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Gods, Spirits, and Forms (Oh My!)

[Originally posted to Themestream on 2001-04-04.]

I sat around with some friends¹ one night, discussing various things, when the question was raised, "What makes a god?"

Given my usual penchant for misinterpreting questions literally, it's not surprising that the thought passed through my mind of some great cosmological factory "making gods" on an assembly line. But once that humorous thought had passed, I began to think about the question being asked, which might be rephrased as "What makes a god a god?" or more simply "What is a god?"

This wasn't the first time I'd considered this question. It's essentially asking for a definition, and as a philosopher I always try to start by nailing down my terms with good definitions. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for godhood? I never have found a good answer for this question, but I've stumbled across some interesting ideas while trying.

I had asked essentially the same question before, but coming at it from a different angle. Gods are commonly thought of as spiritual entities (except by fans of the literal "old man with a beard on a throne" theory of divinity). But so, for that matter, are spirits. So, what's the difference? How is the distinction between the two made?

I was reminded of a conversation I once had with a Japanese friend of mine, Mika, who was my tutor for Japanese 101. I've read a great deal about Shinto, the native pagan religion of Japan. In fact, it was my interest in Shinto that led to my more general interest in Japanese culture and ultimately to the Japanese 101 class in question. Mika had previously been impressed with my knowledge and understanding of Shinto, which I had demonstrated while helping her answer a question another student had asked (her English wasn't bad, but sometimes she could use a little help), and I was happy to have earned her respect.

Alas, I am not perfect, and one day I really put my foot in it. Someone had asked about "kami", which is the Japanese word for god or gods.² Now, you have to understand, in Shinto, the kami aren't necessarily powerful beings living on some metaphysical plane. Sure, there are heavenly kami like Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun and ancestor of the imperial line. But there are also kami in the rivers, the forests, the mountains, and even of dead ancestors. In fact, it is said that there are over two million kami in Japan. One would be tempted to say that, in the cases of the kami of, say, a particular waterfall, this would be better translated as the spirit of the waterfall, rather than the god of the waterfall. And that's pretty much what I said.

I was immediately and forcefully corrected. "No, kami are gods." She didn't say this loudly or all that forcefully, but for Mika this was an incredible statement. She was always much more circumspect in how she phrased things, reluctant to directly contradict anyone about anything. Such a direct statement of disagreement from her was unheard of. "However," she went on to say, "there are big gods and there are little gods."

Metaphorically speaking, I tend to have my head in Greece and my heart in Japan, but physically, all my parts are in North America. On this continent, the natives are known for religious beliefs that center around spirits. From ancestor spirits to animal spirits all the way up to the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit in particular sounds an awful lot like what many would call a god. When Black Elk describes the Great Spirit, it sounds an awful lot like Spinoza's (pantheistic) God.

A few days after being chastised by Mika, it occurred to me that these two perspectives are opposite and identical. One used the word "god" to describe everything from "big gods" to "little gods". The other used the word "spirit" to describe exactly the same range of things. But regardless of the word used, both described an unbroken spectrum, with no natural breakpoint to divide them into two different categories.

It was then that I, too, gave up on distinction between gods and spirits. It's a meaningless distinction. Big gods and small spirits. Great spirits and little gods. Where does one draw the line? If there's no essential difference, no fundamental characteristic to separate them, then why bother? Maybe we could use the words as a indication of scale, understanding that it may be a fuzzy distinction in the middle, but to do so simply confuses the issue, obscuring the fundamental unity of nature these things share.

Some time later, I hit upon another interesting correspondence. Sometimes animal spirits are described not as being the spirits of particular animals but as highly idealized versions, or as representing a particular idealized attribute that is characteristic of the animal in question. This idealization struck a chord with me as a Platonist, and I wondered if this wasn't essentially just another way of describing what Plato called the Forms.³ Considering the universal nature of the Forms, it would not surprise me to see other cultures coming up with their own expressions of the same basic idea.

Now, Plato didn't perceive the Forms as being particularly active, but my own shamanic experience would suggest otherwise. They can be quite willful at times, and for those of us who know them, we ignore their desires at our peril. I wonder, then, if there isn't a fundamental connection between what Plato called Forms and what others call spirits, or kami, or gods. Indeed, could it be that they are also fundamentally the same?

Maybe, maybe not. I realize that as a neoplatonic technopagan, my own brand of shamanic practice may be somewhat unconventional, but I'd be interested in hearing what others think of these speculations. Any thoughts?

Footnotes:

1. <GRATUITOUS PLUG> Among these friends was Rev. Chuck Waibel, a contributor to this forum. Check him out! </GRATUITOUS PLUG>

2. Japanese nouns don't have different forms for singular or plural.

3. Actually, Plato called them Eidos or Ideas. However, today we use the word "idea" to describe mental things, unreal things in our minds, whereas Plato's Ideas are mind-independent things with a greater reality than anything else in existence. Because of this, in order to avoid confusion, most translators substitute the word "Forms" for "Ideas". I dislike the practice, and would rather simply explain what Plato means by "Idea", but that's really beyond the scope of this article.