- This source outlines the course of man's understanding of God throughout time, highlighting the sources of Western concepts of God, the historical overview, and the divine attributes of God. It also includes a list of references for further reading on the subject. This is particularly helpful for my project because it provides a quick look at how the perception of God was changing.
Behold, the slow but sure narrowing of a project focus:
I've been thinking a lot lately about DTR's—a BYU-slangronym for "Define the Relationship." Typically, this is a term we use to describe a conversation that establishes a relationship status (or dissolves the hope of one). A relationship definition is built upon the definition of Person A's feelings for Person B, and the definition of Person B's feelings for Person A. It is also built upon the definition of Person A and the definition of Person B. Can Person A have a relationship with Person B without being able to, in some terms, define Person B? Without being able to define their feelings for Person B?
I'd argue that it's pretty difficult. If you can't define something, how can you have a relationship with it? To have a relationship is "the state or fact of being related; the way in which two things are connected; ..." (OED). I suppose it's possible to have a relationship without understanding it; just because two things are connected doesn't mean that we understand the way they are connected. But I would argue that it's very difficult to understand your relationship with something if you don't know how to relate to it, if you don't understand what it is.
So, to narrow my focus, I don't want to focus on the perceived relationship between man and God, but on the way that people defined God. For me, it's hard not to go that second step (which is such an easy jump), because when I think about how I define God, I immediately apply that to my relationship with Him. However, I think that focusing simply on definitions of God will be interesting.
This week I went to the Beauty & Belief exhibit in the MOA, and there was an interesting portion of the exhibit that showed the 99 Names of God. In Islam, God is the Creator, the Guardian, the All-Seeing, the Hidden, the Manifest, the Avenger, the Pardoner. Each of these names is part of the definition of who God is. This reminded me of the Renaissance depiction of God as the geometer:
This depiction of God reminded me distinctly of the 99 Names of God in Islam. There are various groups that speak of God the Artist, or God the Great Architect ... however, so far none of them seem to be rooted in the Renaissance/Early Modern Period (and Christianity) in the same way as this depiction of God the Geometer is. All this being said, I think there is still a lot to be understood about the Renaissance/Early Modern definition of God.
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