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A human history of God, Canaanite god El, God is All of Sufism, God the Trinity of Christianity, Islamic Sufism, Pantheism, Prophet Muhammad, Reza Aslan, The humanized god, Yahweh the One God of Judaism
Seated statue of El from Megiddo (1400-1200 BCE)
Photo Credit: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
The final post of my three-part series covers “Part Three: What is God?” of Reza Aslan’s book, God: A Human History. The author traces the evolution of the nature of God from God is one, to God is three, and later to God is all.
The ancient Israelites worshiped the Canaanite god El as their chief god presiding over a pantheon of lesser gods. The very word Israel means “El perseveres.” The god who became known as Yahweh first appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush. Around 1050 BCE when they established the Kingdom of Israel, Yahweh became their patron God. In the capital, Jerusalem, they built a temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, Moses’s covenant with Yahweh: the highest and strongest god over all other gods.
Moses and the Burning Bush – Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In 586 BCE, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II breached the walls of Jerusalem, plundered the capital, and burned the temple to the ground. Survivors suffered a humiliating exile in Babylonia. That the Babylonian god, Marduk, was more powerful than Yahweh caused an identity crisis. Rather than accept the possibility of a defeated god, Israelite religious leaders rationalized that Yahweh was the one and only god who created light and darkness, brought peace, and created evil.
Yahweh of Judaism became the singular, eternal, and indivisible God who exhibits both the good and bad of human emotions and qualities.
Five centuries later, a sect of apocalyptic Jews calling themselves Christians upturned the indivisibility of God. Their religious leader, Jesus of Nazareth, claimed oneness with God the Father. While the concept of a “god-man” was nothing new in the Ancient Near East, early Christians had difficulty in accepting Jesus as the human manifestation of the only God.
John the Apostle and Marcion of Sinope (face intentionally disfigured) from an image in an Italian Gospel codex written in Greek (eleventh century)
[Marcion proposed two Gods: Yahweh the “Man of War” and the loving, merciful God of the Logos as manifested in Jesus the Christ]
Photo Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum / Janny Chiu, New York
In 325 CE, at the summons of Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, the elders of the Christian Church finally reached a consensus about the nature of God. At the Council of Nicea, they declared Jesus Christ, the Son, “of one substance” with God, the Father, and the Holy Ghost, the divine spirit of God in the world.
The Christian God became the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three existed at the beginning of time and shared the same measure of divinity.
In Mecca of 610 CE, now in Saudi Arabia, the Prophet Muhammad began preaching the prophetic revelations—later known as the Quran or the Recitation—he had received from a god he called Allah. Among ancient Arabs, Allah was the creator of the heavens and the earth. But the god Muhammad encountered in a cave on Mount Hira claimed to be the sole deity in the universe.
Page from “Journey of the Prophet Muhammad” – Majma al-Tararikh by Hafiz-I Abru (c. 1425 CE)
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Like Yahweh, Allah is One, singular and indivisible, but differs in his unique essence. Allah has no image, no body, is of no substance, and takes no human or other form.
Allah’s unique essence presented a paradox for a small group of Muslim theologians. If God is indivisible and God is Creator, how could a divide exist between Creator and creation? Are they not one and the same? Their radical conclusion led to a new branch of Islamic mysticism called Sufism.
To accept the unity of the Creator is to accept the unity of all creation. In other words, if God is one, then God must be all. This conception of the divine is known today as pantheism.
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It took a crippling military defeat for the ancient Israelites to accept the concept of God as one and only. Will the existential crises our species now face alter the way we-humans perceive God the Creator and our relation to the divine and to each other? Or will the gods of men, armed with nuclear arsenals, have the final say about our destiny? The choice is ours.
Three Worlds One Vision 
Or will the rising global temperature mean that nuclear arsenals are not needed for the earth’s destruction? What is most tragic about the message from your post is that there is a divide between peoples of whatever faith. I find the idea of “we are right and your wrong” so tragic. But unfortunately so human.
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Indeed, it is so unfortunately human. As Ros noted in this fine historical essay, the choice is ours; and, therein lays the problem.
The existential questions of our humanity reveal our profound ignorance. While some are comfortable in admitting what we do not know, too many others are not. To them, our knowledge gap must be filled; so, they resort to myth and legend and all manner of histories passed down through the ages.
The psychology and sociology associated with grand uncertainty is perfectly understandable. This is why people should be free to explore their spirituality and to practice their chosen religion without interference from others whom might disagree. However, when such beliefs are intended to infringe upon the same rights as others who do disagree, then the problem can and will become tragic.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution got it right, IMO. If only we could all accept it, then Americans – at least – would have both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
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Well said.
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Robert, I agree that “people should be free to explore their spirituality and to practice their chosen religion without interference from others whom might disagree.”
One of the things that struck me about Aslan’s human history of God is that religion formed the basis upon which ancient civilizations were shaped and governed. The High God became the protectorate of the kingdom. The Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity was a big win for that religion, an influence still felt today in Europe and its former colonies. It will take many more centuries for nation states to decouple from their dominant religion, thereby giving its citizens the right to accept or not the religious beliefs of the majority.
As a believer and a pantheist, Aslan sees the pantheistic view of God as the answer to our religious differences. Biased, perhaps? He notes that the pantheistic view of God existed among our prehistoric ancestors, in early Mesopotamia, Egypt, some Greek philosophers, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
It has been my experience in life that one does not have to be a believer to lead a moral life.
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That’s been my experience also. Fellow blogger Nan whom you might follow is a pantheist too and one of the most spiritual people I’ve encountered. I greatly appreciate the simplicity of that philosophy and that it doesn’t require institutional organization. Regarding the problem of decoupling religion from nation states, I agree that we’ve got a very long way to go.
Happy New Year to you! 🙂
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Robert, I wasn’t aware that Nan is a pantheist. Considering that I’ve adopted so many beliefs from Buddhism and Taoism, I may have become a pantheist without realizing it 🙂
Happy New Year to you, too 🙂 I look forward to staying connected in the New Year.
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Denzil, my fear is that the chaos arising from rising global temperatures – food insecurity, mass human migrations, and more – may well trigger a nuclear war.
I, too, find it tragic that each religion claims the hold the whole truth. What impressed me with Aslan’s book, God: A Human History, is that, through the ages, our understanding of the divine has changed with human evolution. What Aslan also brings out in his book is that each new theological development/revelation was met with rejection from the ruling religious leaders of the day.
We-humans like the certainty and stability that our religious institutions provide. But, as our history reveals, our concepts about the divine are not carved in stone. Until the next revelation.
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A labor of love indeed Rosaliene! Concise yet rich with information that so many aren’t familiar with. Islam gets a bad rap due to ignorance and the misrepresentation of terrorist. We seem to forget the Christians did their share of terrorizing( some still do.) Now… something I often ponder is mans destruction a divine dictate?
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With respect to your question, the Old Testament says that God did start over once before: the flood.
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Mike, Aslan’s book was a revelation to me. I do believe we should learn about world religions as early as the high school level. I only learned about the history of the Catholic Church during my novitiate year in the convent. Our Bible Study classes also brought new revelations.
I was also surprised to learn that Islam and Christianity have shared roots in Judaism. I quote below an excerpt from Aslan’s book:
There can be little doubt that Muhammad had a deep familiarity with Judaism, in light of his recounting of Jewish myths, his reverence for Jewish prophets, his veneration of the sacred Jewish city of Jerusalem, and his nearly wholesale adoption of Jewish dietary and purity laws.
You raise an interesting question: “Is man’s destruction a divine dictate?” Given the current debacle we’re in, it would appear that way. Time and again, we have failed to learn from lessons of the past. It would seem that our inventive genius has galloped ahead of our mental capacity to anticipate their disastrous outcomes.
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Indeed Islam and Christianity are somewhat cousins of faith. Yes, mans destructive nature leading to his own destruction is so large in scope and persistence that it certainly enters the Divine realm. That last sentence is superb Rosaliene. Interesting what we aren’t taught about belief systems unless we pursue them. The seminary I attended is run by a female bishiop and there was a complete department devoted to the study of the sacred feminine, very enlightening.
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“The study of the sacred feminine”: That would indeed be enlightening, even for a female like me.
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Yes, provides a very feasible alternative view to exoteric Christianity.
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Quote: “something I often ponder is mans destruction a divine dictate?”
I’m surprised I didn’t pick up on that sooner – intriguing… in that I can’t seem to decide which end to approach the question from! There’s two interpretations I see, one: is man’s destructiveness due to divine dictate, as in, are we programmed by divinity to be destroyers? Or… Does divinity want man destroyed? I can easily see the first interpretation as the correct one. Obviously if “God” is what is claimed, it would be nothing for it to destroy mankind, the entire planet, the universe! But if we follow biblical revelation we already know that the divine doesn’t want man destroyed, just most of ’em! Why? Well because they are not subservient and obedient enough to a totalitarian deity’s desires. By slaughtering million, perhaps billions, this psychopathic entity called “God” seems to think that it will eventually have an entire planet peopled with mind and heart slaves it can do whatever it wants with and there will be no rebellion. Like the Mosaic Israelites conquering Canaan. Perhaps “He” intends to then use them to go on conquering the galaxy and beyond, spreading “jihad” like Muadib’s Fremen hordes of “Dune” (Frank Herbert sci-fi series, well worth reading!) Of course if “God” is divinities invented by man, it’s hardly surprising they should demonstrate such overwhelmingly evil characteristics.
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Sha’Tara, as I understand Aslan’s proposition, we-humans have created God in our own image. Not the other way around. Then, the moment the Israelites made God one and indivisible, the divine took on all the good and evil qualities of humanity. Our God became as self-destructive as we-humans are.
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If God as the concept is being bandied, and used, is indeed man made according to the proposition, then it is quite impossible for God to be more than man. God, morally speaking, must be less than the least, being a product of collective invention. Collectives always operate from the lowest common denominator. God then is a thoroughly compromised and corrupt concept.
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If only we could un-organize religions. The first step might be breaking the dependence on numbers, wealth, and power. Happy New Year, Rosaliene!
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Hi JoAnn… It struck me that your wrote: “The first step might be breaking the dependence on numbers, wealth, and power.” That is a trinity of forces in itself. It may interest some people to read that our civilization is founded upon a trinity of powers: Religion, the State and Money. These powers, or forces established themselves that way knowing that if either one of them “pulled out” of the triumvirate, or if two tried to overcome the other, civilization would topple. We exist under an three-legged umbrella of controlling and oppressive forces which, if we ever hope to find our freedom, must be toppled together. Unfortunately there is no way to do that without collapsing civilization. The collapse is going to happen regardless, for these forces are becoming dangerously entropic while their erstwhile representatives become increasingly psychotic, but we probably won’t have much to do with it, except for our elites who are contributing heavily to the collapse and will contribute much more as their internal corruption grows, causing a simultaneous decadent, dulled and dummied-down mentality among their billions of worshippers, followers, and slaves.
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It may interest some people to read that our civilization is founded upon a trinity of powers: Religion, the State and Money.
~ Sha’Tara, this became clear in Aslan’s book. Every empire enforced its God and religion on the peoples it conquered. Although we cannot yet prove or disprove the existence of the soul and divine creator of the universe, we-humans throughout the ages have demonstrated a belief in something greater than ourselves. The nature of that “something” has changed over time. As states have evolved, their leaders have intuited the importance of using religious beliefs to control the growing population.
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And… step three: the financiers, the “money lenders” and men of business learned early on the advantages of purchasing the goodwill of statesmen and lawmakers. Today’s power set up demonstrates fully this working triumvirate in its apogee of unified power. What is truly sad, and speaks much in favour of predicting a collapse of civilization is that the “sheeple” never will because of their programming, learn the lesson that their elites have learned, that when it comes to wielding power, strength is found in unity, dis-empowerment and disaster in disunity.
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I like how you put it, JoAnn: un-organize religions. If only. As I’ve noted in my comment to Robert, it will take many more centuries before that can happen.
Happy New Year to you, too, JoAnn. Our revolution moves forward.
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Well done, Rosaliene. And as your brief history suggests, the Christianity that was made orthodox in the Council of Nicea was preceded by numerous different interpretations of Christ. Some thought him fully a man, some thought him fully a God, some a combination, some believed that one must follow the Jewish law in order to be a Christian, others not. And so there was something of a discussion and a vote. Good thing Congress wasn’t involved. 😉
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Dr. Stein, what’s interesting in Aslan’s account of events leading up to the Council of Nicea is that Emperor Constantine, a soldier and no theologian, wanted to consolidate his rule as One Emperor under One God. When he later learned of the different stances about the nature of Jesus among the various Christian sects across his empire, he needed agreement about the essence of the one true heavenly leader. To ensure that he obtained the outcome of the oneness of god he desired, Constantine presided over the council, bedecked in royal garb and flanked by Imperial guards. What intimidation!
Your observation about the US Congress is well taken 🙂
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Thank you, you’ve enlightened me. And the presence of Constantine, perhaps, reminds us of “guess who?”
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for our continued support during the past year, Cyril. In the coming year, I look forward to staying connected on Guyanese Online 🙂
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important & expressive history, Rosaliene!
thank you for making God,
the essence from which all derives,
more real & applicable
in our current lives 🙂
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Thanks, David. If we could only stop imposing our God as the One True God, we would discover the divine within ourselves and others.
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Thanks for your continued support, GuyFrog. I wish you and your readers all the best in the New Year!
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Very interesting, episodic and historical write on a sensitive subject – God. Here is my poetry brush stroke:
Finding God
Oh Holy Father, Sun and Earth
hither I go with my dearth
clasping hands with my triumvirate
standing at a crossroad with one gate
open only when the mystic and myth
are cleansed in the labyrinth
where human heart is quixotry
some say let’s look at Christianity
others say go to Islam
for this is more holistic with Imam
and some few stir another brew
don’t forget the sacrosanct Hindu
altogether we have to open a seal
in our heart where we may find the reveal
then we acknowledge with a nod
not easy in finding God.
~ Leonard Dabydeen
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Thanks for sharing your poetic wisdom, Leonard. You say it all in the following verses:
standing at a crossroad with one gate
open only when the mystic and myth
are cleansed in the labyrinth
There are many ways of arriving at the one gate. Some of us get lost in the labyrinth. Life, to me, is but a journey through that labyrinth of cleansing of the spirit. We become so hyped on our religious myths, that we fail to see our shared humanity and divinity (whatever our concept of the divine).
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Very interesting and informative!
Happy New Year Rosaliene
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Happy New Year to you, too, Dwight! I look forward to staying connected in the New Year.
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Thank you for your spiritual and thought provoking posts, Rosaliene! Wishing you a happy and fulfilling New Year!
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Thanks, Inese. Wishing you the same in this New Year 🙂
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Thank you!
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