Topics Religion

Question A friend of mine self identifies as a Christian but rejects the concept of a personal anthropomorphic god. It appears to me that a person who rejects that concept of god seems to have much more in common with an atheist than a Christian since it seems that many Christians subscribe to the view of god which my friend rejects. Does it make sense to identify with the Christian tradition when one is rejecting-it appears to me- a fundamental part of the religion?

Accepted:
August 23, 2012

Comments

There is more to being a Christian (or a Jew, or a Muslim, or Buddhist) than subscribing to a particular set of beliefs. Religions incorporate ritual, culture and history as well as beliefs. It is a matter of opinion whether or not beliefs are "fundamental" or "necessary" for membership in a religion. (Some Christian denominations require it, but not Christianity as a whole, and not most branches of other religions). Indeed, I self identify as an atheist and a Jew and see no contradiction in doing so. Most atheists have other identifications (religious, political, ethical, national etc) since identifying yourself in terms of what you don't believe isn't really much of identity.

Good question. Today it seems that there are versions of Christianity which are very heterodox, treating the incarnation more as a saving metaphor rather than a real event and so on. On the traditional concept of God in Christianity, I think few Christians would describe God as "anthropomorphic." Yes, the Bible and Christian creeds refer to God as a creator, a being who has power, knowledge, super-abundant goodness, and one might think of this as anthropomorphic insofar as humans are also creators and have power, knowledge, and some of us are good (!), but the attributes of God in traditional Christianity God is omnipresent, eternal or everlasting, Triune, not just knowing but omniscient and this seems to amount to thinking of God as quite distinct from an anthropomorphic deity such as we find in Greco-Roman contexts of Zeus / Jupiter, etc...

A more vexing issue today is over the question of whether the God of Christianity should be thought of as personal or as three persons (in the Triune Godhead). One Christian philosopher, Brian Davies, at Fordham University thinks of God in terms of being, and not in terms of what I think he calls person theism.