DIO

GOD. — In common usage, God is the supreme, infinite, eternal, absolute Being, the intelligent and free cause of all reality.

OUTLINE:

I. In dogmatic and moral theology

II. God in the Bible

III. God among primitive peoples

IV. God among peoples of advanced culture

V. God in the history of Western philosophy

VI. Iconography.

I. GOD IN DOGMATIC AND MORAL THEOLOGY

The problem of God lies at the heart of all problems concerning the world and human life. Its solution is a demand of the spirit, not only from the ethical-religious point of view, but also from the purely philosophical standpoint. While leaving to others the treatment of the idea of God in the history of religions and in the history of philosophy, we limit ourselves here to a synthetic “theological” exposition of the problem in the light of Catholic doctrine, which is divine Revelation rationally illustrated and developed. For the sake of order and clarity, the subject may be divided into three points:

knowability, existence, and essence of God. It should be noted at once, however, that the three questions are distinct but not separate, and it is difficult to treat one without involving the others.

OUTLINE:

I. Knowability

II. Existence

III. Essence

IV. In moral theology.

I. Knowability

The Catholic doctrine on the knowability of God is clearly formulated and defined by the Vatican Council (Session III, Canon 2): “The same holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty through created things by the natural light of human reason.” This definition is, first of all, a vindication of the dignity of human reason against every form of agnosticism and skepticism, of which modern philosophy, not excluding rationalism, is imbued. Moreover, it corrects the pretensions of a priori systems of every kind, indicating the path by which reason can and must arrive at the knowledge of God, namely, the consideration of the world, which manifestly presents the characteristics of a finite, conditioned, contingent being, and therefore an effect entirely subordinate to a transcendent cause.

This is the crucial point of Christian theodicy, where the strength of Hellenic philosophy, purified and re-elaborated by the Fathers of the Church, meets divine Revelation. Plato and Aristotle, although they had not attained the concept of creation, grasped the character of contingency in the cosmos and highlighted it through movement, multiplicity, and the gradual limitation of things. By this path they sought to connect the world and its life to a transcendent Principle conceived as the Supreme Good, the Unmoved Mover, Pure Act. But the link, more intuited than demonstrated, remained obscure and uncertain between an eternal God and a world that was also eternal. The clear concept of efficient causality was lacking in the best Greek philosophy, and thus it either remained within the narrow confines of dualism or later degenerated into pantheism, as seen in Plotinus. Classical speculation thus appears as an unfinished framework: its completion is found in divine Revelation, which in the first verse of Genesis illuminates the relationship between the world and God with the light of creation and the omnipotence of the First Cause, eternal, who draws the universe—and time, which measures its rhythm through the ages—from nothingness. The creative act, which is the only reasonable solution to the problem of the relationship between the infinite and the finite against the absurdity of an irreducible dualism or a pantheistic monism, provides the link of causality that opens to the intellect a secure path from the created to the Creator as from effect to its cause. This path is traced in two passages of Sacred Scripture: in chapter 13 of the Book of Wisdom and in chapter 1 of the Letter to the Romans by St. Paul. In both, the folly or guilt of those men who cannot rise from the contemplation of the universe to the concept of God, the source of all created perfections, is affirmed. The text of Wisdom, more extensive than the Pauline one, develops two themes: one of rather Hebrew character, concerning power, and another of Hellenic taste, referring to beauty. In all things there is a dynamism that is a transforming and realizing force, a feverish tendency toward the enrichment of perfection and thus of being. Men have foolishly stopped at these natural forces and deified them, whereas they could and should have seen in them a reflection of the omnipotence of Him who is in an absolute manner and to whom all cosmic activity is subordinate as to the supreme Artificer. Likewise, men, captivated by the beauty of creatures, have made idols of them, losing sight of Him who, as Supreme Beauty, is the source of all imperfect created beauties. The foolish “through the visible goods of this world did not know Him who is, nor, by considering (the activity of) the creatures, did they recognize who He was.”

GOD — D. separates the earth from the waters. Fresco by Michelangelo on the vault of the Sistine Chapel (1508–12).

Art here. Then the sacred text concludes categorically: “From the greatness and beauty of created things, reasoning thus, their Creator may be clearly seen.” Reflecting, therefore, on cosmic reality, the human intellect easily discovers in it a necessary relationship to God in these terms: from the movement of the interdependent forces of nature to their technical motor (τὰ χρῆσις); from the multiple, fragmentary, variably participated beauty to the generating principle of all beauty, which is absolute beauty (καλὰ λογίς γενεάς χρῆσις); from imperfect, contingent being to being by essence (ὁ ὄν), and thus from effect to the First Cause.

St. Paul in chapter 1 of the Letter to the Romans summarizes all these concepts in a drastic form: “What can be known about God is manifest among men, for God has made it manifest to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made, as understood by reason (νοῦς).”

These texts, illustrated and commented upon by the Fathers of the Church, justify the definition of the Vatican Council and contain in germ all the doctrinal development of Christian theodicy, as found in the Scholastics and especially in St. Thomas Aquinas, who, basing himself on these texts and with the aid of solid rational principles drawn from the best philosophy, constructs five arguments, now classical, to prove the existence of God and His essential attributes.

II. EXISTENCE

In both the texts of Holy Scripture and the definition of the Vatican Council examined above, there is not only an affirmation of the natural capacity of human reason to know God, but also a determination of the manner in which that knowledge can be attained with certainty. There is no mention of immediate intuition, nor of inner experience, nor even of aprioristic dialecticism, but rather of a knowledge acquired through attentive consideration of created things, in which an implicit relationship with the Creator God is present. In other words, it is an ascending process from effects to their proper cause, which philosophers call a posteriori demonstration and which can be expressed schematically in the following syllogism: every effect postulates its adequate cause, but the universe is an effect, therefore it postulates its own adequate cause, which is God. The strength of this demonstrative process lies entirely in the principle of causality. Supposing the ontological value of this principle as a law of being, the various aspects of cosmic reality are studied, which reveal the characteristics of an effect, and one ascends by way of analogy (v. ANALOGIA) to the universal First Cause. St. Thomas, in *Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 2, a. 3, in the light of written and oral revelation, adopts these rational criteria for the elaboration of the famous "five ways," each of which grasps an aspect of created things. The structure of the argument consists of an empirical observation of fact, which is connected to a general principle of a metaphysical nature, to conclude with the affirmation of the existence of God.

The first way begins with the movement that animates all creation and strikes our attention before any other property. By movement, St. Thomas understands not only the physical sense (locomotion), as Aristotle does in this argument (*Physics*, VIII),

but in a metaphysical sense, that is, as the transition from potency to act, a becoming (distinct from the becoming of modern philosophy). The world, therefore, is all a becoming, πάντα ἐστι (Heraclitus); now becoming is a transition from non-being to being: the seed, which is not a tree, becomes a tree through its development. Such a transition or development requires a causal influence from a higher being, because no thing can give to itself what it does not have, by virtue of the principle of contradiction. If the world possessed the fullness of perfection, its becoming would be absurd. Therefore, through the interplay of causal influences among moving beings, since an infinite regress among movers and motors is impossible, one must necessarily arrive at an Unmoved Mover, that is, a Supreme Being, which is not subject to becoming because it possesses the fullness of being and is the efficient principle of all the becoming of the world. Aristotle, remaining within the realm of physical motion, fails to establish a First Mover that transcends mobile things; but the consideration of metaphysical motion (the transition from potency to act), according to the mind of St. Thomas, leads to a Transcendental Act.

This fundamental argument reduces to absurdity the claim of all evolutionary philosophy (from Hegel to Bergson), which resolves all reality (God not excluded!) into a perpetual becoming, that is, the inconceivable identification of being with non-being. The conclusion defined in the first way of St. Thomas is this: the dynamism of the world reveals its poverty (= potency) and its tendency toward the richness of being (= act); and since every movement requires a causal influence of an actual being upon a potential being (*omne quod movetur ab alio movetur*), all that dynamism finds its reason for being only in a Being that moves without being moved, that is, Pure Act without any potentiality.

The second way begins with the observation of the world’s productive forces, that is, the various efficient causes subordinated to one another, which, precisely because of their mutual interdependence, do not have in themselves the reason for their being, but each is explained by the influence of another. Since an infinite regress in a series of subordinated causes is absurd, one must admit a First Cause, which, free from any influence, acts upon the entire series of secondary causes.

The third way proceeds from the observation of the contingency of the world, by which every created thing is such that it need not exist absolutely, that is, it does not have in itself the reason for its existence, but is conditioned by other things. Therefore, there must exist an Unconditioned, Absolute Being, which has in itself the reason for its being and for the being of all contingent creatures.

The fourth way is based on the qualitative consideration of the world and thus of the different degrees of perfection in things, in which goodness, truth, beauty, life, etc., are evidently distributed according to more and less. If one considers that every perfection is metaphysically reduced to a mode or reason of being, one can say that a thing is more or less perfect (good, true, beautiful, etc.) insofar as it is more or less being. But the more and the less, both in the logical order and in ontological reality, imply a genetic, causal relationship to a maximum; therefore, the things of the world that are more or less good, more or less true, more or less beautiful—in a word, more or less being—demand a Most Good, Most True, Most Beautiful Being, and in short, an infinite richness of being. This argument, which has a Platonic flavor (cf. the *Phaedo* and the *Symposium*), has also recently been the subject of lively discussions. Some have wished to see in it a demonstration tinged with idealism similar to that of St. Anselm, Descartes, and Leibniz, while others discern in it a function of exemplary causality, but not efficient causality, in harmony with Platonism, which explains the relationship between subsistent Ideas and sensible things by way of imitation and formal participation (μεταμορφώσεις). St. Thomas, while admitting this Platonic exemplarism, with due caution, modifies and integrates it here, as elsewhere, in the light of Aristotelianism. Indeed, in this fourth way, he recalls Aristotle’s principle: “what is maximal in a given genus is the cause of all things that are found in that genus.” The appeal to the function of efficient causality is evident, as it also appears in parallel passages (cf. *Summa contra gentiles*, II, ch. 15). The basic principle of the fourth way is this: the limitation of the perfection of created things does not depend on their nature, because if a thing were good or beautiful by its very nature, it would be goodness and beauty without limits. Therefore, the limitation depends on an extrinsic cause, which freely and effectively communicates some degree of its perfection to things. That cause is God, the Supreme Good, Supreme Truth, Supreme Beauty, and thus the Supreme Being, the principle and source of all being.

Finally, the fifth way, which is accessible to all: it begins with the observation of the order and finality of the world, which reduces the indefinite multiplicity of created things to a static and dynamic unity. Now order and purpose, especially in the irrational world, reveal a Transcendent Intelligence and Will, that is, a Wise and Free Cause, the principle and end of the universe. The order and finality of the world cannot be reduced to a subjective idea of the human spirit, as Kant would have it, because the spirit itself feels its own subordination to a purpose, nor can they be attributed to chance or to a blind will (Schopenhauer) or to an unconscious immanent principle (Hartmann) without explaining the enigma of the universe with an enigmatic play of words.

In conclusion, after seven centuries of criticism, St Thomas’s five ways retain all their solidity and coherence for anyone convinced of the objective value of human cognition and, by distinguishing between thought and reality, can grasp the harmony between the laws of the one and those of the other. Briefly, the five ways develop philosophically the itinerary traced in the Book of Wisdom and in the Letter to the Romans. The world has a dynamic aspect and a static aspect. The first, more evident, is movement, which must be considered in its genesis (from potency to act) and in relation to its end (1st and 5th ways). The second, more hidden but more real, is the being and essence of things. Being must be considered in its origin as efficient realization (2nd way) and in its intimate reason as contingent or necessary (3rd way). Essence indicates the qualitative element of things according to a varying gradation (4th way). Both the dynamic and the static aspects are empirically revealed through motion, multiplicity and variety, in which the intellect grasps the metaphysical reason of subordination, limitation and participation, which in turn leads to a creating Cause, principle and end of all things, according to the thought of St Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 44, a. 1): “From the fact that a thing is a being by participation, it follows that it is caused by another.”

Within the framework of Catholic doctrine there are also other proofs of the existence of God, which either reduce to one of St Thomas’s ways or do not have the same argumentative force.

a) The ideological argument (cherished by St Augustine): in the human intellect there are truths that have the character of eternity, necessity and absoluteness. Such a character cannot derive either from the intellect or from the things grasped by the intellect, since both are contingent. Therefore there exists a supreme Truth, absolute, eternal, necessary, source and reason of the truths that are in us. As Fr Boyer has shown, St Augustine, with this reasoning connected with the theory of illumination (v. AGOSTINO), does not intend to prove either an immediate vision of God or an intuition in the manner of the ontologists; he merely intends to prove that the immutable truths that are in our mind and dominate it as an inescapable rule require a transcendent Truth as subsistent intelligible Reality. But this argument, if it is not to fall into ontologism, must pass from the psychological sphere to the ontological order and be resolved into a causal relationship between the human intellect, created things and God, which brings us back to St Thomas’s 4th way. The human intellect, abstracting from the limit proper to the truth that is in things, forms the idea of absolute truth (logical order) and from this ascends to the concept of God as subsistent Truth (ontological order), from which, as from its own cause, derive the truth that is in things and that formulated in the intellect.

b) The eudemonological argument: man has a natural and inescapable tendency towards a supreme good, source of perfect happiness. Such a natural tendency cannot be in vain and therefore its term must exist, namely a most perfect good (God). This argument too proves only insofar as a causal relationship is established between the limited good of creatures (from which arises the concept and desire for a supreme good) and God, infinite goodness.

c) The deontological argument, more stringent than the first two: human conscience feels the force of a categorical imperative, of a moral law, that transcends man and all evidently contingent cosmic reality. Therefore there exists a supreme Legislator, who has impressed that law on the human spirit.

d) The moral argument: the universal consent of the human race in admitting a supreme Principle, object of worship among all peoples. It is impossible to reduce this constant and universal fact to a delusion. Atheism (v.), sporadic and questionable in its sense and value, does not impair the force of this argument.

Finally, the existence of God is proved by divine Revelation and by other supernatural facts that form part of the historical patrimony of humanity. A particular value, even in the eyes of modern philosophers (Bergson), is assumed by the lived experiences of the great Christian mystics, who attest through psychological experience the divine presence of the Absolute, not as a vague and indeterminate reality, but as a personal reality that makes dialogue possible.

III. ESSENCE

According to the Vatican Council already cited, reason can know with certainty the existence of God, but can hardly attain to His essence. In any case, within the scope of natural faculties, it is absurd to speak of intuitive or adequate knowledge: the mind’s itinerary towards God is always marked by creatures, which demand His existence and reflect, albeit faintly, the perfections of His transcendent nature. The itinerary is possible by virtue of the principle of causality, which justifies and supports analogical knowledge (v. ANALOGIA), by which the attributes of God are discerned through consideration of the perfections of creation. According to our way of understanding, these attributes are like the essential properties of God, which however really identify with one another and with the essence, because of the absolute simplicity proper to Pure Act.

Consequently the radical question arises concerning the very divine essence, which must be taken in a physical and in a metaphysical sense. Physical essence is equivalent to the complex of elements that constitute a being specifically, as, for example, soul and body in man. Metaphysical essence, on the other hand, is the primary element, abstracted from all others, without which a thing cannot even be conceived, e.g. animality and rationality in man. Metaphysical essence, which corresponds to the quidditative and distinctive definition of the thing, is like the root of all its properties. Christian philosophy consistently sees the physical essence of God in the sum of all perfections, whereby He is the Infinite. Every pantheistic monism is in antithesis to this doctrine, whether materialistic (Haeckel) or idealistic (Hegel), because it identifies or hybristically mixes the Infinite with the finite, the absolute with the contingent. Equally repugnant is any limitation of the Infinite, even if an attempt is made to justify it on account of personality, as Renouvier and some others do.

But more delicate is the question of the metaphysical essence of God, on which there are disagreements even within Christian thought. Remaining within the sphere of natural reason, the following conclusions are reached:

a) there is no difference between physical and metaphysical essence and therefore in both senses the essence of God is the sum of all perfections, i.e. actual infinity. This is the thesis of Ockham and the nominalists in general, to which is allied the sceptical thesis that follows:

b) the metaphysical essence of God is radical infinity, which implies the exigency of all perfections (Scotus);

c) metaphysically the divine essence is intellectuality or, more dynamically, actual thought (John of St Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Suárez, Gonet, Billuart, Gardeil and other scholastics). This opinion, excluding immensity, recalls the thinking thought of modern idealism;

d) the divine essence is metaphysically the same subsistent being (St Thomas, Capreolus, Molina, Vasquez, Billot and many modern theologians);

e) the metaphysical essence of God is aseity, i.e. the reason of ens a se (= self-derived being). Thus Bounpensiere with a few others;

f) finally, some place the metaphysical essence of God in goodness or in freedom.

A thorough evaluation of these theories would require a comprehensive examination of the various systems to which they are connected. Here it suffices to make a few critical observations, keeping in mind the formal concept of metaphysical essence as defined above. Infinity, preferred by nominalists and sceptics, does not seem to conform to that concept, because it lacks the characteristic of a primordial element; rather, it is a reflected notion, if indeed infinity is equivalent to a mode of being. In God, therefore, being is conceived first, and then His infinite mode, which is inferred from pure being (proper to the Pure Act).

Nor is the position of those who place the divine essence in actual thought secure, because thinking is an action, and action, at least logically, follows being as its presupposition and source.

Aseity, moreover, pertains more to the question of the origin of God than to that of His essential constitution, affirming His non-derivation from others. This affirmation stands only by recourse to the concept of plenitude of being, of subsistent being. In short, *esse a se* is proven by the force of *esse per se*; and then it is not aseity that comes first, but *perseity*.

Finally, the good is a being insofar as it is desirable, and thus, even though it is identified with being, it is conceived after being. Freedom is a function of the will, which presupposes the intellect and being. Moreover, neither the good, nor thought, nor much less freedom can be conceived as the source of all other perfections.

Thus the most probable thesis remains that which upholds, even in this regard, the primacy of being: the metaphysical essence of God consists in the notion of subsistent being, of pure being. Indeed, the principal demonstrative arguments for the existence of God lead to the conclusion that God is pure actuality, Pure Act, free from any shadow of potentiality. Now actuality is related to being: “*et omne aliquid est actus quo magis est ens*.” God is therefore Pure Act insofar as He is pure being, and as such He is distinguished from all creation, which is a *synolon* of act and potency, that is, of being and essence: “*Ipsa autem natura vel essentia divina est eius esse: natura autem vel essentia cuiuslibet rei creatae non est suum esse, sed esse participans ab alio. Et sic in Deo est esse purum, quia ipse Deus est suum esse subsistens*” (St. Thomas, *De veritate*, q. 21, a. 5). Moreover, the notion of subsistent being satisfies the other requirement of metaphysical essence, namely, that it be the source of all perfections, because every perfection is radically reduced to a mode or degree of being: “*secundum hoc enim aliqua perfecta sunt quod aliquo modo esse habent*” (*Sum. Theol.*, 1a, q. 4, a. 2). Therefore the infinite perfections of God are like the expression of the boundless fullness of His pure being: “*Deus est ipsum esse per se subsistens, ex quo oportet quod totam perfectionem essendi in se contineat*” (ibid.).

Thus human reason reaches the summit of philosophical speculation concerning the nature of God; the light of Revelation confirms this achievement. In Ex. 3:14-15, God reveals to Moses His proper name expressed in four fragile letters: *Jhwh* (= Jahweh), the third person singular of the imperfect of the verb *hwh* (= “He is”); so that Jahweh = “He is.” Modern exegetes (Lagrange, Vaccari, Bea, Ceuppens) justify this interpretation (v. tetragrammaton) and demonstrate the originality of the Mosaic revelation. The Fathers interpreted the text in the same sense (v. St. Jerome, *In Epist. ad Ephes.*, II, 3, 14, and St. Augustine, *De genesi ad litt.*, V, 16). With good reason St. Thomas writes (*Sum. Theol.*, 1a, q. 13, a. 11): “This name *Qui est* (Jahweh) ... is the most proper name of God ... For it signifies not a form, but being itself. Wherefore, since the being of God is His essence, and this is not true of any other ... among other names this one most properly names God.”

The Church allows discussion, but has not failed to manifest its preference for the thesis of St. Thomas, as is evident from the 23rd of the Thomistic propositions approved by the Sacred Congregation of Studies (1914): “The divine essence, in that it is identified with the actuality of its very being, or in that it is subsistent being itself, is thus constituted in its metaphysical reason as the source of all perfections and thereby gives us the same account of its infinity in perfection” (*AAS*, 6 [1914], pp. 383-86).

IV. IN MORAL THEOLOGY

A supernatural morality obviously cannot dispense with the idea of God, and of a personal God who has in some way revealed Himself. Philosophy already demonstrates that a truly such ethics is impossible without God, and that the only path to follow is from God to duty, not from duty to God, insofar as duty cannot derive its obligatory value except from the divine will or reason. The absolute sovereignty of the law over all consciences (the absoluteness and universality of the law) is in fact inconceivable without a transcendent foundation. Man is a rational being; can such a being, without contradicting his nature, obey a law that does not appear evident to him, and of which he is even forbidden to ask about its origin? Duties would then appear as unintelligible and brutal commands.

But the Christian moral system, before being Christian, is reasonable and therefore posits in God the principle and end (v. ultimate end) of our morality, in God who pours out His complacency upon those who love and serve Him.

This God, just as He has given order to the irrational world, both animate and inanimate, has also given a law to the world of rational beings, which is the manifestation of His will (v. Law). While leaving individuals free to actualize their energies in the measure and direction that suits each, everyone must answer for himself in proportion to the degree of knowledge he has attained of the will of God.

The vision of God and its privation will then be the supreme reward or the supreme punishment: vision of God, which, though impossible in the natural order, has been made possible by the supernatural order (v. grace; paradise; redemption; revelation; sacraments).

The law of God, an echo of His will, has in the first instance been communicated to all through the impression of the natural law in the heart; then further through the promulgation of the Decalogue on Sinai; and finally through Jesus Christ, who brought to earth a perfect code of morality.

This complex of norms governs human activity with all that surrounds us and has relation to us; and before all else with God Himself.

In effect, the knowledge of a personal God, endowed with moral attributes, and particularly with power and goodness, gives rise to a spontaneous disposition in the soul, itself composed of reverence, filial fear, and love. All this is nothing other than the virtue of religion, which embraces all those actions in which the recognition of God as supreme Lord and the submission of the creature to His dominion are expressed (v. Adoration; Cult; Devotion; Oath; PRAYER BOOK; Sacrifice; Vow, etc).

This harmonious bond between the creature and its God, capable of such diverse nuances and which can reach an indefinite intensity, in Christian morality has a further development in the theological virtues, whose object is no longer acts that pertain to God, but God Himself. In faith, the Christian sees God as his Creator; in hope, he regards Him as his ultimate end; through love (v. CHARITY), he gives himself to be united with Him in a more perfect way.

All this can be read summarized in the first precept of the Decalogue: “I am the Lord your God... You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:2-6; Deut. 5:6-10), reaffirmed in the Gospel: “The first of all is: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment” (Mk. 12:28-31).

Pietro Palazzini

II. GOD IN THE BIBLE

In Scripture, God is not presented in philosophical terms. He is the center and soul of the Bible, not as an object of inquiry, but as the Creator and Lord of the world and as the loving Father of His chosen ones.

The Old Testament has a very lofty concept of God. This already appears in the various names, among which the principal ones are: 'El, 'Elohim, Yahweh; the form 'Elohim is also quite frequent (cf. Is. 44:8; Ps. 17:32; Dan. 11:17, etc.), which designates divinity in general or is the proper name of the true God (cf. Deut. 32:15; Hab. 3:3; and often in Job). In composition with 'El (Elohim) or with Yahweh, we find especially the terms 'eljôn = 'Most High' (Gen. 14:18-20, 22; Ps. 46:3; 77:56) and Shaddai (Gen. 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; etc.), usually translated as “Omnipotent,” but whose etymological meaning is much debated. Other designations are Qêdhôs Jîsârêl = 'Holy One of Israel,' a frequent expression in Isaiah, and 'Elohê haš-šamajim = God of heaven, which is found in less ancient texts (Jon. 1:9; Ps. 135:26; Ezra 1:2; Neh. 1:4-5, etc.). Finally, it should be noted that God is also called by the generic term Ba'al = master, and melekh = king. The first of these names is rarely applied to the true God (cf. Judg. 6:25), but it appears in many proper names, such as 'Esba'al, Be'elâdhâ', etc.; the second is found in Deut. 33:5; Isa. 6:5; 33:22; 43:15; Jer. 48:15; Ps. 5:3, etc.; sometimes it is specified with reference to the chosen people (king of Jacob = king of Israel), or with adjectives that determine majesty (great king = 'eternal,' 'of glory,' etc.). In the Septuagint, the term Kúpioç = Lord is very frequently used, which in the New Testament will usually be reserved for the Son of God.

In the Bible, besides the various divine attributes, the purest monotheism is attested. In the New Testament, it is maintained in absolute form, despite the clear testimony to the Trinity of persons. This is even more evident in the Old Testament, where the Trinitarian mystery is only vaguely adumbrated, while there is frequent polemic against pagan idolatry, especially in the more recent books (Wis. 14:13 ff.), but also in older texts, particularly in the Letter of Jeremiah and in the vigorous assertions of the great prophets (Isa. 40:19, 20; 44:13-19; Jer. 10:3 ff.; Ezek. 6:4, 5; 14:6 ff.; Dan. 3:12 ff.). Among the minor prophets, even the oldest (Amos 2:4; 4:13; 5:8 ff.; 9:2-5 ff.; Hos. 4:12; 9:10; 13:4), the same faith is found.

Moreover, even those who point to other religious forms for the origins of the Hebrew people (animism, totemism, demonism, etc.) admit the prophetic monotheism. Against these, it can be observed that some idolatrous deviations or cultural distortions should be judged as such, even in the oldest texts, and not as indices of a supposed religious evolution. Furthermore, monotheism is clearly evident already in the patriarchal period (Gen. 18:25; 24:3; Deut. 4:35, 39; 6:4). Today, less emphasis is placed on the various local designations (such as 'God of Bethel' in Gen. 31:13, etc.), which have been exploited as signs of a supposed polytheism; they are merely the memory of ancient sanctuaries or of particular portentous events. Even non-Catholic authors (W. Eichrodt) acknowledge that the various theophanies or angelophanies do not contradict the monotheistic idea in any way. Expressions such as “angel of Yahweh,” “face of God,” “name” or “glory of Yahweh,” etc., indicate nothing other than the direct manifestation of God or, very rarely, an indirect one through His angelic messenger.

Sometimes the Bible practically addresses the problem of God’s existence and resolves it with the principle of causality (Heb. 11:3; Rom. 1:20; Wis. 13:1-15:19; Ps. 18:2; Job 12:7 ff.; Jer. 10:11; Isa. 37:16; 40:7). Usually the demonstration is based on the cosmological argument. The most developed theological concept inculcated in the Old Testament is that of God as Creator (v. CREATION) and of Providence, particularly with regard to the chosen people. Despite the many anthropomorphisms (v.), there are texts that describe in a surprising way the spirituality and the divine essence. The most famous is that of Ex. 3:14, where the profound interpretation of the word Yahweh is given, with which God is described as “He who is by essence” (v. AOSTA).

III. GOD AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES

Under the name of Supreme Being (Höchstes Wesen, Supreme Being, Être Suprême, etc.), religious etymology commonly understands the supernatural being who, in the beliefs of individual contemporary primitive peoples, has traditionally or has acquired ontological preeminence over other entities or figures (mythological, animistic, manistic, etc.) of their respective religions, embodying various distinctive traits such as great antiquity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and creativity. These faculties and attributes are usually lacking, either individually or collectively, in the remaining figures of primitive religions, and by converging in the Supreme Being they often sharply distinguish him from them, granting him a preeminent place in animological conceptions and thus the dignity of a supreme deity.

The reality of such a belief as an original and autonomous element of primitive cultures—apart from any ancient or recent derivation from the monotheistic religions of high-civilization peoples, and in particular from the influence of Christian missionaries—was long unrecognized. This occurred partly due to the persistent scarcity of accurate and reliable information about the so-called "peoples of nature," and partly due to the a priori skepticism within scholarly circles regarding the intellectual capacity of such peoples to spontaneously arrive at such elevated animological concepts as were presumed necessary for the recognition of a supreme god. This attitude among historians and scholars of religion, which prevailed throughout the second half of the last century and beyond, was based, among other things, on the unchallenged assumption that to the crude and rough forms of material and social culture of ancient humanity there must necessarily correspond equally crude forms of spiritual life. An axiom that was flawed not in logic but in the arbitrary definition of the "primitiveness" of beliefs, which were presented and illustrated as "primitive" conceptions that were not genuinely such, in a process of seeking a subjective—and thus fallacious—spiritual primum ("psychologism").

The observation, already in the 19th century, of primitive peoples' beliefs in a personal being with traits typical of a true supreme deity—first among some tribes of the Andaman Islands and southern Australia (Man 1878–85, Howitt 1884), and later among uncivilized peoples in various parts of the globe—was met with skepticism or went unnoticed, despite the courageous, isolated stance taken by Andrew Lang (*The Making of Religion*, 1898). It was chiefly through the work of the Vienna school of ethnology, and in particular its leader, Fr. W. Schmidt, that these observations were systematically collected and later expanded through a broad, organized plan of field research. Drawing on extensive documentation in a work that is also the first major attempt to determine historically a *prius* and a *posterius* in the succession of religious beliefs of primitive humanity, Schmidt opposed previous theories—which posited various types of animological conceptions (fetishism, manism, animism, etc.) as the origin of religion—with a new theory asserting the chronological priority of belief in a Supreme Being.

Schmidt’s synthetic work concerns, for now, the cultures he classified (and generally, despite individual reservations, recognized) as the oldest accessible to us (original cultures, *Urkulturen*), as well as part of the later pastoral cultures that Schmidt classified as "primitive" (v. ETNOLOGIA). It culminates in the affirmation of a primordial universal monotheism, preceding the dispersion of today’s scattered "original" populations into marginal or otherwise inaccessible regions of all continents. The fundamental characteristics of this monotheism would be as follows:

**I. UNITY.** — The Supreme Being is "one." The supernatural figures sometimes found alongside him, even in the beliefs of the most archaic peoples, are interpretable as additions from more recent religions. Such are the figures of mothers, wives, and children of the Supreme Being, derived especially from the lunar mythology of patriarchal peoples. Schmidt attributes to an internal evolution of the *Urkulturen* other deviations, such as the elevation of the tribal ancestor to a deity who rivals the Supreme Being and may obscure his figure (Andamanese, some north-central Californians, Yuin of southern Australia, etc.); the personification of certain aspects and particular functions of the Supreme Being as independent deities (ancient cultures, some Algonquins); and finally the emergence of an antagonist, the being of evil (ancient peoples, many among the Algonquins, eastern tribes of the Paleo-Californians), a phenomenon ancient and deeply rooted among the shepherds of Central Asia.

**II. NAMES.** — The most frequent and widespread are "father," "lord," "the elder," also "our father," "father in heaven," "father of all," "our great father," "father of life"; in the second place come names referring to his activity as "creator" or "maker," "owner" (Lenape), "lord of life," "lord of death" (Western Cree), "giver of food" (Montagnais), "lord of boars" (Negritos), "ruler of the world" (Maidu), "lord of heaven and earth" (Cheyenne). Rarer are names relating to his celestial abode and activity, such as "sky," "thunderer."

**III. FIGURE.** — Schmidt holds that the Supreme Being is attributed a form of spirituality, which most primitives would be unable to define explicitly: phrases such as "he is like the wind" would be attempts to express such concepts; but far more often primitives form an anthropomorphic image of him as a being with a bright, shining, or even fiery face, tall or gigantic stature, etc.

**IV. ABODE.** — It is generally believed that he currently lives in the sky, but in some of the most archaic cultures the motif recurs according to which the Supreme Being, after creation, dwelt for a time on earth, in close and benevolent community with men, instructing them in their needs, instituting their sacred ceremonies, and in some tribes even celebrating them himself together with his creatures.

**V. DURATION OF EXISTENCE.** — The eternity of the Supreme Being is explicitly affirmed among one of the primitive peoples of Australia: the Baïame of the Wiradyuri bears, among other names, that of Burrambim, from *burrambim* "eternal"; but for the most part his great antiquity is implied in statements that he was "alone" at the beginning, before other beings. In some primitive cultures (Arctic, Paleo-Californian, Algonquian) the representative of evil is considered coeval with the Supreme Being. A motif that often recurs in the religions of settled peoples is the unsuccessful attempt by the Supreme Being—himself immortal—to grant men the same immortality. Although almost no primitive language possesses an abstract term as precise as that which designates eternity, the latter is expressed by the affirmation that the Supreme Being is "crooked": an attribute that even the tribal ancestor (or culture hero) seeks to appropriate when rivaling the deity. In other cases, the Supreme Being enters the scene when only the original chaos and mists exist in the cosmos.

VI. OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

Omnipresence is not explicitly affirmed, and it seems to have interested primitive mentality little; it is rather attributed collaterally, as an integral part of omniscience. In general, there is a lack of speculative interest in the abstract properties of divinity, so that the affirmations of primitives in this regard have predominantly a practical, i.e., ethical value. Only in the more youthful primordial cultures is the Supreme Being no longer held to have immediate and direct knowledge of what happens in the world, but obtains it through his messengers or subordinate entities; his omniscience is thus only mediated, e.g., in the sense that the sun and moon are the eyes with which the Supreme Being sees the earth and all that happens there (Samoeids, Semang); the stars are the ears that allow him to hear during the night, compensating for the faint light of the moon (Samoeids), or else the countless eyes with which he gazes upon the dark earth, unnecessary by day because of the brilliant light of the sun (Alakaluf); while the Andamanese believe the Supreme Being to be omniscient only by day. Among other primitives, by contrast (African and Asian Pygmies and Pygmoids, Fuegians, etc.), he is conceived as capable of penetrating even into the most secret recesses of the human soul.

VII. OMNIPOTENCE

The affirmation, explicit or implicit, of this attribute is almost universal in primordial cultures: no force can successfully oppose the Supreme Being, not even that of the most powerful sorcerers. This conviction is expressed in mythical form in the oral literature of some American and Asian tribes (certain Algonquins, Samoyeds, Western Paleocalfiorinans) in which the motif recurs of tensions between the Supreme Being and the cultural hero or tribal ancestor, in which (or in the last and most difficult of these) the former emerges victorious. His power over the health and life of men is unlimited.

VIII. OTHER ATTRIBUTES AND FUNCTIONS

The Supreme Being is almost always the creator of the cosmos and of man (v. CREATION) and the guardian and sanctioner of the ethical order that emanates from him. All the good, and only the good, enjoyed by humanity comes from him: not only objectively, but also subjectively, inasmuch as many primitive peoples recognize his “affective goodness” toward man, his care and concern for the well-being and destiny of humankind. The various manifestations of immorality that characterize the gods of later cultures are not found in him; and the accusations of “murderer” and “evil-doer” sometimes leveled against him are to be interpreted as references to his aspect as a severe punisher, through disease and death, of infractions of the moral precepts he has imposed upon humanity.

Criticism has been directed against Father Schmidt’s theory from various quarters (in Italy particularly by R. Pettazzoni), yet despite the fact that similar beliefs are not found among all “primordial” peoples (they are lacking, e.g., among the Vedda of Ceylon and the northern Andamanese, were doubtful among the now-extinct Tasmanians, and are now in part called into question with regard to the original culture of the African Pygmies), the ethnological antiquity of the belief in a Supreme Being is now positively established and must be recognized as a patrimony proper to many among the most primitive peoples of the various continents. No less important is the observation that this belief is found, albeit mingled with other religious elements, among many peoples of later and more advanced cultures (“primary” and “secondary”) in every part of the globe.

The Aranda, totemistic peoples of central Australia, have the notion of an eternal being (Altjira) who is incarnate and whose abode is in the sky, the stars being the fires of his camp; he is conceived as a huge man, red-skinned, with fair hair falling over his shoulders, feet like those of an emu, while his wives have the feet of dogs. He is good, but indifferent to worldly affairs; lord of the sky, he has not created man and does not care for him; no cult is paid to him. Here and there in Indonesia (e.g., among the Batak of Sumatra), in Melanesia (in some southern islands of the Solomon group), and still more in Africa (Nilotics, certain Sudanese and Bantu peoples) the belief in an ancient Supreme Being coexists alongside forms of totemism; but these seem mostly to be independent beliefs, assignable to different cultural strata superimposed in the course of time, and it must be recognized that totemistic mentality favors the development of magic rather than that of theistic conceptions. This is clearly seen, e.g., among the natives of California, where totemistic tribes are entirely ignorant of the figure of a Supreme Being (Kroeber). The situation is more complex in South America, where totemic culture, barely distinguishable from neo-matriarchal culture, has also influenced the most primitive peoples and groups. In any case, even apart from the three small groups that have fled, the concept of a high divinity is found in this continent already among the peoples who best represent the stage of collectors and hunters. The Chamicoco, in the region of the Chaco, are those who possess the mythological figure most closely approaching that of a supreme god, Escetewuara (of female sex), mother of infinite spirits, who dominates all things, prevents the sun from burning the earth, and provides water for humanity; she demands that every night men sing in her honor and punishes them if they neglect this duty. The “Botocudo” (Ge) of eastern Brazil believe in a “White-headed Father” who lives in the sky, apart from the other celestial spirits: a gigantic chief of spirits, he sends rain and storms, kills enemies with invisible arrows, and causes the phases of the moon. The Uitoto, totemistic collectors and hunters of the upper Yapurá, also have a great creator god who is beneficent, whom they call “father,” although doubts remain about the originality of this belief. Even when one passes to the relatively more advanced agricultural cultures of the upper and middle Amazon, similar conceptions are found here and there. The Casinahua of the upper Juruá speak of an “old Father” living in the sky with his wife, the “great mother”; his principal function is to watch over the souls of the dead in heaven and to provide them with every good; he has been identified with Poka “the Good,” who sought to make men immortal, and is the father of the cultural hero; during storms it is believed that he weeps and sobs remembering his lost children. The Tupinambá of the Atlantic coast knew a thunder god possessed of sufficiently elevated characteristics that the missionaries judged it expedient to adopt the name (Tupan, Topana) for the purposes of Christian preaching. The Apapocuwa (also of the great Tupi-Guarani group) recognize a creator, “our great father,” who has begotten the cultural heroes. But it is precisely the importance of these cultural heroes, together with the development of astral mythology—especially the personifications of the sun and moon—that among the majority of Amazonian peoples causes the figure of the Supreme Beings to recede into the background, practically annulling their cult.

That the solar character of the Supreme Being may be secondary is demonstrated by the conceptions of numerous primitive tribes of north-eastern India. The highest divinity of these peoples bears the name of Sing Bonga, ‘spirit of the sun’ among the Santal, Munda, Ho, Birhor, and other Kolarían peoples; the same divinity is found among the Munda of Chota-Nagpur. He is a benevolent being, creator and preserver of life, pre-eminent among all the gods; but his solar nature seems to be acquired, probably borrowed from the younger Dravidian populations among whom similar conceptions (linked to totemism?) are still to be found, and only subsequently induced. Thus among the Oraon and Maler (Dravidian) the Supreme Being formerly bore, and in some cases still bears, the name of ‘solar king’; the Oraon have then adopted for it the Hindu names of Dharmi or Dharmesh ‘the Holy One’, who manifests himself in the sun, or of Bhagwan (Bhagavat), common to the Bhil of central India. But not infrequently there has been a splitting of the two concepts, the Supreme Being (Dharmesh, Bhagwan) being distinguished from a particular solar god, who has retained ancient names. The same occurs among the Gond scattered through central India: their ‘great god’ or ‘old god’ appears to be only a primus inter pares among minor deities, distinct from the invisible creator and preserver of the world, of whom they have another concept.

Characters going back, at least in part, to even greater antiquity seem to be offered by the conceptions of the Cençu of southern India: to their Supreme Being, Bhagavantaru, living in heaven, creator of human souls, manifesting himself in thunder and rain, is joined a female figure, Garelamaisana, mistress of the jungle and its products. In general, it may be observed that figures of celestial deities were already present and alive in pre-Aryan India, even in the most archaic ethnic strata: Hindu pantheism has certainly influenced them, lending them new names, but has not erased their ancient traces.

A not very different process has taken place in Indonesia, where the religious conceptions of the most primitive peoples often show through beneath the veneer of more advanced and recent civilisations, first Hinduism and then Islam. Thus it is with the ancient Supreme Being of the Batak of Sumatra, Mula Jadi, obscured by the arrival and affirmation of another (Hindu) divinity, Batara Guru (Shiva). The Ngadha of Flores preserve a living belief in a Supreme Being, existing from the beginning of time, dwelling in the firmament, at once single and double: Deva above (conceived as a man) and Nitu below (conceived as a woman). He is said to be invisible except in dreams, but is conceived as white in appearance, with flowing beard, and his garments are described as marvellous, the fine cloak, the splendid girdle, the horse- or goat-skin pouch, the bracelets as large as plates. Deva is the creator and master of all, even of men, he who sees and knows all, the powerful one, he who takes life; he is believed to be benevolent, but is feared for his justice, which is manifested in diseases afflicting wrongdoers.

Figures of high female deities such as those mentioned above almost always betray the corresponding presence, in the sociological field, of an agricultural matriarchy, which as a rule favours the development of animism and lunar mythology. Feminine characters are found in the figure of Ilintubuhet, divinity of New Ireland, created, existing from the beginning of time, creator of heaven, earth and men, but now indifferent and idle, and as such receiving cult only in exceptional cases; and a female creator divinity is reported, for example, from the island of Viti (Fiji). But even in matriarchal heavens the femininity of the Supreme Being is a historical aspect, which, for example among the matriarchal Bantu of central-western Africa, reveals itself only in traces: here (as among the Ovambo and OviMbundo of Angola) the Supreme Being Kalunga is a manistic divinity, connected with the earth and with the dead who dwell in it, or is even identified with the chthonic, subterranean conception of the afterlife; but he is a male being, as is also the other divine figure, likewise of great antiquity among the Bantu, of Nzambi, a celestial creator being who reigns in heaven.

In the manistic religions, which predominate in Negro Africa, among patriarchal as among matriarchal peoples, the cult of the ancestors obscures or replaces that of the Supreme Being, but does not obliterate his figure, which remains eminent though distant. The AmaZulu believe in a celestial god, Inkosi Pezulu ‘the Chief in the sky’, who manifests himself in meteorological phenomena and strikes down transgressors of tribal laws; the AmaXosa see in the figure of Udali the creator of all things, who controls and governs everything, rewards good and punishes evil: to these and other Supreme Beings, however, no direct cult is offered, but rather through the mediation of the ancestors, who in the invisible world are closer to the divinity, possess greater wisdom than men on earth, and are therefore the mediators par excellence ‘at the court of the inaccessible Chief’.

Even greater prominence is given to the figure (and cult) of a Supreme Being among pastoral peoples, of whom the most typical and pure representatives in Africa are the Galla. In their celestial god, Waqo or Waqa, are summed up almost all the attributes and faculties which Schmidt has recognised in the Supreme Beings of primitive peoples, and the intimate and direct cultic and ethical relation between man and God is felt more deeply than is generally the case among Africans. A recent merit of Schmidt’s is to have brought to light the hitherto neglected monotheistic substratum in certain religions of the pastoral peoples of Asia: among the Tatars of Abakan, for example, there emerges above a plurality of lesser gods, both upper and lower, an originally single figure of a celestial Being, Kudai, whose unity has however become confused in identification with several gods, the Seven (or Nine) Kudai: here too we have a creator and benevolent god dwelling in heaven, also called ‘the White’, ‘the Golden’, exceptionally ‘Father’, dispenser of life and fertility, source of authority and order, moral legislator.

It should finally be noted that even in religions considered most typically polytheistic, such as the Polynesian, the conception of a true Supreme Being is not always unknown, even if it presents particular aspects. Thus, for example, on the island of Rennell (at the southernmost tip of the Solomon group, but colonised by Polynesians and remaining immune from subsequent cultural contacts) the highest place in belief is occupied by Angiki and Ha ‘the Chief on high’, a gigantic chief of the divine family, who manifests his wrath with thunder and lightning: if wife and children are assigned to him, this is in supernatural, symbolic form, since he is ‘too sacred’ to beget children from a woman. His sacred character is also revealed in the prohibition against pronouncing, otherwise than in a whisper, his personal name, Te Tonusanga (as, for example, with the name of Daramulun among the Yuin of Australia); and to his lofty and feared figure is opposed that of Tangaroa—the well-known supreme god of the Polynesian pantheon—of whom no respect is shown and at whom one laughs, considering it unworthy of the name of God.

For the cult of the Supreme Being, V. PREGHIERA; SACRIFICIO.

IV. GOD AMONG PEOPLES OF HIGHER CULTURE

As among primitive peoples, so too among those who have attained a higher degree of culture and whose grouping has evolved from the tribal state to the civic and national, the idea of God stands at the center of their religious thought.

I. NATIONAL RELIGIONS

Mexico and Peru. — Pre-Columbian Mexico and Peru must be examined first because, from a cultural standpoint, they form the link between primitive populations and those who have attained a higher degree of culture. The Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún, who was the first to come into contact with the Aztecs of Mexico after the Spanish conquest, learned their language and became thoroughly acquainted with their customs and traditions, affirms that they believe "in one God only, pure spirit, omnipotent and creator of all things, to whom they attribute all wisdom, beauty, and blessedness." His name is Tezcatlipoca, regarded as the god of justice, and thus represented with a golden mirror with which he scrutinizes the actions of men. In Peru, the Supreme Being is called Pachacamac, indefinable, only to be named in a low voice, creator and lawgiver.

China. — Apart from Christianity, three religions exist in this vast country: the ancient natural religion systematized by Confucius, leaving intact its age-old heritage of beliefs and rites; Taoism, from tao (the Way), a philosophical vision of the universe with a pantheistic orientation; Buddhism, which entered China from the south in the form of the "Great Vehicle."

The indigenous religion of China is the religion of Heaven (T'ien), to which the title of "Supreme Lord" (Shang-ti) is given. The concept of Heaven as the sole Lord is developed more from an ethical than a doctrinal standpoint, in keeping with the more practical than metaphysical mentality of the Chinese. The emperor has the mandate to execute the will of Heaven for the benefit of his people; his negligence provokes from the Supreme Lord the calamities of nature and the discontent of the people.