Divine

[Carol_Morgan]

Does anyone have a good definition of what we mean by ‘divine’? We use the word all the time, but I for one do not have a clear idea of what we mean. I am thinking of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth when he resumed the full power of his ‘divine’ nature; of simply when we say that ‘God is divine’. It seems an easy question, but it has bothered me for years.

Blessings

 

[God_sent]

Good question, I can only base it on my own spiritaual formation, Divne/Divinty: To me is certainly not of the flesh but of the Spirit, which gives life to the world…therefore God is Spirit more so a Divne Spirit of emanating Love, which manifested itself, (meaning…His divinity…true…spiritual nature…was revealed, in the hypostatic union of Christ, (two natures/one man). This Divne nature is what we are called to be… and to share within, the one body, we ultimately share in it… at each Mass we attend (in Grace), so as to recieve the Bread of life, which is truly the DIvne nature of Christ…given to us under the form of bread and wine. “Praise be Jesus” prayers sent + God Bless

 

[Wesley7]

Divine would mean otherwordly pertaining to a higher spiritual reality. One would think of this when trying to focus on ‘the Jesus prayer’.

 

[Carol_Morgan]

Maybe the idea of being related to a higher being is about as close as we can get. I checked out some definitions in a notebook I keep and found several meanings. My concern is that we do not simply define ‘divine’ as relating to ‘God’ because that is just defining something by itself: an orange is orange because it is an orange, for example.

I found: Divine. Having godlike nature; being god or god or goddess; connected with, coming from or caused by god or god or goddess; relating to the worship or service of god, god or goddess; noun god or an underlying creative and sustaining force in the universe. [See also numinous etc]

Divine/divinity/deity. I am that I am. Supreme being; pure acting/dynamism of love – nothing static; reflection of \ claimed by and for Jesus of Nazareth, but there are others for whom claims might be made eg Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Mohandas Gandhi. Also implies uncreated, beginningless, endless, etc.

And then I got to*** Numinous***, which is related to the idea of divine: Numinous is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity. According to Otto the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinas, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent.*

Am I any further ahead here, along with the advice you gave me? This issue has been with me for years because it is truly what separates humanity from God, Jesus of Nazareth from Jesus the Christ - although ultimately they themselves - as Persons - were not separate in the Trinity. Oh dear.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ)

Blessings
Carol
South Africa

 

[Wesley7]

Does anyone have a good definition of what we mean by ‘divine’? We use the word all the time, but I for one do not have a clear idea of what we mean. I am thinking of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth when he resumed the full power of his ‘divine’ nature; of simply when we say that ‘God is divine’. It seems an easy question, but it has bothered me for years.

Blessings

It means that there is a Creator and we humans can attune to a higher power out there.

 

[thistle]

Does anyone have a good definition of what we mean by ‘divine’? We use the word all the time, but I for one do not have a clear idea of what we mean. I am thinking of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth when he resumed the full power of his ‘divine’ nature; of simply when we say that ‘God is divine’. It seems an easy question, but it has bothered me for years.

Blessings

Modern Catholic Dictionary:

DIVINITY. The attribute of being divine. In an absolute sense only the infinite God is divine. but the term is sometimes loosely applied to others than God, either mistakenly or because of some relationship they have to God. (Etym. Latin divinus, belonging to God.)

 

[Carol_Morgan]

I am really grateful for these thoughts. The simpler the better probably : I have been floundering around in Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and that’s where it gets sticky!

But, I am sure that last proposal, that divinity is **of **God, is like the example I gave earlier about the orange: this is a tautology in which we define something by itself. Divine = God = divine, and that’s that.

OK, let’s go on thinking, those few of us who are thinking about this most important word in our belief system. I find it confusing that 5 people have posted on this question of ‘divine’ - and did the same when I posted the same question about four years ago. At the same time, look at the sheer numbers of postings above and below the issue of ‘divine’, and the kind of questions that are being considered. Why does this happen? Why?

Is it because we take ‘divinity’ for granted? Is it because it is too hard to think about? Is it because the language of the church used to write about ‘divine’ is too often very difficult and may be open to a suggestion that there is a bit of sophistry here, a bit of playing with words, as Aquinas explains things

For me at this point in my spiritual journey, I have thought of ‘divine’ as ineffably perfect, beginningless and endless, unknown and unknowable, incomprehensible and outside the space and time models of we humans. And finally, that ‘divinity’ is love.

Who am I?

God Creator, Abba Father,
Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Man,
Emanuel, Redeemer, the Christ,
Holy Spirit Paraclete
The Trinity

First Cause, Unborn, Beginningless, Endless

I am the Unknowable.

I Am that I Am

Love

Blessings IHN