God's Body
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8200274 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William J Wainwright (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1974 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 470-481 |
| Publication date | 1974-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jaarel/xlii.3.470 |
| OpenAlex | W1978200468 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
HE belief that God has a body is by no means uncommon in the history of religious thought, nor is that belief confined to the primitive and unsophisticated. The Manichaeans, Tertullian, certain Egyptian anchorites, and the Mormons have all maintained that God has (or is) some particular body. Rimninuja and, more recently, Charles Hartshorne have suggested that the world is God's body. There are two reasons why these views deserve more attention than they usually receive. (1) Aquinas argued' that the root of the belief in God's corporeality is our inability to imagine God without using corporeal images. Be this as it may, there are other more respectable reasons for the belief. One may be convinced on philosophical grounds that all minds are, or must be, embodied and that, therefore, any divine minds which exist must also be embodied. Or one may be convinced of the truth of materialismthat all real substances are bodies. (Tertullian was heavily influenced by Stoic materialism. The Mormon apologist Orson Pratt offers philosophical support for materialism and then proceeds to argue that if God is real, He is material.) Both of these positions have had a long history and are not to be dismissed lightly. (2) In view of the renewed interest in Indian religious thought and the increasing importance of process theology, any important position held both by a thinker of Rkmninuja's stature and by such a prominent process philosopher as Hartshorne deserves serious consideration. In Section I, I will examine the thesis that God is a body. In Section II, I will consider the view that God has a (particular) body, and in Sections III and IV, I will discuss the notion that the world is God's body.
Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 2010 (27) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |