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Concept

Personal god

Overview

A personal god, or personal goddess, is a deity who can be related to as a person (anthropomorphic), instead of as an impersonal force, such as the Absolute. In the context of Christianity and the Baháʼí Faith, the term "personal god" also refers to the incarnation of God as a person. In the context of Hinduism, "personal god/goddess" also refers to Ishtadevata, a worshipper's personal favorite deity.

In the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, God is described as being a personal creator, speaking in the first person and showing emotion such as anger and pride, and sometimes appearing in anthropomorphic shape. In the Pentateuch, for example, God talks with and instructs his prophets and is conceived as possessing volition, emotions (such as anger, grief and happiness), intention, and other attributes characteristic of a human person. Personal relationships with God may be described in the same ways as human relationships, such as a Father, as in Christianity, or a Friend as in Sufism.

A 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that, of U.S. adults, 60% view that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship", while 25% believe that "God is an impersonal force". A 2019 survey by the National Opinion Research Center reported that 77.5% of U.S. adults believe in a personal god. The 2014 Religious Landscape survey conducted by Pew reported that 57% of U.S. adults believe in a personal god.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Personal god is discussed.

  1. The truth is that the transformation of the personal god into a superpersonal deity is probably the most important mark of world religion. National religion displaced the subpersonal demon in favour of the personal god; in world religion, the personal god is exalted into a superpersonal deity. At this point there is a very close connection between world religion and world culture.

    Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

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  2. The world is rational through and through,--its existence is an ultimate brute fact; there is a personal God,--a personal God is inconceivable; there is an extra-mental physical world immediately known,--the mind can only know its own ideas; a moral imperative exists,--obligation is only the resultant of desires; a permanent spiritual principle is in every one,--there are only shifting states of mind; there is an…

    William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

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  3. A division is formed in the understanding of itself, and the Spirit is the unity of what is understood and the understanding person. The divine Spirit which is comprehended, is objective; the subjective Spirit comprehends. But Spirit is not passive, or else the passivity can be momentary only; there is one spiritual substantial unity.

    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy

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  4. The real father of our psychologists, Kapila, denies the existence of God as a Creator. His idea is that a personal God is quite unnecessary; Nature itself is sufficient to work out all that is good. What is called the “Design” theory he repudiated, and said a more childish theory was never advanced.

    Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II

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  5. The higher life which belongs to this sphere, this supreme enjoyment of truth, which as feeling is called "blessedness," and as conscious thought "contemplation," we may describe generically as the life known to religion. For religion is just this universal domain[184], in virtue of which the _one_ concrete totality of the World comes to each man in union with himself, as his essential substance, while it remains no…

    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1

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Philosophers who discussed Personal god

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Place in the tradition

Part of Atheism.

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