I've been coming up against this problem constantly in my book that I'm writing. You see, I'm a bit (a lot) of a grammar nerd. (Don't judge me now if you find a mistake or two - trust me, if I see a mistake, even if it's years old, I will EDIT that shit.) I appreciate the proper usage of grammar but can totally appreciate improper grammar if there is proper intent for the misuse.
So, God. Or god?
I have always referred to the Christian God in print and in thought with a capital G. It is not just correct usage to capitalize the first letter of a proper noun, it is also acceptable when emphasizing the singularity or ultimateness (totally not a word) of the noun in question. In the instance of the Biblical God, from a literary standpoint, the capitalization works both ways. The book maintains that this is not only his name, but that he is the ultimate, supreme "God".
Furthermore, the capital letter signifies reverence. Christians capitalize God to illustrate his Holiness and Sovereignty above all things.
It always annoyed me when people, believers or non-believers, referred to God as god, not just because it was irreverent but because it seemed grammatically incorrect. It was a proper name, and it reflected his One True Godness. Thus the capital letter. Like calling my mom Mom, my One True Mom. (Those were intentional sentence fragments, by the way. Fragments are unacceptable in formal writing but acceptable when intentionally spoken colloquially. I mention this, because the moment one claims to be a grammar nerd, all the other grammar nerds rush in to prove that they are nerdier. I am pointing out my intentional errors to justify them before the Holy Judgment Seat of Fellow Grammar Nerds. You must know the rule in order to break the rule is my favorite rule.) I also refer to Allah with a capital A and Zeus with a capital Z (to get back to the subject).
I no longer attribute ultimateness (there really should be an actual word for this) to the Christian God, so no longer do I feel the need to unnecessarily capitalize pronouns like "He" when referring to "Him", which was always pretty questionable from a grammatical standpoint anyway. But what about the name "God" itself? Should it still be capitalized?
I'm thinking of it like this:
1. It is extremely unlikely that there is actually any kind of "God" with a capital G - that is to say, an over-ruling singular God above gods, a one Power that oversees all power in the unknown expanses of this universe and all other universes and all other unknown others. So to attribute to the word "god" a capital letter is incorrect, because such a being doesn't exist. It is incorrect unless I'm referring specifically to the possibility of such a God existing, in which a capital letter might actually be literarily valid. It would be similar to my capitalizing Power in that first sentence; it would be an emphasis on its supremacy. Like absolute Truth or the concept of True Love or some other Dickinsonian capitalized attribute.
2. When referring to the Christian God, it is understood that the capital letter refers to God being God's name, "God" here being an actual being or literary character, like Zeus or Athena. It would be grammatically incorrect to write Zeus as "zeus" or to refer to me as "lori". Even my spell checker is giving me angry red squiggle lines for not capitalizing those two proper nouns. So in reference to this Biblical character, a capital G is legitimate.
3. Yet the very act of a writer taking a common noun like "god" and attributing to it a capital letter implies that the writer gives credence to that noun's supremacy, that this particular god deserves the name God, as if one church deserved to be recognized as the Church or one broccoli on my plate deserved to reign as the one supreme Broccoli. It seems to accept that belief that one specific god deserves the title God. That annoys me.
4. But to refer to the Christian God with a lowercase g annoys me in a grammatical and literary sense. Using Allah as an example, "Allah" simply means "God" in Arabic, but to call him allah seems to be the same as saying zeus or lori. It's still a name, even if it's a presumptuous one. Therefore when referring to the Muslim Allah as with the Christian God, surely the correct rule would be to use a capital letter. It goes back to being a proper noun, even if it is usurping a common noun in doing so. Yes, it's annoying that it allows the connotations of Holiness and Sovereignty to creep into the meaning, but the alternative would be fairly inaccurate grammatically. GAH!!!
If you've borne with me thus far, you'll (maybe) understand my (completely unimportant) conundrum. To capitalize or not? I think in practicality it turns out looking something like this:
The god of the Bible liked to destroy stuff.
Then God said, "Let there be light", which is how we got light.
I used to be mad at God when I thought he had abandoned me, but then I realized there was never any god in the first place. God never abandoned me, because that god never existed.
Totally cleared up now, yeah...?
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