Lecture Notes: God and Our Relation to God
Introduction
- Topic: God and our relation to God.
- Primary Source: The Bible.
- Central Questions:
- What is ultimate reality?
- What is our relationship to that reality?
- Thesis: We find joy and purpose when rightly related to the true God. Life becomes disordered when we are out of right relationship with Him.
Understanding the Bible
- The Bible as a Collection of Texts:
- The Bible is not a single text but a collection of texts with various genres.
- Includes poetry, mythological literature, historical accounts (ancient, not modern history), biographies, letters (epistolary), and apocalyptic writings.
- Approach different genres with different interpretive methods.
- Not Everything in the Bible is What it Teaches:
- Quote from William Placar: “Not everything that’s in the Bible is what the Bible teaches.”
- Look for overall themes, patterns, and trajectories in the Bible.
- Example: Slavery is mentioned, but abolitionist movements rooted in biblical themes suggest that the Bible does not advocate for slavery.
- Reading the Bible Within Tradition:
- Compare the Bible to reading Shakespeare: You wouldn’t hand a person Hamlet without any context.
- The Bible should be read within the grand interpretive tradition of the Church.
Encountering God in Exodus 3:14
- Moses and the Burning Bush:
- Context: Moses’ life of privilege in Egypt, his exile after killing an Egyptian, and his time in the desert.
- Importance of purification before encountering God.
- Moses encounters God in the form of the burning bush, which symbolizes God’s presence that does not consume.
- God’s Name: “I Am Who I Am”:
- Moses asks for God’s name, seeking control through naming.
- God’s response: “I Am Who I Am” signifies that God is not a being among many, but Being itself.
- God’s reality transcends ordinary categories and names.
- Theological implication: God is Ipsum Esse, being itself, as developed by Thomas Aquinas.
The Nature of God
- God as the Ground of All Being:
- Argument from contingency: All contingent things depend on something else, ultimately leading to a necessary being whose essence is existence itself—God.
- God’s Simplicity:
- God has no distinction between essence and existence—His essence is existence.
- Anti-grasping name: We cannot fully understand or grasp God’s simplicity.
- God’s Infinity:
- God is infinite, meaning there are no borders or limits to God’s being.
- Anti-grasping: God cannot be defined or limited by human categories.
- God’s Unity:
- There cannot be two or more infinite, unconditioned beings.
- “The Lord your God is Lord alone!” (Deuteronomy 6).
- God’s Self-Sufficiency:
- God does not need the world to exist, but sustains it out of His own will.
God’s Presence and Power
- Omnipresence:
- God is everywhere because He sustains all existence.
- God is in all things “by essence, presence, and power,” as Aquinas says.
- Omnipotence:
- God’s power is not just strength but the sustaining power that holds all things in existence.
- Omniscience:
- God knows the world into existence. His knowledge does not depend on observing but on creating.
Creation and Our Relationship to God
- Creation from Nothing (Ex Nihilo):
- The world is created not from violence or struggle but from God’s free act of will.
- There is nothing standing between us and God; we are directly related to Him as creatures.
- Interconnectedness of All Creation:
- All beings are ontological siblings, created and sustained by the same divine source.
- Contemplative Prayer:
- Finding the place in ourselves where we are being created by God leads to peace and a right relationship with God.
Conclusion: Living in Right Relationship with God
- Two Sides of the Spiritual Journey:
- God is both intimately close and utterly beyond our grasp.
- We must live in the balance of not trying to control God while also not running from Him.
- Psalm 139 Reflection:
- “Where can I go from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.”
- We cannot avoid God, nor can we control Him. Our task is to live in love with God, surrendering control.
DANTE SISOFO · · dantesisofo.com/god-beyond-being/
