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God and the Problem of Loneliness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John G. McGraw
John G. McGraw
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH4B 1R6.
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Extract

As Milton reminds us, the first thing God named not good was loneliness. In proclaiming it not good for man to be alone, was God but projecting his own loneliness? In the words of James Weldon Johnson, God stepped out on space, looked around and said, ‘I'm lonely’.Johnson's concept of God may be very ‘spaced-out’ but the notion of a monotheistic God as lonely is far from preposterous. A God endlessly immersed in the contemplation of its solitary perfection (à la Aristotle, for example) would be an isolation anything but splendid. Such a being might be perfect as an abstract essence, but it would be perfectly alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 319 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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