What is God? Nine different answers

The claim

Monotheism holds that only one God exists, that he is personal (he knows, wills and speaks), and that he is not identical with the universe. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the three great monotheisms, though they describe that one God very differently.

Monotheism carries moral weight: if there is one God over everything, then there is one standard of right and wrong for everyone, and no part of life is outside his claim.

Where Christianity sits

Christianity is monotheistic. The Trinity is not three gods; it is the confession that the one divine being exists eternally as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christians say the Shema of Israel — 'the LORD our God, the LORD is one' — without crossing their fingers.

The claim

Polytheism recognises many deities — the gods of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Canaan, Norse myth, and much of classical Hinduism. Typically no single god is ultimate; the gods have origins, appetites and rivalries, and are part of the world rather than its maker.

Worship in polytheism is usually transactional: you honour the god whose domain you need, and hope for favour.

The problem it faces

If gods are many and limited, none of them can ground reality itself, and moral truth fragments — what one god commands another forbids. Ancient Israel's confession stood out precisely because it refused this.

The claim

Pantheism identifies God with the whole of what exists. Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, much of Western 'spiritual but not religious' thinking, Spinoza's philosophy and New Age teaching all belong here. Salvation, if the word is used at all, means realising you were never separate from the divine.

The problem it faces

If everything is God, then cruelty is God too, and the distinction between good and evil dissolves. Pantheism also struggles to explain personhood: an impersonal 'all' cannot love, promise or forgive.

The claim

Panentheism ('all in God') tries to hold two things: God is greater than the world, yet the world is somehow part of his life. Process theology is the best-known modern version, in which God grows and changes with creation.

The problem it faces

If God depends on the world, he is no longer the free Creator who could have made or not made it, and his promises become predictions rather than guarantees.

The claim

Deism was widespread in the 1700s and is still the quiet default of many people today: a Creator exists, morality matters, but there are no miracles, no revelation and no prayer that changes anything.

The problem it faces

A God powerful enough to make a universe but unwilling to speak into it is a strange kind of God — and deism offers no answer to guilt, grief or death beyond 'be decent'.

The claim

Henotheism devotes itself to one god without denying others exist. Some scholars argue early Israel passed through this stage; the prophets, however, press relentlessly beyond it to the claim that the other gods are not gods at all.

The claim

Open theism is held by a minority of Christians who argue that God knows everything knowable, but that free future choices are not yet there to be known. It is offered as a way to protect human freedom and to explain evil.

Why most Christians reject it

Historic Christian teaching holds that God knows the end from the beginning, and that prophecy and providence depend on it. Most churches — Catholic, Orthodox and the great Protestant confessions — regard open theism as a departure from the classical doctrine of God.

The claim

Atheism denies the existence of God. Modern atheism usually pairs this with naturalism: physical reality is all there is, and mind, morality and meaning are products of matter and time.

Many atheists live thoughtful, generous lives. The disagreement is not about whether an atheist can be good, but about whether goodness has any foundation outside human agreement.

Questions it has to answer

Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is the universe intelligible to mathematics? Why do we experience moral obligation as binding rather than merely useful? These are not knock-down proofs, but they are real weights on the scale.

The claim

Weak agnosticism says 'I don't know'. Strong agnosticism says 'nobody can know'. The second is a bolder claim than it sounds: it asserts knowledge about the limits of all possible knowledge.