Conceptions of God

Conceptions of God are accounts of whether God exists, what God is like, and how God relates to the world. They range from personal creator deities to abstract or impersonal ultimate realities.

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Theism: Belief in at least one God or deity. The broad position that includes many conceptions of God.
Divine providence: God's governance or sustaining care of the world and its events. It describes God's continuing relationship to creation.
Atheism: The absence of belief in God or the belief that no God exists. It rejects or withholds the central claim that God exists.
Plato: An ancient Greek philosopher whose dialogues shaped Western metaphysics and theology. His account of the Good influenced later ideas of ultimate reality.
Apophatic theology: An approach to theology that describes God chiefly by denying finite attributes. It treats the limits of language as central to speaking about God.
Monotheism: Belief in one God. It narrows the question of God's nature to a single deity.
Divine action: The ways God is understood to act in the world. It frames how divine agency might affect natural and human events.
Agnosticism: The view that God's existence is unknown or unknowable, or suspension of judgment about it. It differs from commitment to a definite answer about God's existence.
Aristotle: An ancient Greek philosopher who developed influential accounts of substance, causation, and the unmoved mover. His unmoved mover became a major model for philosophical conceptions of God.
Via positiva: A theological approach that describes God through affirmative names and attributes. It contrasts with approaches that emphasize what cannot be said of God.