Concept of God

The concept of God, or the 'God concept', is the logical, or mental, picture of an 'ideal being', or the 'greatest possible being'. It is a natural concept, in that it is the opposite of what we creatures know of all other beings, including of ourselves: we are not the ideal, or the greatest possible, being.

Features of the God concept

Perhaps the first feature of the 'God concept' is ontological originality. This feature is that which is the opposite of ontological contingency. Everything we observe of the world around us is contingent upon, that is, caused by, something else; and, we have a natural sense that there must be something which is, in itself, not caused by anything, but which exists necessarily and always.

A second feature of the 'God concept' is ontological immutability, or the unchanging-ness of the ideal being. If the ontologically original being changed in its own being, in its own nature, then it would not be the ideal being, and, moreover, its change-ability would mean that there is nothing that can be strictly true or good, and, thus, nothing that can be strictly false or bad. In contrast to the 'God concept', and especially to ontological immutability, there is postmodernism and paganism, which are philosophical worldviews in which there is always a struggle to determine what is strictly true and good by the sole means of compromise, a means which otherwise is known as pragmatism. Ontological immutability is the essence of universal truth, and, hence, of truths about the nature of a given kind of contingent being.