In the Vedic tradition, God and the soul have the same essential nature called sat-chit-ananda or right, truth, and good. Nobody wants to be lied to, face injustice, or be unhappy. Therefore, nobody can be an atheist if their definition of God is truth, right, and good. Conversely, all those with alternative definitions are atheists, even if they call themselves believers, because their belief differs from their own nature.

Under alternative definitions, a person denies the truth, right, and good in different ways, then faces deceit, injustice, and unhappiness in different ways, and then proclaims himself to be an atheist. That is actually progress-rejection of incorrect definitions of God paves the way for the correct definition.

Theology is based on self-knowing in the Vedic tradition, which makes it rational and experiential. We can know God by knowing ourselves through meditation, by the philosophy of truth, right, and good, by finding peace through a life of truth, right, and good, and by contrasting it to the disturbed lives lived under alternative definitions. Knowing God through this rational and experiential process is the frontier of theology, different from the speculative and/or coercive methods widely employed at present.