A History of God summary

Yahweh had initially been conceptualized by the Israelites as their god of war. But, before long, they developed a distinct, universal vision of him. But just what was it that made Yahweh so special?

For starters, Yahweh, unlike pagan deities, tended to reveal himself through personal, concrete encounters. He didn’t have a mythology per se like other gods, which is why he had prophets like Isaiah with whom he conversed.

The biggest revolution in the idea of a single God came with Jesus, but very little is known about his life: Mark’s Gospel, the first written account, was only produced some 40 years after Jesus’s death.

Many Jewish people in Palestine saw Jesus as the Messiah, the “anointed one,” the descendant of King David. Jesus had proclaimed in the towns and villages of Galilee that the Kingdom of God was coming.

Christianity started out as a small cult in the Roman Empire, but it spread rapidly and steadily. By the fourth century, thanks to the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Christianity had effectively become the state religion.

But despite this, Christianity remained a puzzling faith.

While we know little about Jesus’s life, the same can’t be said of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born around 570 in the bustling Arab city of Mecca, in modern-day Saudi Arabia. He was part of the Quraysh tribe and, as such, worked as a merchant in the city. At the time, Arabs worshipped pagan deities, including their High God Allah.

The Arab world expanded through a series of conquests across the Middle East, Africa and southern Europe, but the Koran was not forgotten. The ninth century, in particular, saw a blossoming of culture and education, and a new Islamic movement of intellectuals heralded a new scientific era. These men dedicated their lives to Falsafah – “philosophy” – and were consequently known as the Faylasufs.

The Faylasufs identified Allah with the Greek philosophers’ conception of God. What’s more, they also recognized rationalism as the highest form of religion. As such, just as Aristotle had done, they tried to prove – by means of logical deduction – the existence of God.

From their very inception, the three monotheistic religions thought of God in very personal terms. The Jewish and Christian God creates, destroys, loves, judges and punishes. In other words, he has attributes common to all humans. Equally, Allah sees, hears and judges.

However, though a personal God might be relatable, he can be dangerous too.

There’s little doubt that all three monotheistic religions saw massive upheavals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Jewish community in Spain, whose existence had been safeguarded by the Muslim states there, suddenly found themselves under attack from crusading Christians in the fifteenth century.

The end of the sixteenth century ushered in a new scientific and technological age. Its impact on conceptions of God was colossal, to say the least.

Now, people no longer feared change – they embraced it. What’s more, a new belief in development and a new narrative of progress were set firmly in place. New technologies had arrived, productivity increased and people felt more in charge of their own affairs. Capitalism too was seen as a new liberating force cut from the same cloth.

You might think that atheism means a rejection of God outright – but that’s not strictly true. Atheism actually involves repudiating the current conception of God. Historically, that has meant people abandoning conceptions of the divine if they see them as having no relevance. As a result, atheism was already a phenomenon with a long pedigree by the time it really took off in the nineteenth century.

In the Christian West, for instance, the traditional figure of God now seemed a poor fit for the modern world.

Whichever way you look at it, the history of God has been long and eclectic – and is still being written today.

One thing is certain though – times are changing, and old conceptions of God no longer fit the times. This begs the question: beyond the present moment, how will God survive?