The phrase "God as we understand him" is

perhaps the most important expression to be

found in our whole AA vocabulary.  Within the

compass of these five significant words there

can be included every kind of degree of faith,

together with the positive assurance that each

of us may choose his own.

Scarcely less valuable to us are those

supplemental expressions --"a higher power" and

 "a power greater than ourselves."  For all who

deny, or seriously doubt a deity, these frame

an open door over whose threshold the

unbeliever can take his first easy step into a

relity hitherto unknownn to him -- the realm of

faith.   (Bill W, 1961)