A topic under construction……………………..
Protestant says: God and his creation are not of one substance. God is good, and man is sinful. This means that if you aren’t from our church, then you are going to hell. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Muslim says: Well that is something we can agree upon. But you are still an infidel…. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Catholic says: Right, and the existence of evil proves it, because a holy God cannot be in contact with evil. And Jesus came to mend the chasm created by man’s sin.
Jewish person says: Oi! Vat can we know? God is so far above us!
Question:
Why are the monotheistic religions so taken up with the separation of God and his creation?
There is only one explanation – creation is finite and limited, and “not perfect”, and God is infinite and unlimited and perfect…… logic says, the two can’t meet…..
Many folks perhaps don’t realize that this concept of separation is FRONT and CENTER in all monotheistic religions. Take this away, and their stated reason for existence evaporates.
What grows out of this concept, is the loneliness and separation of the human psyche…. and estrangement…. all of humanity is orphaned.
We all generally agree that the “human condition” is an experienced human trait; that our sense of being orphaned seems to be a universal human sense.
But this explanation of being separated from God doesn’t seem to be fixing the problem…… Are we any better off than we were 2000 years ago?
Is it simply the limitations of mans logic that create this unsolvable problem?
Here is a bit of a sketch of what those beliefs entail….. nothing unexpected……
Judaism
to be added…………..
Catholicism
The Essence of God is Infinite, his definition is Unity, beyond “compositions”, eternal, omnipresent, immutable.
The Essence of God, and the essence of creation are not one.
Suggested reading: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p1.htm
Conservative Protestantism
There is only One God, and his essence is separated from all creation and created things.
This is one area that generally all Conservative Protestantism agrees upon.
Islam
The composite character and attributes of all created things are existential limitations.
(The essence of ) God is unique in essence and attributes. God is infinite, limitless. God is not physical. The Essence of God is indivisible and inseparable.
Suggested source: – https://www.al-islam.org/discursive-theology-volume-1-dr-ali-rabbani-gulpaygani/lesson-8-unity-gods-essence-and-attributes
Hinduism
Pantheism. Everything is Brahman.
Agnosticism
Agnostics of the school of Herbert Spencer and some followers of Hegel, who hold that the nature of God, or, to use their favourite term, “the Absolute” is utterly unknowable, and its existence not determined to any mode; therefore, to predicate of it various attributes, expressive of determinations, is idle and misleading.
Zen Buddhism
There is emptiness, and everything manifests itself from this emptiness.
Reality is Dharma 