Here are some more of my thoughts on words we use to describe God.

Potter – Isaiah 64:7 says “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.”  God is the one who formed man out of the ground and breathed live into him (Genesis 2:7).  When we refer to God as the potter, it is not just a reference to God forming the first man from the ground.  God continues to shape and form us each day if we let him.  We do not instantly become perfect humans.  It is something we have to work at our whole lives.  Part of what we need to work on is opening ourselves to God so that he can shape us into what he calls us to be.  We cannot become what God calls us to be by ourselves.  We need God to be the potter.

Creator – When we think of God as creator, the stories that most often come to mind are the two stories of creation found in chapters one and two of Genesis.  These stories have literal explanations of how God created the earth.  Yet, God as creator do not simply create and walk away.  God is not like a manufacturer who makes a product, sells its, and never knows what happens to what he has made.  God remains involved in creation and continues to mold us and shape us as our potter. 

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

P.S. Check out Images of God for the rest of this series on words people use to describe God.

We continue to talk about words people use to describe God.  Today I turn to some “negative” words

Trickster/Joker – I was a little surprised to see trickster/joker on the list.  I don’t know if I have ever heard God described in this way.  I take it to imply somebody seeing God as a deceiver who uses illusion to deceive us and make fun of us.  Have you ever heard God described in this way?

Santa Claus – This too caused me to wonder why it was on the negative list.  Normally, we think of Santa Claus as a generous giver.  I would imagine it is on the negative list because of a distorted image of God as making a list, checking it twice, finding out whose naughty and nice, implying God is all about judging us as a scorekeeper.  If we are good we get grace, if not we get coal.  God is indeed our judge as the one who determines what is right and wrong (cf. stern judge).  But God does not judge in harshness.  God is not the angry one or a harsh ruler.  God is merciful and offers us forgiveness. 

Domineering One – Does God hold all the power?  Yes.  Is God all knowing?  Yes.  Does God have the right to demand that we follow him?  Yes.  But God does not demand our obedience.  God gives us free will and allows us to make our own choices.  Are there consequences when we do not follow God’s ways?  Yes.  It is the same with a parent and child.  If a child does something wrong, there are consequences.  With a good parent (and God is the ultimate good parent), the consequences are not about what suits the parent’s need but what is good for the child. 

Hard-to-Please – Does God ask a lot of us?  According to the Bible and the Tradition of the Catholic Church there is much expected of us.  Can we do it all on our own? No, if we could Jesus would not have had to die for our sins.  What is expected of us?  Jesus sums it up in two commandments in Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.   This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

What Jesus asks of us is to love.  Yet that is no small task.  It is not easy.  So it might seem that God is hard-to-please but Jesus does not expect us to be perfect.  He does expect us to do our best and he will take care of the rest.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

P.S. Check out Images of God for the rest of this series on words people use to describe God.

Today I take a look at some more positive words for God.

Friend – Without a doubt, God is a friend.  A friend is someone you share close moments with.  A friend is someone you can count on to always be there.  A friend helps you become a better person.  A friend tells you the truth.  A friend stands up for you.  A friend forgives you when you hurt them.  A friend knows when you are hurting.  A friend is always willing to listen, whether we are in the right or the wrong.  A friend never takes advantage of you.  A friend never uses you to get something they want.  A friend walks with you in the most difficult times.  Jesus is all these things and so much more.  Yes, Jesus is my friend.

*Note that in the preceding paragraph, I started by talking about God and ended focused on Jesus.  For me, this is part of how I talk about God.  Jesus is the way I experience God in human terms.  So, when I think of God as a friend, it is Jesus as the second person of the Trinity who comes to mind.

Love – God is love.  To begin, please note that I did not say God loves or that God is the perfect example of love.  I said God is love.  God is all about love.  God defines what it means to love.  It is Jesus on the Cross who shows us that there is no limit to God’s love.  I also say God is love because God is incapable of doing anything but love.  When God helps us, it is because of his love for us.  When God allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions, it is because he loves us and wants us to grow from our mistakes.  When God punishes us, it is because he loves us.  We love because we are first loved by God.  As our creator, God is the source of all that is good and that includes love.  Because God loves he shows us compassion and mercy.  In compassion, God knows what we need to hear.  He knows when we need to feel his love.  In his mercy, God offers us forgiveness because he loves us.

*The words source, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness are in italics because they are words on the list that I am working from.

Peace – When we hear the word peace, we might be inclined to think of a world where there is no violence.  If we all embrace God’s love and peace, then yes, there would be no violence.  But when we say two parties are at peace with each other, it may not be because of God’s peace.  Enemies can remain enemies and not fight.  They may choose not to fight because there is a balance of power and neither feels they can win a war against the other.  While, in this case, it is certainly good that they are not fighting, the peace they are living is not the same as God’s peace.  In God’s peace, we find a sense of tranquility that transcends our physical circumstances.  For instance, when we are discerning a very difficult decision and find some peace in what we choose, then I believe that sense of peace is God’s presence affirming our choice.  It does not mean it is an easy choice.  If fact, for me the more difficult a choice is to make, the more I seek a solution that may not be the solution I want but when I feel that sense of peace, it leads me to believe that it is what God wants.  All I want is do to what God wants.

Do you see Jesus as a friend?

Can you feel God’s love? 

What have you done recently that lead you to feel God’s peace?

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

P.S. If you are new to this blog, click on Images of God to see the rest of this series.

Today, I continue to talk about “negative” words that some people use to describe God.  Of course, when I use the term “negative” I am already beginning to show my disapproval of the term.

Punisher – Does God want to punish us?  No, God would be much happier if he did not have to punish us.  Punishment is never God’s goal.  God’s goal is that we all know his love and seek to follow him.  When we sin, there are consequences that we must face.  Hopefully we learn to do better from the consequences. 

Fearsome One – Here is a struggle for me.  Whenever I hear someone say or read in the Bible that we should fear God I wonder what there is to fear.  Certainly, God is more powerful than I am.  God could destroy me if he wanted to.  But God doesn’t want to destroy me (or anyone).  Why?  Because God is full of compassion.  I know that when I make bad choices I know I have to face consequences, including (for mortal sin) eternity in Hell.  I fear that thought.  Yet, I believe God loves us.  God is many things.  For me, preeminent among them is love.  God is all powerful and all knowing and that can cause fear.  But how do we fear God who is perfect love?

Dictator – God is a dictator.  God sets the rules.  God determines right and wrong.  In human governments, we do not like dictators.  There is the saying, “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Human dictators often abuse their power for their own gain.  They are not perfect and so they make mistakes.  At times, they make bad laws.  Fortunately, God is all knowing and perfect.  There is nothing wrong with the rules God gives us.  God does not makes to benefit himself.  God makes rules for our benefit.  The rules only cause problems when we misinterpret them or fail to see the real purpose of the laws.  Lastly, a human dictator may seek to punish anyone who stands in their way.  God gives us free will and lets us make our own choices, whether they are good or bad choices.  There are consequences for our sins.  That is for our own good but God will never destroy us just because we disobey.  Hell is a real possibility but God offers us forgiveness to all who repent.  I started this article talking about negative terms.  I would have to say in general that in our human world, dictators are a bad thing because of those who use their power as dictator for their own gain.  God doesn’t.  God is a good dictator.

Do any of these terms (punisher, fearsome one, or dictator) fit your image of God?

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

Here I continue with a few more words one might use to describe God.  For the rest of the series, see “Images of God”. 

Everlasting/Eternal – These two words appear together on the list I am working from but I don’t see them quite the same when it comes to describing God.  Everlasting tells us that God is without end.  God certainly will never cease to exist but God is also without a beginning.  God is without a beginning or an end.  God is eternal.  In Revelation 21:6 we hear God say “I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.”  (Note alpha and omega are also on the list).  The letter “alpha” is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and “omega” is the last.  God existed before all else and is our creator.  God will never cease to exist.  God is eternal.

Infant Jesus – We celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day when he emerged into our human world (having become human at his conception in Mary’s womb nine months before) as a little infant.  I think it is a powerful image to imagine Jesus as a little baby but I have to admit it is not an image I think of often except at Christmas.  Why?  Simply because the physical image of Jesus that I normally think of is of him as a man in his thirties with a beard hanging on the Cross, crucified for our sins.  I think of this image for two reasons.  First, for Catholics, it is probably the image we most often see of Jesus.  Secondly, because the image of the Cross is not an image of defeat and despair.  It is an image of Jesus’ perfect love for us.  It is an image that leads to hope.

Risen Jesus – The image of the infant Jesus symbolizes the beginning of earthly life.  The image of the Risen Jesus is an image that shows us the eternal life that we all desire.  The Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples so that they would understand; understand why the tomb was empty and to show us that we will all share in the Resurrection if we but follow his will.  The Risen Jesus is an image of hope, hope that flows from knowing that life does not end in earthly death.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

A couple of days ago I started to write about words that people might use to describe God.  I started with tyrant, policeman, and stern judge.  Today, I would like to reflect on some positive words.

All Powerful One – Without a doubt, God is all-powerful.  There is nothing that is possible to do that God cannot do.  So, the term “all powerful one” is an appropriate description of God.  Yet, I must add that it is not a complete description of God.  One who is all powerful might be a tyrant but God is not.  In addition to being all powerful, God is also all knowing and totally compassionate.  God never acts for his own interest but for the good of his people.

All Seeing One – God is present everywhere.  Therefore, God sees and knows everything that goes on.  God is the only one who sees everything and this gives him a wisdom that we do not have.  When it seems that God doesn’t answer our prayers, I think that, sometimes it is because God does see everything and knows that something we think would be good for us, isn’t.  The fact that God is “all seeing” is part of why we can part our trust in him.”

Transcendent One – To be transcendent is to be beyond the ordinary.  God is certainly not “ordinary.”  God is not of this (physical) world as we know it.  God exists beyond this world of ours.  So, God is certainly transcendent but I don’t think I would ordinarily use the term transcendent one to describe God.  Nothing wrong with the term but I guess when I think of ‘transcendence” it just doesn’t describe who God is to me.  Is it possible to be “transcendent” without being God?

Supreme Being – God is certainly the supreme being.  No one is above God.  God is all powerful and all knowing.  No one else has the same power or knowledge as God.  It is important to note that God is not simply the supreme being because he is more powerful than us or because he knows more than us.  God is not simply greatly than us.  Again, God is all knowing and powerful.  This is part of God’s transcendence.  God exists in a whole different way of being.  This is part of the problem of talking about God.  We try to use human words to describe God that don’t really capture it.  (For more on this check out my paper, “Why Isn’t God Red?  How Do We Talk About God.”

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

None of us has seen God but we can each have our own way of describing our experience of God.  Recently, my spiritual director gave me a list of words that people may use to describe God.  He asked me to look at the words and ask myself does the word fit my image of God.  Three-quarters of the words are positive words and the remainder are words that generally have a negative connotation.

Over the next few weeks, I will pick some of the words and share with you my reflection on how they fit my image of God.  I start today with three from the negative list.

Tyrant – I see a “tyrant’ as a person who uses their power for their own gain.  They make rules based on what they want instead of what is right.  God certainly makes the rules but he does not make up rules for his own good.  God’s rules are good for us.  Rules like “You shall not kill” and “You shall not steal” are good for us.  God does not use his power for himself.  God has nothing to gain for himself.  God acts for our good.  Therefore, God is NOT a tyrant.

Policeman – I see a “policeman” as a person who enforces the law.  The police do not make the law.  God makes the rules and offers us wisdom and strength to live according to his Law.  But God does not exist to enforce the law.  God’s desire is for us to love.  God’s Law is a tool to help us understand what it means to love.  Therefore, God is not a policeman.

Stern Judge – My first reaction to this description was that God is not a stern judge.  God is about love and “stern” doesn’t ring of love.  As I continued to reflect though, I realized that God certainly the one who passes final judgment and has every right to do so.  God can be firm in his judgment as the one who is all-knowing.  Yet, I do not see God’s purpose as that of being a “stern judge” for the same reasons I don’t see God as a policeman.  God’s goal is not judgment.  God’s goal is for us to be with him for eternity.

Do you see God as a tyrant, policeman, or stern judge?

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

P.S. For more on how we talk about God, check out my page on “How We Talk About God”.