Who and What is God?
Photo by Kirk
One September, at the beginning of a new university year, I had just settled into my seat when a young woman I had never seen before walked in and sat down across the small classroom from me. There was something different about her that got my attention, but I could not figure out what it was.
Although I was not interested in becoming involved in a relationship, preferring to focus on my studies instead, in the weeks that followed I felt compelled to scan the rooms and hallways if I thought she might be there. Within a couple of weeks, I had an opportunity to have our first conversation. She was always relaxed and perfectly at ease as we occasionally met and talked. The more I got to know her the more I felt I had finally "come home"; the restlessness I had felt for years was gone when I was with her. We have now been married 40 years.
There are some remarkable parallels with finding out who and what God is.
Looking back to that first day I saw her, I realize that I had no idea of who or what kind of woman I would end up spending my life with. Reflecting on this, there are some remarkable parallels with finding out who and what God is. Just as I was happily living life on my own, and even resistant to the idea of looking for a woman to marry, so I observe that many people are the same with God—just living their lives and even resistant to having anything to do with God. Second, just as I began to experience an almost irresistible compulsion to get to know her once our paths crossed, so I find many people have a similar experience when God begins to get involved in their life—they cannot get God out of their thoughts. Third, just as I have experienced something far more fulfilling than I had ever imagined in my relationship with the woman who became my wife, so it is that when we actually connect with God and understand who and what he is, we may experience something much more wonderful than we had imagined.
An ancient description of God
There is an ancient description of God that goes like this ...
"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no shifting shadow."(1)
Take a second look at that first line. We are talking about a being who is the origin of beauty, purity, love, music, honour, art, power, perfection, life ... the list goes on, opening outward like rooms revealing yet more rooms.
Consider just beauty
Take all the beauty you have ever seen, then add to it all the beauty everyone else has ever seen. Then add to that all beauty contained on distant planets, star clusters, deep-space nebulae, the entirety of the galaxies, all the beauty in the universe that has never been seen or imagined. All of that would only be a finite portion of what has come from the being who is beauty, itself, infinite beauty—a magnitude of beauty that is so vastly beyond anything we could ever imagine that no mortal could handle the sheer, mind-staggering power of it. And this is only one attribute of the "Father of Lights".
When you begin to conceive of a magnitude of beauty so powerful that the universe itself is unable to contain it, you have taken the first tiny step toward understanding who and what God is.
Now think about how you feel when you see something very beautiful—there is a compulsion to acknowledge and respond to it. It could be a gorgeous sunset or a powerful musical score that moves the audience to tears. If you consider that the more beautiful something is, the more powerful the compulsion is to respond, to see Infinite Beauty would be like subjecting a thin wire to an infinite voltage.
When you begin to conceive of a magnitude of beauty so powerful that the universe itself is unable to contain it, you have taken the first tiny step toward understanding who and what God is.
Each attribute by itself in its pure and infinite form would instantly overwhelm and annihilate our finite, mortal capability to handle and respond to it.
Just as we have done for beauty, we could then go through the same exercise for justice, as well as for joy, honour, music, love, purity, and more. Each attribute by itself in its pure and infinite form would instantly overwhelm and annihilate our finite, mortal capability to handle and respond to it. Then roll all those attributes together into something inconceivably mind-blowing. Perhaps this gives us insight into another ancient statement about God ...
"You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live! (2)
Such a being as the "Father of Lights", the one from whom every good thing is given, sounds wonderful at first glance, until we think a little deeper about what happens when the one who is the origin of perfection and everything that is right and good comes into contact with humanity, which in many ways is a blemish on the face of the earth, the source of great evil and suffering.
We may be in deep, deep trouble.
It reminds me of something C.S. Lewis, Oxford professor of English literature once wrote ...
"I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when he does. When that happens, it is the end of the world ... when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—come crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature."(3)
The name of God
There is an ancient account, about 3,400 years ago, where God appeared to Moses in a bush aflame but unconsumed with fire. In that account, God said his name is "I AM" ... "This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.(4)
There are massive implications for God, time, and nature.
The name I AM describes a being who transcends time.
The name I AM describes a being who transcends time. For God, the present, past, and future are all the same. God is the origin of time and the foundation of the physical world. He knows the decisions of billions of people simultaneously and the consequences of all those decisions to the end of time.
Custom-tailored gods
Back in the mid-1980s, a sharp Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at the University of British Columbia challenged me to defend the existence of God in a public, formal debate. During that entire evening, in a secular environment that included atheists, agnostics, non-religious, and religious people, everyone seemed to have, more or less, a common understanding of what was meant by the word "God".
That is no longer the case.
The norm for our culture, in the 21st century, is for each person to have their own idea of who or what the "something out there" is. It is vague, undefined, and customized to each individual’s feelings on what kind of god they would be comfortable with. But a belief is true if, and only if, it corresponds to reality, so what is reality when it comes to God?
How can we know the real God?
I could not have realistically imagined who and what kind of woman I could possibly spend my life with if I had not encountered her in real life. Similarly, God may seem so vague and undefined—so not-seen in our everyday life—that we may very much doubt his existence. Given the big difference (a massive understatement) between us and God, if we can ever hope to know who and what he is, God would have to take the initiative to interact with us in a way we can "meet" God in real life.
Has God ever interacted with us?
There is actually a historical figure who said he is "I AM" and who is astonishingly unique in history for two reasons.
There is actually a historical figure who said he is "I AM" and who is astonishingly unique in history for two reasons. First, he fulfilled ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah or Christ that we know were written centuries or even more than a thousand years before he showed up in history. Second, the historical record seems to strongly point to his physical resurrection from the dead.(5) In the academic world, the full range of scholars unanimously, or nearly unanimously, agree to four historical facts pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth ...
1. He performed feats that the people of the day believed were miracles.
2. He believed and proclaimed that he was the prophesied Messiah or Christ.
3. He was crucified.
4. Shortly after his crucifixion, hundreds of people had experiences that led them to believe they were seeing someone who had risen from the dead.(5)
Even if one is an atheist, these four historical facts are something that give this unique person a level of credibility that no other person in history has.
So how do I apply this?
If we wish to actually know who and what God is, then a personal relationship with the "Father of Lights" in real life seems to be required. It appears he has made the first move when he stepped into this world as Jesus of Nazareth, the one who said he is I AM. The next step is to decide whether Jesus is who and what he said he is. The third step is to accept the invitation he has extended to each person. He said ...
"Look at me. I stand at the door to your soul and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door I will come in and dine with you and you with I."(6)
The implications of God dining with you and you with him are those of a deeply fulfilling relationship far beyond anything we could experience with a fellow human being.
He also said,
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost."(7)
I have experienced countless amazing and beautiful things over the course of my life. I've stood near the top of a mountain in the Rockies at sunset before the last ski-run of the day. I've snorkeled on tropical coral reefs. I’ve seen beauty that is beyond my ability to describe, and I have experienced the enormous fulfillment of knowing and loving that woman who walked into class more than forty years ago. But the most fulfilling thing I have ever experienced, by far, is loving and being loved by the "Father of Lights", knowing the one who is the origin of honour, love, beauty, music, art, purity, and every good thing given and every perfect gift.
There really is only one way to find out and that is to meet God in real life
It is absurd for a human being to sit down and try and write an article describing who and what God is. There really is only one way to find out and that is to meet God in real life and step onto that road that will take the rest of your life, going ever higher up and further in.
(If you would like to talk confidentially with an online mentor about this further, follow this link.)
References:
C.S. Lewis, 'The practical conclusion', Mere Christianity.
M. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A new historiographical approach.