Does God Have a Personality?

[i_am_i]

Doesn't it limit God to refer to God as a "he" or as a "who?"

It would be easier for me to buy the idea of God if God was an "it," an impersonal it, but calling God a male with a personality, in other words a "who," I'm just not interested. It sounds preposterous.

It makes no sense to me that God would have a gender and a personality. It makes me want to ask if he shops at Whole Foods.

[The Magic Pudding]

It makes me want to ask if he shops at Whole Foods.

Sometimes, but he doesn't like to queue.

[i_am_i]

It makes me want to ask if he shops at Whole Foods.

Sometimes, but he doesn't like to queue.

Yeah, but...

Come on! I'm trying to be serious here!

[Matt]

I think that the widely accepted view of God by the theological community is of God as an it, but most people refer to it as a him because it's always been done and because it's easier to conceive of something like that.

[Croaker]

I think it's just an easier way for people to relate to him. Think of the whole "our father who art in heaven" dealio - everybody's got a dad, so they can relate to the father thing. Brings along all the paternal associations as well, like him caring, reprimanding, encouraging, etc...

People have a hard time relating to something they don't understand, so you'd think they wouldn't be able to relate to God at all given that no one can understand him (him being extradimensional and all that jazz). But if you pose him as your dad (or maybe - with that big white beard - he's your granddad) then it's a lot easier to think that you understand him/it/whatever.

Now that I think about, there's the passage Genesis 1:26

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So that would make the short answer to the question "because the Bible says so" and the longer answer would be because people like to anthropomorphize things. He has a personality because people give him one, and that personality is just as fickle as any regular Joe Human.

[Goathead]

So what you're saying OP, is that you *want* to have a God, but just don't like his personality?

[LegendarySandwich]

So what you're saying OP, is that you *want* to have a God, but just don't like his personality?

I'm pretty sure what he is saying is that the deist god (no personality, doesn't answer prayer, doesn't intervene in human affairs, etc.) is far more believable than the theist god (has a personality, answers prayer, intervenes in human affairs, etc.) Nowhere does he say or his words imply that he wants to believe in a god, just that if he did, he'd probably be a deist.

By the way, how can you not have a world-view?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Gen 1:26 also has a clear implication that God is more than one entity.

[Matt]

I don't think it's quite that clear.  I don't know a lot about ancient Hebrew culture or language, but I would be willing to bet that people sometimes referred to themselves in the plural form.  Royalty do/did it in other cultures.

[Gawen]

Well....HE had sex with at least one human woman. Then again, shim could have been an hermaphrodite?

C'mon...I left that waaaaaay open...*chucklin*

[Croaker]

Gen 1:26 also has a clear implication that God is more than one entity.

Yeah, I never really noticed that until I looked that verse up the other day. Very interesting!

What's the new avatar, btw?  

[Recusant]

Doesn't it limit God to refer to God as a "he" or as a "who?"

It would be easier for me to buy the idea of God if God was an "it," an impersonal it, but calling God a male with a personality, in other words a "who," I'm just not interested. It sounds preposterous.

It makes no sense to me that God would have a gender and a personality. It makes me want to ask if he shops at Whole Foods.

If you're talking about the Christian god, then there can be no doubt that both YHVH and Jesus are "he."  Jesus specifically calls YHVH his father, and tells his followers to address him as "Our father, who art in heaven."  As for the Holy Ghost, the gender is not specified as far as I know, but given the patriarchal nature of Christianity I imagine that the third element of the trinity is male as well.  For an entertaining insight into the personality of YHVH, I highly recommend God: A Biography by Jack Miles.

From JackMiles.com:

What sort of a "person" is God? What is his "life story"?

Is it possible to approach him not as an object of religious reverence, but as the protagonist of the world's greatest book--as a character who possesses all the depths, contradictions, and ambiguities of a Hamlet?

This is the task that Jack Miles--a former Jesuit trained in religious studies and Near Eastern languages--accomplishes with such brilliance and originality in God: A Biography.

Using the Hebrew Bible as his text, Miles shows us a God who evolves through his relationship with man, the image who in time becomes his rival.

Here is the Creator who nearly destroys his chief creation: the bloodthirsty warrior and the protector of the downtrodden; the lawless law-giver; the scourge and the penitent.

[Goathead]

So what you're saying OP, is that you *want* to have a God, but just don't like his personality?

I'm pretty sure what he is saying is that the deist god (no personality, doesn't answer prayer, doesn't intervene in human affairs, etc.) is far more believable than the theist god (has a personality, answers prayer, intervenes in human affairs, etc.) Nowhere does he say or his words imply that he wants to believe in a god, just that if he did, he'd probably be a deist.

By the way, how can you not have a world-view?

No he's not; he's saying he wants to believe in God but can't bring himself to because God has a personality that he doesn't like.
Also world-view is a matter of perception; hence why I don't have one.

[Recusant]

No he's not; he's saying he wants to believe in God but can't bring himself to because God has a personality that he doesn't like.

First, hello and welcome to HAF, Goathead.  Or should I say, "welcome back?"

People can play "interpreter" all day long, but since J is an active member of this forum, I don't see any point to it.  J is quite capable of telling us what the intention of the OP is.

Also world-view is a matter of perception; hence why I don't have one.

I find this statement puzzling.  It implies that you don't have any perceptions, thus no world view.  This doesn't make sense to me.  All human beings have perceptions, and "view the world."  Could you explain what you mean with a bit more clarity? If you mean that your world view is neutral, that's an entirely different thing, and you should just say so.

[Davin]

[...]Also world-view is a matter of perception; hence why I don't have one.

You don't have a perception?