Is God a Being?

I introduce a new category for talking about God: gino-theology.

(This is chapter five of my systematic theology of love in progress. I’d love to get your suggestions on how the chapter might be improved. That might include suggested citations, ideas, grammar changes, and more. Only a portion of this chapter is available to free subscribers. Paid subscribers get the whole chapter, in addition to a signed copy of the published book. And paid subscribers will be mentioned in the book’s acknowledgments. )

Introduction

In the last chapter, I described God as a universal, incorporeal Spirit of love. But more must be said about the “stuff” or composition of this Spirit. In particular, I want to address whether God is a being or something else.

Questions about how God exists -- as an agent, force, idea, energy, ground, etc. — lead theologians into complex philosophical discussions. Some even say they believe in a God who doesn’t exist, because God transcends the category of “exist.”

In what follows, I aim to be clear and concise, and I’ll add technical issues in footnotes. Some of what I say will seem radical to those familiar with discussions of God and being.^[1] To others, what I advocate will seem to align with the general way biblical writers describe God. I believe my own proposal coheres with much of contemporary science and fits with the nature of love. My overall goal is to portray well the universal Spirit who loves.

Is God a Being among Beings?

To say God exists as a universal Spirit, as I did in the previous chapter, is to make claims about what it means to exist. Pondering what existing entails is the domain of ontology, which asks about the elements common to existence. Ontology speculates on what it means to be or become.

The question of God’s being is sometimes called “onto-theology.” Addressing it has been difficult for theologians, and the exercise is routinely challenged in the contemporary era.^[2] Exploring the nature of God’s existing is crucial, however, if we are to address 1) what it means to be a Spirit who loves and 2) whether God shares commonalities with other existents^[3]. Getting clear on these issues affects the language we use about the Spirit’s love.

Most biblical writers describe God as a personal Being relating with other beings or as a Subject engaging subjects and objects. In the Bible’s opening pages, for instance, Yahweh/Elohim interacts with the deep when creating. Deity engages Adam and Eve as a being among beings (Gen 3:8), and such interaction continues in various biblical accounts. The Spirit creates, communicates, responds, and loves, all of which are activities that subjects do. God is a dialog partner whom others can persuade, as encounters with Abraham suggest (e.g., Gen 18:17-33). The Spirit also interacts as a being with Sarah, Rebekah, Moses, Jesus, Paul, ha-Satan, slaves, kings, nations, families, rebels, and others.

The writers of scripture attribute relational roles to the Spirit. God as Friend suggests that God is a being who befriends others, for instance. God as King is a being with subjects; God as Mother/Father interacts with children; God as Governor or Judge is a being who governs or judges others; God as Lord leads hosts of other beings; God as Listener assumes actively receiving communication from others; and so on.

Some descriptions of the Spirit are personifications of divine attributes (e. g., Lady Wisdom), but most portray God as an actual person. To love creatures, as God is often said to do, implies that a divine Subject acts for the flourishing of others. This Being is affected by creatures, according to biblical authors, and responds emotionally. God can be angry (Ps. 7:11), sad (Ps. 78:40), delighted (Ps. 2:4), blessed (Ps. 145), jealous (Ex. 20:5-6), and more. These activities, responses, and emotions are typical of a being in relation to beings, a subject engaging other subjects.

God isn’t just any being, according to biblical writers. The Spirit is higher, wiser, stronger, universal, more accessible, or somehow better than others. The Spirit “has no equal” among creatures or deities (Is. 40:25). These superlatives distinguish deity without making God entirely unlike creatures, angels, and other gods. The claim that humans (at least) are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27) also suggests similarities between the Spirit and creatures. To say that we can partake in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) suggests similarities too.

In sum, the biblical witness portrays God as a being among other beings.

The biblical writers are not consistent with the details of this Being, however. At times, writers describe God as limited to one place; other times, they describe the deity as universal. Sometimes God is embodied; other times, incorporeal. Sometimes the Spirit forgets; other times, deity is said never to forget. Sometimes the God is described as loving everlastingly; other times, deity must be reminded to love. Some biblical writers describe God as unchanging while others says the Spirit repents. Some describe deity as ignorant while others say God knows all things.

To be consistent, systematic theologians must decide which scriptural descriptions are more appropriate than others. No one can incorporate all biblical portrayals of God and present a coherent theology, let alone a coherent theology of love. Whether consciously or not, therefore, theologians employ strategies in their deciding among contrary biblical notions. These strategies are informed by other scripture passages, logic, experiences, culture, science, traditions, aesthetics, reason, and more.

Criticizing a Being among Beings

Critics of the idea that God is a being say the idea limits deity. If God is a being, for instance, the divine would have a localized body. Paul Tillich is one of the more influential critics of the idea: “The being of God cannot be understood as the existence of a being alongside others or above others,” he says.^[4] “Ordinary theism has made God a heavenly, completely perfect person who resides above the World and mankind. The protest of atheism against such a highest person is correct.”^[5]

A deity who is a being cannot be the source of other beings, say other critics.^[6] We must think of God as in a class or genus outside the classes and genera the Spirit makes, because deity transcends them. God was not born, will not die, is not limited to one place, and does not have attributes common to finite beings. Saying God is a being among beings commits the error of anthropomorphism, say some, by transferring creaturely traits to God.

Rejecting the idea that God is a being has some startling consequences, but Tillich embraces them. He says, for instance, that God did not “bring the universe into being at a certain moment.” And God does not “govern [the universe] according to a plan, direct it toward an end, interfere with its ordinary processes in order to overcome resistance and to fulfill his purpose, and bring it to consummation in a final catastrophe.”^[7] God does not do these activities, Tillich says, because doing them would reduce God to a finite cause.^[8] Saying God creates, governs, directs, interferes, or even exists projects creaturely categories upon the divine.

Tillich explains his reasoning. “If God is a being, he is subject to the categories of finitude, especially to space and substance.” And “even if [God] is called the ‘highest being’ in the sense of the ‘most perfect’ and the ‘most powerful,’” Tillich says, the “superlatives become diminutives. They place [God] on the level of other beings.”^[9] God must not be like creatures.

We should say, instead, that God is infinitely beyond us, says Tillich. “That which is the true ultimate transcends the realm of finite reality infinitely,” he says. “Therefore, no finite reality can express it directly and properly.”^[10] The point: God is not a being and beyond all categories of being.

Is God Being-Itself?

I believe Tillich’s arguments against God as a being are partly wrong and partly right.^[11] Before addressing them, I want to explore what Tillich thinks is a better alternative: God as being-itself. “The being of God is being-itself,” he famously claims,^[12] and this is the only non-symbolic statement Tillich thinks humans can make about the divine.^[13]