Christianity
Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a "personal god" is integral to the Christian outlook, but that one has to understand it is an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."
In the case of the Christian belief in the Trinity, whether the Holy Spirit is an impersonal god – that is, a "force...often likened to electricity" by some – or a personal one, is the subject of dispute, with experts in pneumatology debating the matter. Jesus (or God the Son) and God the Father are believed to be, by different groups, two persons or aspects of the same god: Jesus is of the same ousia or substance as God the Father, manifested in three hypostases or persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit).
Moreover, the belief in Holy Communion and Last Supper implies an intensely communal understanding of religion which very often goes beyond the boundaries of individuality, in what theologians have called the "mystical body".
Nontrinitarian Christians dispute that Jesus is a "hypostasis" or person of God.
Read more about this topic: Personal God
Famous quotes containing the word christianity:
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We can never see Christianity from the catechism:Mfrom the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood- birds we possibly may.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)