Is God Lonely?

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Peter_Plato said:
How do angles show forth God’s glory?😉

Pythagoras might be elated by this, as might mathematicians generally, but I am not clear how we can arrive at such a claim by theological means.
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I would hate to think that I meant angles instead of angels. But just in case you did, I meant angels.

Linus2nd
 
Linux said:
God’s glory is God’s esse and God’s esse is love. We are created to participate in God’s esse, which is the same as saying we are created to participate in God’s love and therefore God’s Glory. The perfection of this participation is made possible through Christ.
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Yes, I agree with that. All of God’s " attributes " are really different ways of viewing His esse. Now the question I have for you is what do you mean when you say that we are meant to participate in God’s glory or esse?

Linus2nd.
 
chesterton.org/2011/07/introduction-to-the-book-of-job/

That is the link if anyone wants to actually read his quote within context.

I am sure that someone pointed this out already but GK Chesterton (who is one of my favorite catholic scholar really the only one I have read) never actually says God is lonely he says the idea “may be called the idea of the loneliness of God”

Please correct me if im wrong but doesn’t this fall under God’s imutability somehow.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Yes, I agree with that. All of God’s " attributes " are really different ways of viewing His esse. Now the question I have for you is what do you mean when you say that we are meant to participate in God’s glory or esse?

Linus2nd.
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Well we cannot participate in our own Good as if Good is something intrinsic to our nature or identical to our nature; that is meaningless. Only God is goodness itself.

A negation or privation of Good does not in itself have an “act of existence”.

Good is identical with the act of existence and thus there cannot be a privation or negation of that which is the act of existence.

In other words the act of existence cannot be a degree of good. That is meaningless.

There cannot be an act of existence that is not identical with love.

Thus in-order for our “act of existence” to be good, God must conjoin his act of existence with our essence and therefore God must be identical with our act of existence (esse) and yet not identical with our essence even when it is actual. Otherwise we cannot exist at all.

And that is what participation in the esse of God means to me from a logical standpoint. Otherwise I don’t understand how essences that are not identical to esse can come to exist and at the same time have an act of existence that is not goodness itself and therefore not God himself.
 
Protestor said:
chesterton.org/2011/07/introduction-to-the-book-of-job/

That is the link if anyone wants to actually read his quote within context.

I am sure that someone pointed this out already but GK Chesterton (who is one of my favorite catholic scholar really the only one I have read) never actually says God is lonely he says the idea “may be called the idea of the loneliness of God”

Please correct me if im wrong but doesn’t this fall under God’s imutability somehow.
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After reading the entire introduction, it seems what Chesterton is getting at is more like the “distance” that separates man from God, a distance which is unnecessary since God provides the means by which man can be united in love to God, but man seems utterly “disinterested” in God at all.

The paragraph where this specific quote lives is:
The central idea of the great part of the Old Testament may be called the idea of the loneliness of God. God is not the only chief character of the Old Testament; God is properly the only character in the Old Testament. Compared with His clearness of purpose all the other wills are heavy and automatic, like those of animals; compared with His actuality all the sons of flesh are shadows. Again and again the note is struck, “With whom hath he taken counsel?” “I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the peoples there was no man with me.” All the patriarchs and prophets are merely His tools or weapons; for the Lord is a man of war. He uses Joshua like an axe or Moses like a measuring-rod. For Him Samson is only a sword and Isaiah a trumpet. The saints of Christianity are supposed to be like God, to be, as it were, little statuettes of Him. The Old Testament hero is no more supposed to be of the same nature as God than a saw or a hammer is supposed to be of the same shape as the carpenter.
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In a sense, the reason God acts “alone” in the Old Testament is that even the patriarchs and prophets seem only able to rise to the level of "tools or weapons” and not as “personal” affiliates. This “abandonment” of God by human beings (the fall) necessitates God acting on his own to carry out his plan (what Chesterton characterizes as loneliness) since humans seem only willing to tolerate it, at best, but never seem to completely ally or “get on side” with God.
 
St Thomas says, In creating, God removes the misery of non-existence; this is mercy

I really like this concept. Non-existence seems to me the ultimate misery, the worse that one doesn’t know that one doesn’t exist. So to speak.
 
What God created is good and has been willed by Him from Eternity. Therefore God has been completely happy from eternity contemplating Himself and His will even before we existed.
 
Viki63 said:
St Thomas says, In creating, God removes the misery of non-existence; this is mercy

I really like this concept. Non-existence seems to me the ultimate misery, the worse that one doesn’t know that one doesn’t exist. So to speak.
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In order to exist one must’ve at somepoint been non-existant. And both the existant and the non-existant are suffering.–Buddhism

Of course God is beyond existantance or non-existant
 
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