Introductory comments

Needless to say, the concept ‘God’ is by no means an exclusively Christian or even Judaeo- Christian notion. It is one shared by many peoples and many religions. However, the way in which God is conceived differs from religion to religion. In some cases – for example the Christian notion of God – the differences are significant ones, causing major problems for those not belonging to that faith. In other cases – for example the Jewish and Muslim one – the differences are not so grave (as far as I can judge as an outsider).

What is specific to Christianity is the idea that God has a threefold inner life. This is the famous doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine that within the one undivided divinity there are three ‘persons’ (for want of a better name): Father, Son and Spirit.

However, we need to remember that Christianity also has much in common with the concepts many other religions have of God.

Not all theologians would agree with this statement. Karl Barth, for example, held that the only concept of God that could claim to reflect God at all is the Christian one. The basis for this claim is that God is so different from the world that none of our concepts can reflect what God is like. All we can do is use the concepts God has used to describe what God is like. We find those concepts in the Christian scriptures, concepts such as Father, Son and Spirit. Hence only those concepts reflect the real God and Christianity's view of God has nothing in common with those of other religions.

Barth's views unleashed a major debate amongst Protestant Christian theologians. At the heart of the debate were two issues.

First of all, can the human mind come to know God by reflecting on the world around us? Many theologians, arguing especially from texts such as Romans 1:19ff, held that it could. So strongly do certain Christians (for example Roman Catholics) hold to that conviction that for them it is a dogma of their Christian faith that our minds can know God by contemplating creation. The traditional ‘proofs for the existence of God’ are, moreover, based on that conviction, although not all who hold this conviction would hold that God's existence can be proved rationally.