Monday, July 16, 2007

What Does It Mean, "God Is Within Us"?

What does it mean that "God is within us"?

8 comments:

bookster said...

Maybe you should frame this way "Whose God is within Us?"

Paul Sunstone said...

Hi Corgiguy!

If the "God within us" can be experienced, would that not transcend any concept of "my God" or "your God"?

bookster said...

Not trying to be cynical, it seems that god speak differently to different different folks. Even within religious sects there's different notions of what god is and what he says. Some people say he speaks through a book ( bible ), to some he speaks through an authority, to some god speaks through nature, to other he doesn't speak at all a silent god. Is there such a thing as one God, or is god of our own making?

Paul Sunstone said...

That doesn't at all sound too cynical to me, Corgiguy. Rather, it's true notions of God vary. Yet, a possible exception to that rule is among the relatively few people who have claimed to experience God. That is, mystics seem to agree somewhat more than most people about God. Of course, that doesn't mean they agree on everything.

bookster said...

Paul, it seems to me that if there is not an absolute agreement regarding what god is. Then is down to individual experiences or notions. Your experience my experience. The idea that a mystic has god experience. What value does that bring to me? seems like a slippery slope

Paul Sunstone said...

"God" is just a name that some mystics -- but not all mystics -- give to their experiences. The fact they have such experiences does not mean there is an entity which exists apart from their experiences.

The value of such experiences is they are transformative in ways many people find beneficial.

george.w said...

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright

...Nature is outside of us, but we are not outside of Nature. (Nor does Nature being outside of us exclude it from inside of us. But it manifests differently in those two frames because one is an illusory experience of the self, the other an equally illusory experience of 'other-ness')

Paul Sunstone said...

Well said, DOF!