completely eliminate the idea "This is a mystery that can only be explained with personal God", or "a being personnel of intelligence and purpose did this or that "that creation is a gift from God to men." @Freodin, certainly knows how to explain more coherently and with much more precision than I do that we do not need a personal God in this universe.

'Science of the Gaps' argument? Such a theory would have to part ways with the idea of Scientific Method to do so, as it would be thoroughly metaphysical. We cannot discover something without assuming it already exists, just unknown. We have no way of showing something can exist, if unknown to all consciousnesses. This is therefore no longer a 'scientist' doing so, but a philosopher.

I think that saying monotheistic God is fundamentally existing is no different from saying that "fundamental fluctuations of the quantum nature are fundamentally existing" or that "quantum vacuum energy is fundamentally existent" to me these are smaller loopholes than saying "this exists or happens why did a monotheistic God say or create "

A lot of what you are saying is jargonesque. Replace God with Energy, but you still need to determine what is meant by whichever term you use. How would you do so? This is akin to the assumption that the stars move in Aether, and then describing said Aether, but it is all conjectural. Or Phlogiston.
The idea is something must fundamentally exist. Everything we know of, is perceived, and we have no way to determine that something unperceived can exist. You could argue it could, certainly, but the argument is not built on much of a foundation. Assuming Consciousness is central to the Ground of Being, nicely solves many of our issues. It might not be true, but hey, that is where Faith comes in. If we deny it though, our anthropic problems remain fundamentally insoluble in any case. More so, as you have to assume existence without consciousness is possible, if not deny consciousness in entirety, to remain coherent.

It is the Sceptics problem - you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

I need to figure out what C.S. Lewis says. Does pantheism also convey a transcendental idea that something may be hovering over our universe? In fact I think that something that is not part of the natural world, or say that there is some spirit hovering the universe or that there is a conscious and ineffable being ceases to be a pantheistic idea.

CS Lewis has a good argument called the Argument from Reason which is also applicable here.

So you are confusing Pantheism and Panentheism. The latter has God as a sort of World Soul, and in a weak form like Palamism, isn't incompatible with Christianity. There matter and God aren't separate, but God isn't fundamentally the same as His Creation. Pantheism says the world, matter, everything, is God. This is the underlying idea of many non-dualistic mystics, where I and That are indistinguishable.

CS Lewis says that the very fact that we can differentiate an I, from the remaining whole, means that there is a greater and a lesser. With that practical Pantheism dies, for the lesser is dependant on the greater. In Pilgrim's Regress, John learns from Wisdom a form of pantheism, but when such a philosophy is applied in practice, it must become religion. For thinking the noumenal as a part of an I, must mean areas thereof are external to it for an I to exist.

I fear I am garbling my response a bit, but look up the later part of Pilgrim's regress - from Wisdom up till where John travels in the canyon. It is the end of Book VII and the beginning of Book VIII. It is in the public sphere, so you could just download it. It addresses much of this pantheist thing in an allegorical manner.

 

[Silmarien]

Hey!! Get Lost!!!!!

I was still at home!

Now you can yell at me.

No keyboard, no theology, but @OBuscador, you seem at times to be talking about pantheistic cosmic forces. Can you explain what these forces are and what reason we have to believe they exist while avoiding a more classical view? You would need to for your version of pantheism to be equally rational to other approaches.

 

[bling]

...I would like that him/her were indeed a righteous god and that he gave some evidence of his existence, I never encountered such a personal God on pages of religious books, I also do not believe that religious or mystical experiences (such as hearing voices and having visions ) prove that there is a personal God.

If the Christian God as described in scripture did make Himself personally known to you, what changes would you make in your life?

Most of the agnostics and atheists I have talked with, do not like the Christian God described in scripture, but might like a God of their own personal liking, so why would you like to know this God exists, beyond just intellectual knowledge?

What “help” are you looking for?

Most people desire and pursue being loved for how they want others to perceive them to be and really do not “like” having to be Loved in spite of what they have done and are like (an unconditional, sacrificial and totally unselfish type of Love)?

 

[zippy2006]

And this mistake is easy to miss, I grant you that.

I'm not sure I agree. Isolating a subset of the cosmos and identifying it with the pantheistic God over and against the remainder is clearly fallacious. I just wasn't sure what distinction you were speaking to above.

Again, I cannot speak for any pantheist here, and we would have to go to the people who hold these specific positions to clarify, but I dare say that here you make the very mistake that you say you never see made.

It is possible that some pantheists think that this "our" expression of existence is "necessary", but in my own understanding I would say that this is a huge limitation of "pan"-theist in general. It would be "existence" (already difficult to define) itself that is necessary, not the form it takes. Making a distiction between forms of existence would be a misunderstanding of pantheism.

I don't agree or else I don't follow. I'll just reiterate the simple argument already given in both of my posts to you:

1. If the pantheist believes that everything is contingent then they also believe that God is contingent.
   
2. Some pantheists believe that everything is contingent.
   
3. Therefore some pantheists believe that God is contingent.

Pick a premise if you disagree. (1) is tautological and (2) was directly supported with SEP. It may be that some pantheists believe that existence itself is necessary (whatever that precisely means) but I see no reason to believe that all pantheists believe this nor that this is even a widely-held pantheist proposition.

That depends on what form the "necessity" takes. What is included?
I admit that I don't think that the argument from necessary existence is conclusive or even complelling. But here again, it can only conclude that there must be a necessary existence... but not what form it takes.

I don't think it's that complicated. Either you believe in necessary being or you don't. The question doesn't even require delving into what form that necessary being takes. Again, my point is that some pantheists don't believe in necessary being at all. SEP concurs. Modern forms of pantheism are often more concerned with creativity, development, and evolution than necessity.

 

[OBuscador]

God would not be contingent on the writing of a book. As the creator of matter he would logically exist before the writer. Muslims use the old and new testament. When we say maximally great we mean objectively maximally great, so there are no 2 MGB's there is only 1 correctly identified MGB and many mistaken MGBs. Due to God's general revelation to all mankind via his divine attributes a Muslim can apprehend Gods divine nature and reach the same conclusion, calling Him by a different name. As St Augustus said "There are wolves within and sheep without". That said I thought your question was over why the Christian God is greater than Deus? You need God to create Deus, so it is better to have God, because without him there is no Deus.

Because Deus can fail to exist, there must be an explanation for why Deus does exist. And because Deus could fail to exist it would be better to have a personal God that cannot fail to exist.

You may not bother with the destruction of the universe, but you asked why God is better than Deus, and eternal life is part of that. I do not believe in ECT (Eternal conscious torment), and I don't think scripture actually teaches ECT. Through textual study, it seems to clearly indicate Annihilation.

How do I know God exists? I have seen angels, I have been attacked by demons (like the movies), I have been healed before surgery, I have seen my prayers answered, and greater than all these I have the witness of the Spirit in me that testifies of God. Since Deus could have failed to exist, how do you know that he indeed does exist? It seems the world where Deus exists and the world where Deus doesn't exist is empirically equivalent, so how do you know Deus exists?

What is so great about Deus?

I have said this because only the sacred books give such information and descriptions about such a God, but each has a unique character (Allah is different from Jehovah who is different than Shangdi who is different from Shiva, and that in fact this can not be more than fruit of the imagination of some ancient men, you said that 1 MGB is correctly identified by all, while "many others MGBS are mistaken", and how do you know that non-Christian religions have received many mistaken MGBS? You are assuming that only Christian revelation is general. A Muslim could say the same, and would accuse the many MGBS of the other religions as false. In fact I changed the OP, wrongly I got a misconception of preferences when I started the topic.

And what would be the explanation? Sorry but I do not see how this can prove that there is a personal God (specifically the Christian God), I do not want to be insulting here, but that would be the same as saying that it is better to have an invisible or imaginary friend that cannot fail to existing.

Scripture itself gives the idea of eternal torment, as in Matthew 25:41, 25:46, Mark 9:48, and so on.

Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims have similar experiences; and I ask those same questions.

 

[Uber Genius]

God is personal because the Bible says this, that He is always with us, that he hears our prayers and petitions, that he helps us during our daily routine and etc), but that to me is the same as saying that the flying spaghetti monster is personal because the book or gospel of the flying spaghetti monster says this, that He is always with us!, who hears our prayers and etc; for me it's exactly the same thing, the only difference I see is the names of the characters,

So this is not why we believe. It is but a strawman.

The flying spaghetti monster could have led you to the truth of God's necessary personal nature ironically enough. A flying spaghetti monster is a physical object, is in spacetime, is not a necessary being. The cause of the big bang has to exist outside of space, time, matter and energy. The creator of these properties can't utilize the same properties.

The creator must be eternal. Or we could ask who created the creator. We need an explanatory ultimate. Now problem is that if God is impersonal yet has the necessary and sufficient conditions to create a world like ours, that world would be generated at the moment those conditions obtained. The universe would be eternal in the past.

These are ancient discussions by al Ghazali in the late 11th century.

Anselm, and Aquinas also discussed these points.

Further the occasion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster reference was to make a fallacious appeal to Neo-Darwinian evolution as opposed to the Intelligent Design Inference. Now what is that inference? What would the nature of a being be who not only fine-tuned the universe to support life, but also similarly designed and terraformed our planet over 4.6 Billion years to support rational animals? That is a lot of detailed work for a being that doesn't relate to his creation.

Further the historical accounts and biographical accounts of encounters with God demonstrate that he is personal.

In fact you have delete the majority of accounts in the entire Bible to even have the basest support for an impersonal God.

Finally, I think the Thomist inference that God is so unlike us created beings that there is nothing we can say about him. I. E. He is ineffable. Is incoherent on its face. What was Aquinas writing his entire life about if not this same "ineffable," being. Further, the scripture are replete with divine revelations that we are called to study and teach our children about steadfastly. Revelations that are not possible given the Thomistic inference.

So look to the Kalam of Leibnizian Cosmological arguments to demonstrate how an impersonal God would have thrown off a universe that is eternal in the past not 13.7B year old universe we have.

Examine the fine-tuning and other teleological arguments to see the amount of care God has taken to create an life-permitting environment for us.

Look at the historical record in the life of Jesus as evidence as to the nature of God in interaction with people who are far from him.

It is these reasons enumerated in thousands of pages of writings over the past 1000 years by careful thinkers across a plethora of cultures that should inform your search, rather than the appeal to authority "the Bible tells me so."

One can look at the Bible as a collection of reports by over 40 authors, spread out over 1300-1500 years to over 60 different audiences about their experience of God. Why not look at it as witnesses being asked to explain in their own way and own language what they saw at the seen of a crime so to speak.
Now we don't want to be anachronistic and apply court reporting standards to ancient writing, unless we are a New Atheist, trying to manipulate the data. But we can get data and examine it without appeals to authority.

 

[zippy2006]

Finally, I think the Thomist inference that God is so unlike us created beings that there is nothing we can say about him. I. E. He is ineffable. Is incoherent on its face.

I think you might be mistaking periods for commas. Er... where does Aquinas say that?