By Babatunde Jose
“Shama Israelu Adonai Ila Hayno Adna Ikhad” – Deuteronomy 6:4,
Conceptions of God in monotheist, or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction: as a powerful, personal, supernatural being, or as the deification of an esoteric, mystical, or philosophical entity or as the “Ultimate”, the summum bonum, the “Absolute Infinite”, the “Transcendent”, or Existence or Being itself that which we cannot understand.
This is the conundrum of the conception of God in modern religious philosophy. It has brewed so much confusion so much so that some have reduced God to the level of a created being and equate that being with God.
This broad conceptualization also covers the notion of God in non-Western societies; in Africa we encounter similar notions, for example among the Yoruba who conceive of God in henotheistic paradigm. Olodumare in Yoruba is the supreme being and stands co-terminus with modern Western conception of God, but with a pantheon of subordinate deities.
The first recordings that survive of monotheistic conceptions of God, borne out of henotheism are from the Hellenistic period. Of the many objects and entities that religions and other belief systems across the ages have labelled as divine, the one criterion they share is their acknowledgment as divine.
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle’s definition of God attributes perfection to this being, and, as a perfect being, it can only contemplate upon perfection and not on imperfection. God, according to Aristotle, is in a state of “stasis” untouched by change and imperfection. Although, in the 18th century, the French educator Allan Kardec brought a very similar conception of God during his work of codifying Spiritism, this differs from the interpretation of God in most religions, where he is seen to be personally involved in his creation.
In the ancient Greek philosophical Hermetica, the ultimate reality is called by many names, such as God, Lord, Father, Mind (Nous), the Creator, the All, the One, etc. However, peculiar to the Hermetic view of divinity is that it is both all and the creator of all: all created things pre-exist in God, and God is the nature of the cosmos, yet the things themselves and the cosmos were all created by God. Thus, God creates itself, and is both transcendent and immanent.
The Abrahamic conception of God is conceived of as eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and as the creator of the universe. God is further held to have the properties of holiness, justice, omnibenevolence and omnipresence.
Proponents of Abrahamic faiths believe that God is also transcendent, meaning that he is not bound by space and time and therefore not subject to anything within his creation, but at the same time a personal God, involved, listening to prayer, and reacting to the actions of his creatures.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, we read that God is One, when Moses proclaimed: “Shama Israelu Adonai Ila Hayno Adna Ikhad”. It is a Hebrew quotation which means: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” Deuteronomy 6:4. This passage exemplifies what the Holy Quran also says about Allah, where the most concise definition of God is given in the four verses of Surah Ikhlas, which is Chapter 112 of the Qur’an:
“Say: He is Allah, The One and Only.
“Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
“He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him.” (Quran 112:1-4)
The basic creed of Islam, Shahadah (recited under oath to enter the religion), involves: “I testify there are no deities other than God alone.” The Quran asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world; a unique and indivisible being who is independent of the entire creation. This is equally emphasized in the Old Testament of the Bible where The Book of Isaiah also proclaimed the unity of God: “. . . . . . I am God, and there is none like me.” [Isaiah 46:9].
As a result of these, the Bible condemned idol worship, see Exodus 20:3-5. A similar message is repeated in the book of Deuteronomy: 5:7-9 … This theme is equally made in the Quran where idolatry is regarded as the greatest sin: (Quran 31:13). See also Quran 4:48; Quran 22:30. Allah is self-sufficient and requires no helper: (Quran 6:133)
In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or and does not resemble any of his creations. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules and are not expected to visualize God. In Surah al-Hadid (The Iron), Allah said: He is the First and the Last, the Evident and the Immanent: And He has full knowledge of all things. (Quran 57:3)
The Quran describes God as being fully aware of everything that happens in the universe, including private thoughts and feelings, and asserts that one cannot hide anything from God:(Quran 10:61)
It is however impossible to arrive at a universal conceptualization of God. If only we can define God we can have a complete concept of reality and then it is a valid question to ask what is beyond it, i.e. what is beyond God?
Instead, we must look at what God’s messengers to Mankind have said about God. Hence, we look at His attributes as a means of knowing who He is. In Islam the primary source of statements on the attributes of God is the Qur’an.
The name “Allah” is the common Arabic word for God. Literally it means THE Divinity. It is a word that has no plural and has no gender. The second name is ar-Rahman. This means the Most Gracious. This is in comparison with ar-Rahim meaning the Bestower of grace.
While the foregoing attempts to explain God from a Western and Middle Eastern conception, confusion sets in when we examine the conception of God in colonial and neo-colonial states where wholesale histories have been literally wiped out and obliterated and the people have undergone an about turn in their mental regimen. Cultures have been upturned and traditions poopooed while even languages are referred to in derogatory slangs as vernacular. The old deities are referred to as fetish and unworthy of being worshipped; these are the evil effects of the colonial situation.
Colonialism had a total influence on society and the life of the colonized. Not only did it affect their culture and values, but it also engendered a lasting influence on the mindset of the colonized, especially their values and religious orientation, particularly their conception of God. Today, rather than concentrating on the needful and think of how to catch up with the rest of the world, the colonized is engaged in a proxy war on behalf of the colonizer. Islam and Christianity are pitched in a war to win the minds of the unfortunate beings. The result is social and political instability. An ebullient situation that works to the advantage of the imperialist powers.
Every people have a consciousness of God and the Supreme Being is encountered in different cultures and traditions. But to the racial bigots and colonial anthropologists: “Africa is seen as the “Dark Continent” where people had no idea of God and where the Devil in all his abysmal, grotesque, and forbidden features, armed to the teeth and with horns complete, held sway.”
These theorists had fantastic tales to talk about Africa. Emil Ludwig, a biographer, and colonial apologist said: “How can the untutored Africans comprehend God? Deity is a philosophical concept which savages are incapable of framing.”
These show the ignorance, racial prejudice, and arrogance of these theorists. Racist and patronizing, they still see us as less than human. They dismissed Africa as a spiritual desert: Alternatively, they raised doubt as to whether the God that the Africans believed in was the “real God” or their own God. What racial and spiritual arrogance!
Contrary to the colonialist anthropologist summation, Africans are not polytheists but pantheists. The deities they consult are not gods and neither are they equal in rank to the supreme God, as espoused by late Professor Bolaji Idowu, President of the Methodist Church, in his book, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief: The most referenced book on the Yoruba concept of a supreme God.
It is this supreme God, therefore, who reveals Himself to every people on earth and whom they have comprehended according to the degree of their spiritual conception, expressing their knowledge of Him.
Unfortunately, despite our adoption of Christianity and Islam, there is more corruption, crime, delinquency, and waywardness in our society today. Our religiosity has become a transparent sham, and our prayers to God an opaque sham. Our leaders do not fear God anymore. They are today more brazen in their thievery. We continue to live a lie and our whole lives have become truncated.
Finally, we should realize that religion; all religions are man-made and evolved from the values, culture, and their conceptions of God, including the idiosyncrasies they have evolved to uphold these values.
More than 2 billion Christians on earth commemorate Christmas on 25th, December as the birth of Jesus (peace be upon him). We have heard critics allude to the fact that Christmas is the pagan ritual entered into the religion through the church in 325 AD by Constantine in Constantinople. That the birth of Jesus was in mid-summer rather than winter of solstices. This should not concern none-Christians as everyone with their own conception of God and the religion they have evolved from such conceptualization. In any case the date has come to stay and accepted as such.
In this season of commemorating the birth of Jesus, we need to harken to his words; the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Religion was made for man and not man for religion. It should not matter if you are Muslim, Christian, or other faiths; there is only one God up there. And only one moral principle: Do unto others as you would love them to do unto you. This is the crux of Jesus’ teaching.
Barka Juma’at and Merry Christmas. And a happy birthday too to this writer.
