Who is God? Is God perfect? How is God perfect?
The world’s religions have distinct views of God. Different peoples around the world each have their own concept of God, their own manner of thinking who or what God is. What may be an almighty creator in the Middle East would be the bringer of harmony in East Asia, or the very soul of the universe in the southern subcontinent of India. Whatever name this God is called by, this supreme entity always embodies perfection of some sort. There are four types of perfection in nature by which God in world religions prevail: wisdom, beauty, harmony and power.
Wisdom
The Ancient Greeks subscribe to the view of God as the divine wisdom that designed the workings of the cosmos. Known as the Logos, God is the supreme, infinite intelligence that designed the universe.
The Greek philosophers exemplify the kind of worship made to this God in plain, systematic exercise of reason. When a person thinks, when a human being attempts to understand life’s mysteries, and even more so when the human person discusses these things with fellow intellectuals, he lives up to the wisdom of the intelligent designer of the universe.
Beauty
Beauty is the idea of God in Hinduism. Not beauty that is pretty, but beauty that embodies essence, truth and meaning. A flower is beautiful, not because it looks beautiful, but because it is beautiful; because of the life and presence that lives within the flower.
The Hindu’s definition of God is beauty in the universal scope. In this concept, God is the soul of the world. Hindus call this God by the name Brahman. The earth, the sea and the sky would all be an illusion were it not for the soul that lives within them, the soul that is the true essence and beauty of the universe.
A person’s beauty rests in his soul. Hence, for the Hindus, the way to worship God is to be in touch with one’s own soul.
Harmony
The massive nation of China, as well as other countries in East Asia, professes to the view that God is the great ultimate, Tao by name, the supreme harmony that keeps the universe in balance. In this concept of God, the supreme being is the force that keeps the dichotomy of good and evil (Yang and Yin) in a dynamic equilibrium. God brings peace to the world by keeping things in order and harmony.
In the Chinese conception of God, a human person worships God by keeping the harmony within himself. By balancing the dichotomy of good and evil within him, the individual echoes the divine harmony, and consequently lives in tune with the wider universe.
Power
Power is the view of God in the ancient Canaanite culture, as well as in the later Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim religions. The very name of God, El, means “Power.” In this worldview, God is the Almighty, to whom belong all the power and glory in the world he created.
El did not create the universe all alone, though. In the old Canaanite mythology, the Almighty God first had to bring his wife, Asherah, to existence. The Heaven (El) and the Abyss (Asherah) made love, and gave birth to the seventy gods and goddesses of Canaanite mythology, thereby creating the universe. To the ancient Canaanite, God is the all-powerful being who, in a divine union, created the universe.
What Is God?
Power, harmony, wisdom and beauty are concepts of God among different cultures. Do you regard each religion to be worthy of respect? Or do you limit yourself to a single concept of God? Some people say that the more freely a believer opens himself to all faith, the healthier his religion becomes; since his way of seeing the world becomes more absolute, and his conception of God more universal and true. Would you personally open yourself to other worldviews?
