Does “God” Have to be a Being?

If we stop thinking of God as a being, do we have to stop using the term “God”? Some people who call themselves atheists take this position. See for example, a thoughtful comment by James Tracy. Is he right?

It is possible to use words the way we want, of course, since we make up the definitions. However, I agree with Tracy that it distorts language and leads to confusion if we start defining “dog” to mean cat. However, defining God in some other way than an anthropomorphic being is a more complicated proposition. Even though the majority of persons have used the term that way for thousands of years, there are still good reasons for using the term God more broadly.

First, many important philosophers and theologians have described conceptions of God that are very different from the traditional one. Aristotle’s God was something like pure thought contemplating itself. Spinoza’s God was nature. Hegel’s God was the Absolute, which was something like an ultimate idea to which he believed history moves. Paul Tillich sometimes described God as the “ground of being” and the “ultimate concern.” Some mystical traditions have refused to describe God in concrete terms on the grounds that such a description invariably imposes limits on what is limitless. Instead, they find it possible only to say what God is not. None of these individuals would characterize themselves as atheists. We would be closing ourselves off from these valuable perspectives if we decided not to consider their conceptions of God.

Second, and even more importantly, using the term “God” more broadly than the conception of God described in the Old Testament preserves a tradition – perhaps the most important tradition we have – and creates a link among all those who participate in this tradition. This link is both an historic one and an ideological one. It provides a way for us to share in the beliefs and values of those who have gone before us, as far back as our pre-scientific ancestors who wrote the Old Testament and even earlier. It also provides a way for humans who do not think of God as a being to share in the tradition of those who do.

A Christian conservative, an Islamic mystic in the Suffi tradition, a scientist who (like Einstein) adopts Spinoza’s conception of God, and those (like me) who think of God as the spirit of love in the world all share one fundamental idea. We believe that there is something that is ultimately and supremely important in the universe. We believe there is a sacred dimension to life. By refusing to discard the term “God,” we have a way of sharing in that idea and communicating about it. In the long run, I believe we should contribute to the preservation of this tradition rather than let it fade away as science crushes old assumptions about what humans once attributed to the traditional conception of God.