A possibly new perspective on this thing that we know as God.

[Belacqua]

So I guess this topic ran it's course.

This conversation has been interesting.

Have a good one.

I'm familiar with some of the ideas you've been discussing here. I've never seen how they were expressed in Bahai, however. So that's interesting to me.

It's normal in Neoplatonism and Christian Neoplatonism to say that God is the Good, and that wherever we see good in the world this is a reflection or embodiment of God. And I've often read that since humans aren't capable of seeing the Good in its totality, that we know of God through his various names. The list of names you gave earlier was longer than what I've seen before, and that was interesting to me.

However in Platonism, embodiments of the Good are not limited to people. That is, the divine shows itself in anything that is good. Dante is at pains to show that the kind of good which appeals to us varies from person to person -- someone might be most attracted to the beauty of music, while another might devote his life to the goodness of justice. But he's clear that both of these attractions are entryways to God. 

Note, though, that beauty (which is also Plato's primary example) is not only human beauty. The beauty of art or music is as much a portion of God as the beauty of a beautiful person. 

So I don't see yet why you're saying the divine is only a characteristic of people, and not of, say, landscapes or starry skies. Or perhaps you limit the divinity of beauty to human creations, ruling out natural products but including human creations like symphonies. This would be something I'm not familiar with. 

Thanks in advance for your explanation!