Is God a person or a personality?

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 20 Concepts of God-Your Questions Answered by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Swedish Visitor A: Are not intelligence and goodness narrow human concepts? How do we know that God is a person or a personality – that He has personal qualities?

SWAMIJI: Whether God is a person or not – this is your question? You see, this is a fairly important question in the study of theologies everywhere, in all religions. All the Semitic religions (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam) consider God as a Supreme Person, almost identifying Him with the concept of a Supreme Father. "Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," – that is how the prayer goes. All these descriptions of God imply that He is a large inclusive universal personality. You are asking me whether He is really a personality.

Personality is a human concept. When we talk of personality, we always think of the pattern of human personality. We don't think of the personality of a lion, or an elephant, and all that. Our thoughts are conditioned by the human way of thinking. Now, is it true that the human way of thinking is the only way of thinking, and there is no other way? A frog also thinks, a reptile thinks, a cow thinks, an elephant thinks. Do you think that their thinking is wrong?

Visitor A: No, I think they are personalities, too.

SWAMIJI: They are personalities, but we don't think that God is a huge lion. We generally think that God is a huge human form, as big as this universe. The first point about this is that we are thinking like human beings, and it is not necessary that this is the only way of thinking. It may be subject to modification when we evolve further in the process of evolution. Man thinks in one way, a super-man thinks in another way, and it is believed that man has to become a super-man, until he becomes a God-man.

The other point is: what is personality, be it human or otherwise? A person exists in space and time. If space and time are not there, there cannot be personality. A person exists in space; there is space around him, and time also is there. Now, we believe that space and time were created by God, and they were not there prior to God's existence. We always say that God is first, not that space and time are first. "God created the heaven and the earth," says the scripture, which means to say He created space and time. If that is the case, God cannot be said to be conditioned by space and time. In other words, He is not in space and time. If He is not in space and time, how will you see Him as a person?

God, thus, is not really a person. He is not in heaven only. We say God is in heaven, but God created the heaven; so, before He created the heaven, where was He? Neither can we say that He is a person, nor can we say that He is in heaven. God is universal, all-comprehensive, infinite Existence. That seems to be the only conclusion we can draw by going deep into the question of the nature of God.

But, for the purpose of devotion, you see otherwise. Man cannot think of infinitude always. The mind is not made up of such potential. We want affection, love, and also response to our affection. An infinite all-pervading, non-spatial, non-temporal Existence cannot evoke our affection so much, just as logic and mathematics cannot evoke our affection. Logic and mathematics are perfect sciences; we accept that, but we cannot love them. Our heart does not go for them, our heart goes to a painting, music, architecture, sculpture, literature, etc. Where our heart is, there our love and our happiness also is. To manifest our love, we require an object. We cannot love the Infinite for obvious reasons. So, we have to consider God as a Supreme Father. Sometimes, in India, people consider Him also as a Supreme Mother.

From our point of view, from the requirement of human nature, there is nothing wrong in thinking that God is a Person, because the Infinite can also appear as a Person, in the same way as a block of stone can appear as a statue by carving. The block of stone does not contain the statue, but it contains a statue potentially. God can be a Person, and yet we need not limit Him to personality. He is rather a Super-Person. This is what I think God must be.

Excerpts from:

Concepts of God - Chapter 20-Your Questions Answered by Sri Swami Krishnananda

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