In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle states that humans are not privileged observers of the universe, that observations from the Earth are representative of observations from the average position in the universe. Named for Copernican heliocentrism, it is a working assumption that arises from a modified cosmological extension of Copernicus' argument of a moving Earth.
Origin and implications
Hermann Bondi
named the principle after Copernicus in the mid-20th century, although
the principle itself dates back to the 16th–17th century paradigm shift away from the Ptolemaic system, which placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Copernicus proposed that the motion of the planets could be explained
by reference to an assumption that the Sun is centrally located and
stationary in contrast to the geocentrism. He argued that the apparent retrograde motion of the planets is an illusion caused by Earth's movement around the Sun, which the Copernican model
placed at the centre of the universe. Copernicus himself was mainly
motivated by technical dissatisfaction with the earlier system and not
by support for any mediocrity principle.
Although the Copernican heliocentric model is often described as
"demoting" Earth from its central role it had in the Ptolemaic
geocentric model, it was successors to Copernicus, notably the 16th
century Giordano Bruno,
who adopted this new perspective. The Earth's central position had been
interpreted as being in the "lowest and filthiest parts". Instead, as
Galileo said, the Earth is part of the "dance of the stars" rather than
the "sump where the universe's filth and ephemera collect".In the late 20th Century, Carl Sagan asked, "Who are we? We find that
we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy
tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are
far more galaxies than people."
While the Copernican principle is derived from the negation of past assumptions, such as geocentrism, heliocentrism, or galactocentrism which state that humans are at the center of the universe, the Copernican principle is stronger than acentrism,
which merely states that humans are not at the center of the universe.
The Copernican principle assumes acentrism and also states that human
observers or observations from Earth are representative of observations
from the average position in the universe. Michael Rowan-Robinson
emphasizes the Copernican principle as the threshold test for modern
thought, asserting that: "It is evident that in the post-Copernican era
of human history, no well-informed and rational person can imagine that
the Earth occupies a unique position in the universe."
Most modern cosmology is based on the assumption that the
cosmological principle is almost, but not exactly, true on the largest
scales. The Copernican principle represents the irreducible
philosophical assumption needed to justify this, when combined with the
observations. If one assumes the Copernican principle and observes that
the universe appears isotropic or the same in all directions from the vantage point of Earth, then one can infer that the universe is generally homogeneous or the same everywhere (at any given time) and is also isotropic about any given point. These two conditions make up the cosmological principle.
On scales comparable to the radius of the observable universe, we
see systematic changes with distance from Earth. For instance, at
greater distances, galaxies contain more young stars and are less
clustered, and quasars
appear more numerous. If the Copernican principle is assumed, then it
follows that this is evidence for the evolution of the universe with
time: this distant light has taken most of the age of the universe to
reach Earth and shows the universe when it was young. The most distant
light of all, cosmic microwave background radiation, is isotropic to at least one part in a thousand.
Bondi and Thomas Gold used the Copernican principle to argue for the perfect cosmological principle which maintains that the universe is also homogeneous in time, and is the basis for the steady-state cosmology. However, this strongly conflicts with the evidence for cosmological
evolution mentioned earlier: the universe has progressed from extremely
different conditions at the Big Bang, and will continue to progress toward extremely different conditions, particularly under the rising influence of dark energy, apparently toward the Big Freeze or Big Rip.
Since the 1990s the term has been used (interchangeably with "the Copernicus method") for J. Richard Gott's Bayesian-inference-based prediction of duration of ongoing events, a generalized version of the Doomsday argument.
Tests of the principle
The Copernican principle has never been proven, and in the most
general sense cannot be proven, but it is implicit in many modern
theories of physics. Cosmological models are often derived with
reference to the cosmological principle,
slightly more general than the Copernican principle, and many tests of
these models can be considered tests of the Copernican principle.
Historical
Before the term Copernican principle was even coined, past assumptions, such as geocentrism, heliocentrism, and galactocentrism,
which state that Earth, the Solar System, or the Milky Way respectively
were located at the center of the universe, were shown to be false. The
Copernican Revolution dethroned Earth to just one of many planets orbiting the Sun. Proper motion was mentioned by Halley. William Herschel found that the Solar System is moving through space within our disk-shaped Milky Way galaxy. Edwin Hubble
showed that the Milky Way galaxy is just one of many galaxies in the
universe. Examination of the galaxy's position and motion in the
universe led to the Big Bang theory and the whole of modern cosmology.
Modern tests
Recent and planned tests relevant to the cosmological and Copernican principles include:
observation of the KBC Void – some authors claim it violates the cosmological principle and thus the Copernican principle, while others claim that it is consistent with them.
Physics without the principle
The standard model of cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model, assumes the Copernican principle and the more general cosmological principle.
Some cosmologists and theoretical physicists have created models
without the cosmological or Copernican principles to constrain the
values of observational results, to address specific known issues in the
Lambda-CDM model, and to propose tests to distinguish between current
models and other possible models.
A prominent example in this context is inhomogeneous cosmology, to model the observed accelerating universe and cosmological constant. Instead of using the current accepted idea of dark energy,
inhomogeneous-cosmology models propose that the universe is much more
inhomogeneous than currently assumed — for example, that the Solar
System is in an extremely large low-density void. To match observations the Solar System would have to be very close to
the centre of this void, immediately contradicting the Copernican
principle.
While the Big Bang
model in cosmology is sometimes said to derive from the Copernican
principle in conjunction with redshift observations, the Big Bang model
can still be assumed to be valid in absence of the Copernican principle,
because the cosmic microwave background, primordial gas clouds, and the structure, evolution, and distribution of galaxies
all provide evidence, independent of the Copernican principle, in favor
of the Big Bang. However, the key tenets of the Big Bang model, such as
the expansion of the universe, become assumptions themselves akin to
the Copernican principle, rather than derived from the Copernican
principle and observations.
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. In its primary sense, it is also known as ontological naturalism, metaphysical naturalism, pure naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism. "Ontological" refers to ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to physicalism or materialism, but there are important distinctions between the philosophies.
For example, philosopher Paul Kurtz argued that nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles. These principles include mass, energy, and other physical and chemical properties accepted by the scientific community. Further, this sense of naturalism holds that spirits, deities, and ghosts are not real and that there is no "purpose" in nature as in dysteleology. This stronger formulation of naturalism is commonly referred to as metaphysical naturalism. On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be
assumed in one's working methods as the current paradigm, without any
further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust
metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism.
With the exception of pantheists – who believe that nature is identical with divinity while not recognizing a distinct personal anthropomorphic god – theists challenge the idea that nature contains all of reality. According to some theists, natural laws may be viewed as secondary causes of God(s).
In the 20th century, Willard Van Orman Quine, George Santayana,
and other philosophers argued that the success of naturalism in science
meant that scientific methods should also be used in philosophy.
According to this view, science and philosophy are not always distinct
from one another, but instead form a continuum.
"Naturalism is not so much a
special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of
philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of
positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and
influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists
essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental
source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in
terms of nature. Either the limits of nature are also the limits of
existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary,
has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events,
therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as
the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one
sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning".
Naturalism is most notably a Western phenomenon, but an equivalent idea has long existed in the East. Naturalism was the foundation of two out of six orthodox schools and one heterodox school of Hinduism. Samkhya, one of the oldest dualist schools of Indian philosophy puts nature (Prakriti) as the primary cause of the universe, without assuming the existence of a personal God or Ishvara. The Carvaka, Nyaya, Vaisheshika schools originated in the 7th, 6th, and 2nd century BCE, respectively. Similarly, though unnamed and never articulated into a coherent system, one tradition within Confucian philosophy embraced a form of Naturalism dating to the Wang Chong
in the 1st century, if not earlier, but it arose independently and had
little influence on the development of modern naturalist philosophy or
on Eastern or Western culture.
Ancient Roman mosaic showing Anaximander, a contributor to naturalism in ancient Greek philosophy
Western metaphysical naturalism originated in ancient Greek philosophy. The earliest pre-Socratic philosophers, especially the Milesians (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes) and the atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), were labeled by their peers and successors "the physikoi" (from the Greek φυσικός or physikos, meaning "natural philosopher" borrowing on the word φύσις or physis,
meaning "nature") because they investigated natural causes, often
excluding any role for gods in the creation or operation of the world.
This eventually led to fully developed systems such as Epicureanism, which sought to explain everything that exists as the product of atoms falling and swerving in a void.
Aristotle surveyed the thought of his predecessors and conceived of nature in a way that charted a middle course between their excesses.
Plato's world of eternal and unchanging Forms, imperfectly represented in matter by a divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic Weltanschauungen, of which atomism was, by the fourth century at least, the most prominent ... This debate was to persist throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from Epicurus ... while the Stoics adopted a divine teleology ...
The choice seems simple: either show how a structured, regular world
could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into the
system. This was how Aristotle… when still a young acolyte of Plato,
saw matters. Cicero… preserves Aristotle's own cave-image: if troglodytes
were brought on a sudden into the upper world, they would immediately
suppose it to have been intelligently arranged. But Aristotle grew to
abandon this view; although he believes in a divine being, the Prime Mover is not the efficient cause of action in the Universe, and plays no part in constructing or arranging it ...
But, although he rejects the divine Artificer, Aristotle does not
resort to a pure mechanism of random forces. Instead he seeks to find a
middle way between the two positions, one which relies heavily on the
notion of Nature, or phusis.
With the rise and dominance of Christianity in the West and the later spread of Islam, metaphysical naturalism was generally abandoned by intellectuals. Thus, there is little evidence for it in medieval philosophy.
The current usage of the term naturalism "derives from debates in
America in the first half of the 20th century. The self-proclaimed
'naturalists' from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook, and Roy Wood Sellars."
According to David Papineau, contemporary naturalism is a consequence of the build-up of scientific evidence during the twentieth century for the "causal closure of the physical", the doctrine that all physical effects can be accounted for by physical causes.
By the middle of the twentieth
century, the acceptance of the causal closure of the physical realm led
to even stronger naturalist views. The causal closure
thesis implies that any mental and biological causes must themselves be
physically constituted, if they are to produce physical effects. It
thus gives rise to a particularly strong form of ontological naturalism,
namely the physicalist doctrine that any state that has physical
effects must itself be physical.
From the 1950s onwards, philosophers began to formulate arguments for
ontological physicalism. Some of these arguments appealed explicitly to
the causal closure of the physical realm (Feigl 1958, Oppenheim and
Putnam 1958). In other cases, the reliance on causal closure lay below
the surface. However, it is not hard to see that even in these latter
cases the causal closure thesis played a crucial role.
The term "methodological naturalism" is much more recent, though. According to Ronald Numbers, it was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries, a Wheaton College
philosopher. De Vries distinguished between what he called
"methodological naturalism", a disciplinary method that says nothing
about God's existence, and "metaphysical naturalism", which "denies the
existence of a transcendent God". The term "methodological naturalism" had been used in 1937 by Edgar S. Brightman in an article in The Philosophical Review as a contrast to "naturalism" in general, but there the idea was not really developed to its more recent distinctions.
Or, as Carl Sagan succinctly put it: "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."
In addition Arthur C. Danto states that naturalism, in recent usage, is a species of philosophical monism according to which whatever exists or happens is natural
in the sense of being susceptible to explanation through methods which,
although paradigmatically exemplified in the natural sciences, are
continuous from domain to domain of objects and events. Hence,
naturalism is polemically defined as repudiating the view that there
exists or could exist any entities which lie, in principle, beyond the
scope of scientific explanation.
Arthur Newell Strahler
states: "The naturalistic view is that the particular universe we
observe came into existence and has operated through all time and in all
its parts without the impetus or guidance of any supernatural agency." "The great majority of contemporary philosophers urge that reality is
exhausted by nature, containing nothing 'supernatural', and that the
scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality,
including the 'human spirit'." Philosophers widely regard naturalism as a
"positive" term, and "few active philosophers nowadays are happy to
announce themselves as 'non-naturalists'". "Philosophers concerned with
religion tend to be less enthusiastic about 'naturalism'" and that
despite an "inevitable" divergence due to its popularity, if more
narrowly construed, (to the chagrin of John McDowell, David Chalmers and Jennifer Hornsby, for example), those not so disqualified remain nonetheless content "to set the bar for 'naturalism' higher."
Providing assumptions required for science
According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds
on at least some essential assumptions that cannot be tested by
scientific processes; that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as to the
ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions
would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of
occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their
success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality,
devoid of ad hoc suppositions." Kuhn
also claims that all science is based on assumptions about the
character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These
assumptions – a paradigm – comprise a collection of beliefs, values and
techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which
legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation. For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the "correct" paradigm, and there is no such thing as supernatural,
i.e. anything above, beyond, or outside of nature. The scientific
method is to be used to investigate all reality, including the human
spirit.
Some claim that naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists,
and that the following basic assumptions are needed to justify the
scientific method:
That there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers. "The basis for rationality is acceptance of an external objective reality." "Objective reality is clearly an essential thing if we are to develop a
meaningful perspective of the world. Nevertheless its very existence is
assumed." "Our belief that objective reality exist is an assumption that it
arises from a real world outside of ourselves. As infants we made this
assumption unconsciously. People are happy to make this assumption that
adds meaning to our sensations and feelings, than live with solipsism." "Without this assumption, there would be only the thoughts and images
in our own mind (which would be the only existing mind) and there would
be no need of science, or anything else."
That this objective reality is governed by natural laws; "Science,
at least today, assumes that the universe obeys knowable principles
that don't depend on time or place, nor on subjective parameters such as
what we think, know or how we behave." Hugh Gauch argues that science presupposes that "the physical world is orderly and comprehensible."
That reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. Stanley
Sobottka said: "The assumption of external reality is necessary for
science to function and to flourish. For the most part, science is the
discovering and explaining of the external world." "Science attempts to produce knowledge that is as universal and objective as possible within the realm of human understanding."
That Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all things in nature must have at least a natural cause. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to these two closely related propositions as the constancy of nature's laws and the operation of known processes. Simpson agrees that the axiom of uniformity of law, an unprovable
postulate, is necessary in order for scientists to extrapolate inductive
inference into the unobservable past in order to meaningfully study it. "The assumption of spatial and temporal invariance of natural laws is
by no means unique to geology since it amounts to a warrant for
inductive inference which, as Bacon showed nearly four hundred years
ago, is the basic mode of reasoning in empirical science. Without
assuming this spatial and temporal invariance, we have no basis for
extrapolating from the known to the unknown and, therefore, no way of
reaching general conclusions from a finite number of observations.
(Since the assumption is itself vindicated by induction, it can in no
way "prove" the validity of induction — an endeavor virtually abandoned
after Hume demonstrated its futility two centuries ago)." Gould also notes that natural processes such as Lyell's "uniformity of process" are an assumption: "As such, it is another a priori assumption shared by all scientists and not a statement about the empirical world." According to R. Hooykaas: "The principle of uniformity is not a law,
not a rule established after comparison of facts, but a principle,
preceding the observation of facts ... It is the logical principle of
parsimony of causes and of economy of scientific notions. By explaining
past changes by analogy with present phenomena, a limit is set to
conjecture, for there is only one way in which two things are equal, but
there are an infinity of ways in which they could be supposed
different."
That experimental procedures will be done satisfactorily without
any deliberate or unintentional mistakes that will influence the results.
That experimenters won't be significantly biased by their presumptions.
That random sampling is representative of the entire population. A
simple random sample (SRS) is the most basic probabilistic option used
for creating a sample from a population. The benefit of SRS is that the
investigator is guaranteed to choose a sample that represents the
population that ensures statistically valid conclusions.
Methodological naturalism
Aristotle, one of the philosophers behind the modern day scientific method used as a central term in methodological naturalism
Methodological naturalism, the second sense of the term
"naturalism", (see above) is "the adoption or assumption of
philosophical naturalism … with or without fully accepting or believing
it." Robert T. Pennock
used the term to clarify that the scientific method confines itself to
natural explanations without assuming the existence or non-existence of
the supernatural. "We may therefore be agnostic about the ultimate truth of
[philosophical] naturalism, but nevertheless adopt it and investigate
nature as if nature is all that there is."
According to Ronald Numbers, the term "methodological naturalism" was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries, a Wheaton College philosopher.
Both Schafersman and Strahler assert that it is illogical to try
to decouple the two senses of naturalism. "While science as a process
only requires methodological naturalism, the practice or adoption of
methodological naturalism entails a logical and moral belief in
philosophical naturalism, so they are not logically decoupled." This “[philosophical] naturalistic view is espoused by science as its fundamental assumption."
But Eugenie Scott
finds it imperative to do so for the expediency of deprogramming the
religious. "Scientists can defuse some of the opposition to evolution by
first recognizing that the vast majority of Americans are believers,
and that most Americans want to retain their faith." Scott apparently
believes that "individuals can retain religious beliefs and still accept
evolution through methodological naturalism. Scientists should
therefore avoid mentioning metaphysical naturalism and use
methodological naturalism instead." "Even someone who may disagree with my logic … often understands the
strategic reasons for separating methodological from philosophical
naturalism—if we want more Americans to understand evolution."
Scott's approach has found success as illustrated in Ecklund's
study where some religious scientists reported that their religious
beliefs affect the way they think about the implications – often moral –
of their work, but not the way they practice science within
methodological naturalism. Papineau notes that "Philosophers concerned with religion tend to be
less enthusiastic about metaphysical naturalism and that those not so
disqualified remain content "to set the bar for 'naturalism' higher."
In contrast to Schafersman, Strahler, and Scott, Robert T. Pennock, an expert witness at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial and cited by the Judge in his Memorandum Opinion, described "methodological naturalism" stating that it is not based on dogmatic metaphysical naturalism.
Pennock further states that as supernatural agents and powers
"are above and beyond the natural world and its agents and powers" and
"are not constrained by natural laws", only logical impossibilities
constrain what a supernatural agent cannot do. In addition he says: "If
we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers,
then, by definition, they would not be supernatural." "Because the
supernatural is necessarily a mystery to us, it can provide no grounds
on which one can judge scientific models." "Experimentation requires
observation and control of the variables.... But by definition we have
no control over supernatural entities or forces."
The position that the study of the function of nature is also the
study of the origin of nature is in contrast with opponents who take
the position that functioning of the cosmos is unrelated to how it
originated. While they are open to supernatural fiat in its invention
and coming into existence, during scientific study to explain the
functioning of the cosmos, they do not appeal to the supernatural. They
agree that allowing "science to appeal to untestable supernatural powers
to explain how nature functions would make the scientist's task
meaningless, undermine the discipline that allows science to make
progress, and would be as profoundly unsatisfying as the ancient Greek
playwright's reliance upon the deus ex machina to extract his hero from a difficult predicament."
W. V. O. Quine
describes naturalism as the position that there is no higher tribunal
for truth than natural science itself. In his view, there is no better
method than the scientific method for judging the claims of science, and
there is neither any need nor any place for a "first philosophy", such
as (abstract) metaphysics or epistemology, that could stand behind and justify science or the scientific method.
Therefore, philosophy should feel free to make use of the
findings of scientists in its own pursuit, while also feeling free to
offer criticism when those claims are ungrounded, confused, or
inconsistent. In Quine's view, philosophy is "continuous with" science,
and both are empirical. Naturalism is not a dogmatic belief that the modern view of science is
entirely correct. Instead, it simply holds that science is the best way
to explore the processes of the universe and that those processes are
what modern science is striving to understand.
Karl Popper
Karl Popper equated naturalism with inductive theory of science. He rejected it based on his general critique of induction (see problem of induction), yet acknowledged its utility as means for inventing conjectures.
A naturalistic methodology (sometimes called an "inductive theory of science") has its value, no doubt. ...
I reject the naturalistic view: It is uncritical. Its upholders fail to
notice that whenever they believe to have discovered a fact, they have
only proposed a convention. Hence the convention is liable to turn into a
dogma. This criticism of the naturalistic view applies not only to its
criterion of meaning, but also to its idea of science, and consequently
to its idea of empirical method.
Popper instead proposed that science should adopt a methodology based on falsifiability for demarcation,
because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a single
experiment can contradict one. Popper holds that scientific theories are
characterized by falsifiability.
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Notre Dame, and a Christian, has become a well-known critic of naturalism. He suggests, in his evolutionary argument against naturalism, that the probability that evolution has produced humans with reliable true beliefs, is low or inscrutable, unless the evolution of humans was guided (for example, by God). According to David Kahan of the University of Glasgow, in order to understand how beliefs are warranted, a justification must be found in the context of supernatural theism, as in Plantinga's epistemology. (See also supernormal stimuli).
Plantinga argues that together, naturalism and evolution provide an insurmountable "defeater for the belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable", i.e., a skeptical argument along the lines of Descartes' evil demon or brain in a vat.
Take philosophical naturalism
to be the belief that there aren't any supernatural entities – no such
person as God, for example, but also no other supernatural entities, and
nothing at all like God. My claim was that naturalism and contemporary
evolutionary theory are at serious odds with one another – and this
despite the fact that the latter is ordinarily thought to be one of the
main pillars supporting the edifice of the former. (Of course I am not attacking the theory of evolution, or anything in that neighborhood; I am instead attacking the conjunction of naturalism with the view that human beings have evolved in that way. I see no similar problems with the conjunction of theism
and the idea that human beings have evolved in the way contemporary
evolutionary science suggests.) More particularly, I argued that the
conjunction of naturalism with the belief that we human beings have
evolved in conformity with current evolutionary doctrine ... is in a certain interesting way self-defeating or self-referentially incoherent.
— Alvin Plantinga, Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, "Introduction"
Robert T. Pennock states that as supernatural
agents and powers "are above and beyond the natural world and its
agents and powers" and "are not constrained by natural laws", only
logical impossibilities constrain what a supernatural agent cannot do.
He says: "If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural
powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural." As the
supernatural is necessarily a mystery to us, it can provide no grounds
on which one can judge scientific models. "Experimentation requires
observation and control of the variables.... But by definition we have
no control over supernatural entities or forces." Science does not deal
with meanings; the closed system of scientific reasoning cannot be used
to define itself. Allowing science to appeal to untestable supernatural
powers would make the scientist's task meaningless, undermine the
discipline that allows science to make progress, and "would be as
profoundly unsatisfying as the ancient Greek playwright's reliance upon
the deus ex machina to extract his hero from a difficult predicament."
Naturalism of this sort says nothing about the existence or
nonexistence of the supernatural, which by this definition is beyond
natural testing. As a practical consideration, the rejection of
supernatural explanations would merely be pragmatic, thus it would
nonetheless be possible for an ontological supernaturalist to espouse
and practice methodological naturalism. For example, scientists may
believe in God while practicing methodological naturalism in their
scientific work. This position does not preclude knowledge that is
somehow connected to the supernatural. Generally however, anything that
one can examine and explain scientifically would not be supernatural,
simply by definition.
Mousavirad
Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad distinguishes between epistemological and
methodological naturalism. While he accepts that knowledge is not
limited to sense perception and experimentation, he views methodological
naturalism as a practical convention for pursuing universal science.
Referring to Michael Ruse’s claim that science must exclude references
to God,
Mousavirad challenges the implication that empirical methods are the
only valid path to knowledge. He argues that although natural sciences,
by consensus, rely solely on sensory and empirical data, they cannot
assert that empirical knowledge is the only form of factual knowledge.
Natural science can report only on what is observable; it must remain
neutral regarding metaphysical influences. Thus, while methodological
naturalism is valid as a shared scientific approach, it cannot justify
or refute knowledge from non-empirical source.
In monotheisticreligious beliefsystems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". Belief in the existence of at least one deity, who may interact with the world, is called theism.
Conceptions of God vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God. Atheism rejects the belief in any deity. Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation, which was initially called pantheism,although church theologians, in attacking pantheism, described
pantheism as the belief that God is the material universe itself.God is sometimes seen as omnibenevolent, while deism holds that God is not involved with humanity apart from creation.
Some traditions attach spiritual significance to maintaining a relationship with God, often involving acts such as worship and prayer, and see God as the source of all moral obligation. God is sometimes described without reference to gender, but more often is referred to using gender-specific terminology. God is referred to by different names
depending on the language and cultural tradition, sometimes with
different titles of God used in reference to God's various attributes.
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite God Yahweh.
The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Codex Argenteus, containing a Gothic translation of the Bible. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *ǵhu-tó-m was probably based on the root *ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either 'to call' or 'to invoke'. The Germanic words for God were originally neuter, but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form. In English, capitalization is used when the word is used as a proper noun, as well as for other names by which a god is known. Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity.
The English word God and its counterparts in other
languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of
significant differences between religions, the term remains an English
translation common to all.
The Hebrew word for 'god' is El, which also as a proper noun referred to the chief deity in ancient Semitic religions. In the Hebrew Bible, God is also given a personal name, Yahweh, in contrast to the genetic name, and in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity who was adopted into ancient Israelite religion. In many English translations of the Bible, Yahweh is translated as "the LORD" with "Lord" in all caps. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Jews and Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning 'praise Jah', which is used to give God glory. In Judaism, some of the Hebrew titles of God are considered holy names.
Allāh (Arabic: الله) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews meaning 'the God', while ʾilāh (إِلَٰه, plural `ālihaآلِهَة) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Muslims also use a multitude of other titles for God.
Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā means 'intelligence' or 'wisdom'. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian*mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning 'placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)', hence 'wise'. Meanwhile 101 other names are also in use.
Waheguru (Punjabi: vāhigurū) is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means 'Wonderful Teacher' in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means 'wonderful', and guru (Sanskrit: guru)
is a term denoting 'teacher'. Waheguru is also described by some as an
experience of ecstasy which is beyond all description. The most common
usage of the word Waheguru is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other—Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh, "Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord."
Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baháʼí Faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".
Other names for God include Aten in ancient Egyptian Atenism where Aten was proclaimed to be the one "true" supreme being and creator of the universe, Chukwu in Igbo, and Hayyi Rabbi in Mandaeism.
The existence of God and the nature of God are subjects of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being or existence) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection").
Ontological arguments refer to any argument for the existence of God that is based on a priori reasoning. Notable ontological arguments were formulated by Anselm and René Descartes. Cosmological arguments use concepts around the origin of the universe to argue for the existence of God.
The teleological argument, also called "argument from design", uses the complexity within the universe as a proof of the existence of God. It is countered that the fine tuning
required for a stable universe with life on earth is illusory, as
humans are only able to observe the small part of this universe that
succeeded in making such observation possible, called the anthropic principle, and so would not learn of, for example, life on other planets or of universes that did not occur because of different laws of physics. Non-theists have argued that complex processes that have natural
explanations yet to be discovered are referred to the supernatural,
called god of the gaps. Other theists, such as John Henry Newman who believed theistic evolution
was acceptable, have also argued against versions of the teleological
argument and held that it is limiting of God to view him having to only
intervene specially in some instances rather than having complex
processes designed to create order.
The argument from beauty
states that this universe happens to contain special beauty in it and
that there would be no particular reason for this over aesthetic
neutrality other than God. This has been countered by pointing to the existence of ugliness in the universe. This has also been countered by arguing that beauty has no objective
reality and so the universe could be seen as ugly or that humans have
made what is more beautiful than nature.
The argument from morality argues for the existence of God given the assumption of the objective existence of morals. While prominent non-theistic philosophers such as the atheist J. L. Mackie agreed that the argument is valid, they disagreed with its premises. David Hume argued that there is no basis to believe in objective moral truths while biologist E. O. Wilson
theorized that the feelings of morality are a by-product of natural
selection in humans and would not exist independent of the mind. Philosopher Michael Lou Martin argued that a subjective account for morality can be acceptable. Similar to the argument from morality is the argument from conscience
which argues for the existence of God given the existence of a
conscience that informs of right and wrong, even against prevailing
moral codes. Philosopher John Locke instead argued that conscience is a social construct and thus could lead to contradicting morals.
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable. Theism
generally holds that God exists objectively and independently of human
thought and is sometimes used to refer to any belief in God or gods.
Some view the existence of God as an empirical question. Richard Dawkins
states that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind
of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference". Carl Sagan
argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to
prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery
that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God)
would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old. Some theologians, such as Alister McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method.
AgnosticStephen Jay Gould
argued that science and religion are not in conflict and proposed an
approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology.
The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical
question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer
questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the
perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the
supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the
natural world. Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their 2010 book, The Grand Design,
that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if
the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that
of who created God. Both authors claim, however, that it is possible to
answer these questions purely within the realm of science and without
invoking divine beings.
Trinitarians
believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three
distinct persons sharing a single nature or essence.
A deity, or "god" (with lowercaseg), refers to a supernatural being. Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, referred to as "God" (with uppercase g). Comparing or equating other entities to God is viewed as idolatry in monotheism, and is often strongly condemned. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world. Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid, meaning 'oneness' or 'uniqueness'. The first pillar of Islam is an oath
that forms the basis of the religion and which non-Muslims wishing to
convert must recite, declaring that, "I testify that there is no deity
except God."
The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes referred to "One god greatest among gods and men", highlighting one "God" who is greater than the multiple "gods".
In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. In past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas.
God is viewed differently by diverse strands of the Hindu religion, with most Hindus having faith in a supreme reality (Brahman) who can be manifested in numerous chosen deities. Thus, the religion is sometimes characterized as Polymorphic Monotheism. Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god at a time while accepting the validity of worshiping other deities. Monolatry is the belief in a single deity worthy of worship while accepting the existence of other deities.
Transcendence
is the aspect of God's nature that is completely independent of the
material universe and its physical laws. Many supposed characteristics
of God are described in human terms. Anselm
thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but
appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity
of judging "being" against something that might not exist, led many
medieval philosophers approach to knowledge of God through negative
attributes, called Negative theology.
For example, one should not say that God is wise, but can say that God
is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge).
Christian theologian Alister McGrath
writes that one has to understand a "personal god" as an analogy. "To
say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and
willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human,
or located at a specific point in the universe."
Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God and denies that God transcends the Universe. For pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature. Pantheism is sometimes objected to as not providing any meaningful explanation of God with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stating, "Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism." Pandeism holds that God was a separate entity but then became the universe. Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.
God Blessing the Seventh Day, 1805 watercolor painting by William Blake
God is often viewed as the cause of all that exists. For Pythagoreans, Monad variously referred to divinity, the first being or an indivisible origin. The philosophy of Plato and Plotinus refers to "The One", which is the first principle of reality that is "beyond" being and is both the source of the Universe and the teleological purpose of all things. Aristotle theorized a first uncaused cause for all motion in the universe and viewed it as perfectly beautiful, immaterial, unchanging and indivisible. Aseity is the property of not depending on any cause other than itself for its existence. Avicenna held that there must be a necessarily existent guaranteed to exist by its essence—it cannot "not" exist—and that humans identify this as God.Secondary causation refers to God creating the laws of the Universe which then can change themselves within the framework of those laws. In addition to the initial creation, occasionalism
refers to the idea that the Universe would not by default continue to
exist from one instant to the next and so would need to rely on God as a
sustainer. While divine providence
refers to any intervention by God, it is usually used to refer to
"special providence", where there is an extraordinary intervention by
God, such as miracles.
Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it, such as answering prayers or producing miracles. Deists sometimes
attribute this to God having no interest in or not being aware of
humanity. Pandeists would hold that God does not intervene because God
is the Universe.
Of those theists who hold that God has an interest in humanity,
most hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. This
belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil.
Omnipotence (all-powerful) is an attribute often ascribed to God. The omnipotence paradox
is most often framed with the example "Could God create a stone so
heavy that even he could not lift it?" as God could either be unable to
create that stone or lift that stone and so could not be omnipotent.
This is often countered with variations of the argument that
omnipotence, like any other attribute ascribed to God, only applies as
far as it is noble enough to befit God and thus God cannot lie, or do
what is contradictory as that would entail opposing himself.
Omniscience (all-knowing) is an attribute often ascribed to God. This
implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does
know this, either their free will might be illusory or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient. Open Theism
limits God's omniscience by contending that, due to the nature of time,
God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future and process theology holds that God does not have immutability, so is affected by his creation.
God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent". These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early
Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides, Augustine of Hippo, and Al-Ghazali, respectively.
Some interpretations and traditions of Buddhism can be conceived as being non-theistic. Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a creator deity. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early Buddhist texts. Also, major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti, and Buddhaghosa, consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers. However, as a non-theistic religion, Buddhism leaves the existence of a
supreme deity ambiguous. There are significant numbers of Buddhists who
believe in God, and there are equally large numbers who deny God's
existence or are unsure.
Chinese religions such as Confucianism and Taoism are silent on the existence of creator gods. However, keeping with the tradition of ancestor veneration in China, adherents worship the spirits of people such as Confucius and Laozi in a similar manner to God.
Some atheists have argued that a single, omniscient God who is
imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to
the lives of humans has been imagined and embellished over generations.
Pascal Boyer
argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found
around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much
like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of
the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.
Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.
Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human
features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those
aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.
Likewise, Émile Durkheim
was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of
human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this
reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began
living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of
enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social
forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to
enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano
indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans
discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and
building more cooperative groups.
Johns Hopkins researchers studying the effects of the "spirit molecule" DMT, which is both an endogenous molecule in the human brain and the active molecule in the psychedelic ayahuasca,
found that a large majority of respondents said DMT brought them into
contact with a "conscious, intelligent, benevolent, and sacred entity",
and describe interactions that oozed joy, trust, love, and kindness.
More than half of those who had previously self-identified as atheists
described some type of belief in a higher power or God after the
experience.
About a quarter of those afflicted by temporal lobe seizures experience what is described as a religious experience and may become preoccupied by thoughts of God even if they were not previously. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran hypothesizes that seizures in the temporal lobe, which is closely connected to the emotional center of the brain, the limbic system, may lead to those afflicted to view even banal objects with heightened meaning.
Psychologists studying feelings of awe found that participants
feeling awe after watching scenes of natural wonders become more likely
to believe in a supernatural being and to see events as the result of
design, even when given randomly generated numbers.
Theistic religious traditions often require worship of God and sometimes hold that the purpose of existence is to worship God.To address the issue of an all-powerful being demanding to be
worshipped, it is held that God does not need or benefit from worship
but that worship is for the benefit of the worshipper. Mahatma Gandhi
expressed the view that God does not need his supplication and that,
"Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily
admission of one's weakness."Invoking God in prayer plays a significant role among many believers.
Depending on the tradition, God can be viewed as a personal God who is
only to be invoked directly while other traditions allow praying to
intermediaries, such as saints, to intercede on their behalf. Prayer often also includes supplication such as asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance. Sacrifice for the sake of God is another act of devotion that includes fasting and almsgiving. Remembrance of God in daily life include mentioning interjections thanking God when feeling gratitude or phrases of adoration, such as repeating chants while performing other activities.
Transtheistic
religious traditions may believe in the existence of deities but deny
any spiritual significance to them. The term has been used to describe
certain strands of Buddhism, Jainism and Stoicism.
Among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with God disagree as how to best worship God and what is God's plan
for mankind. There are different approaches to reconciling the
contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by
exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism.
A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but
does not deny the partial truth of other religions. The view that all
theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is
especially emphasized in the Baháʼí Faith, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The Baháʼí Faith preaches that divine manifestations
include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious
traditions such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad,
Bahá'ú'lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on
these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity
at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part
of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.
Fideism is the position that in certain topics, notably theology such as in reformed epistemology,
faith is superior than reason in arriving at truths. Some theists argue
that there is value to the risk in having faith and that if the
arguments for God's existence were as rational as the laws of physics
then there would be no risk. Such theists often argue that the heart is
attracted to beauty, truth and goodness and so would be best for
dictating about God, as illustrated through Blaise Pascal who said, "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." A hadith attributes a quote to God as "I am what my slave thinks of me." Inherent intuition about God is referred to in Islam as fitra, or "innate nature". In Confucian tradition, Confucius and Mencius
promoted that the only justification for right conduct, called the Way,
is what is dictated by Heaven, a more or less anthropomorphic higher
power, and is implanted in humans and thus there is only one universal
foundation for the Way.
Revelation refers to some form of message communicated by God. This is usually proposed to occur through the use of prophets or angels. Al-Maturidi
argued for the need for revelation because even though humans are
intellectually capable of realizing God, human desire can divert the
intellect and because certain knowledge cannot be known except when
specially given to prophets, such as the specifications of acts of
worship. It is argued that there is also that which overlaps between what is
revealed and what can be derived. According to Islam, one of the
earliest revelations to ever be revealed was "If you feel no shame, then
do as you wish." The term general revelation is used to refer to knowledge revealed about God outside of direct or special revelation such as scriptures. Notably, this includes studying nature, sometimes seen as the Book of Nature. An idiom in Arabic states, "The Qur'an is a Universe that speaks. The Universe is a silent Qur'an."
In the Judeo-Christian
tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions
of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and
ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements
about how God is to be conceived and understood". Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are titles for God, who revealed his personal name as YHWH (often vocalized as Yahweh or Jehovah). One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, translated 'God Almighty'. A third notable title is El Elyon, which means 'The High God'. Also noted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles is the name "I Am that I Am".
God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning 'Most Compassionate', and Al-Rahim, meaning 'Most Merciful'. Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the Baháʼí Faith.
The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical
aspect of a deity who, in classical Western philosophy, transcends
bodily form. Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods
a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps
with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no
counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical Western
philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an
analogical
statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other.
Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which
corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual
intercourse.
In Sikhism, God
is "Ajuni" (Without Incarnations), which means that God is not bound to
any physical forms. This concludes that the All-pervading Lord is
Gender-less. However, the Guru Granth Sahib
constantly refers to God as 'He' and 'Father' (with some exceptions),
typically because the Guru Granth Sahib was written in north Indian Indo-Aryan languages (mixture of Punjabi and Sant Bhasha,
Sanskrit with influences of Persian) which have no neutral gender. From
further insights into the Sikh philosophy, it can be deduced that God
is, sometimes, referred to as the Husband to the Soul-brides, in order
to make a patriarchal society understand what the relationship with God
is like. Also, God is considered to be the Father, Mother, and
Companion.
Ahura Mazda (depiction is on the right, with high crown) presents Ardashir I (left) with the ring of kingship. (Relief at Naqsh-e Rustam, 3rd century CE)
In Zoroastrianism, during the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm,
which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning
of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of
Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized
by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback, which is found in
Sassanian investiture.
Deities from Near Eastern cultures are often thought of as anthropomorphic
entities who have a human like body which is, however, not equal to a
human body. Such bodies were often thought to be radiant or fiery, of
superhuman size or extreme beauty. The ancient deity of the Israelites (Yahweh) too was imagined as a transcendent but still anthropomorphic deity. Humans could not see him, because of their impurity in contrast to
Yahweh's holiness, Yahweh being described as radiating fire and light
which could kill a human if looking at him. Further, more religious or
spiritual people tend to have less anthropomorphic depictions of God. In Judaism, the Torah often ascribes human features to God, however, many other passages describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic,
meaning it overly lacks material, physical representations of both the
natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is
strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides,
reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to
envision, resulting in a historical tradition of "divine
incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in
practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is
taboo, and arguably heretical.
Gnostic cosmogony often depicts the creator god of the Old Testament as an evil lesser deity or Demiurge, while the higher benevolent god or Monad
is thought of as something beyond comprehension having immeasurable
light and not in time or among things that exist, but rather is greater
than them in a sense. All people are said to have a piece of God or divine spark within them which has fallen from the immaterial world into the corrupt material world and is trapped unless gnosis is attained.
Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John
1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements
were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the
depiction of God. However, later depictions of God are found. Some, such as the Hand of God, are depiction borrowed from Jewish art. Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art. Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the
presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of
artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged
around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the
belief that God created the soul of man in the image of his own (thus
allowing humans to transcend the other animals). It appears that when
early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe
restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a
small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes
the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the
Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the
Father is depicted. By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts,
which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their
iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially,
the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in
the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly
appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy
is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene).
Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a
half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco c. 1305 in Padua. In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry had a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours
of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length
human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God
becoming rarer. At the same period other works, such as the large
Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ. In a Trinitarian Pietà,
God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress
and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Synod
specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God
the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a range of
other icons being placed on the forbidden list,mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground
in Orthodox icons. The council also declared that the person of the
Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as logos, not
God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia,
as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
Arabic script of "Allah" in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
In Islam, Muslims believe that God (Allah)
is beyond all comprehension, and does not resemble any of his creations
in any way. Muslims tend to use the least anthropomorphism among
monotheists. They are not iconodules and have religious calligraphy of titles of God instead of pictures.
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