I believe God is space

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I think the way I conceptualize God wouldn’t be considered Catholic. I think of God as a space like spirit going to infinity in all directions making him omni-present, transcendent, and everywhere. “His center is everywhere and his circumference is nowhere”. I think of the song “The sound of silence” and the first line “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again” and I believe he’s singing about God. How are Catholics meant to imagine God? Can he even be imagined?
 
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God is not His creation. His essence is existence. He sustains creation but is apart from it. I’m not great at describing how to conceptualize God. Your idea of God doesn’t seem to be in line with what Catholics think. God has reveled certain aspects of Himself to us. Trinity and so forth. That’s where we are supposed to start.
 
The Catholic definition of God is the origin which Created all that exists, i.e. Energy, Matter, Space and Time. Space is created, it therefore is not God.
 
God cannot be understood by humans. That is why he sent his son Jesus to earth as a human. We could relate to Jesus and understand his human side.
 
Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that “between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude”; and that “concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him.”
CCC 43
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There is no good way to talk about God. Even these statements do not do justice to God. Darkness can be a useful image, but it has limitations.
 
Your idea of who God is contradicts reason and Catholic teaching. God cant be described as the sound of silence since the sound of silence is the absence of sound, hence nothing actual in of itself.

We are not able to grasp the essence of God but there are many things that reason and revelation can teach us. God is not space like since space is in reality spacetime, which is something that creates space for material things to exist within. It is not correct to think of him as a spirit either. It is not correct to think of him as existing like a material thing does, like matter and energy. So we cant describe him as existing and going in all directions since this would imply a physical (this can describe the existence of energy and things like that too) existence that exists where it takes place. He is transcendent, meaning he does not exist like things in the natural world exists.

I dont know what basis you have for your belief, but it is not sound to make up things because you feel like they make sense.

God is transcendent, meaning he doesnt exist as in taking place in any way. Light for example exists in a physical way so it is in no way correct to make a parallell between these. He consists of no parts and is the greatest being. He is the ultimate good and the source of all good in his creation. All his attributes, like existence, love, mercy etc, are one in him since he consists of no parts. He also exists out of necessity, hence he cant not not exist and he is not dependent upon anything.
 
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I am sure that there are some that would argue that you are wrong to imagine anything other than what they believe but equally so, from a biblical reality, there is only so much that we can imagine correctly. We can identify God by His character and His Spirit, but not fundamentally “what” he is as the Alpha and Omega. We can only guess at so much based upon scripture but really our mind cannot conceive, because we are finite and limited creation. We cannot even visualise dimensions beyond our own now (even if we find some equation to explain they exist), so we’d never be capable of visualising that which lies outside of the created.

I’m not of the mind that it’s heretical to try and imagine but there is a slippery path to reach a conclusion and then stick with it. Tangibly, physically, God will only allow you to understand what he reveals through His Spirit. Beyond that, you’ll be stuck within a swirling pool of head exploding frustration.
 
hviturbjorn said:
God will only allow you to understand what he reveals through His Spirit.
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What is spirit? Is it of creation? Is it derivative of matter like human consciousness? Is our spirit anshare of God’s spirit?
 
According to Bishop Barron. (and the Bible) GOD IS LOVE. I can’t explain it but the good bishop can. Look it up.
 
Weave said:
God is not His creation. His essence is existence. He sustains creation but is apart from it.
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THIS.

I think the OP’s understanding of God is borderline pantheistic. But the OP is certainly right that God is transcendent and omnipresent, so they aren’t totally wrong.
 
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felsguy said:
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jredden92:
omni-present, transcendent, and everywhere
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hmmm…that part strikes me as being pretty much in line with Catholic teaching
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100% right here with me, 100% with you, 100% in heaven, 100% in my fingernail.
Space is not everywhere 100% but only a fraction of space is in any three dimensional area, and not all of it fully present in any point or fully present in any subset of points.

Only that which is non-material, non-spatial, non-temporal can be considered as a possible being that might be divine - and you will never identify him by scientific research.
 
jredden92 said:
I think of God as a space like spirit going to infinity in all directions making him omni-present, transcendent, and everywhere
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I would agree with this idea as you’ve presented it this far. But I would hasten to add that the universe we can see and measure is only one manifestation of possibly millions of aspects of the greater intellect of the mind of God. When Bishop Barron says that God is not a being but ALL of being, I think our human minds will tend to think along the lines of what you have said. As another poster pointed out, however, we can never come to a single idea and say, this is it, I know now how to define God. As Augustine stated, as soon as we think we know, that will not be Him.
 
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If you actually believe that God is space, that’s not a catholic belief, it’s probably more like a pantheism or naturism or something.

If you use the vastness of space as a metaphor (or a triangle for the Trinity for example), or whatever, that’s okay because you know it’s just a metaphor and not the real thing.
 
Of course both time and space are mental constructs we put together with our very limited perceptions. The fullness f the truth of reality, like God is currently beyond our knowing.
 
It is something like this question that would most definitely draw me towards Eastern Christian theology. I believe in the West we have too great a desire to have everything neatly explained, labelled and filed away in the correct compartment. I prefer the Eastern Christian view of things where we simply have to accept that some things are simply mysteries. We accept their existence but have no human means of describing them. I do not think it is possible to say what God is. He exists. We believe in Him. We worship Him. However, I just accept His existence. I do not even want to begin to attempt to try to explain what He is. I firmly believe that will only lead to failure because He is beyond our means of description.
 
jredden92 said:
How are Catholics meant to imagine God? Can he even be imagined?
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It’s a long story but it’s a good and important story. The story includes: “Where did we come from?”, “What will happen after death?”. We must seek after God (Matthew 6:33; Acts 17:22-31), But, Almighty God also seeks after us (Psalm 119:176). The Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth. The Church is a Body that has Mystical Union with its Head, Jesus Christ.
 
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