We have seen that detachment from the image in worship, which nevertheless retained the search for the face of God, led to the knowledge of a personal God and, thus, in general to the knowledge of what a person is. At this point the paths of religious history divide. The great religious systems that do not know God as a person, like Neoplatonism and Buddhism or even fundamental forms of Hinduism, still know of deities to which one can pray, which can help or also harm. These gods can be represented in images; they have a face; they are in some sense persons. But these “gods” are not God. They
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