So, Who is God Anyway?

Benedicamus Domino!

I've been pondering in my mind for some time now how to deal with this particular topic. First, let me start off by saying that I am not attempting to say anything new or different about God, but I keep mentioning God and Christ and the Holy Trinity in this blog, so I suppose that I owe myself and anyone who happens to read this little corner of the web an explanation (so far as I can give it) of just who this God-being is, and why I seek to grow closer to Him.

First of all, the fundamental thing to remember about God, is that He is. He exists. He exists in eternity, which (so far as I understand it) is a state or mode of existence that is beyond concepts of historical or linear time. These concepts have been given to us (in the form of seasons, cycles of the sun and moon, and the like) as a way to break up reality in to manageable chunks. We, being fallen creatures, now have five senses which do not function very well as a whole. In fact, they are often in competition with each other, so that to perceive reality as it truly is would either drive us mad or cause our brains to explode. So, we state that God has been since before the world began, but for Him, eternity is simply Himself. I mean, it is what He is as well as when or where He is, I guess. You'll notice my language breaking down at several points in this post, but it is necessary for you to see this, because I am trying to put into words something that I know in a very deep place within myself but that is not a matter for simple logic or language to convey.

So, with all this talk of God existing in eternity, is it fair of me to use gender pronouns to talk about Him? Must I call Him 'Him,' for instance? Can't I just as equally call Him 'Her' or 'Them' or 'It?' First, I can't call God 'Them,' because I believe that God is a unity. If 'We' is used, as in the first Chapter of Genesis, ("Let us make man in Our image,") I believe that this is either used as a royal 'We' or as an early expression of the other aspect of God's nature according to Christianity: the Trinity of Father or mind, Son or Word, and Holy Spirit or Breath. The Father is the conceiver, the designer, the begetter, providing the spark of being itself from His own Being. The Son speaks that spark into being, and the Holy Spirit infuses this new being with life and with Himself, but all three are one, all three are together and function as one. So, can I call God 'Him,' or is this too limiting? Perhaps it is too limiting, but it is how we can best understand God. If God were a Mother in analogy, then 'She' would need a begetter. Even the Virgin Mary conceived Christ because God first begot Him. So, whether we find that God is beyond gender when we come to meet God, 'Him' is a good enough way to describe God on this side of the grave.

Now, some may take offense to this, stating that it promulgates an antiquated and patriarchal system which ought to be done away with. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of hearing this argument. I myself am a woman, and I do not feel alienated by having the centre and ground of my faith described in masculine terms. The problems in history have arisen because of fallen humans and their need to dominate anyone whom they either fear or whom they feel are weaker than they are, and historically, men have been the dominators. However, is this a direct result of having God described in masculine terms? I know I'm repeating myself, but I'll say again that I do not believe that this is so. First, we believe that Christ is the Word incarnate, and He took the form of a man. I suppose that He could have taken the form of a woman, but for some reason, He didn't. However, there was no one who respected women more than Him in His time in history, and that's an interesting point. So, there you have it. Orthodox Christianity has consistently used masculine pronouns when referring to God, and it has never referred to the Trinity as "The Non-gender-specific Parental figure, The Non-Gender-Specific Offspring, and The Sacred Non-Corporeal Entity" or anything else.

I chose to mention this question of gender because I feel that it feeds into the central point of my topic, and that is this. People who vehemently deny God's existence invariably describe God as some sort of all-seeing moral judge, or worse, a capricious "fire and brimstone" figure who rains thunder upon a helpless and deluded populus who have somehow tricked themselves into believing that God is love. People who are angry at God, I've found, are more often than not actually angry at other people, or else have not been able to let go of some misfortune which has befallen them, they feel, at God's hands, as though God has let them down or failed to keep some bargain or something. I'm not here to dispell these ideas from peoples' minds. Only they can begin to do this for themselves if this is where they are on their journey through life. We all have our paths to take, and I'm not one to tell you where you should go or what you should do. However, I'm simply trying to think out loud, as it were, about what makes God God, as I've come to understand Him through the lens of Christian belief and teaching. Keep in mind that even this is seeing "through a glass darkly." So long as we are here on earth, we simply cannot know God's true self in a full and unguarded way. Again, our heads would explode.

So, if God seems so apart from us as we are now, then why on earth would I seek to grow closer to Him? How can I, a fallen being with five (well, four in my case, I suppose) warring senses, perceive what it is to grow closer to God? Well, this is where grace comes in. Part of the reason for Christ's coming among us was to provide a way for the Holy Spirit to dwell with us and in us. His wholesale sacrifice on the cross showed us that the 'old man' or the flesh or the ego or the puppet-self that we create to function in this world must be destroyed if we are to participate in His joy, in His eternal life. Once I got this through my head and saw myself at least a little the way that God must see me, puppet-self and all, I realized that this self which loves to be right all the time, which gets angry when it does not get its way, which covets and is envious and is hypocritical, was not my true and abiding self, was not the self that God wanted to make manifest. So, to borrow a Sufi concept, I began to "polish the mirror of my soul," as it were, and this had to begin with the waters of baptism. The body, the self, ought to reflect the state of the soul as far as is possible, and the only way that we can get the strength to accomplish this is by God's grace and with His help.

I've been on this road for almost six years now, (six years since my Baptism I mean,) and I now have another reason for drawing closer to God. I really do trust Him, or at least I want to Trust Him. He really is the fulfilment of all things for me, and though I will always be distracted by worldly concerns and by my own egoistic desires, more and more He seems to be breaking through all this and showing me His presence. He is joy! He is the pathway to true existence! Do I have unanswered questions? Of course! Is my life perfect now that I am a Christian? Not in the least! However, I know where to go to seek perfected love and perfected joy, and how I know it or even why I am a Christian really does remain one of those mysteries of which I stand in perpetual awe! In closing, I'll leave you with a little quote from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence."

"To see a worold in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a whild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
Or eternity in an hour."

Deo Gratias!