The Only Way out Guide for Truth Seekers

THE ONLY WAY OUT 93
God: Personal or Non-Personal?
"The idea of a personal God seems to give people more
trouble now than it used to", remarks Huston Smith in his
bestseller Why Religion Matters. Indeed, many people have
wrestled with the question of whether there can be a God who
is at the same time personal and ineffable, definable and
indescribable. Why do some people have trouble with the
notion of a personal God? Smith answers, "Because the
concept cloys for sounding anthropomorphic" (1) .
Albert Einstein and Spinoza, for example, are well-known
for rejecting the idea of a personal God, especially the ultraanthropomorphic
images inferred from the Old Testament,
wherein God is portrayed as a wrathful capricious old man,
who wrestles with Jacob and fails to drive out the enemies of
Judah. In mainstream Christianity, God - or some part of God!
- is not only hardly distinguishable from humans, but actually
appears in human flesh, partakes in a Last Supper, socializes
with the people, is persecuted and finally crucified. If this is
what 'personal' means, then no doubt Einstein, Spinoza, their
followers, and predecessors have a case and their aversion to a
personal account of God may be justified on such grounds.
Still, their stance does not solve the problem. The negative
phrase 'non-personal' is open to many interpretations, all of
which are problematic. For example, Anthony C. Thiselton
points out that a non-personal God is necessarily
"uncharacterizable" (2) ; He is "neither personal nor
transcendent" (3) ; and if God is not personal, it follows that He
is amoral (i.e. indifferent to matters of morality).
Consequently, humans will find difficulty relating to Him
(1) Smith, Huston (2000) Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human
Spirit in an Age of Disbelief, HarperCollins, p. 222.
(2)
Thiselton, Anthony C. (2002) A Concise Encyclopedia of the
Philosophy of Religion, Oneworld Publications, p. 292.
(3) Ibid.