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  • Writer's pictureJim Khong

What God is not

Updated: Dec 26, 2022


In the Western world, we are used to visualising God as someone old with white flowing beard, moustached and hair, looking wise or stern. Most of us know that this is not how God really looks like but as creatures who relate to the universe around us only through our senses, we are incapable of relating to a non-physical God who is not detectable by our five sense, nay, not even limited by time and space, the defining attribute of all that exist in the universe.


Yes, it is anthropomorphic to imagine a non-human being in a human form but then again, it is said that humans have been creating God in our own image. Ever since our ancestors have looked up to the skies and attributed the movements of heavenly bodies to beings they can't see but their logic dictates must be the reason behind the movement of the sun and moon and stars.

Call it intentionality bias, but the human mind cannot help but see another intelligent mind behind every working of nature. And as the human mind is the only intelligent mind they know, it is only natural for them to model the mind of this higher intelligence on their own, but with capabilities that far outstripping theirs, considering that that mind controls much more than their puny ones could.


When it comes to imagining how these superior beings, again it is only natural for the early religions to model them on the only superior beings they know at that time: themselves. So, the gods looked like humans but with human virtues and vices amplified, sometimes to illustrate a morality tale, sometimes to explain the workings of nature, sometimes to just tell a good story. Occasionally, gods look only part-human as people realises that gods with such human-like qualities of an order beyond humans, cannot look identical to humans: they can only look like humans. So, such gods may incorporate non-human features, almost always of animals, that their human conceivers respect or fear.


Eventually, the more primitive religions evolve into the great religions of today: religions of the Abrahamic tradition and Hinduism and the religions that emanate from them (Mormonism, Sikhism, Bahaism). This is not to denigrate the more minor religions outside of these traditions like Zoroastrianism, druidism, folk religions etc. Some religions like Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, do not focus much on the divinity even if they may have elements of the metaphysical, so they are not part of this discussion too.

. Buddhism, while a great religion did not develop its own concept of the divinity.

Hinduism can be viewed from different angles: for many adherents, it is a folk religion with numerous gods (some say an infinite number) much like in the Western Classical era. Higher Hinduism, however, understand God (I use the upper case here) as singular, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnitemporal (note: OK, the word doesn't exist but it is nice to coin a word to complete the three omni, much like God in the Abrahamic tradition). It is this common imagery of God shared by both these traditions that I address here.


Images of God

Here are some common descriptions of God, which while I do recognise they are rather imprecise description of an unknowable imagery, they are rather influential in the way we relate to the divine and moral injunctions that we feel compelled to comply with due to its divine origins. I feel that of all attributes, the following three are the ones that define God:

A thousand galaxies are seen in Deep Field pictured by Hubble in an area of the sky the size of a postage stamp held an arms length away.

We say that God is omnipresent in the sense of being every where, and the omniscience came about from being everywhere to witness everything. And be it, 100 billions galaxies with 100 billions stars each, God is there: like having an infinite number of CCTV to record everything.


We say that God is omnitemporal as in being in all times - similar to being in all places. This would be unlike time travel because God experience all events past and present at the same time. A bit more like all of eternity flashing before unblinking eyes, with every event of past & future accessible and relived instantaneously. Often, God is depicted as dressed in costumes of antiquity because we understand timelessness as being not being affected by time: frozen in time. (A Catholic priest friend once told me of how he was bothered by the view of the priest's very modern watch during a video of the mass: maybe we just don't like God to have any modernity?)


We say that God is omnipotent in the sense of not being subject to the laws of physics (or chemistry or biology or any natural laws). A bit like Marvel's X-men with their science-defying powers, but with even more powers in a single person - because only one person can be omnipotent at any one time. Is that a little facetious; unintended but I think our views are a bit like that.


But is God like that? I would like to evaluate each of these one at a time. While I really have no idea of what not being limited by time and space is, I know what being so constrained is and if God is not so constrained, then I could imagine what God is not.


Omnipresence

One consequence of not being within time and space is that you do not move. God doesn't walk to the door and open it because that involves space. But then, neither is God a large immovable object extending everywhere, as that too involves existing in a particular point in space. God also doesn't just appear because you appear in a certain time & space and God has no time & space.

God's timelessness is popping into whichever time he likes

God is not like something gigantic to fill all of the universe because that would still be existing within space. God exists outside of time and space. I guess it is a bit like what astronomers tell us existed before the Big Bang - before time and space existed. But we can't imagine that as well.


No, God is not like a ghost because even ghosts exist in time and space, at least they do if they want to talk to us. But if God were to communicate with humans, it may be in the form of a ghost/spirit, vision, etc that is detectable by any of our five senses. But that communication is not God any more the vibrations in the air when we speak or the image on the screen during a video call is us.


Omnitemporal

Does God contemplate the universe like a human does?

One consequence of not being limited by time is that God does not plan. Because planning involves time: one day you have a plan, the next day you have updated it. By the same token, God doesn't think: one minute you think one thought the next minute, your thoughts have progressed on. This does not in any way preclude God from having a plan: Plans can probably exist outside of time as God does, but the act of planning can only exist within time. (I have used the present continuous tense throughout for God because it feels the least inappropriate words used to describe something outside of time)


It also mean that God doesn't change minds because changing one's mind involves time: one minute you have decided one thing and the next minute, you decided on something else. It's not that God is decisive on everything (although God could have been), but it is because changing minds can only happen within time.

We sometimes imagine God popping in and out of time like a time traveller to intervene in human affairs. That couldn't happen, too because that involves time. And God doesn't experience and see every event in history in an instant because an instant is again time, albeit a. very short time. Also, events and experiencing/seeing involves time, so God doesn't experience/see events.


Omnipotent

One consequence of being outside of time and space is that the laws of physics doesn't apply. Note that in the statements above, I did not say "God couldn't" but rather than "God doesn't" because it is not about abilities (as in a lion couldn't climb trees) but more that it isn't something God does (as in your handphone doesn't climb trees).

What happened between that touch (or his words) and the formation of atoms?

Still, if God intervenes in human history, as in a miracle, it can only be effected in the physical world to be observed by humans through our five senses. In that sense, miracles can only work through the laws of physics. Even if the laws of physics were changed for divine purposes by God, there must still be a mechanism by which it will be observable by our senses. What was the mechanism by which the molecules that we taste as wine got mixed into the water - if those molecules were created at that moment, how did it displace the existing molecules already existing in that space-time?.


The fact that scientist observers to a miracle are unable to understand that mechanism does not mean God bypasses the mechanics of the physical world - God cannot but use the mechanics of the physical world for us to observe a miracle. Of course, one way of bypassing the physical world is that the observation of the miracle is implanted directly into our mental perceptions, but that would just make the miracle an illusion, and I do not think anyone would like to accuse God himself to be a fraud.


In a way, one can say that while God may not be subject to the laws of physics, we and our five senses are and God still need to work within or to work some laws of physics for us to observe divine works. I am not saying miracles do not happen - just that it would be intriguing and helpful for us to understand the mechanics by which they happen, even if probably not mandatory.


So, where does that leave us

Can an ant on a two dimensional leaf understand the third dimension?

It seems like all our attempts to describe the workings of God are nothing more than seemingly pathetic attempts to describe something not possible for any human to imagine. God is probably looking at our attempts to perceive an existence outside of time and space much like the same way we view an ant walking over a piece of paper we turn over and over with little or no understanding of movement in the third dimension.


Having said that, it is understandable for humans to impute anthropomorphic qualities to God, to whom we need to relate but we can only relate as a being limited by time and space like us. In that sense, there really is nothing wrong in being unable to understand being outside of time and space any more than a creature outside of time and space is not able to appreciate time and space. It is just a nature we all have. Probably, only the possession of omniscience enables God to transcend that understanding.


While almost anything any scripture has written about God probably no where hit the mark, that is likely no harm as most of these are more akin to analogous description than factual. I guess as with all analogies, it is fine as long as we do not stretch the analogy beyond the message it was intended to convey.


Such inaccurate images of God is nothing more like statues which represents the person rather than the person themselves. As long as we are always conscious of that differentiation. Conscious that the sound waves and the video image are not the person themselves.

Religion's ultimate aim should be to better society

The ultimate objective of religion is to inform our relationship with the universe & ourselves and guide our actions within society. We all hope that that agenda for action is at least not detrimental if not be beneficial to society as a whole. I would expect the overwhelming majority of any anthropomorphic views of God not to be damaging to society and so we should be free to have our anthropomorphic views, inaccurate as they are.

And oh yes, I am expecting some sweet old nun telling me, as they always do, "Jim, just have humility and accept whatever the Church teachings are". I have no problem with Church having teachings as they are and thank you, Sister.


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