GOD IS...

Comment

Comment by Brian Morse on February 19, 2010 at 10:47am

Rick -- Actually, I agree with you when you disagreed with me! LOL

In retrospect, I was not following the spirit of the thought experiment. It was not my intention at the time, but I see it that way now. Life is funny.

Comment by Douglas C. Sloan on October 9, 2009 at 5:41pm

Jerry - as contradictory as this will sound, your comments are reflected in the latest version. Thank you for your contribution.

Comment by Jerry McAllister on October 9, 2009 at 5:23pm

I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the God list that Douglas or anyone else makes.
I am commenting on the way I express my experience of God. I can 'list' many experiences
in which I perceive God. But, if I am true to my belief, each of the items will always be owned
by me and not assigned to God. Sometimes that makes them a little harder to tell, but seems to
me though, that that still fits the given topic. It describes "what I would affirm".

Comment by Rick Abbott on September 25, 2009 at 8:27pm

Brian, I stand corrected, your reply is not what I thougth upon first reading...I really need to learn to re-read EVERYTHING I read...sorry.

Comment by Rick Abbott on September 25, 2009 at 8:23pm

It's important to stay true to the exercise proposed at the outset of the blog. Both responses are truly very good replies, however, they somehow deny the overarching assumtion that you can or should agree, or disagree, with the various poetic statements made. I have been checking in on this blog for days trying to formulate a way to answer it...you see how far I've gotten!! I have been struggling so hard, for so long to define what I see God as that I cannot even start to respond to this. Forgive me if this seems critical; I do agree with, and do understand, the positions in Jerry's and Brian's replies...they just seem to miss the spirit of the blog. I could be wrong?

Comment by Jerry McAllister on September 25, 2009 at 7:50pm

My concern with these types of lists, even ones so far reaching and wide open as this, are that any
attempt to define God or make God lists that say "God is" or "God does" this or that, is that this
inevitably puts God in a box. It limits God. No matter how well we craft our words, they are confining.

So, how does one talk about God? Well, I don't think I have a good, complete answer. But, one thing I
do is to try and own my own feelings/opinions/descriptions by describing my experience and explain how
I feel that reveals God to me. I avoid pushing that experience out as a definition of God and merely
describe it as my own experience. That I discover other people who describe similar experience is
pleasantly the human condition.

Example 1:
When I am feeling overwhelmed and pray and after a rambling time of trying to express my thoughts and
feelings of need, I get some sense of peace and also insight in to what step to take next, I can say I
experience God as a source of peace and I experience God as helping me through a difficult time. I have
no real idea of how it was done or the makeup of whatever it was, good bad, indifferent, intelligent,
accidental, coming from within me or coming from beyond me. I had the experience.

Example 2:
I am by a lake in the early morning and see the sun rise over the lake and become aware that I have
senses that respond to that place and happening with a feeling of joy and an appreciation of beauty.
I feel like this is a special experience that somehow reveals God to me - is giving me some feeling that
flows through me that I attribute an an experience of God right there and that I am especially happy
that I have the makeup to have that experience. Is it God the creator? Is it a gift from God? I don't
have to know that, only that I have had that experience and it left an infusion of joy and pleasure in
me and that I experience it somehow as an experience of God.

It is pleasurable and inspiring to discuss God and related ideas and statements. But I have learned to avoid
definitions that would confine God and remove the mystery and wonder.

Comment by Brian Morse on September 24, 2009 at 11:18am

Your talent and depth of thought is evident. I enjoy reflecting on these words. As you request, I'll add some thoughts of my own. This is in the spirit of conversation. I avoid internet "debates" like a 7 year old avoiding a bath.

- "God is Mystery....God is not unknowable" -- It depends on what it means "to know".

- "God is Peace...God is not angry or violent or punitive or warring" -- Some of the most compelling writing in the scriptures presents the character of God as being very angry, violent, punitive, and warring. It would be a pity to sanitize the main character of our mythology.

- "God is not petty or insincere or callous" -- See above. My favorite example of the character of God being portrayed in a shady light comes from Samuel and Kings. The narrator is the all-knowing one. God is a character in the play. God is not a protagonist.

- "God is not a prankster, joker, jester, comedian, clown, or fool". -- The binding of Issac seems like a prank.

Of course, I'm working under the assumption that we are not actually trying to make statements that are "truth" about an abstraction such as God. We are not naive. I'm coming at this mostly from a narrative point of view. One needn't smooth over the difficult passages. Indeed, they are the most fun!