God-human-God relationship
pp. 139-165
in: , The human being, the world and God, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
The question is how God or ultimate reality could be understood. Is it even possible to grasp or model God or ultimate reality? In Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Reality (Diller and Kasher 2013) Robert Cummings Neville hypothesizes that "ultimate reality is an ontological act of creation, the terminus of which is everything determinate, constituting and unfolding in spacetime" (2013: 19). Defined as such, he argues, ultimate reality cannot be modeled and anything that can be modeled cannot be ultimate reality. The question is, if we accept this definition, how could human beings and ultimate reality or God interact? Or, in the words of Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (1924–2006), "[h]ow, in the light of the sciences, to conceive of God's relation to the world as it is now perceived to be and to be becoming" (2004). Hence, in this chapter some models of God or ultimate reality will be presented and discussed; I will also explore how a relationship between humans and God or ultimate reality could be understood. Furthermore, philosophical problems such as the problem of time and of free will in relation to ultimate reality will be investigated.