Joseph Campbell, who was a religious scholar, made the following distinction between a personal God and an impersonal god.
A personal God is one who is thought to listen to the prayers of individuals and answers those prayers at least some of the time. Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions pray to a personal God.
Those religious belief systems that pay homage to impersonal gods include: pre-Columbian American Indians, Buddhists, Hindu, Chinese regional religions, and deists. (Many of the founding fathers of the United States were deists, who believed in the Watchmaker god. He created the universe, wound it up, and the universe has been running without divine interference ever since.) Impersonal gods are generally manifestations of nature rather than the master of it. A Hindu, for example, might pray for rain or a good harvest more to paying homage to nature than expecting an overt well-defined answer.
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2 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Perhaps "god" or some sort of force got things in motion, then sat back and let the things do what they wanted.
SKH78
Level 8
Apr 17, 2018
1
The God of free will, you mean. Curiously, that's the only kind of God that would make any sense to me, at least logically. No point praying to such a god or having a religion because it just lets things unfold as they do. No interference. I don't believe in such a god, but at least it would be consistent with our crappy unfair world.
Joseph Campbell got so many things right, and was pretty popular after the Bill Moyers series, but seems to have faded in public awareness now. That's a real shame. We need more of his insights these days.
skado
Level 9
Apr 17, 2018
3
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