The God Concept: Person, Principle, and the Life That Animates All
This teaching carries a simple intention: to offer clarity that leads to effective living.
God sits at the centre of human life—whether acknowledged consciously or not. Every pursuit of meaning, morality, purpose, and destiny eventually touches this question:
Who, or what, is God?
To live effectively, one must first understand rightly.
Two Ways Humanity Has Understood God
Across cultures and centuries, humanity has approached God through two primary lenses:
- God as a Person
- God as a Principle
Each perspective attempts to describe the same Reality. Each contains insight. Each also carries limitations when held exclusively.
Truth is not determined by sentiment, but by effectiveness—by what brings clarity, order, responsibility, and life.
God as a Person
To view God as a Person is to imagine a sentient Being with awareness, will, intention, and relational capacity. This view emphasises prayer, communication, moral accountability, and divine intervention.
For many, this concept provides comfort, meaning, and a sense of relationship.
Yet when taken literally and exclusively, this perspective often introduces difficulty.
Limitations of the Personal Concept
When God is imagined strictly in human terms, several distortions arise:
- Anthropomorphism
God is reduced to human emotions, preferences, and reactions.
- Separation
God is perceived as distant—above, outside, or apart from life.
- Dependency
Responsibility subtly shifts away from the individual toward divine favour or punishment.
- Fear-based morality
Life becomes governed by reward and punishment rather than understanding.
Many inherit this concept early in life, not through inquiry, but through tradition. When unexamined, it often produces confusion, fear, and irresponsibility rather than maturity.
God as a Principle
Another way of understanding God is as Principle—the underlying Reality, Law, or Life that animates all existence.
From this perspective, God is not a form among forms, but the formless essence from which all form proceeds.
God is not something you encounter occasionally. God is the Life by which you exist continually.
The Life Principle
All creation inherits the nature of its source.
If God is infinite, then the qualities of God—intelligence, responsiveness, creativity—are infinite. These qualities appear in creation in degrees, personalised through form, yet sourced from the same formless Reality.
Scripture names this Reality simply as I AM—without predicate.
“I AM” is not an object. It is Pure Being.
Scripture Reconsidered
When scripture says:
- “The Kingdom of God is within you”
- “God dwells in you”
- “In Him you live, move, and have your being”
It does not describe a physical indwelling of one person inside another.
It is revealing a spiritual truth:
God is the Life Principle animating all living things.
A king dwells in his kingdom. If the Kingdom is within, then the King must be understood as Principle rather than form.
Form and Formlessness
God is not a person because a person is a form, and form implies limitation.
Yet God expresses personality through persons (forms).
Each human being is a concentration of divine intelligence and responsiveness, uniquely expressed. This explains both unity and individuality without contradiction.
God is not made in man’s image. Man is an expression of God’s nature.
Responsibility Restored
When God is understood as Principle rather than a distant Person, something important happens:
Responsibility returns to the individual.
Life is no longer something that happens to you at the discretion of an external deity. Life becomes something you participate in through consciousness, alignment, and understanding.
This does not eliminate reverence. It deepens it.
Integrating Both Understandings
Wisdom does not demand rejection. It demands integration.
A mature understanding of God allows for:
- Personal devotion without superstition
- Principle without abstraction
- Relationship without dependency
- Unity without loss of individuality
God can be approached personally, while understood principally.
A Quiet Orientation
This teaching is not meant to argue theology. It is meant to restore clarity.
Sit with this recognition:
God is not distant from life.
God is the Life by which I live.
Let understanding mature gently.
A Closing Reflection
How has my concept of God shaped my sense of responsibility?
Where might fear have replaced understanding?
What changes when God is understood as Life rather than distance?
Thank you, for choosing this.