A personal god is a deity who can be related to as a person instead of as an "impersonal force", such as the Absolute, "the All", or the "Ground of Being".
In the scriptures of Abrahamic religions, God is described as being a personal creator, speaking in the first person and showing emotion such as anger and pride, and sometimes appearing in anthropomorphic shape. In the Pentateuch, for example, God talks with and instructs his prophets and is conceived as possessing volition, emotions (such as anger, grief and happiness), intention, and other attributes characteristic of a human person.
Personal relationships with God may be described in the same ways as human relationships, such as a Father, as in Christianity, or a Friend as in Sufism.
Read more about Personal God: Anthropotheism, Christianity, Deism, Hinduism, Philosophical Theism, Judaism, Baha'i
Famous quotes containing the words personal god, personal and/or god:
“There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn’t written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“But the lightning which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. On one side elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and on the other part, thought, the spirit which composes and decomposes nature,—here they are, side by side, god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)