Personal or Impersonal God?

I have been grappling with the different beliefs and perspectives concerning a personal or impersonal God, God within and God without.

I do not need to fully state the arguments here, as they are quite well known for those who believe in a God, but, in essence, many believe that God is personal, and will be aware and know them personally, and guide and care for them.

The opponents to this make the claim that if God were personal, why does God allow mass destruction and terrible tragedies to seemingly innocent and God loving/fearing people.

Alternatively, many believe that God is an overall impersonal universal energy that exists for us to connect to, understand and work with/through, hopefully in harmony to Gods universal laws.

I like and certainly support the latter belief, at least, and of course, I would gain great comfort from the former belief, so I try to test my thinking and experiences on both.

So I start off with the notion of one universal energy, present everywhere, which is creative and intelligent,knowing all, or if you prefer, you may chose the words omnipotent and omniscient.

This one universal creative intelligence is part, if not the heart, of every atom. So, not only is it in the spaces, so to speak, of the universe, but it is within every living cell, and atomic/molecular structure as well, at least. So this creative intelligence is in every form of matter and life that we know, including, of course, ourselves.

So, in simple terms, we are all part of, and our essence is made from, God stuff.
Maybe we are divinity within, but have no awareness of this. Indeed, many believe we are sinners, even 'worms of the earth' and we need to repent our sins. Yet, I simply love the Hindu greeting 'nameste' "I salute the divinity in you".

We have apparent freedom of thought and, therefore, choice of action and behaviour.

We can choose to believe that God is without and that we are needing to win Gods favour. In this case, I believe we think we are separate to God and, probably, that we are separate beings on this planet.We have no awareness of, or a sense of God connecting within.

And we can choose to believe that God is within and that we are connected and, a part of, God and our awareness turns inward and towards feeling, thinking and acting according to Gods inner laws.

I certainly think and feel God within. It's my enlightenment if you will. I feel this everyday and, wherever I am on this planet, whenever. I feel the same inner presence. Because I believe this for me, I also believe and see this in everyone. So I get a sense of God within everywhere.I also, therefore, get the sense that we are all connected as One, and that One is God. Some strive for this Oneness in different ways, in relationships, in striving for perfection whatever.

But evil, to me, is simply a major error in not 'knowing and feeling' this.
We are then not acting according to Gods laws but to our own illusions. This is true 'spiritual ignorance'.From this, develops greed, scarcity, fear and wrong actions and behaviours (some even horrific).

And error and/or tragic accident is simply not acting according to universal laws, perhaps in pure innocence, perhaps in unfortunate error, and we need to understand these universal truths.

So I think and feel that:

If we know an inner God, present in all, that is simply great
If we know an inner God, present in all, and as One, and if we act in harmony with this inner God and the good of all, that is perfect.

In this perfection, I believe that God can then be considered within and without, personal and impersonal.

Does this help? Does this confuse more? What do you say?

Ron Young