Spirituality,
Religion, Nature
Is God a Person or
Personal?
If not, what?
Communication
God-man and man-God
We are not talking here about the persons
of the Trinity of the Christian doctrine; we are talking about the
communication or relationship God-man and man-God; about whether God is, or is
not, personal. Is God an impersonal being, a flat existence? Is it an invisible
something, a “thing” there, inaccessible, inconceivable? Let’s try to see what
is more logical to think about that Entity: whether it is something, or if it
is somebody, like a person.
First of all, God is not a person in the
sense we currently understand this noun. To say that God is a person or
personal is a mere analogy, a similarity of what we call person, or personal.
When we talk of God as being a person, we should say or write “person” in
quotation marks. Personal relationships in humans imply communication outside them,
which couldn’t be said congruently of God, since there is nothing “outside”
God. However one may see that there are deeper reasons to affirm or deny that
God is a person, or personal.
The popular use of the noun person means
that a subject is more than a thing or a living being, and deserves a special
consideration, respect and treatment. To be a human person implies the ability
(or at least the potential) of relating and communicating with others; this is
a characteristic of human nature. This cannot be said unequivocally of God as
we say of humans, but only analogically, equivocally (from the Latin aequivocus,
that means ambiguous), as
a likelihood of what human beings are and do.
To say that God is a person would mean,
basically, that he is a self-conscious and intelligent being, and that he is
able to communicate with intelligent beings; and reciprocally, that men and
women may communicate with him and relate to him. (Person is gender neutral.)
According to Thomas Aquinas God
does not have relations except within the Trinity: “The relations that God is
said to bear to creatures really exist not in God but in creatures … nothing
can come into contact with God or partially intermingle with him in any way.” [1]
The relations God-man are in men, not in God. Does this mean that God cannot communicate with human
beings? And that we cannot relate to him as a person? Neither
one, in my opinion, but with some restrictions.
In the Christian doctrine the
nature of God in itself is not one
person but tri-personal, and this is considered to be “part” of the divine essence.
Would this imply that if we are “talking” with the Father, we are not talking
with the Son? This mystery of the Trinity raises some questions.
Intelligent beings have
relations and communicate to each other; God on the other hand—according to Aquinas—doesn’t
relate to anything because relations imply change, and God doesn’t change. This
is apparently for three reasons:
a. The first one is his simplicity.
Relations imply some kind of multiplicity, and, as God’s essence is simple, it
must be preserved and has no relations.
b. The second one is his immutability.
Any relation implies some kind of change, and God is immutable; nothing can
affect God. God does not relate to the world, and, once the decree is
done—temporally speaking—God is not affected by what happens in the universe.
c. The third one is his necessity.
The universe and the events of the world cannot be other than they are; they
are by necessity, since God’s knowledge of them is necessary and immutable.
It seems that we cannot really talk about “a decree done,” since God is timeless, and there is no past for God;
a “decree done” is past, and there is no past for God; in God there is only a doing now, present. God’s decree—if
there is any—is not a past event but is happening now. The same could be said
regarding his immutability: there is no a timely change. So, those reasons are
not as convincing as they might seem.
Most people are not aware of these facts, because
they are metaphysical realities; for some people metaphysical concepts are
difficult to understand, and for some they are inadmissible; but this does not
take away their factuality.
In the other extreme there are some misconceptions
regarding the personhood of God, and deviations in the practice of religion as
when people relate to God as if he would be like a human person; this is
anthropomorphism. He is not; to refer to God in an anthropomorphic way is
wrong; an anthropomorphic God is inadmissible. Many of us, born
in the Western culture, were raised with a mistaken mentality regarding God,
and in an environment of fantasy regarding the divine, fundamentally alien to
reality. A practice of religion based on that mistaken conception is
inadmissible.
Unfortunately these false ideas about God
will still last for centuries, because they are deeply rooted in world
cultures, and in the fundamentalism of some religions. But sometime, sooner or
later, most people on earth will awake and will have a different mentality, and
a fundamentally different concept of God. Then most people will practice
religion differently.
On the other hand, for those Christians who see in
the Incarnation a kind of “humanization” of God, some kind of “human”
relationship with God would be justified.
Let’s come back to our relations with God. The
strict interpretation of the God in theism is that he is impassible and
unchanging; how could we see his action and involvement with the world? Panentheism (among other interpretations) solves the problem
with a limited and changing God, or with a dipole God—a God with a double modus essendi, a
double mode of being in God that seems contradictory with his own essence which
is the most simple. In my opinion, it is possible to keep God’s immanence or
involvement with the world with his unchanging nature, if we put our attention
on his atemporality, as I’ll explain; this vision
would solve most difficulties.
It is true that we cannot give anything to God, and
he cannot receive anything from us; that we cannot motivate God, and we cannot
do anything to change the will of God. All this is true, but this does not mean
that God is dauntless or indifferent to us. The fact is that everything that happens, happens in the present of God, that is, all past
and future of time is as “condensed” in the present of God.
The will and action of God is not something done, decided, decreed or completed, or that will
happen in the future; this would be to make God temporal, with past and future.
The will and action of God is in its doing, now.
From a temporal point of view we might say that the order of the universe
is like “on hold,” it is like “waiting” the passing of time, until it is
completed or consumed in the total present of God. We cannot see God as
temporal; he is the opposite, he transcends time. It is difficult to think in a
“no-time,” but that is God’s “environment:” a total, timeless and simultaneous
present.
Let us try to make a temporal glance to the timeless
present of God, although this involves some kind of contradiction. God, The
Being, The Existence, I am, is
“here;” we and everything are in him. His present comprehends all time and
overpasses time. It is as if all events of time pass through his present; it is
as if every temporal event or movement would flow into the abyss of his eternal
present. And, while the changes of time are running and passing through the
present of God, they stay there as in “hold,” in the comprehensive and
unexhausted present of God “waiting” for their final completion when there
won’t be time.
Einstein’s theory of relativity says that time is
relative to observers. Time may be compared with space where things move from
one place to another. Theoretically time moves forward or back; it depends on the
position and velocity of the observer; we might go to its beginning or to its
end. With a powerful telescope we may see the galaxies as they were 13 billion
years ago, 350,000 years after the big bang.
According to the same theory time becomes shorter as
the speed becomes faster. A clock in movement runs slower as its velocity
increases, as in an airplane or satellite; and, at the speed of light, a clock
would stop running, and time would be zero, t=0.
That is why non-physical entities (if they are) are “there,” in no-time;
they do not move, they do not change, they simply are, and they always are.
This is what happens with God and in God: he is; while time is passing, he only is. God, in one act, comprehends all
stages of time, from its beginning to its end, and all time is simultaneously
present to him: all moments of time are actually
present to him. It is as if God would be in a constant “becoming” which
includes all changes of time. When time will cease, God “will be” in his
present without the “parallel” time.
The difference between this position and that of
process theology is that in process theology God himself is in process;
processes are temporal actions. I do not think that there are processes in God;
that could be said only metaphorically, for our understanding, because the
present of God includes all temporal processes.
I understand that this is difficult to imagine, and
in fact, this cannot be imagined; indeed, this seems impossible, even absurd;
but that is what the timeless nature of God means. If we want to have a clearer
understanding of God, we must be prepared to accept a being which is not as our
being, subject to the limitations of time. There is no succession for God; in
his present, everything which is temporal is like “compressed” in a pure act,
in which the totality of time is simultaneously present. That is what the
divine nature is: one in whom each instant of time is fully present.
In conclusion we may say that God is “personal,”
aware and sympathetic of our feelings at any moment; all our thoughts and
feelings are present to him. We may say that there is not a final decision
regarding our actions, our pains and grievances; they are in God as in a
“waiting period”—temporarily speaking—until the completion of time. There is still
room for temporal change, because time hasn’t come to an end. That view that
free actions are already decided in the will of God, is futile.
For God there are
not actions taken, as in the past; none; even the act of creation isn’t
finished yet but it is in its doing, now;
creation is a present act, fully
actual. We call it “conservation,” but there are not two actions in God,
one creating and another one conserving, but creation and conservation is one
act in God; we are really now (from God’s view point) as in the first moment of
time, when time and space were created. Creation is in its doing, “waiting” for
the end of time.
Our difficulty to understand the immanence of God
comes from our impossibility to understand how
God is, how his timeless nature is. Time is a limitation that cannot be
said of God whose nature is essentially unlimited; our concept of God is always
incorrect and limited. It doesn’t matter that God cannot be affected; the fact
is that God responds, now, to any present situations of our lives, and he is
doing much more for us than we would be able to think. But God acts in his own way, in a divine way, which is
different from our way, and more perfect and intimate than what we may do.
There is a de
facto constant relationship and communication God-men and universe-God; God
is acting continuously in our being, living, and thinking; there is dependency
of us on God to the point that we cannot think nor do anything other than by
God; we wouldn’t be if God wouldn’t be. God is necessarily “intermingled” with
all our being and doing. (This is the opposite of what Thomas Aquinas said as
quoted at the beginning of this reflection.) We cannot escape God, ever.
God has the same “relationship” with all the
creatures of the universe, with the difference that inanimate, non-rational
beings cannot be aware of his presence and action, although God is always
there; but intelligent beings may be aware of his presence and action.
Behind this physical world and everything that
exists there is a constant intelligence, energy and power that we do not see,
keeping the order, balance, and harmony of the universe; he is giving existence
to all, movement and intelligence; his intelligence and will act continuously
at every present event, and he is intervening even in the smallest details.
Neither something nor nobody can escape the action of God.
Under the above considerations we may say that God is a “person”
analogically; God is “personal” metaphorically, in a restrictive sense. But,
after a good analysis, it is irrelevant to wonder if God is or is not personal;
the fact is that he is in constant action and communication with us, more
intimately and efficaciously than we may think.
There are not relations of God toward us that may imply change
in him, but this does not mean that we may not have attitudes of awe and praise
to him, and express our thanks, and feelings and needs before him. God is an
Entity able to know and to understand what we are going through, and there is
nothing wrong when we “tell” God what or how we feel. We may rationally
“communicate” with him, although we
cannot motivate, influence or affect God in any way; and we may relate and
communicate with him with no limitation, as if he were a person.
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HTM NATURE / PERSONAL NATURE 03-12-11