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The contents of the Supreme Being page were merged into God on August 2018. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.
Should the image used for the Christian God be changed?
After a quick back and forth edit between VenusFeuerFalle and I relating to the image used for God, we agreed to take this issue/topic to the talk page. I think the image representing the Christian God should be replaced from the current one, which depicts God in a humanoid form with facial-hair, to a more suitable one which depicts the Tetragrammaton YHWH יהוה, the name of God. I agree that the bearded depiction of God is a more typical artistic depiction of God in Western culture, but it is very biblically inaccurate. Many Christians consider him to be invisible, and it is generally believed he has no form. It is best to use an accurate image like the other Abrahamic religions use on this page. RileyXeon (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick introduction. I agree partly with the proposition. The "bearded man" may not be the best representation for the Christian God. Many theologicans, including Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, Augustine of Hippo, and deistic philosophers from Christian culture, do conceptualized God as an abstract entity. An example is the concept of God as the first mover in the Five Ways by Aquinas. However, I do not think that a personal name does much better than the depiction of God as a person. The image needs to be representative for the Christian concept of God, such as a symbol. Next, I would argue that the Tetragrammaton, even if used as a symbol or representation rather than a proper name, it poorly reflects Christian tradition, given that the Tetragrammaton is rarely used in Christian writings. The idea that the Tetragrammaton should be used by Christians might be a rather modern phenomenon and might be motivated by Christian Zionism:
The book is divided into three chronological sections: “The Eclipse of the Name” (roughly 300 bce–500 ce), “Times of Ignorance” (500 ce–1400 ce) and “The Rediscovery of the Name” (1400 ce–1700 ce). The first section derives its title from the fact that whereas the Tetragrammaton routinely appears in Jewish biblical texts, in both Hebrew and Greek, it virtually never appears in biblical texts of Christian origin, being represented instead by the surrogate kyrios, or, more precisely, by the distinctively Christian abbreviation ΚΣ. The implications of “eclipse” notwithstanding, however, the author makes the important point that this shift in scribal convention does not signal a lack of Christian interest in the Tetragrammaton.(
R. Kendall Soulen 2015) Although the author states that the lack of 'Yahweh' should not be used as evidence for its lack of importance, we see that the term is hardly representative for the concept of God in Christian tradition. The author also calls the time of absence of the Tetragrammaton a "time of ignorance". Althought he author interpretes the importance of 'YHWH' into the Christian tradition, the term is factually (almost) non-existent in traditional Christianity. Where might be a better suggestion for an image, which does accurately reflect Christian tradition. If no better one is aviable, I think the portray of God as a man will do it as well, due to its prominence in Western culture. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Depicting God as an old bearded man is very inaccurate and doesn't support biblical writings. Using the Hebrew name for God again would be far more suitable to use instead of a depiction which isn't supported. If it's more suitable maybe we could use an image of Jesus to replace instead? Jesus being God and having divinity is a key and common Christian belief, and an image of Jesus is already used on the Deity page. RileyXeon (talk) 02:56, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the current Michelangelo depiction. This isn't an article about biblical or Christian interpretations of God's appearance, it's about God as a single monotheistic entity and how he is or has been depicted across societies. Debating the Bible isn't relevant here. The depiction shown from Michelangelo is of one of the most famous depictions of the subject of this article ("God") in human history, probably the most widely recognizable, regardless of whether some Christian sects or sources may object that it represents what is "biblically accurate". It absolutely should remain.— Crumpled Fire • contribs • 21:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering if this article would benefit from a short section regarding the various definitions of God provided by religious traditions. I can provide one from the Westminster Shorter Catechism (a famous definition given which Anne of Green Gables quotes at some point) representing Presbyterianism, and another the Belgic Confession, a confessional standard of Continental Reformed Protestantism, both representing authoritative expressions of Reformed Protestantism which is a major form of Protestantism along with Anglicanism, Lutheranism and Baptist theology. These definitions also have Biblical citations for each point.
Westminster: 'God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.'
Belgic Confession: 'We all believe with the heart, and confess with the mouth, that there is one only simple and spiritual Being, which we call God; and that He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good and the overflowing fountain of all good.'
I believe a short and authoritative definition from each religious tradition would give readers a good idea of how God is conceived and also a useful point of comparison. Perhaps it could also be pointed out what doctrines or concept are taught in each definition, e.g. divine simplicity in the Belgic Confession ('one only simple and spiritual Being'). For this example, I would also mention that the Confession cites parts of Scripture such as Ephesians 4:6 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 as sources of this doctrine. Violoncello10104 (talk) 12:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Don't change the image of the Christian God (Trinity)
Image of the Christian God as of the current version (July 29, 2024) is the actual depiction of the Christian God. Don't change it with the painting of The Creation of Adam, also known as The Creation of Man, by Italian artist Michelangelo as it only consist the image of God the father. But the actual God in Christianity is represented through the the Christian Trinity, as a three faced head (Father, Son and Holy spirit). AimanAbir18plus (talk) 10:32, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, God in Christianity is a Trinity, but the depiction of the Most Holy Trinity (a 3-faced Jesus) currently is considered heretical even by the very church it came from. It is a very fringe depiction of the Most Holy Trinity, supported by practically no one.
@Bis-Serjetà?: I agree that choosing the tricephalous depiction of the Trinity is... rather odd. From my preliminary research, it appears to be theologically controversial, and was even condemned by popes Urban VIII and Benedict XIV.
I'm getting really tired of the endless fiddling with the gallery here in general. We need to select three or four representative depictions that cover the gamut and stick with them. Remsense ‥ 论07:46, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is WP:NOTFINISHED. It's fine to do iterative refinement.
As a practical matter, I suggest going with uncontroversial depictions (like my example below) to avoid unnecessary disputes. 50.221.225.231 (talk)
I'm a big fan of iteration, but iteration has to have direction or purpose. I wonder if we can do better still—while what it represents is certainly not controversial in Eastern Orthodoxy, the diagram is still particularly Western—I remember reading a bit about Byzantine diagrams a while back, it was really interesting. Remsense ‥ 论08:25, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
