Redefining God

I am a Christian but not in the traditional understanding of the word. I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The ways that my thoughts differ from traditional Christianity are many but the most significant deviation is my understanding of God. This blog post is an explanation of my view of God not because I am interested in converting people to my views, because I am not. I am concerned about people not fully understanding my perspective as I continue to write and share commentary on biblical themes.  I want to be transparent as possible as I share my thoughts on practical or dare I say secular Christianity. The intent is not to deceive any of my readers so I am explaining in this post how I understand God. In Part 3 I redefined my relationship with God as a covenant relationship in which God agrees to provide guidance for life, in this post I explore the entity with whom that agreement is made.

The Ask

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7,8. The statement is a declaration maybe even a promise that if you inquire eventually the answer will come to you. The context of the text may suggest that it only applies to the provisions of needs like food and shelter, but if you think back to King Solomon when asked of God what he wanted in 2 Chronicles 1, King Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge and it was granted to him.  God commended King Solomon for not making a material request rather seeking wisdom and knowledge indicating to me that this was a nobler endeavor to pursue.   

So I began my inquiry into the things that puzzled me beginning with a prayer for understanding, as I have been taught. I began more earnestly seeking who God is in the pages of the Bible. I also developed a habit of bibliomancy in which I spoke to God, usually asking a question, and then a Bible book chapter and verse would come to my mind which I viewed as God’s response.  I would open the Bible to read the passage for the answer. Here is a real example of such a conversation that I kept a record of.

 

Me:  I am confused I don’t know what my next steps should be.

Response: 1 Kings 3:5  “Ask what you wish me to give you.”

Response: Jeremiah 31:3 “The Lord appeared to him from afar saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

Me: Why am I going through this period of doubt?

Response: Matthew 3:15 “Permit it at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Response: Jeremiah 3:15 “Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding”

Me: God at this moment it appears that I am only drawn to material by science educators and lecturers, are these the shepherds that you are speaking about?

Response: Isaiah 43:7 “Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

Response: Ezekiel 37:5 “Thus  says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.”

  

There were several of these sessions over the years. In fact as I wrote this blog post Ezekiel 37:7 came to mind in the same fashion. That text is taken from Ezekiel’s account of his vision of bones in the valley that God told him to speak to. “So I prophesied as I was commanded,” the verse reads and the bones came together.  For Ezekiel his words to a bundle of disconnected pieces caused them to come together to make sense. Similarly as I write this post about my experience formally unconnected thoughts have come together with new meaning. I digressed a bit. Each bibliomancy session seemed to challenge the notion of who I thought God to be, better stated destroyed the notion of what I thought God to be, and introduced a bolder and broader identity for God that supersedes the humanoid figure of our imagination. 

How does the Bible describe God?

“God is not a man.” Numbers 23:19.  “God is a spirit.” John 4:24. Pretty straightforward statements that aren’t necessarily understood in Christian circles in the literal sense.  God tends to be envisioned in human form.  Strangely enough there are those who would argue to assign a specific gender to God.  The reasons are several. The creation account in Genesis says that God made man in their own image and likeness, Abraham interacted with God as three men, and Ezekiel saw God in the appearance of the likeness of man in his vision. God is also often described as a father. Coupled with the use of masculine pronouns by translators gives modern Christians a strong presumption that God is a male. Give some thought to that assumption for a moment. What does it mean to be male? It means to have male genitals for the purpose of reproduction, which begs another question with whom would God procreate and why would that be necessary? God doesn’t procreate for it is not necessary, unless of course you see a need for God to physically interact with Mary.  Scripture, however, clearly states that Jesus is a result of the Holy Spirit not sexual relations.

Spirits in the Bible aren’t provided a physical form or description.  Spirits are implied to be body-less and formless.  They manifest in preexisting objects or animals. When a spirit possesses a human it fills them.  The presence of the spirit effects the person’s behavior, removing their free will. The concept of spirits is not limited to the Biblical description. Ancient cultures, particularly the Greeks had much to say about what spirits were as well. In Greek mythology there were spirit personifications for much of the human experience. There were spirits for emotions and states of mind, for various human conditions, for morality, for personal qualities, for creativity and art. The various spirits were viewed as the causes of these different aspects of life in Judaism most of these attributes are control by a single deity, God. In present time we no longer view our own actions as directed by external spirits rather we understand them to be our own actions. We however still apply these concepts to others with phrases like the devil made him do it, but for the most part people understand the domain once occupied by spirits to be aspect of our own minds that we aren’t always consciously aware of.

Who or what is an I am?

The only recorded instance of the god of the Bible identifying Godself is to Moses in the desert of Midian. Moses asked what to tell Israel the name of the one sending him the reply was “I AM WHO I AM”- Exodus 3:14.  In Hebrew the phrase is hâyâh hâyâh. The word hâyâh means exist, which makes the literal translation of the phrase “exist exist”. Exist exist is not merely a statement but a declaration that God is existence itself. In verse 15 of Exodus 3 makes this point clearer with the introduction of the word that became known as God’s name.  Yᵉhôvâh, which means self-Existent or Eternal.

The philosopher Benedict de Spinoza ‘s definition of God in his book the Ethics captures the essence of this as well. “By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.” “By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.” God is one, that is only one substance can be granted in the universe, and that substance is absolutely infinite. 

Spinoza spends some time elaborating on his meaning but I will just highlight a few of his propositions:

• Proposition XV.: “Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.”

• Proposition XVII.: “God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is not constrained by anyone.”

• Proposition XVIII. “God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.”

Upon an initial read the statements seem to not be too revolutionary in the context of the major monotheists religions, but if you examine them closer a different picture emerges.  For example to say that God is not contained by anyone but acts solely by the law of his own nature would necessarily mean that the act of prayer as a means of persuading or directing the acts of God are meaningless endeavors. God’s actions are dictated by the laws of God’s nature. Stated again substituting existence for God, actions in existence are dictated by the laws of existence. Likewise as the indwelling and not transient causes God or existence is the very mechanism that causes things to happen. Science by studying how things functions are in essence exploring the mind of God to use the metaphor.  To know the laws that govern existence is to understand the laws that govern God.  Stated in the words of the Bible:

“The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ Act 17: 24-28. 

God is existence. Everything that exist is in God and God is everything that exist. I am not God. I am not existence but I do exist and am a part of existence. The more I understand about the laws that govern existence the more I will understand my place in it and how I am to effectively operate within those constraints. In the post that will follow I will dive deeper into the nature of God, how this new understanding affects and reframes Biblical redemption and other taboo topics.