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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by User24202 (talk | contribs) at 02:56, 17 January 2024 (→Should the image used for the Christian God be changed?: Reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Former good articleGod was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
November 22, 2005Featured article candidateNot promoted
December 13, 2005Good article nomineeListed
February 15, 2009Good article reassessmentDelisted
March 15, 2012Good article nomineeNot listed
Current status: Delisted good article



Should images of God be added to this page?

To many religions and specific beliefs, it is in their commandments to not show images of God. I feel like it may come off as disrespectful to those religions to show those images. Is there a way to make them optional to see if someone checks the page? If not, should they still be in the article? Liop3441 (talk) 17:25, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

YES depictions of gods or other religious figures can exist on Wikipedia as per WP:NOTCENSORED PersusjCP (talk) 22:46, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why are the first three paragraphs of the sub-section for existence focused on atheism?

Why are the first three paragraphs of the sub-section for existence focused on atheism? If I went to the Atheism article I wouldn't expect to find Aquinas's 5 proofs showcased. Seems like a bias in the authors/editors. These three paragraphs could, perhaps, be condensed to a single paragraph and put at the bottom. The focus of the subsection of God - Existence should be God's existence, not atheism. 69.141.168.180 (talk) 08:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraphs are about existence. It is natural that any section about the existence of God would include arguments against the proposition. I have changed the ordering of the paragraphs, reasoning that this ordering aligns better with the historical timeline of arguments. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Trinitarians believe God is "composed" of....

"Trinitarians believe that God is composed of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Trinitarians reject composition. If God were composed, he would not be the first cause. This is a misrepresentation of the belief. 69.141.168.180 (talk) 08:09, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it to "Trinitarians believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all manifestations of God." If you can propose something better, please do so. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:39, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Anachronist
The Trinity is really tricky. Here is a quote from the Trinity page on Wikipedia that I think is safe:
"One God existing in three coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial divine persons" 69.141.168.180 (talk) 09:40, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That came across to me as rather jargon-y, so I changed the caption again just now, based on the second sentence in the Trinity article. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:18, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Godhead

We have had a draft on the concept of the Godhead stewing for about seven years now. It's time to finish it. Cheers! BD2412 T 14:53, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should the image used for the Christian God be changed?

After a quick back and forth edit between VenusFeuerFalle and I relating to the image used for God, we agreed to take this issue/topic to the talk page. I think the image representing the Christian God should be replaced from the current one, which depicts God in a humanoid form with facial-hair, to a more suitable one which depicts the Tetragrammaton YHWH יהוה‎, the name of God. I agree that the bearded depiction of God is a more typical artistic depiction of God in Western culture, but it is very biblically inaccurate. Many Christians consider him to be invisible, and it is generally believed he has no form. It is best to use an accurate image like the other Abrahamic religions use on this page. RileyXeon (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick introduction. I agree partly with the proposition. The "bearded man" may not be the best representation for the Christian God. Many theologicans, including Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, Augustine of Hippo, and deistic philosophers from Christian culture, do conceptualized God as an abstract entity. An example is the concept of God as the first mover in the Five Ways by Aquinas. However, I do not think that a personal name does much better than the depiction of God as a person. The image needs to be representative for the Christian concept of God, such as a symbol. Next, I would argue that the Tetragrammaton, even if used as a symbol or representation rather than a proper name, it poorly reflects Christian tradition, given that the Tetragrammaton is rarely used in Christian writings. The idea that the Tetragrammaton should be used by Christians might be a rather modern phenomenon and might be motivated by Christian Zionism:

The book is divided into three chronological sections: “The Eclipse of the Name” (roughly 300 bce–500 ce), “Times of Ignorance” (500 ce–1400 ce) and “The Rediscovery of the Name” (1400 ce–1700 ce). The first section derives its title from the fact that whereas the Tetragrammaton routinely appears in Jewish biblical texts, in both Hebrew and Greek, it virtually never appears in biblical texts of Christian origin, being represented instead by the surrogate kyrios, or, more precisely, by the distinctively Christian abbreviation ΚΣ. The implications of “eclipse” notwithstanding, however, the author makes the important point that this shift in scribal convention does not signal a lack of Christian interest in the Tetragrammaton.(

R. Kendall Soulen 2015) Although the author states that the lack of 'Yahweh' should not be used as evidence for its lack of importance, we see that the term is hardly representative for the concept of God in Christian tradition. The author also calls the time of absence of the Tetragrammaton a "time of ignorance". Althought he author interpretes the importance of 'YHWH' into the Christian tradition, the term is factually (almost) non-existent in traditional Christianity. Where might be a better suggestion for an image, which does accurately reflect Christian tradition. If no better one is aviable, I think the portray of God as a man will do it as well, due to its prominence in Western culture. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Humans cannot agree on what God looks like. Having no image at all is the only sensible approach. HiLo48 (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Depicting God as an old bearded man is very inaccurate and doesn't support biblical writings. Using the Hebrew name for God again would be far more suitable to use instead of a depiction which isn't supported. If it's more suitable maybe we could use an image of Jesus to replace instead? Jesus being God and having divinity is a key and common Christian belief, and an image of Jesus is already used on the Deity page. RileyXeon (talk) 02:56, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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