The Quest for God

I. The Return of God

The contentious Nietzsche once famously declared, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

The 19th-century German philosopher did not actually proclaim the literal death of God, a common misinterpretation of this quote from his book The Gay Science. In proper context, Nietzsche formulated this idea near the end of the Age of Enlightenment, a time when people in Western societies were moving away from religion. He made the statement to express his profound concern about how the loss of traditional religious beliefs and values could potentially plunge Western culture into nihilism.

Of course, such world-ending nihilism never occurred. People instead turned towards science and reason. In an ironic sense, this shift away from strict forms of religion may have actually contributed to humanity’s potential to form a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the divine.

Today, in a highly connected world made possible by the technologies developed through such science and reason, there has never been an easier time in history to explore and study a wide range of religions and philosophies. When we revisit historical explanations of God through this modern plural lens, we see that different schools of thought across various ages have arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions when exploring the concept of the divine.

Such striking consistency in their revelations suggests the existence of a universal entity that has been mostly forgotten in today’s time and may have been inadequately explained by any single perspective in the past. Synthesizing a multitude of diverse theories on the divine, a task more accessible now than ever before, can profoundly enhance our understanding of God and uncover deeper insights about this elusive aspect of existence.

II. An Overview of World Religions

To understand the divine, there is no more fitting place to start than with an analysis of major world religions. Here, we find that religious texts throughout human history and across different cultures have explored and explained the concept of God in remarkably similar ways.

In the West, the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all speak of an omnipresent creator who is unified with every part of creation. Colossians 1:17 of the Bible states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Similarly, Romans 11:36 explains, “For from him and through him and for him are all things.” The Shema, a core Jewish prayer found in Deuteronomy 6:4 of the Torah, exclaims, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Surah 2:115 of the Quran declares, “Wherever you turn you are facing towards Allah. Surely Allah is all-encompassing,” and Surah 57:4 affirms, “He is with you wherever you are.”

These Western religions, while they describe God as all-pervading, generally maintain a distinction between God and creation. In the East, however, religious traditions typically offer a more non-dualistic perspective, seeing the divine and the universe as aspects of the same ultimate reality.

Hinduism, one of the oldest religions, presents the universal concept of Brahman, explained in the Upanishads as the underlying principle that permeates all phenomena. Brahman is commonly described as encompassing the entire universe while remaining distinct from any particular entity within it. It contains notably similar characteristics to Western ideas about God. Specifically, its trinity of main qualities is “sat-chit-ananda,” which translates to “existence, consciousness, and bliss,” and can be roughly mapped to the Western God's “omnipresence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence,” respectively. In order to perceive Brahman, it helps to see past material illusions (known as Maya), usually through the negative process of “neti neti,” meaning “not this, not that.”

Likewise, Buddhism introduces the unifying concept of Sunyata, which holds that all aspects of reality are impermanent, interdependent, and empty of inherent existence. The Heart Sutra, one of the most frequently recited texts in the Buddhist tradition, succinctly summarizes this notion with the phrase, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” highlighting the fundamental voidness of reality that allows for phenomena to exist.

Similarly, Taoism, as explained by Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, speaks of an all-pervasive Tao that is “nowhere to be found. Yet it nourishes and completes all things.”

Sikhism in particular offers a unique synthesis that blends the seemingly divergent ideas on the divine found in Eastern and Western religions. It is an Eastern religion that describes God, which it calls Waheguru (meaning wondrous teacher), as immanent in all of existence. Simultaneously, it echoes Western religions by directly recognizing a monotheistic God who created the universe. The first line of the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s main scripture, is “Ik Onkar,” meaning “One God.”

This unified concept of a creator that exists beyond its creation, as in Western religions, yet is also immanent in all of creation, as in Eastern religions, is known as panentheism.

Interestingly, even polytheistic religions often incorporate elements of panentheism. In many such traditions, multiple deities are viewed as the extensions of a single, multifaceted supreme being. For instance, the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses are seen as different manifestations of Brahman. Similarly, in Ancient Egyptian mythology, there exists an ultimate creator, known as Atum, who created himself and all other divine beings. Other gods and goddesses are seen as both children of Atum as well as his aspects. In Aztec mythology, the supreme deity Ometeotl is considered the source and essence of all that exists, encompassing other deities and the universe at large. Ometeotl, meaning “Two God,” consists of a male and a female counterpart. The dual nature of this divine entity symbolizes the unity of opposites, such as day and night, light and darkness, and life and death.

Moreover, in polytheistic religions that lack a single concrete ultimate deity, a binding supreme force often still exists. This cosmic order, which all other deities must respect, is frequently represented as fate. In Greek and Roman mythology, the Fates (also known as the Moirai) are a group of three goddesses who control the destinies of both mortals and gods alike. In Norse mythology, the concept of fate (also known as Wyrd) is likewise determined by the Norns, three primordial beings who shape the paths of everyone, including the gods.

Additionally, many animistic religions also feature a single underlying force responsible for the creation and governance of all supernatural entities. In the Japanese religion of Shintoism, Amenominakanushi represents the first kami, or spirit, that existed before the universe came into being. This deity is often described as a solitary, formless being and the center from which all other kami emerge. In the Native American Sioux Lakota tradition, there exists the Wakan Tanka, or the Great Spirit. It is seen as the sacred divine power that resides in all of existence, manifesting itself through various other spirits and natural entities. The Yoruba people, one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa, worship a supreme God named Olodumare, regarded as the creator of the universe and the source of all life, including the other minor deities and spirits.

All of these myriad religions illustrate the common thread of a unifying divine force that is either the creator of all, within all of the created, or both simultaneously. Thus, although different in detail, world religions seemingly converge on the concept of a universal entity that transcends cultural boundaries, one that underlies the very fabric of existence itself.

III. A History of Divine Philosophies

Religious texts are not the only sources of writing that have sought to provide insights about God. Philosophical works have also evolved in their understanding of the divine throughout the ages, exploring metaphysical questions through the lens of reason rather than faith. How have they grappled with the concept of an all-encompassing entity? To answer this, it helps to review a diverse range of philosophies throughout history.

Initially, the integration of philosophy with religion was controversial among orthodox religious circles due to perceived conflicts between these two approaches. Nevertheless, over time, many philosophers and theologians worked to reconcile the apparent contradictions between philosophical inquiry and religious doctrine.

For example, the 12th-century polymath Averroes saw any apparent contradictions between religion and philosophy as mere misinterpretations of scripture. He expressed the idea of “double truth,” meaning that religious teachings through faith and philosophical knowledge through reason ultimately lead to the same conclusion. Similarly, the 12th-century rabbi Maimonides believed, like Averroes, that reason and faith were not mutually exclusive and that philosophical inquiry could actually enhance religious understanding. In the same vein, the 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas held that reason and faith were complementary in understanding truth and could build on one another. Averroes, Maimonides, and Aquinas each reconciled Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought, respectively.

These theologians, although well-known, were not the only philosophers to have explored religious concepts, nor were they the earliest. Philosophers have been reconciling reason with religion since the beginnings of philosophy, and like religious thinkers, they also tend to gravitate towards a universal concept of the divine.

Around the 6th century BCE, Thales of Miletus, the oldest known Western philosopher, sought to determine a single source of existence. He concluded that water was this source, due to its transformative and ubiquitous qualities in nature. Thales mentored a student named Anaximander, who expanded on his teacher's idea of a single source of creation. However, Anaximander believed that this source was more abstract than physical. He proposed that the originating principle of existence is the Apeiron, a substance that is unlimited, undefined, and boundless. According to Anaximander, all things emerge from the Apeiron through a process of separating opposites, such as hot and cold or wet and dry.

In the late 6th century BCE, another Ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, also discussed the importance of opposites. He believed they were necessary for existence and were mutually dependent on one another. To him, change is the fundamental essence of the universe, famously coining the phrase, “No man ever steps in the same river twice,” to illustrate how the world is in constant flux. However, he also believed in an underlying rational order in the universe that remains constant, a principle he called the Logos.

Continuing the exploration of a rational order, in the 5th century BCE, the philosopher Anaxagoras introduced the concept of the Nous as an all-knowing, all-powerful, immaterial, and intelligent force that organized the universe. He also believed that reality was composed of infinitely small particles that were moved and ordered by the Nous.

These pre-Socratic Greek philosophers extensively studied nature and its origins. Despite working outside the context of monotheistic religions, their findings often align with the concept of a single source of creation responsible for all natural phenomena. This idea reaches its ultimate expression with the 5th-century BCE philosopher Parmenides, who explained in his poem On Nature that true reality is a single, eternal, and immutable being, and that any change in the material sensory world is merely illusory. His ideas formed the basis of monism, a philosophy contending that all of reality is composed of just one substance.

The school of monism was furthered by the 3rd-century philosopher Plotinus, who introduced the concept of the One, an ultimate source of existence that transcends all beings. He wrote in The Enneads, “The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not all things; all things are its possession.”

Plotinus's philosophy, also termed Neoplatonism as it expands on Plato's metaphysical ideas with mystical and religious elements, heavily influenced later philosophers, most notably the 4th- and 5th-century theologian Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was one of the first thinkers to extensively incorporate Greek philosophy into Christian theology. He solidified ideas such as God's omnipotent nature and God's ability to create ex nihilo, or out of nothing. This latter attribute, the capacity to create from outside of existence, reinforces God's transcendent nature, an idea commonly espoused throughout the Early Middle Ages.

However, the idea that God exists beyond creation was later challenged by pantheism, a philosophy that equates the entirety of reality with the divine. Pantheism emerged in part as a response to prevailing religious views that maintained a separation between God and creation. Prominent pantheists include Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century Italian philosopher, and Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch philosopher. Bruno asserted that the universe is infinite and divine, with God immanent throughout it. In The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, he wrote, “Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself.” Similarly, Spinoza posited that the universe and God are one and the same, stating in Ethics, “God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.” His philosophy is famously captured in the phrase “Deus sive Natura,” meaning “God or Nature” are both interchangeable.

The concept of the divine within all was also examined by thinkers in later centuries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. The 19th-century American transcendentalist wrote in The Over-Soul, “Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.”

Despite the prominence of monistic and pantheistic ideas, many thinkers throughout history did not believe in a unified reality. For instance, the 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes argued that the material world is separate from the mind.

However, Descartes' dualistic viewpoint was later criticized by the 18th-century Irish thinker George Berkeley. Berkeley argued that dualism led to a fundamental incoherence and skepticism of reality. He pointed out that material substances, if they were real, could never be accessed outside of the perceptions of them, meaning one could never truly know if a material world exists independent of the mind.

Furthermore, Berkeley highlighted another key problem of dualism: the question of how an immaterial mind could causally interact with a material world, an issue traditionally known as the mind-body problem. Berkeley resolved these issues by instead claiming that the mind, its ideas, and reality are all the same. He asserted “Esse est percipi,” meaning “To be is to be perceived,” suggesting that the existence of an object is dependent on its perception.

The 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel similarly believed that the distinction between mind and matter is artificial and problematic. Hegel instead saw reality as a rational and self-conscious Absolute Spirit that evolves by unifying opposing and contradictory ideas in a dialectical process. That is to say, Hegel believed that the universe is a conscious mind that comes to know itself through exploring and synthesizing different ideas.

Both Berkeley and Hegel were integral to idealism. This school of thought suggests reality is fundamentally mental, often equating the mind with the universe or God in a non-dualistic manner. Interestingly, Enlightenment-era idealism strongly resembles concepts from the 8th-century Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. The Indian philosopher Adi Shankara developed this school by combining the previously separate concepts of Atman (the soul or self) and Brahman (the universe or reality). The essence of his work is encapsulated in the statement, “Brahman is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.”

Philosophers contemplating the metaphysical world have consistently either determined reality as a single divine substance or integrated previously separate entities into a unified concept. Adding to this idea is the 11th-century Muslim philosopher Avicenna. He argued that in every created entity, its essence (mahiyya) and existence (wujud) can be separated. In other words, what a thing is can be conceived without its actual existence in reality, like an imagined concept. However, Avicenna asserted that in the case of God, essence and existence are unified, meaning that God must necessarily exist.

A review of numerous philosophies on the divine points to a consistent conclusion: God is a single entity responsible for the entire existence of reality. As with many religions, the individual theories of philosophers span a diverse range of ideas, from infinite change to constant immutability, from transcendence to immanence, and from the universal to the personal.

IV. Defining the Indefinable

Despite highlighting a common divine entity, philosophical and religious texts disagree significantly on the specifics of this universal principle. Scholars have long debated whether God is classically theistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic, that is, whether God is transcendent of creation, immanent within creation, or both at once. Additionally, there is considerable ongoing deliberation on whether the divine is monotheistic or polytheistic, that is, whether there is only one source of divinity or multiple expressions of it. Furthermore, the question of which single religion has the most accurate conception of God remains a topic of intense dispute.

This diversity of views raises an important question. Why do conceptions of the divine often differ across religions and philosophies? The answer can be found in the texts themselves, and it illustrates a fundamental aspect of God that leads to such division.

The philosophical works of pre-Socratic thinkers, Renaissance theorists, and Enlightenment scholars all heavily intersect with the messages of enduring religions, highlighting common motifs that point to God’s universal, infinite, and non-dualistic qualities. Among these motifs, one recurring characteristic remains especially notable—God’s ineffability.

In fact, many religions explicitly acknowledge that God is beyond description. In the Old Testament, when Moses asked God how he should explain God’s name to the Israelites, God simply replied with, “I am.” Similarly, Islam prohibits depictions of God, understanding that any representation would be inherently flawed and unable to fully capture God’s true essence. Even more directly, Sikhism repeatedly refers to God as “Agam,” meaning unapproachable or unfathomable.

Although commonly referenced as beyond description, God is still typically described at different levels of abstraction. In this hierarchy of descriptions, each subsequent level is more specific and relevant to human understanding, but less representative of God’s true nature. At the highest level of abstraction, words cannot describe God, as any description would be inherently inaccurate. At the next level, God is truly everything in the broadest, most paradoxical sense. God is both everything and nothing, and God is neither everything nor nothing.

At a lower level, God is the unity of contradictions. Here, all dualities dissolve. God is everywhere and nowhere. God is the creator and the created. God is never-ending change and what will always remain the same. God is beyond understanding and completely known within. God is present in all that exists and transcends all existence. God is all of time and timeless.

Given this paradoxical nature, it is no surprise that profound teachings about God are often mysterious and abstract. “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” is a phrase frequently cited by several philosophers and theologians. As such, due to its ungraspable, illogical, and enigmatic nature, the concept of God has never been universally agreed upon. God transcends language and logic.

Nevertheless, to convey any clear concept of the divine, one must use concrete language. Consequently, at lower levels of abstraction, God is often described in more definite and non-contradictory terms, such as a creator or the universe. Lastly, at the lowest levels of abstraction, or at the highest levels of concreteness, God is explained as an entity that humans can easily understand. Here, the divine is often portrayed as a specific anthropomorphized deity or as multiple lesser deities with human-like characteristics.

Spinoza illustrated this concept with a vivid analogy, stating that “if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes.”

The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer highlighted a similar point. He believed in a common underlying truth among all world religions. At the same time, he developed a philosophy of religion that made a key distinction between the literal and allegorical interpretations of religious teachings.

He contended that religions often present their doctrines as literal truths, even though they may be more accurately understood as allegorical representations of deeper spiritual concepts. He states in his work Religion: A Dialogue, “The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrines in all seriousness as true sensu proprio [in the literal sense].” This literal approach, although it may not fully capture the depth of the divine, does have the benefit of allowing religious concepts to be more accessible to a broader audience.

However, the further God is made into concrete, understandable, and relatable concepts, the less accurate the conceptualization becomes relative to God's true, paradoxical, and abstract nature. Philosophers, recognizing this limitation, have consequently devised counterintuitive ways of better understanding the divine. Often, these techniques involve the outright denial of affirmative and constructive language.

In his method of understanding God, the 5th-century philosopher Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite proposed an apophatic approach, defining God by what God is not rather than what God is. He suggested that when all sensory experiences and rational thoughts cease, the individual is successfully immersed in the unknowable “darkness” of God. He writes in his work Mystical Theology, “Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing.” In essence, his teachings emphasize that people rarely recognize God because they are lost in the illusion of creation and thought. Only by systematically questioning all assumptions and embracing a state of conceptual emptiness can they experience God’s true incomprehensible nature.

Another proponent of apophatic theology is the 13th-century German theologian Meister Eckhart. He illuminated the existence of a God that cannot be articulated and is beyond common anthropomorphic conceptualizations, which he called the Godhead. One of Eckhart's central teachings is the idea of detachment. He taught that in order to experience God, one must let go of conceptual thinking and preconceived notions. In his treatise On Detachment, he states, “To be full of things is to be empty of God, while to be empty of things is to be full of God.”

Similarly, the renowned 9th-century Zen master Linji Yixuan once remarked in a koan (a paradoxical statement used to challenge logical thinking), “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” implying that the teachings of the Buddha are not the Buddha himself. Such a saying mirrors the indescribable notion of God often noted in religion. It illustrates how true understanding of the divine cannot be found through external teachings, scriptures, or figures. Rather, it can only be experienced from within.

The idea of God's ultimate ineffability is a recurring theme in religious literature. However, despite this incommunicable nature, many theologians have also discussed how a textual approach can still aid in our comprehension of God’s essence. For example, Pseudo-Dionysius specifically maintained that while God is beyond human comprehension, religious teachings and practices can nevertheless guide people towards a better understanding of the divine.

Moreover, the concept of God's ineffability suggests that no single religion or philosophy has a monopoly on the truth. Consequently, we can still learn much about the divine through exploring various methods and explanations. This process has profound implications for how we can reconcile different schools of thought.

V. Embracing Religious Multiplicity

Although God is inherently indefinable, we can observe patterns of the divine in all aspects of reality if we pay attention. Highlighting this sentiment, Emerson writes in his essay Nature, “Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.”

One of the most prominent patterns encountered in religious and philosophical texts is the divine’s all-encompassing unity. As Emerson suggests, recognizing this universal nature leads us to see that different religions and philosophies are all fundamentally facets of a unified reality from which we can learn. Consequently, understanding the divine lays the foundation for a more inclusive worldview.

Likewise, if God is ultimately ineffable, then no individual description can fully capture the essence of God, and any teaching attempting to illuminate the divine can offer unique and valuable insights. The concept of Anekantavada found in the religion of Jainism precisely demonstrates this point, representing the idea that no single viewpoint can encompass the entire truth. Instead, a multiplicity of viewpoints exists, each contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of reality.

Such a principle is aptly illustrated by the Buddhist parable of the blind monks and the elephant. Each monk grasps a separate part of the elephant, like an ear, the trunk, or a leg. But the complete picture is not represented by any single observation. Like the divine, the elephant is complex and multifaceted, and only by synthesizing all perspectives can we form a more holistic conception of the truth. Therefore, embracing various lessons from diverse traditions can lead to a better comprehension of the divine, an approach known as syncretism.

The syncretic paradigm is exemplified by the Baháʼí Faith, which upholds the unity of all religious philosophies. This modern religion teaches that the same God has been progressively revealed through various prophets and religions, and underscores the importance of appreciating how all faiths share an essential underlying truth. Moreover, by accepting a plurality of views, not only do we better comprehend the divine, but we also embody its boundless inclusivity. In a virtuous cycle, understanding God leads us to become more inclusive, and being more inclusive allows us to better understand God.

Perhaps most profoundly, integrating diverse perspectives on the divine is not just a method for better understanding it, but the very act itself may be considered an expression of divinity. Just as Hegel saw reality as God exploring and unifying different ideas, the study and integration of varied viewpoints on the divine exemplifies this exact process.

For understanding the divine and embodying the divine are one and the same.