Some outstanding theological clarification on a vital topic from WmJas Tychonievich. What William calls the Supergod conceptualisation is what I have blogged about here under the name 'omni' God - that is, the idea that our God is abstractly defined as omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent etc.
By contrast, I believe in God as described in the New Testament (and the Old) who is The Creator and Our Father. Scripture does not use abstract terms from Greek and Roman philosophy to pre-define God; God is known by us as a person - not a set of attributes into-which the person of God must (for some reason) be hammered.
What William and I share is a foundation in Mormon theology - William due to upbringing, and me due to having discovered Mormon theology in middle age. But, for whatever reasons, you will seldom hear Mormons arguing against the Supergod concept in the kind of ultra-logical, no-holds-barred fashion that WmJas approaches the subject.
Yet, this is an extremely important matter; because many people are (permanently) deterred from becoming a Christian by the insistence of mainstream churches that the omni concept of God is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. For most Catholics and Protestant priest, pastors and theologians alike: if you don't believe in Supergod then you are not a Christian.
I regard this claim as lazy, incoherent, deadly nonsense; and the fact that so many Christians for so many centuries have stuck with it makes no difference. It was, in my opinion, this intransigence over an incoherent assertion that led to the rise of the major monethistic rival to Christianity - which has now outstripped Christianity in size.
Christianity's most formidable rival asserts the much-more-coherent abstract omni-deity; that is not necessarily nor always Good - according to human evaluations; and is not our loving Father whom we may know personally. If the omni-God is insisted-upon and given priority by Christians, the rational result will be a Christianity that is a second-rate version of its rival.
If an individual Christian is happy with the omni God and it does not spoil their Christianity, then fine. We are not all called upon to attain coherence.
My objection is the exclusivist preaching of philosophy at the expense of religion; and the insistence that church members assent to non-sense.
In practice, most Christians fudge the question in real life; and also in practice many or most Christian laity do not believe, and never have believed, in Supergod - but instead implicitly the benevolent Father Creator, such as I (and William) regard as true.
Anyway, WmJas has written an essay that I would have loved to write - so I endorse it without reservation.
