Is God a Personal Being or an Impersonal Reality?

Is God a Personal Being or an Impersonal Reality?

“It will be better to call the most real reality not personal or impersonal but trans-personal or supra-personal."

    - Hans Küng, Christian theologian.

    Source: Does God Exist (London: Collins, 1980), pp. 632-3. Cited in Mackie, p. 244.

The Semitic traditions inform us that God created Adam in His own image. Humanity mysteriously carries some reflection of the Divine (not the other way around). "As above, so below," states the famous Hermetic maxim, emphasising correspondence between the spiritual and earthly realms. Similarly, this world is a reflection—albeit a limited and corrupted reflection—of the heavenly worlds.

Can We Define Ultimate Reality?

Ultimate Reality is beyond definition. Any attempt to define it is like trying to capture the wind in a bag or a river in a net. It is essentially beyond name and beyond containment. To name something is to limit its reality. This is encapsulated in the famous statement of the Tao Te Ching, verse 1:

“The Tao that can be [named] is not the eternal Tao" 

 

However, Ultimate Reality chooses to name and define itself in order to be known and realised.

In Chinese Taoism, there is a distinction between the nameless Tao and the nameable Tao. The first is considered the pure Absolute, while the second is the ‘relatively Absolute’ (to borrow a phrase from F. Schuon). Similarly, Meister Eckhart differentiates between the Godhead and God in Christianity. In Hindu Vedanta, a clear distinction exists between Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman (i.e., Supra-Personal Reality and the Personal Lord). Muslim scholars distinguish between the Divine Essence (dhat) and the Attributes of Allah (sifat). Both are one and the same Reality.

According to a Vedantic maxim, there is "No Jnana without Bhakti.” This means that direct knowledge (jnana) of Supra-Personal Reality cannot be attained without devotion (bhakti) to the Personal Lord, who possesses Names and Attributes mentioned in sacred scriptures. These are necessary stepping-stones for us to approach the Ineffable. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked by modern individuals who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” They reject the personal God who issues commands from above and expects to be obeyed as an outdated or childish concept of Ultimate Reality. Instead, they only believe in the Supra-personal Absolute, failing to recognise that the two are one and the same and correspond to different degrees of reality. Moreover, faith and attachment to the Personal God is a vital bridge to understanding and accessing Supra-Personal Reality. "No Jnana without Bhakti".

The Divine Names

The Divine Names which the Real chooses for Itself and gives to humanity have tremendous power in them and are an indispensable means for us to approach that which is essentially nameless, formless and beyond conceptualisation. The importance of invoking the Divine Names has been affirmed by spiritual masters around the world. God is mysteriously present within His Name.

"God and His Name are one" - Ramakrishna

"The Name is the Named" - Ibn Krabi

Notes

* Man is soul (nafs) and Spirit (ruh). 

Man is personal ego and supra-personal Self.

God is Personal Lord and Supra-Personal Reality.

Man is made in the Divine image.

Rene Guenon makes this point using the Vedantic vocabulary he is familiar with, 

"The two atmas, that is the Self and I [Spirit and soul], correspond to the supreme and non-supreme dual nature of Brahman"   

* "Comprehending that He ﷻ is incomprehensible is [true] comprehension" 

    - Abu Bakr  رضي الله عنه