Talk:Personal god

The elephant in the room: what definition of *personal* that is used here?

I suspect that this article has three definitions of personal: anthropomorphic god (a god that has human-like traits and/or emotions), preferred or favorite god (as in Ishtadevata), and "incarnated as a person" (like Jesus).

This is a big issue that has to be resolved, or else each section would just interpret the word *personal* differently. Faredoka (talk) 15:29, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Scope of Article

Personal god is a scope that is covered by at least two traditions, one is Vaishnavism specifically in Bhakti and another is Christianity. Both points of view should be represented. Wikidās ॐ 21:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response. I deferred commenting here and then somehow forgot about it.

Anyway, while I'm sympathetic to your view, I think your insertions are haphazard and somewhat poorly worded. For example:

“ Exclusive definition of god, as the personality both containing all, and at the same time being in the intimate relationship with his devotees, up to stage of personal involvement in the intimate care and dependence that can extend beyond the concept of denominational care to the realm of bhakti is found for example in monotheistic school of Bhagavata in India,[1] Placing it as the earliest example of personalism in relation to God in 4th century BC. ”

This sentence is very difficult to parse, partly due to its length. Is the entirety of as the personality both containing all, and at the same time being in the intimate relationship with his devotees, up to stage of personal involvement in the intimate care and dependence that can extend beyond the concept of denominational care to the realm of bhakti a modifier on Exclusive definition of god? This much information should be broken up into separate sentences. Also, there are various places where it seems you are missing an article.

I think the best thing for this article would be to extract the religion-specific information into their own sections - one for Christianity, one for Hinduism, etc - to reflect in what sense the relevant gods are personal. If you're willing, I'd like you to take the first step in that by consolidating all your contributed information into a single section on Hinduism, and then hopefully I or someone else will do the same for the Christianity-related material already in the article.

Lastly, I would ask you to follow the MoS on issues of capitalisation. It is not appropriate to capitalise pronouns, as you did: but is of universal importance, as Lord Himself.

Thanks. Ilkali (talk) 09:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, some of the ideas and suggestions are fine, some as in case of capitalization may need to looked at as if the case be of the actual quote. I would not separate all religions as yet, mainly due to the fact of the number of personalist religions. Of course if sufficient material is found separate sections will be needed. Wikidās-ॐ

Deletions

Is this reversion anything other than vandalism?

1. Sections were removed and a jumble of ideas was created.
2. Sources in the references were removed.
3. External links were removed.
4. Nothing positive was added.

--71.108.3.143 (talk) 13:35, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed the reasons would be obvious to most editors.

• You've divided the text according to religious views. While a strong argument could be made for this kind of division, it can't be elegantly achieved just by inserting headers at convenient places. The text was written as part of a continuous section of prose, and it shows.
• You've replaced perfectly good text (for example, that in the lead) without giving any explanation, and the text you've replaced it with is, in my opinion, inferior. The style is unencyclopedic, the formatting is poor and it contains clear errors (for example, "A personal god is a religious term that [...]").
• Statements like "Jesus and Yahweh are the same personal god" are highly POV.

I recommend that you use edit summaries to explain what your edits are doing and why, especially when making such large changes to an article. Lastly, I invite you to assume good faith in your fellow editors and not quickly jump to assumptions of vandalism. Ilkali (talk) 14:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's organize

I strongly believe Hinduism should be in its own section. There are many theological differences in Christianity alone; there is absolutely no need to create a hodgepodge of ideas. You are yourself acknowledging the complexity of the matter when you mention that "Jesus and Yahweh are the same personal god" is POV.

Jesus=Yahweh

Now concerning the issue that Jesus is Yahweh[1], I wish to say that you could dismiss the vast majority of the Bible's content as POV. I oppose this mode of argument. Jesus is proclaimed to be the same as Yahweh by the Nicene Creed to which virtually all Christian subscribe except a tiny fraction of them known as nontrinitarians. I had included this fact in my edit.

Holy Spirit as a personal god

Lastly, I believe your removal of the explanation of the Holy Spirit as a personal god was unjustified.

--71.108.3.143 (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

"I strongly believe Hinduism should be in its own section". I'm not opposed to this. What I'm opposed to is dividing the content up by simply inserting headers.

"you could dismiss the vast majority of the Bible's content as POV". There is nothing wrong with talking about the bible or citing its content as long as doing so does not cause Wikipedia to take a side. Your claim that "Jesus and Yahweh are the same personal god" is taking a side. Something like "Suchandsuch people believe that Jesus and..." would be acceptable, assuming it is properly cited.

"Lastly, I believe your removal of the explanation of the Holy Spirit as a personal god was unjustified". POV violations always justify removal. Ilkali (talk) 16:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I noted the dispute concerning the matter in the article especially by groups like Jehovah's Witnesses who do not regard the Holy Spirit as a personal god. 2nd, I am not a Christian theologian; therefore, I won't aver that all my additions in the Christian section are absolutely correct. However, I made an effort to add information with sources. You're welocme to challenge my additions with more information to improve the article. Simply removing a great deal of information and deleting section headers seemed obscurantist to me.--71.108.25.97 (talk) 03:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheerleading for "Liberal Christianity"--and telling illiterate lies about the other kinds

I deleted the section "Past and present views", for this:

In medieval theology, God was frequently envisioned as behaving like a king, haughty and unconcerned with the fate of his vassals. Puritan theologians sometimes depicted God as a minister, openly disgusted with the sinfulness of his creations. By the twentieth century, however, most Liberal Christian denominations, shaped by Christian humanism, advocated belief in a personal god according to the second or third definition, depicting God as loving and caring.

I object to this bigoted, POV, Whig history of theology; that interpretation of Christ the king is completely and utterly laughable, evincing a total ignorance of medieval government, manners, religion, philosophy, and society in general. Medieval kings were not haughty, not if they wanted to actually get anything done (for example, their vassals, meaning nobles who held land in gift from them, were not actually obligated to obey their orders on a battlefield, just to show up--so negotiating skill was very important.) And as to their concern with the fate of their subjects (which is probably what was meant by "vassals"): could you imagine a modern President or Prime Minister willingly whipped through the streets of his capital, like Henry II? Especially if he had that kind of personality?

Its portrayal of Puritanism is no better--it's obviously totally unacquainted with the teachings of Puritanism, like Total Depravity and Predestination. Puritans are not just "mean," judgmental Christians; they actually believe different things about sin.

It was the most illiterate, POV thing I'd ever seen. It added nothing to the article, so I deleted it.

Someone did the right thing, asking for a "cite" on its assertion about Christ the King, but I think deletion is better. Nagakura shin8 (talk) 01:04, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Possible edit

"God is conceived and described as a being a personal creator," RuMoR ^(T~C) 16:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction

The very beginning of the article says jews believe in a personal god, and in fact this belief is a "characteristic features of monotheism".

But "a personal god is a deity that is, and can be related to as, a person", and later on it says jews do not believe God is a person. Isn't that a direct contradiction??

Same question for muslims. I am a muslim myself, I love God, but I do not consider him to be a "person" nor my relationship with God as "personal", and I consider myself fairly representative of muslims.

Looking through Google for a source, I find an awful lot of christian polemics. Apparently not believing in a personal god is a horrible thing. I actually get the sense that "personal god" is mostly a christian concern. --99.245.206.188 (talk) 03:03, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

A made up fantasy full of contradictions? Say it ain't so!

-G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.108.68 (talk) 08:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's Wiki for you :-) Four years later, the section on islam seems to have gotten less clear, and to be concerned with some sunni/shia disagreement. The article seems to be confusing the question of "personal God" with the question of whether God has a physical body? --174.117.96.6 (talk) 20:41, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

What about Islam?

The article God in Islam claims that "God in Islam is not only majestic and sovereign, but also a personal God: according to the Qur'an, God is nearer to a person than his jugular vein. (Quran 50:16)" - but saying that God is "near to a person" does not directly imply He "is" a person. I've always understood Islamic god as being beyond any description (hence He has no image etc.), and therefore being somewhat different than a person, but this would need to be supported by more pertinent quotes from the Qur'an. Anyone could help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasiok (talk • contribs) 15:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I notice that the definition of *personal* that is used here is a bit confusing. Does *personal* necessarily mean that an entity or dzat or anything is a person? Or that It (or He) possesses some human-like actions like *love*, *hate*, *dislike*, etc.? Faredoka (talk) 11:07, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Deism section defective

The sub-section titled DEISM tells nothing about Deism, but rather sets out two "narrow" interpretations of a Personal God having nothing in particular to do with Deism. Deism is only mentioned in passing. Why, then, is there such a heading? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iohannkn (talk • contribs) 18:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

wording

from the lead section:

"In Vaishnavism the reality of God is always not in an idealization, but the actual impact of God in the life of man."

does always not mean "not always" or "never"? the vaishnavism section, along with the muslims' view section, also need some attention (no offence to the authors). i'll look into it myself, but i'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, and chances are i'd change the intented meaning by editing. k kisses 15:45, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Clarification needed - Vaishnavism

The sentence "In Vaishnavism the reality of God is never in an idealization, but the actual impact of God in the lives of human beings" can be taken to mean a lot of different things:

• God is never seen as an ideal in Vaishnavism.
• God has no existence other than as manifest as acts of Humanity.
• We cannot know the actual reality of God, only see the impact in the lives of humans.
• God is only visible when acting through a person.

I am sure there are more, presumably including the original intended meaning of the author, as non of these seem to describe vaishnava philosophy (which as a branch of the dvaita school does believe in a separate independent existence of God. Unless this sentence is clarified I will remove it. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:39, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This has now been a month so I am removing the ambiguous sentence. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Judaism and personhood of HaShem

QUOTE Jewish theology states that God is not a person UNQUOTE. Wrong. The Maimonidean 13 Articles of Faith state that He "is not a body, and cannot be grasped in bodily terms, and has no likeness". This is a rejection of G-d's corporeality and materiality, but not His personhood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.67.210.193 (talk) 17:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The Christian belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

I'll look again in the 'Christian' section for LDS/Mormon doctrine on: (1) Heavenly Father, (2) Son, Jesus Christ, and (3) Holy Ghost, (being personal and separate). -- AstroU (talk) 00:35, 28 March 2016 (UTC)