God as a Being

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What does the teaching of the Trinity mean about God in terms of His personal relationship with us? I have read that the Godhead i.e. His Being is “impersonal”. Does this teach that God in His Being (nature) does not relate to us other than in a Person of the Trinity?
 
God is INFINITE.

Which means that we, being finite and tiny and puny and fragile and not smart, have no actual way to figure Him out.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was granted a vision of Heaven … and was so overwhelmed by his ignorance that he tried to burn his own writing … because he said it was “straw”.

And Aquinas was the most brilliant writer of the second thousand years of Christianity.

Pray over it constantly.

God knows all your thoughts, words and actions … your feelings and your responses to your feelings.

Find a parish church that has Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and visit there … and spend a lot of time on your knees before Him.

NOT impersonal at all.
 
Classical theists object to calling God a personal being. The word personal here isn’t meant so much in the sense of “personal relationship” but more along the lines of classifying God as a person among other persons, a being among beings. It changes God from this something other beyond our comprehension and to which our language is inadequate to describe into another being within and on the same level as other beings in this universe, even if we grant that he is the greatest being. He is no longer the traditional concept of God as defined by the classical theists, but is reduced into something closer to Zeus or Odin, which is both seen as theologically and philosophically problematic.

Now, this objection to calling God personal, and (for philosophy) speaking of God only insofar as he is revealed through reason, is misinterpreted as making God into something that is distant and inactive, but that couldn’t be further from the truth once you come to grasp what natural theology says about God. Furthermore, he is a God who has not just interacted in human history but has stepped into it, who has called to himself a people, who wills that people approach him so that they might share in him, whose essence is love (and in a more perfect way than humans can do). When we say God is “impersonal” (if we use the term), we only mean that God is not simply a person among persons. The idea that he can do and has done these things to call us into a personal relationship is not being excluded.
 
One of my favorite biblical passages is The Prodigal Son.

Focus on the description of the Father.

Something I wrote the other day:

Prodigal Son.

Like the father of the prodigal son. Look up that parable. Very valuable and important lesson therein.

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15%3A11-32

The father was out there desperately waiting and hoping to catch sight of his younger sinful son.

20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

everything I have is yours. 32

You also have to understand God’s INFINITY.

It is different from mathematical infinity.

Billions of people … can SHARE in God’s INFINITY.

Some of my friends INSIST that there is only so much good stuff to go around … and if you get something good, then there is less for them.

But that’s not the way it works.

ALWAYS … the sinner is ALWAYS welcomed back.

All prayers are welcomed at all times.

And the prayers don’t need to be elaborate.

No special format.

“God … please help me.”
 
Well, for example in the OT, God is shown speaking to Abraham and to Moses. So it appears that He related to them as one being.
 
Coder said:
Does this teach that God in His Being (nature) does not relate to us other than in a Person of the Trinity?
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I’m not sure how to understand this question. God’s nature is a trinity. So to ask if God’s being/nature does not relate to us other than in a person of the trinity is like saying* “does God’s nature not relate to us except for part of his nature?”*

Perhaps you can rephrase it if that’s not what you mean.

But God is God. He is not “just” a being. He IS Being. “I AM who AM.” He is the foundation for existence and reality itself. At the same time, he is Jesus Christ…a brother to us, who seeks us out like lost sheep – with a personal love – and draws us closer to Him in love and joy.

The two cannot be separated, though they can be distinguished. In the end, they are the same…which is amazing. The all powerful sustaining force for hundreds of trillions of distant worlds – the creator and space-time and the founding Fact that supports the very fabric of reality itself…cares for each of us personally and knows us by name.

Only our God could be such. Said differently: if anything in the universe would possibly be such as the above – it would be our God. We are truly blessed.
 
Coder said:
Well, for example in the OT, God is shown speaking to Abraham and to Moses. So it appears that He related to them as one being.
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Yes, and classical theists know that God can act in this way in relationship to men. The important thing is that we understand that God, in his divine essence, is on an en entirely different ontological level than us and anything created and that he is not just another being among the created, but is something that trancends the concept of “a being”. We are not limiting God’s ability to relate to us, but making sure we preserve the knowledge that he transcends the categories we tend to lump things into naturally according to our finite experiences with the finite world. The manner in which we commonly speak of God is convenient, but we shouldn’t let that then cause us to simplify him down to something less than he is.
 
Didn’t Jesus indicate to the Samaritan woman that the Jewish people understand Who they worship?
 
Wesrock said:
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The manner in which we commonly speak of God is convenient, but we shouldn’t let that then cause us to simplify him down to something less than he is.
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Sometimes less is more and human eyes can’t see it. :hmmm:
 
God transcends personal. You can’t get more personal than a God who is with you wherever you are, and who holds your very being in existence, and who offers us his Holy Spirit to be with us in a special way, who gives us commandments to follow, and expects us to act in certain ways even about the most intimate things. In fact for man people, the Christian God is too personal.

No matter what your view you can not expect God to be Creator, Sustainer, and Life Giver, to be just like us limited created beings. He has to transcend us in order to be who he is. Yet, who he is, is involved in our lives in a much greater way than we even know. He ia like the air that we breathe. He is with us and sustains us. He walks with us and talks with us. Seems almost too good to be true.
 
fisherman_carl said:
God transcends personal. You can’t get more personal than a God who is with you wherever you are, and who holds your very being in existence, and who offers us his Holy Spirit to be with us in a special way, …
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Yes God’s love and kindness are wonderful!

Is it not just as good to say that “God is with us and sustains all creation” as it to say that He sends his Spirit? His Spirit is Him.

Is it possible that Jesus, speaking to Jews, used language that might help them? The Book of Genesis and the Old Testament speak of God’s Spirit.

The New Testament says “God is Spirit”.

Does our language about God really effect our relationship with Him? We believe He is One and we believe we relate to Him as One (well, I do).

I question whether Biblical, and Traditonal spiritual interpretations have resulted in a language about God (Council of Nicea) that served Jewish, Greek, and Roman people. Yet, today, we don’t come from such a background (having been educated with Christanity). Is it possible that the language of the Trinity is somewhat parabolic (i.e. teaching in spiritual parables) as an outgrowth of the Jewish, Greek, and Roman ways of speaking about God?

Does this mean that I question the belief in the Trinity? (Don’t we teach that we can’t understand it?) No, I don’t question the reality of God and how He has worked in creation as described by the Trinity. I do question that the language of the Trinity may lead to confusion and we even say we can’t understand it.

I again refer to Jesus’ teaching that “God is Spirit”. So, could the Trinitarian language be the same as saying God comes to (the Holy Spirit), and He communicates with us (the Word) including through Jesus who said that His (Jesus’) words were not His own, but the Father’s words. So, couldn’t this mean that God who Jesus teaches us “is Spirit” was speaking in Jesus?

I think that ultimately, I am questioning whether the Trinitarian language that was formulated in an ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman philosophical environment (and now we say that the Trinity cannot be understood [fully, or similar]) is reflecting the reality of God or creating more misunderstanding.

How is saying that God who we all believe is one and (Jesus says He “is Spirit”) is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit different from saying that God is with us always and sustains all creation (Holy Spirit) and came in human form (Son). St. Paul said that Jesus was in the form of God - this seems different than Trinitarian language but does not change the reality.

To me, I question that we may have an ancient language issue that served converts in the first centuries but may confuse educated Christians today. Perhaps the language in the Creed “consubstantial” and our response “and with your spirit” to priests is a movement to update our language to better reflect what Jesus teaches: “God is Spirit”.
 
Coder said:
What does the teaching of the Trinity mean about God in terms of His personal relationship with us? I have read that the Godhead i.e. His Being is “impersonal”. Does this teach that God in His Being (nature) does not relate to us other than in a Person of the Trinity?
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The Godhead or the divine nature is not distinct from the persons of the Trinity. The Godhead is the persons and the persons are the Godhead. The only distinction found in God is the distinction between the persons, that is, there is not another distinction between the persons and the Godhead or divine nature. For example, God the Father, the first person of the Trinity, is not distinct or another reality from the Godhead or divine nature; rather he is the Godhead or divine nature and the same applies to the other two divine persons. This follows from the absolute simplicity of the divine substance. There is one God in three persons.
 
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