Thoughts on God's Nature

Genesis 2 says that God decided that it was "not good for the man to be alone" so He created a helpmate, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. The sacred text is mysterious. God is like a potter, or a small child on the beach. Scooping up the earth He forms a man, scooping out the side of the man, He forms a woman. In the Priestly account (Gen 1), God speaks and the humans spring into life. Here, however, there is more "manual labor" involved. It is less majestic and more intimate. The two creation accounts wonderfully reveal the two sides of God's nature: Transcendent and Immanent.

I have thought much about this tension lately in my own prayer life. Worship of God, liturgy and formal prayers, repetion prayers and quieting the soul in its poverty and obedience are the proper response to the Transcendent God. Such a God is unknowable, except by analogy. We point in the general direction of such a God. It is best expressed by the word God spoke to/through Isaiah: My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways; as the heavens are high above the earth so are my thoughts above your thoughts, so far are my ways above your ways.... In another place, "as far as East is from West" captures the sense of distance.

The Transcendent God, One and Three, is the God of philosophical reflection. Words like perfect, unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, etc. grasp at the unfathomable fullness and completeness (and unknowable-ness) of God. There is a branch of theology called "apophatic" which deals in negatives about God. God is not good, it says, meaning the word good is not able to capture God. Or, in another explanation, God is so far above good as you imagine it, that good is not suitable as a descriptor. And the same is true of any word we use. When we say things like "God can do anything" we are referring to Transcendence.

Immanence, on the other hand, has to do with God's self emptying. God, Who is everywhere, chooses to be in a place. God, metaphorically on His knees, gets His hands dirty forming the man, and gives a part of Himself away (breath/spirit) in order to make the dirt creation a living soul. Is there a more dramatic expression of the human mystery? Divine breath animating dirt? Yet, we are told, creation is the work of God in His self emptying. Here we see foretaste of incarnation. Here we see God time bound and space bound, among us, with us. Here springs forth the possibility of God "changing His mind" (which we see constantly in the Jewish Scriptures) because He has locked Himself into the flow of time. Here we see God disappointed by people, again and again, because He is in a real relationship with them in their context. Here we see a God Who hopes, Who gets angry, Who tears down and builds up, Who walks away and Who hears the cries of His people because each day, over and over, He is reaching out to them within the limits of worldly existence. God intimately involved (at great personal expense) with the little dirt-people He created.

Much of the debate on God ignores these two features. The invisible God above and outside of time Who chooses to enter time and place is confusing. After all, we like things clean and clear, and there is nothing but paradox and mystery. We are tempted to cry out, "Which one is GOD?" But if we silence our need to control, and move from 'know' to 'trust', we can begin to enter the mystery. We can worship formally and chat informally. We can see God as Creator and Brother. We can look far off in the distance where He reigns in perfection and we can enjoy the gentle touch of His healing hand in the confort of our own living room. We can ponder Him as imponderable, and we cuddle and giggle with Him as friend and ally. We can quake before His judgment in perfection and revel in His understanding and mercy in His nearness.

One without the other changes everything and causes us to leave the Christian faith. One option is Deism. Another is pantheism. Each of those two contains a partial truth. It is  the mystery of both together which produces Christian faith. The God Who speaks and "it was." The God Who shapes, forms,and breathes into and it becomes a living soul. The God of glory, might and majesty. The dust covered God seen in the face of Jesus, wantdering from town to town with Good News and healing power in love. Pondering God's self revelation is mindblowing!