Monotheistic polytheism

I have been thinking about God. Being a personal God, that we could relate to literally it is then safe to say that believers have different and may I say individualistic conception and understanding of God that depends upon the individual's need. There this psychological vacuum and this vacuum shapes or influence the conception of God. This is undeniable. The idea of God during childhood is different from that of adolescence, adulthood and old age. Each stage has its own development of the understanding of God and though they may be called developmental, but there is also that element of  conceptualization involved with it--creating personal ideas of God, I suppose it could be called revelation.

What I imagine this to be is that each individual have this doctrinal understanding of God as taught be religious teachers that becomes the framework or the skeleton for the developing idea of God. 

On the theological level we have the doctrine of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, perfection, uniqueness, immutability, transcendence, immanence and all that stuff and fancy words that no ordinary folks ever think about or may not even attempt to understand.  

There's the moral or ethical side of God being good, hates evil, punishes sinners by sending their souls to hell and rewarding the believers by sending their souls into heaven and that good and bad stuff that goes with ethics. 

There's the mythological and anthromorphical side to God like the talking bush (I think 'botanical' is more apt), the story of Noah, Jonah etc. The virgin birth, resurrection, etc. 

There's the historical controversies that killed a lot of people like the trinity (this is not a clear doctrine since this is not clearly taught in the scriptures), the hypostatic-union of the natures of Christ (again, the teachings are implied but not directly taught and I sometimes wonder if the first Christians even thought about these things); the war on the interpretation of the word "body and blood" in the Lord's Supper that also almost split a nation; baptism, clerics, church organization,...etc.

Then there's relational side of God, the master and servant, potter and the pot, father and son (and daughter, may I add). All these things (hmmm...did I forget something?) Ohh, I forgot the prophetic or the eschatogical things but, as complicated as things are already...let's just, let's leave the second coming and the end of the world alone fr the meantime.

As these characteristics or picture of God or idea of God are slowly assimilated in our mind, the idea then becomes too bulky and heavy and I don't think ordinary Christians even knew or bother to think about these stuffs, which, may i say, is very, very understandable.

Clearly many or most philosophers and scientists (may I add theologians who may like to play in theological arena but personally...I mean what can I say to a theologian who thinks of God as the ground of all being but that his foundations are shaken...)  could not accept such a personal being for a God. Which quite understandable because it smacks of polytheism.

Polytheism? yes, this is what I think it is. There's this two level of the understanding of God.

First is what is taught about God by the revelation of scriptures, whatever the scriptures maybe. God is presented together with his characteristics as defined by inspired revelation or the scriptures (or holy books). So, this is the superficial picture of God; the doctrines, the creeds, dogmas, etc. which gives an illusion of uniformity. I call it an illusion of uniformity because, like I said before, these theological concepts are too abstract for the common folks and that's why symbols are used to represent these concepts, but the oversimplification created by the use of symbols created more problems for the church, like the adoration of idols and icons.

The first layer, unfortunately, is superficial and may I add, resides in the cognitive faculty of the mind. This knowledge of God is what gives this idea of  unity or the idea of monotheism--that is worshiping one true God. well, this could be true at this level. 

The idea of a personal God is what gives me some discomfort because in espousing this idea that one an relate to God like relating to a father or a friend etc.somehow creates this secondary understanding of God to which most of the times is a self-ish conception of God. This has become a challenge because the unity or uniformity of God is also being diluted (or even polluted) by the diverse way in which God is being understood and related to.

So, there's this second level of grasping God and at this level, the identity of God is somewhat dissolved in the psychological...hmmm. At this level, we each have our own God--uniform at the top but diverse, different and unique at the personal level.

Of course one could argue that, like in a family, the chidlren have different idea about their father but this does not make the father different for each children. But then again...this analogy is inadequate because fathers are physical beings.

(Why o why do I even think about these things!)