Was God lonely?

[Richca]

Thank you very much for further discussion! Please know, I am confident we are stuck in a semantic hole, one which I would like to reconcile with you. In hopes of reconciling our understandings, please consider the following:

I can only think of four levels of “wanting.”
One can either want, not want, be indifferent, or conditionally want and not want.

Given your understanding of “If God had wants, then he wouldn’t be God,” please share your understandings to the following questions: Does God want you and me with Him in Heaven? Does God want you and me in any capacity?

Jochoa: I believe God wants you and me with him in heaven with an infinite longing. As I said in a previous post following the teaching of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, God has an infinite longing to love and be loved. This is certainly something that can be meditated on and is deep in meaning.

About God’s act of creation, the following three truths we must hold to be of Catholic Faith (cf. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and the Catechism of the Catholic Church).

1. The world was made for the glory of God, not to increase his glory but to show it forth and to communicate it (CCC #293). “The Lord has made all things for himself” ( Proverbs 16:4).
2. What moved God to create was his love and goodness (CCC #293).
3. God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity. The Vatican Council I declared that God “with a will free from all necessity” executed the act of creation. In the CCC, “with absolute freedom of counsel.” In scripture, “Who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). St Thomas Aquinas says that what we work according to the counsel of the will, we do not will necessarily (cf. one of my other posts where I quote St Thomas more extensively on this). Dr. Ludwig Ott says that “a pressure from without or an urgency from within is incompatible with God’s absolute Being and with the independence and self-sufficiency which this implies. Again, no necessity to create derives from God’s goodness (though this is the motive which moved him to create), because the desire for self-communication inherent in the nature of goodness is satisfied in a perfect manner through the internal Divine Processions” (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pg. 83).

What might appear confusing is that God’s love and goodness did not compel him to create, for creation doesn’t add anything to his beatitude, yet his goodness and love is the very reason why he created.

 

[jochoa]

To Richca,

Given the understandings you have shared:
Richca: “If God had wants, then he wouldn’t be God.”
then,
Richca: “I believe God wants you and me with him in heaven with an infinite longing.”
and,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “God has an infinite longing to love and be loved.”

I find this dialogue very interesting, and extremely valuable! Please consider a few questions:
Do you consider there to be a distinction between having an infinite longing versus a having a finite want? In other words, God wouldn’t be God if he HAD a want(s), implying at some point in time they are fulfilled and He stops wanting. Whereas God having a want(s) which has no beginning and no end is theologically sound?
How do you reconcile that as God, He cannot have wants, yet He is capable of wanting us and still being God?
In regards to the OP, can you now recognize how although the term lonely is most typically used too negatively, given the context in LaSainte is attempting to share, it is more similar to the deep and infinite longing to be loved as stated in yours and Mother Teresa’s understandings?

What might appear confusing is that God’s love and goodness did not compel him to create, for creation doesn’t add anything to his beatitude, yet his goodness and love is the very reason why he created.

Please know, my friend, your words and understandings are helping me tremendously! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to discuss and clarify them with me. I definitely agree with you, and my understandings of God are definitely in alignment with Catholicism! Thank you for helping me ensure I am in alignment!

I look forward to further discussion!

 

[StrawberryJam]

When certian posters who have not acquried the skill to quote people in their posts correctly fix their quotes to attribute them to their acutal authors, maybe we can go from there.

 

[Richca]

To Richca,

Given the understandings you have shared:
Richca: “If God had wants, then he wouldn’t be God.”
then,
Richca: “I believe God wants you and me with him in heaven with an infinite longing.”
and,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “God has an infinite longing to love and be loved.”

I find this dialogue very interesting, and extremely valuable! Please consider a few questions:
Do you consider there to be a distinction between having an infinite longing versus a having a finite want? In other words, God wouldn’t be God if he HAD a want(s), implying at some point in time they are fulfilled and He stops wanting. Whereas God having a want(s) which has no beginning and no end is theologically sound?
How do you reconcile that as God, He cannot have wants, yet He is capable of wanting us and still being God?
In regards to the OP, can you now recognize how although the term lonely is most typically used too negatively, given the context in LaSainte is attempting to share, it is more similar to the deep and infinite longing to be loved as stated in yours and Mother Teresa’s understandings?

Please know, my friend, your words and understandings are helping me tremendously! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to discuss and clarify them with me. I definitely agree with you, and my understandings of God are definitely in alignment with Catholicism! Thank you for helping me ensure I am in alignment!

I look forward to further discussion!

jochoa: thank you for your thoughts. With regard to the title of this thread, “Was God lonely” I believe I have answered this question according to catholic faith in my other posts. It is incompatible with God’s absolute fullness of being, perfection, and beatitude, as well as with the doctrine that God is a communion of three persons. To clarify this further, please consider the following thought. We believe that God has no beginning or end. We also believe creation had a beginning. Consequently, God existed in a timeless eternity, or according to our way of thinking, in an eternal duration of time before he created the world and angels. Indeed, this is incomprehensible to our puny intellects but true. Does it stand to reason that God was lonely or had wants in this timeless eternity or an eternal duration of time or that he got lonely at some point and then decided to create the world? God does not change as it is written in Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change.” This to me just further proves what we believe about God that he possesses the absolute fullness of being, perfection and beatitude. Before God created the world, he was perfectly happy with himself. Otherwise, I think we would have to say that creation itself had no beginning ( I think this is pantheism) which is clearly contrary to the faith.

 

[Contarini]

Edwin seems to think it would be contrary to Catholic teaching for Jesus who is God, to experience a Mother’s love.

No. You don’t understand two-natures Christology. The question was not about what Jesus wants/wanted but whether God created the world so that He could have these kinds of experiences, as if they added to the perfection of the divine nature in some way.

This is a very appealing position. Perhaps it is even true. What it is not is traditional Christian orthodoxy as understood hitherto. There may be some way of reconciling some form of this idea with orthodoxy. But some work needs to be done to do that, because the aseity of God is a basic tenet of historic Christian theism.

Edwin

 

[mercytruth]

No. You don’t understand two-natures Christology. The question was not about what Jesus wants/wanted but whether God created the world so that He could have these kinds of experiences, as if they added to the perfection of the divine nature in some way.

This is a very appealing position. Perhaps it is even true. What it is not is traditional Christian orthodoxy as understood hitherto. There may be some way of reconciling some form of this idea with orthodoxy. But some work needs to be done to do that, because the aseity of God is a basic tenet of historic Christian theism.

Edwin

Would aseity disclude God from being a Relational Being? Does not aseity define God as an Uncaused Being?

God’s peace

micah

 

[StrawberryJam]

No. You don’t understand two-natures Christology. The question was not about what Jesus wants/wanted but whether God created the world so that He could have these kinds of experiences, as if they added to the perfection of the divine nature in some way.

This is a very appealing position. Perhaps it is even true. What it is not is traditional Christian orthodoxy as understood hitherto. There may be some way of reconciling some form of this idea with orthodoxy. But some work needs to be done to do that, because the aseity of God is a basic tenet of historic Christian theism.

Edwin

Jesus did not have to love his mother, or experience her love and this is traditional Christian orthodoxy?
How did he share with us fully his humanity if he did not love his mother?

Please define aseity of God and what it means to a Catholic.

 

[jochoa]

jochoa: thank you for your thoughts. With regard to the title of this thread, “Was God lonely” I believe I have answered this question according to catholic faith in my other posts. It is incompatible with God’s absolute fullness of being, perfection, and beatitude, as well as with the doctrine that God is a communion of three persons. To clarify this further, please consider the following thought. We believe that God has no beginning or end. We also believe creation had a beginning. Consequently, God existed in a timeless eternity, or according to our way of thinking, in an eternal duration of time before he created the world and angels. Indeed, this is incomprehensible to our puny intellects but true. Does it stand to reason that God was lonely or had wants in this timeless eternity or an eternal duration of time or that he got lonely at some point and then decided to create the world? God does not change as it is written in Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change.” This to me just further proves what we believe about God that he possesses the absolute fullness of being, perfection and beatitude. Before God created the world, he was perfectly happy with himself. Otherwise, I think we would have to say that creation itself had no beginning ( I think this is pantheism) which is clearly contrary to the faith.

Thank you tremendously, my friend, for further discussion! I am extremely appreciative of you taking the time through the course of this discussion to share your thoughts and considerations for the Catechisms! I cannot tell you how much they have helped me grow in Faith. However, I would like to share the following with you, since it made my day much better!

I am working on developing a “theory” regarding God, His Church, and His Ways, and your responses have helped guide me many great steps closer to refinement.

The updated “theory” is as follows:
How does a person share the means to experience limitless happiness with unbreakable peace for all, including the self, given the person initially exists in absolute solitude?

The Solution reveals the following:
Jesus Christ: The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God and His Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The actions He must do is the Nicene Creed.
The general means to experience these blessings is Jesus’ Greatest Commandment.
The means to experience these blessings in the “earthly” world are Jesus’ Greatest Commandment in unity with the Sacraments of Catholicism.
The means to share this experience is the Story of Creation: The Holy Bible.
The detailed aspects of the Solution are the Catechisms of the Catholic Church and Doctrines of Faith.

Thank you very much for extended discussion! May the peace and joy of living for our Lord always be with you! And I look forward to meeting you in Heaven, sooner than later!