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Single Idea 23041

[filed under theme 28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity ]

Full Idea

God is identical with the self of every man in the sense of being the realisation of its determinate possibilities.…In being conscious of himself man is conscious of God and thus knows that God is, but only in so far as he knows what he himself really is.

Gist of Idea

God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self

Source

T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:226-7), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II

Book Ref

Muirhead,John H.: 'The Service of the State: T.H. Green' [John Murray 2021], p.43

A Reaction

Does this, by the transitivity of identity, imply the identity of all individual men? Do we all contain identical possibilities, which converge on a unified concept of God? I always take the monotheistic God to far exceed mere human possibilities.

The 27 ideas from T.H. Green

23029 Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23051 Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH]
23042 National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23048 The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23028 The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23054 Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23046 States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH]
23047 Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23049 Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH]
23035 The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH]
23037 People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH]
23043 All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH]
23038 People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23036 The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23039 A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23031 God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH]
23050 The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH]
23032 What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23033 Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23045 Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH]
23027 Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23030 Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23044 All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23034 The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23040 If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH]
23041 God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH]
23052 Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH]