God is ... (1)

[Under development: 8 June 2005]

Much has been written about the nature of God. I hear many people taking literally what is written about the nature of God, wheras I take much of what has been written to be metaphor. I do not know if it was intended as metaphor, but that is the only way I can get it to make sense to me. For theological concepts to be useful to me, I must find my own words. I find it easy to write negatives, saying what I believe God not to be. For example, I am clear that, for me, there is no sense in which God is a person, or even like a person, and therefore should be neither thought of as gendered nor anthropomorphised To deify Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela is to miss the point What can I write literally that I positively accept? Just three lines.

· To what extent do you take religious writings literally? For example, if you are a Christian

1. how much of the Old Testament do you believe in a literal way?

2. about which of the popular doctrines of Christianity (New Testament) are you sceptical?

· With which religious texts are you, in fact, familiar?

1. within the culture of your spiritual orientation

1. outside the culture of your spiritual orientation

· What can you write about the nature of God?

1. literally

2. figuratively

3. negatively

4. positively