Musings about God

Painting of God in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican An Ethical Musings’ reader has asked me to elucidate my understanding / definition of God. She cited a statement in a recent Ethical Musings post as an example of how I understand or define God: “God (the energy, light, love, etc., which permeates all existence).” In her email she also quoted another cleric’s definition of God as “Ultimate Reality,” a phrasing that I sometimes use. She finds those definitions overly vague. She’s also troubled by frequently hearing sermons that suggest God is someone who "loves us", "cares", etc. She wonders how energy, light, or ultimate reality can "love" or "care"? She’s also concerned that characterizing God's actions as loving or caring anthropomorphize God, i.e., attribute human traits or characteristics to God, perhaps most infamously imagining God as a big old man perched on a cloud. Answering her questions requires disentangling several theolo