Marina asked:

If God exists and is anything like what He is said to be by traditional religion, then the world could not
be the way it is. Therefore, does God not exist or is the traditional view of religion incorrect?

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The idea that God exists, though engendered by Scholasticism in the Middle Ages, belongs more to
modern deism, which is conceptualistic, than to traditional religion. In the Jewish and Christian
religions, God does not exist as such, as a being among beings or as the Being of beings. God is
outside being. God is not a noun, rather a 'black hole' in language. This is not to say, at a more
populist level of religion, we can't speak of a God who 'is', rather than 'is not' or act likewise. But for
the philosophers of religion in tradition, the words of Gregory of Nyssa (c.330-395) are typical, "Every
concept formed by the intellect in an attempt to comprehend and circumscribe the divine nature can
only succeed in fashioning an idol, not in making God known" (Life of Moses). And yet, 'God' is no
mystery, in that the Jewish Bible expresses the absolute of thought about 'Him' and the New
Testament, is that — a testament to 'Him'. There is a reason for this, but that is another question.

Matthew Del Nevo
www.sictenon.com