God and the gods: person vs. attributes

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Perception

When we come to talk about the divine subject, the notion of the “affecting presence” emerges as particularly important. The perception that humans have of the divine is the expression of their stance vis-à-vis this presence. It is a question of the polarity between the two spheres.

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Person vs. attributes

Person: not as a philosophical concept, but as the nature of the subject that activates the affecting presence: what is the perception of God in monotheism that makes it differen from that of ani indivisual god in polytheism? What justifies distinguishing between God with a capital G and god witn a lower case ‘g’?

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God as person

Distinctive traits in the perception of God:

1. living god
2. identity of trigger behind multiple perceptions: god of Abraham
3. coherence over time
4. resistance to demotion
5. inescapibility of the trigger (Wrestling of Jacob, Jeremiah resistane to vocation
6. claims to the future: promises
7. faithful god -- the more problems, the more breaches of promises

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“gods” as attributes

[TEXT TO BE WRITTEN]

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The divine subject in itself

The divine subject in itself is perceived as:

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Coherence

Perception of divine being coherent throughout the biblical record – stated explicitly (god of Abraham for Moses) and effectively through how it affect the different modalities of reception

Even in NT (Jseus “not even an iota”).

Cf. theme “Coherence”.