God is very kind to us. How do we know this? Because He lets us cooperate in His saving work.
Noah, in days of old, was granted the privilege of building an Ark by which to save humanity from the flood.
Moses was privileged to give the law to the chosen people.
Judith was privileged to save Israel from an invader.
Esther was privileged to thwart a plot to wipe out the Jews.
Samuel was privileged to anoint David as King.
All these men and women were given privileges by God, to cooperate in salvation history and point towards Christ. Now that we are at Christ, the apex of history, we are given better (Colossians 2:17) privileges.
We have the privilege of spreading God's salvation to the ends of the Earth (Matthew 28:18-20).
We have the privilege of being persecuted and suffering (Luke 6:20-26); thereby “filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ”(Colossians 1:24).
But most of all, we have the privilege of participating on the one event in all history that matters most, the sacrifice of Christ. Through the Mass, we have a chance to participate in (Paragraph 1348) that one saving work of God. We reach across time to make present (Paragraph 1366) the one sacrifice (Paragraph 1367) of Christ. God gives us the opportunity to be united (Paragraph 1368) with the greatest work of history, our own redemption.
Further Reading: God saves Israel from starvation not by having food grow, but by using His servant Jacob (Genesis 45).
“God is absolute moral goodness or holiness.”
If you are trying to be good person, and I imagine you are if you are a regular reader this blog, you need to know what you are striving to become. You rarely make progress towards a goal if you don't know what the goal is. What does your goal look like?
This dogma is a statement of what a Catholics goal looks like. We are striving to become like God, to mold ourselves to Him so that we too can “be perfect as [our] heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God is the target towards which we aim.
Now, often times I've struggled because I don't know what God looks like. His moral perfection is beyond me. He can justly judge and give vengeance, because He knows all, but I cannot. How do I determine what I should mold myself to, and what is beyond me?
Luckily for me, God has given me Himself as an example. By coming as a man, I can see what this man should do. I can learn what to be justly enraged by (John 2:13-17), what to be saddened by (John 11:35), and so forth. By coming Himself to show us how to live He was able to show us what absolute moral holiness looks like in terms of one of us. All the Law and the Prophets could only point to what moral goodness looks like, Jesus enacted it (Matthew 5:17).
How then should we act? We should act like Jesus and lay down our lives. This may not be modern martyrdom or a crucifixion, but it is a call to sacrifice your life in the service of others. There are two ways to lose your life (Matthew 16:24-25), in death and in giving of all your time.
Therefore if we don't pray unceasingly (1 Thessalonians 5:17), if we don't give up all we have to follow Jesus (Mark 10:21), then we are not yet fully configured to Christ, and we will still have room for moral improvement.
Further reading: Stand firm in trying to be like Christ, don't give up! (Sirach 2)
This dogma is a statement of what a Catholics goal looks like. We are striving to become like God, to mold ourselves to Him so that we too can “be perfect as [our] heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God is the target towards which we aim.
Now, often times I've struggled because I don't know what God looks like. His moral perfection is beyond me. He can justly judge and give vengeance, because He knows all, but I cannot. How do I determine what I should mold myself to, and what is beyond me?
Luckily for me, God has given me Himself as an example. By coming as a man, I can see what this man should do. I can learn what to be justly enraged by (John 2:13-17), what to be saddened by (John 11:35), and so forth. By coming Himself to show us how to live He was able to show us what absolute moral holiness looks like in terms of one of us. All the Law and the Prophets could only point to what moral goodness looks like, Jesus enacted it (Matthew 5:17).
How then should we act? We should act like Jesus and lay down our lives. This may not be modern martyrdom or a crucifixion, but it is a call to sacrifice your life in the service of others. There are two ways to lose your life (Matthew 16:24-25), in death and in giving of all your time.
Therefore if we don't pray unceasingly (1 Thessalonians 5:17), if we don't give up all we have to follow Jesus (Mark 10:21), then we are not yet fully configured to Christ, and we will still have room for moral improvement.
Further reading: Stand firm in trying to be like Christ, don't give up! (Sirach 2)
“God is absolute ontological goodness in Himself and in relation to others.”
This is the goodness of the Lord in relation to us, that He sets things right for us. We muddle and He un-muddles; we lose ourselves and He gathers us; we are wronged and He vindicates us. His goodness to us is that He repairs us.
Can there be a better focus of that goodness than Eucharist? During the Mass, the Priest says, “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life. ” He then follows that a very similar set of sentences about the wine.
In this we are reminded about the goodness of God for us, that He comes Himself to straiten out our crooked paths. He gives us the bread and wine, it is not the toil of our hands. He miraculously lets it become His very self (1 Corinthians 11:29) to meet not only our physical needs but also our spiritual. The fact that God decides to appear to us in the form of bread and wine means something. From Him we have our strength and mirth (cf. Psalm 104:15), both our body and soul is healed. God is good to us.
Oh, we might bewail our fate as Job or Habakkuk did, but in the end we, as they, recognize that if our breath is taken we return to clay (Psalm 146). We see that our source of life is God, because our plans, if not supported by Him, fail. We know that God is good to us, then, because He sustains us.
There is also one other part to this dogma, that God is good in Himself. As we know God's goodness to us in that He sustains us, we also know that God is good in Himself in that He doesn't need us. He made the world, He does not need some pittance that we might give back. Everything we offer to God is not for His sake, but for ours. This, then, is the root of why we try to love God as He loved us: love is not forced. If God needed us in some way, His love for us would be a forced love, and therfore no love at all! God alone can show us love, because God alone needs no one. His love is totally free.
Further Reading: Jesus multiplies the bread (thereby supplying the majority not through toil in a field) and describes it as His body (so much so that people left following Him for fear of cannibalism): thereby giving both physical sustenance as well as spiritual to the people (John 6).
Can there be a better focus of that goodness than Eucharist? During the Mass, the Priest says, “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life. ” He then follows that a very similar set of sentences about the wine.
In this we are reminded about the goodness of God for us, that He comes Himself to straiten out our crooked paths. He gives us the bread and wine, it is not the toil of our hands. He miraculously lets it become His very self (1 Corinthians 11:29) to meet not only our physical needs but also our spiritual. The fact that God decides to appear to us in the form of bread and wine means something. From Him we have our strength and mirth (cf. Psalm 104:15), both our body and soul is healed. God is good to us.
Oh, we might bewail our fate as Job or Habakkuk did, but in the end we, as they, recognize that if our breath is taken we return to clay (Psalm 146). We see that our source of life is God, because our plans, if not supported by Him, fail. We know that God is good to us, then, because He sustains us.
There is also one other part to this dogma, that God is good in Himself. As we know God's goodness to us in that He sustains us, we also know that God is good in Himself in that He doesn't need us. He made the world, He does not need some pittance that we might give back. Everything we offer to God is not for His sake, but for ours. This, then, is the root of why we try to love God as He loved us: love is not forced. If God needed us in some way, His love for us would be a forced love, and therfore no love at all! God alone can show us love, because God alone needs no one. His love is totally free.
Further Reading: Jesus multiplies the bread (thereby supplying the majority not through toil in a field) and describes it as His body (so much so that people left following Him for fear of cannibalism): thereby giving both physical sustenance as well as spiritual to the people (John 6).
"God is absolutely faithful."
God will never give up on you. He is absolutely faithful. “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15)
God is the very definition of faithful. At first in the Scriptures we see God's faithfulness taught to us by using the sacrament of marriage (cf. Hosea), later St. Paul flips that idea upon its head, and says that our marriages are actually based upon God's faithful love for us.
“So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:28-32)
God's faithfulness is the very model with which we base our faithfulness on. Even if a woman leaves her husband, or a child rejects his mother, God will not give up on you! All our human relationships contain some risk of being abandoned, yet this is not so with our God. The love a child has for its mother is merely a shadow of the love God has for us, similar to how the Earthly Temple was a shadow of the one to come (cf. Colossians 2:17 and Hebrews 10:1). The love of a wife and a husband are as dust compared to the love God has for us.
Now, any Franciscan Troubadour can tell you what it is like to fall in love, but how often do we listen? So ease deep into the recesses of your memory, and recall your first love. Recall the fluttering heart, the intensity of the passion! Recall that first flirtatious fluttering of the eyes, that first tossing of your intestines as your hands touched! Now know that the love you recall is but scum floating on a river compared to the pure brook of God's love. A love that flows out and purifies the salty water of our life, causing new life to spring up in our dead seas (Ezekiel 47:1-12). When we compare our love to God's, how fleeting is the feeling? With what swift feet those feeling fade and anger swells up that the toilet seat was left up one more time, or the dishes aren't put away precisely where they should be. God is far more faithful in His continuous love. God faithfully loves adulterous Jerusalem, and if she only turned around and went back, as the prodigal son, would God in His faithfulness restore her. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!” (Luke 13:34)
Further Reading: The child Israel grows up, spurns his Father, yet is taken back (Hosea 11).
God is the very definition of faithful. At first in the Scriptures we see God's faithfulness taught to us by using the sacrament of marriage (cf. Hosea), later St. Paul flips that idea upon its head, and says that our marriages are actually based upon God's faithful love for us.
“So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:28-32)
God's faithfulness is the very model with which we base our faithfulness on. Even if a woman leaves her husband, or a child rejects his mother, God will not give up on you! All our human relationships contain some risk of being abandoned, yet this is not so with our God. The love a child has for its mother is merely a shadow of the love God has for us, similar to how the Earthly Temple was a shadow of the one to come (cf. Colossians 2:17 and Hebrews 10:1). The love of a wife and a husband are as dust compared to the love God has for us.
Now, any Franciscan Troubadour can tell you what it is like to fall in love, but how often do we listen? So ease deep into the recesses of your memory, and recall your first love. Recall the fluttering heart, the intensity of the passion! Recall that first flirtatious fluttering of the eyes, that first tossing of your intestines as your hands touched! Now know that the love you recall is but scum floating on a river compared to the pure brook of God's love. A love that flows out and purifies the salty water of our life, causing new life to spring up in our dead seas (Ezekiel 47:1-12). When we compare our love to God's, how fleeting is the feeling? With what swift feet those feeling fade and anger swells up that the toilet seat was left up one more time, or the dishes aren't put away precisely where they should be. God is far more faithful in His continuous love. God faithfully loves adulterous Jerusalem, and if she only turned around and went back, as the prodigal son, would God in His faithfulness restore her. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!” (Luke 13:34)
Further Reading: The child Israel grows up, spurns his Father, yet is taken back (Hosea 11).
“God is absolute veracity.”
In my early days working as a draftsman at a Nuclear Power Plant, I was asked to “check against original” the plans that were being upgraded to the computer. This has always stuck with me as good analogy as to what truth is. Truth is the original that we check ourselves against. If we have an error, we could have a disaster, so our life is spent rooting out places in our life that doesn't square with the original, and fixing those areas.
God is truth. He is the original that we check ourselves against, to see if we are living rightly. He is that template external to ourselves, that we can overlay our vellum on to check and verify that we have accurately copied ourselves.
Truth is then, something which we must assent to even if we don't like it. The truth of the Earth revolving around the Sun, or the truth that whatever I throw into the air will come down, and maybe hit me on the head, will remain whether or not I agree to it. Some might argue about if such a truth exists in the realm of human actions, but certainly it is true in the realm of science. Pontius Pilate's “What is truth?” (John 18:38) surely underscores the idea that truth is flexible in our society, as it was seen as flexible by some even in Jesus' day. However, God is not flexible like that, He is Truth as science would see it – an unchanging reality that all else is compared to. This is why the dogma states God is absolute veracity, that He is absolute truth. This is a clear rebuttal to those who might claim god is a relative truth, dependent upon the believer and the times and places.
God is the absolute truth for us because He is the fashioner of all that exists. He alone knows the blueprints to the universe, he alone is that architect and builder of all that is, and it conforms to His plan. Therefore, we know that if we check our actions against His original plans then we can live a life more in conformity to how the world actually works. And what is His plan? It is the Law of Love, explained in Luke 10:25-28:
“There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
Further Reading: Wisdom (the discernment of what is right) guides us to salvation (Wisdom 10).
Note: This reading comes from what Protestants would refer to as an apocryphal text, but what I as a Catholic I would call a deuterocanonical text. If you can find this reading in your Bible, you have either a very old Protestant Bible (or a modern reproduction), or any Catholic Bible. For more information on this topic, and generally why we have the Old Testament we use today, see the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent.
God is truth. He is the original that we check ourselves against, to see if we are living rightly. He is that template external to ourselves, that we can overlay our vellum on to check and verify that we have accurately copied ourselves.
Truth is then, something which we must assent to even if we don't like it. The truth of the Earth revolving around the Sun, or the truth that whatever I throw into the air will come down, and maybe hit me on the head, will remain whether or not I agree to it. Some might argue about if such a truth exists in the realm of human actions, but certainly it is true in the realm of science. Pontius Pilate's “What is truth?” (John 18:38) surely underscores the idea that truth is flexible in our society, as it was seen as flexible by some even in Jesus' day. However, God is not flexible like that, He is Truth as science would see it – an unchanging reality that all else is compared to. This is why the dogma states God is absolute veracity, that He is absolute truth. This is a clear rebuttal to those who might claim god is a relative truth, dependent upon the believer and the times and places.
God is the absolute truth for us because He is the fashioner of all that exists. He alone knows the blueprints to the universe, he alone is that architect and builder of all that is, and it conforms to His plan. Therefore, we know that if we check our actions against His original plans then we can live a life more in conformity to how the world actually works. And what is His plan? It is the Law of Love, explained in Luke 10:25-28:
“There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
Further Reading: Wisdom (the discernment of what is right) guides us to salvation (Wisdom 10).
Note: This reading comes from what Protestants would refer to as an apocryphal text, but what I as a Catholic I would call a deuterocanonical text. If you can find this reading in your Bible, you have either a very old Protestant Bible (or a modern reproduction), or any Catholic Bible. For more information on this topic, and generally why we have the Old Testament we use today, see the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent.
“God possesses an infinite power of cognition.”
Regrettably, the fact that God is infinite (or immeasurably large) is a dogma not yet covered (be aware that it will be in the future). This is regrettable to me because it is part of the basis of God's infinite power of cognition.
God's attributes are also His essence (as we have seen). In other words, God is what He does (this gives rise to the phrase, “God is love”). One attribute of God is that He cognates, but if that is synonymous with this infinite essence, then we know that He has an infinite power of cognition!
What does this mean? Well, we hazily see through what we plan to do, at best thinking only 12 or 14 moves ahead, while regularly we just run blindfolded and with scissors. God however, knows the endgame before the start. This is where we get the protoevangelium of Genesis 3 (that Christ will strike the serpents head), or potentially the genealogical list of Genesis 5 (which I have no proof, but have heard reads “Man (Adam) appointed (Seth) mortal (Enosh) sorrow (Kenan), the blessed God (Mahalalel) shall come down (Jared) teaching (Enoch), his death shall bring (Methuselah) the despairing (Lamech) comfort, rest (Noah)”), or any of the other countless foreshadows of Christ.
This should be a great fortifier for us, because from His infinite love (which I'm not sure is a certified dogma [I haven't finished Dr. Ott's book], but at the very least every Sunday School child knows it) and infinite cognition we can rest assured that we are in the best possible of all possible worlds. His cognition allows Him to plan out the very best strategy, and His love motivates it for good. Imagine a better strategist that Shikamaru working to plan out the best possible world for you to live in, while still giving you freedom to chose bad options. With what care and intricacy He must work out seemingly random events, all simply so that you end your life in paradise. That itch on your leg which causes you to leave for work 2 seconds later than you would have? Who knows if that wasn't part of God's plan so that another driver would need to slow down for you, causing another driver to miss an accident entirely and save a life so that three years latter that person could come to know God. When you can think through all the options, you can give people the very best without them knowing it was a plan. God's infinite cognition allows us to rest in full comfort of His love, knowing that not only does He love us, but He knows how best to enact that love in our life.
How often have I wondered on the prudence of giving money to someone outside a liquor store. Indeed, we are to “give to everyone who asks”(cf. Luke 6:30), but we are supposed to give what they need, not enable them to fall further. God knows when to hold us close and give us the handout of mercy, but also when to chastise us with judgement to bring round our heart to full love of Him. Me? I'm still learning how to plan just one move a head, and to give that which my fellow person needs as opposed to what they ask for.
Further Reading: Jonah, a foreshadow for Christ. Jonah Chapter 1
NB – Jonah is quite a short read, I recommend reading all four chapters in one sitting to get a full grasp of the story. The USCCB Bible has a link at the bottom of the chapter to progress to the subsequent chapter.
God's attributes are also His essence (as we have seen). In other words, God is what He does (this gives rise to the phrase, “God is love”). One attribute of God is that He cognates, but if that is synonymous with this infinite essence, then we know that He has an infinite power of cognition!
What does this mean? Well, we hazily see through what we plan to do, at best thinking only 12 or 14 moves ahead, while regularly we just run blindfolded and with scissors. God however, knows the endgame before the start. This is where we get the protoevangelium of Genesis 3 (that Christ will strike the serpents head), or potentially the genealogical list of Genesis 5 (which I have no proof, but have heard reads “Man (Adam) appointed (Seth) mortal (Enosh) sorrow (Kenan), the blessed God (Mahalalel) shall come down (Jared) teaching (Enoch), his death shall bring (Methuselah) the despairing (Lamech) comfort, rest (Noah)”), or any of the other countless foreshadows of Christ.
This should be a great fortifier for us, because from His infinite love (which I'm not sure is a certified dogma [I haven't finished Dr. Ott's book], but at the very least every Sunday School child knows it) and infinite cognition we can rest assured that we are in the best possible of all possible worlds. His cognition allows Him to plan out the very best strategy, and His love motivates it for good. Imagine a better strategist that Shikamaru working to plan out the best possible world for you to live in, while still giving you freedom to chose bad options. With what care and intricacy He must work out seemingly random events, all simply so that you end your life in paradise. That itch on your leg which causes you to leave for work 2 seconds later than you would have? Who knows if that wasn't part of God's plan so that another driver would need to slow down for you, causing another driver to miss an accident entirely and save a life so that three years latter that person could come to know God. When you can think through all the options, you can give people the very best without them knowing it was a plan. God's infinite cognition allows us to rest in full comfort of His love, knowing that not only does He love us, but He knows how best to enact that love in our life.
How often have I wondered on the prudence of giving money to someone outside a liquor store. Indeed, we are to “give to everyone who asks”(cf. Luke 6:30), but we are supposed to give what they need, not enable them to fall further. God knows when to hold us close and give us the handout of mercy, but also when to chastise us with judgement to bring round our heart to full love of Him. Me? I'm still learning how to plan just one move a head, and to give that which my fellow person needs as opposed to what they ask for.
Further Reading: Jonah, a foreshadow for Christ. Jonah Chapter 1
NB – Jonah is quite a short read, I recommend reading all four chapters in one sitting to get a full grasp of the story. The USCCB Bible has a link at the bottom of the chapter to progress to the subsequent chapter.
“The One God is, in the ontological sense, The True God.”
The One God is, by definition, one. He is whole, complete, and self-sufficient.
The True God is, by definition, true. He is the God who is actually God, the actual creator and sustainer of our life.
We preach One God, who is also the True God. There are not multiple deities running around in Heaven. If we preached only One God, some other religion could say, “Yes, your One God exists, but he's just a secondary God to N., who is truly god, because N. rules over all other gods.” Therefore we as Christians preach One God, who is also the true God. In other words, we aver that the God who is One is also God.
This dogma, then, is somewhat self evident. If there really is only one God, then that God has to really and truly be God. If that one God were not truly God, then there would be multiple gods, because some other god could then be really God. Two or more gods would be set up in this case, the “one” god who isn't really one because there is another, and the “true” god who really isn't truly god, because there is another.
By acknowledging our Oneness of our God, we also then acknowledge the rulership of our God. This is a source of commonality amongst Jewish, Muslim, and Christian peoples. We all recognize there is only one God, and that is the God whom we all strive to worship. By worshiping only the One God we are worshiping correctly in Spirit, but that does not imply correct worship in Truth (cf. John 4:24), so there are still differences in our religions.
Further reading: Cain's worship of the One God is rejected, because it is not in Truth even though it is in Spirit (Cain's heart was in it, but his actions didn't match up with the truth of what God wanted from him.) (Genesis 4:1-7).
The True God is, by definition, true. He is the God who is actually God, the actual creator and sustainer of our life.
We preach One God, who is also the True God. There are not multiple deities running around in Heaven. If we preached only One God, some other religion could say, “Yes, your One God exists, but he's just a secondary God to N., who is truly god, because N. rules over all other gods.” Therefore we as Christians preach One God, who is also the true God. In other words, we aver that the God who is One is also God.
This dogma, then, is somewhat self evident. If there really is only one God, then that God has to really and truly be God. If that one God were not truly God, then there would be multiple gods, because some other god could then be really God. Two or more gods would be set up in this case, the “one” god who isn't really one because there is another, and the “true” god who really isn't truly god, because there is another.
By acknowledging our Oneness of our God, we also then acknowledge the rulership of our God. This is a source of commonality amongst Jewish, Muslim, and Christian peoples. We all recognize there is only one God, and that is the God whom we all strive to worship. By worshiping only the One God we are worshiping correctly in Spirit, but that does not imply correct worship in Truth (cf. John 4:24), so there are still differences in our religions.
Further reading: Cain's worship of the One God is rejected, because it is not in Truth even though it is in Spirit (Cain's heart was in it, but his actions didn't match up with the truth of what God wanted from him.) (Genesis 4:1-7).
"There is only One God."
There is a great mystery in God. We may get close to Him in war via patrons like St. Joan of Arc, or in peace via patrons like St. Francis of Assisi, yet He is one. We may talk of Him as Father, as Son, as Holy Spirit, yet He is one. We may read Scripture such as “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), yet “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!”(Deuteronomy 6:4)
God is one. He is not a set of principles, or a union of pieces, He is whole. However, we as people are many and varied, so God in His infinite mercy, lets us come to Him as we are. When we talk about God in a variety of ways, partly what we are expressing is how we as people are varied and different – that each of us is unique, and that God values us for who we are.
Because we are unique, there is some variation in that narrow path (Matthew 7:13-14) which we must take to get to God. The path is narrow, because we must be holy, but it is not necessarily the same path for each person. Some, like the Blessed Chesterton or Saint Thomas, strove to become near God through feasting. Others, like Saint Francis or any number of the hermits strove to become near God through fasting. That variety, the feast and the fast, does not imply a duplicity of principles or a duplicity of gods, such that one is a god of plenty and one of poverty.
No, God is one, and there is no close challenger for His throne. He lets us come to Him in our plenty or our poverty, as long as we come to Him in love and with holiness. All the law and the prophets hang upon loving God (Mark 12:28-31) and keeping his commandments (John 14:15), yet in how we draw near to Him in love and obedience there is some variety.
When we speak in a variety of terms, then, it is a sign of Emmanuel, of God coming to be with us as we are. He loves you for who you are, He made you the way you are with a purpose, and He calls you to be who you are, but in holiness and love. God does not want to change you, but to purify you. He does not want to get rid of the variety among people, but to bring all people to love and holiness while still keeping their unique personality.
Further Reading: God is one (like a husband), not many like the Canaanite gods (Hosea 2).
God is one. He is not a set of principles, or a union of pieces, He is whole. However, we as people are many and varied, so God in His infinite mercy, lets us come to Him as we are. When we talk about God in a variety of ways, partly what we are expressing is how we as people are varied and different – that each of us is unique, and that God values us for who we are.
Because we are unique, there is some variation in that narrow path (Matthew 7:13-14) which we must take to get to God. The path is narrow, because we must be holy, but it is not necessarily the same path for each person. Some, like the Blessed Chesterton or Saint Thomas, strove to become near God through feasting. Others, like Saint Francis or any number of the hermits strove to become near God through fasting. That variety, the feast and the fast, does not imply a duplicity of principles or a duplicity of gods, such that one is a god of plenty and one of poverty.
No, God is one, and there is no close challenger for His throne. He lets us come to Him in our plenty or our poverty, as long as we come to Him in love and with holiness. All the law and the prophets hang upon loving God (Mark 12:28-31) and keeping his commandments (John 14:15), yet in how we draw near to Him in love and obedience there is some variety.
When we speak in a variety of terms, then, it is a sign of Emmanuel, of God coming to be with us as we are. He loves you for who you are, He made you the way you are with a purpose, and He calls you to be who you are, but in holiness and love. God does not want to change you, but to purify you. He does not want to get rid of the variety among people, but to bring all people to love and holiness while still keeping their unique personality.
Further Reading: God is one (like a husband), not many like the Canaanite gods (Hosea 2).
"God is absolutely simple."
With humans, one may talk about various parts – the head, the hands, the feet. We are mosaic like beings with different pieces stuck together. Apart from the physical, we also are composed metaphysically – we have both hearts and minds, feelings and intellect.
God's ways, however, are not like ours. He is absolutely simple. Within Him there is no composition of lesser parts, no sum to form a whole – He is indivisible! In our physical world this can be hard to picture. Snow, seemingly homogeneous, is composed of flakes, which are composed of water and dust, the former composed of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are further composed of electrons, neutrons, and protons, and all of those are yet even further composed of yet even smaller particles! All physical analogies fall short, because the lack of composition of God is partly related to the fact that God is Spirit (John 4:24). Certainly spirits can be composed of other spirits or whole, but I have yet to see something physical that isn't made up of parts.
What, then, is a proper analogy? Something like the Spirit of St. Louis would be a composite spirit, the spirit of adventure and exploration, the spirit of settlement and new lands. Rather, for a divided spirit, one would be better to think of love. Whole and pure, love drives out other competing spirits of lust and hatred. Love is not composed of other spirits, but solid and unified. It, like God, may be described with a variety of terms, but all the terms get at the same singular spirit of love.
God, then, is simple, because He is not complicated by numerous pieces. He is simple because He is not complex. He is a single mystery, rather than many pieced jigsaw puzzle. One cannot cut God into pieces and study Him any more than one can study life but cutting up dead animals. The whole might be illuminated by such a practice, but the true mystery remains unprobed.
Further reading: God's pedagogical laws teaching us how to be whole like God is whole, (Deuteronomy 22:9-11).
God's ways, however, are not like ours. He is absolutely simple. Within Him there is no composition of lesser parts, no sum to form a whole – He is indivisible! In our physical world this can be hard to picture. Snow, seemingly homogeneous, is composed of flakes, which are composed of water and dust, the former composed of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are further composed of electrons, neutrons, and protons, and all of those are yet even further composed of yet even smaller particles! All physical analogies fall short, because the lack of composition of God is partly related to the fact that God is Spirit (John 4:24). Certainly spirits can be composed of other spirits or whole, but I have yet to see something physical that isn't made up of parts.
What, then, is a proper analogy? Something like the Spirit of St. Louis would be a composite spirit, the spirit of adventure and exploration, the spirit of settlement and new lands. Rather, for a divided spirit, one would be better to think of love. Whole and pure, love drives out other competing spirits of lust and hatred. Love is not composed of other spirits, but solid and unified. It, like God, may be described with a variety of terms, but all the terms get at the same singular spirit of love.
God, then, is simple, because He is not complicated by numerous pieces. He is simple because He is not complex. He is a single mystery, rather than many pieced jigsaw puzzle. One cannot cut God into pieces and study Him any more than one can study life but cutting up dead animals. The whole might be illuminated by such a practice, but the true mystery remains unprobed.
Further reading: God's pedagogical laws teaching us how to be whole like God is whole, (Deuteronomy 22:9-11).
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