The Challenge of Defining God: Reality as the Only Absolute

Introduction

To define God is to step into a domain where language dissolves and certainty evaporates. For centuries, people have made attempts—some poetic, some dogmatic, some violent—to articulate who or what God is. Yet, as I stand here, I claim no absolute definition of God except one: reality. That’s it. I accept the truths and proven facts from religious texts and spiritual books, but only as far as they do not contradict the undeniable, the real. My lens is not colored by the supremacy of any tradition, and I refuse to entertain any idea—subtle or overt—that diminishes Blackness or upholds white supremacy. In this essay, I challenge you: define God. If all you have is reality, what else can you stand on? And if thoughts become words, and words become reality—or flow in any other direction—what power do we wield in naming the divine?

The Weight of Words and the Fabric of Reality

Words are not mere sounds or ink on paper. They are tools, weapons, bridges, and barricades. Every thought I have tries to become a word, and every word I utter shapes the world in which I move. Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, understood that language was a battlefield. That’s why the Panthers named their struggle: self-defense, not aggression; survival, not submission. To define God with words, then, is not a neutral act. It is to stake a claim on reality itself.

But what is reality? I know the taste of water, the ache of loss, the heat of the sun on my back. These are facts, not theories. No scripture, no doctrine, can deny them. Reality is the terrain on which I walk and fight. So when I hear people define God with metaphors or creeds, I ask: are you naming a reality, or are you escaping one? If God is anything, God must be as real as the blood in my veins and the struggle in my city.

Accepting Truths Without Absolutes

Religious texts—whether the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, or the wisdom of ancestors—offer truths and stories. Some are proven facts: a historical event, a moral insight, a psychological observation about human nature. I accept these. But I reject those elements that claim authority on the basis of being “unprovable”—miracles that violate reality, doctrines that demand my submission without evidence. My mind is open, but not empty. My spirit is willing, but not gullible.

This approach demands humility. It means I cannot claim God is a man or a woman, a force or a person, unless reality itself testifies to it. I can say God is love, if love is real. I can say God is justice, if justice walks our streets. But I cannot accept any definition that requires me to ignore what is true or to swallow what is false. That is not faith; that is surrender.

The Flow of Thought, Word, and Reality

There is a dance between thoughts, words, and reality. Sometimes I think first, then speak, and my words ripple out to shape what happens. Other times, reality smashes into me, forcing words into my mouth and thoughts into my head. This flow is not linear. It is a cycle, a feedback loop. In defining God, we must acknowledge this. When people say, “God is love,” they are not just describing; they are commanding, invoking, creating a reality in which love is divine. When people say, “God is wrath,” they are shaping a world where oppression is justified.

As a Black person in America, I know the violence of words that become reality. I know the danger of definitions handed down from on high, used to justify chains, bullets, and cages. That is why I am cautious. That is why my definition of God cannot be whatever the powerful say it is. My definition must be rooted in what is real, what is just, what is liberating.

Reality as the Only Absolute

If I must define God, I start and end with reality. Reality is not what I wish it to be; it is what is. If God is love, let it be a love that feeds the hungry, frees the captive, and heals the wounded. If God is justice, let it be a justice that overturns tables, not one that props up empires. If God is the universe, then let us honor every atom, every person, every struggle as sacred.

But I do not claim to know God fully. I do not trust any definition that ignores suffering or glosses over evil. I do not trust any God who demands my silence in the face of oppression. My God—if I have one—is reality itself: unyielding, undeniable, and always demanding my engagement.

Conclusion

The challenge to define God is a challenge to define ourselves and our world. If all I know is reality, then my definition of God is bound to what is true, what is proven, what is just. I refuse the easy answers of dogma and the empty promises of power. I hold fast to the struggle, the questions, the reality of lived experience. If God is anything, God is found in the real—the pain, the love, the fight for freedom. And so I ask you: with only reality in your hands, how will you define God? The answer is not in the sky, but in the world we build together, word by word, thought by thought, act by act.