What God is or what God is not

[Avemaria1208]

Hello everyone,

I’m new in the forum and I already love it, thank you for being part of this awesome virtual community.

I am reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I found this: ‘’Concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how others beings stand in relation to him’’. I don’t really understand how can we explain God starting from what he is not to what He actually is.

Any good comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks beforehand.

 

[Vico]

Hello everyone,

I’m new in the forum and I already love it, thank you for being part of this awesome virtual community.

I am reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I found this: ‘’Concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how others beings stand in relation to him’’. I don’t really understand how can we explain God starting from what he is not to what He actually is.

Any good comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks beforehand.

It is not a progression from unknown to known.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

43 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”;17 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."18

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c1.htm

 

[Ellipses]

I’m now more of an Agnostic, but if we have souls they’re made of the love we share , undimmed by time, unbound by death - oblivion the movie.

So love is my religion and God, to sum up

 

[Rob2]

Any good comments would be greatly appreciated.

Hello @Avemaria1208 .

We need to be honest and admit that often our answer ought to be “I don’t know” .

We don’t have all the answers , and often we are in the dark .

You mention the Catechism . I like these words from the Catechism : " God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God–“the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable”–with our human representations. Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God."

 

[Lee1]

God to me is every good thing I thought was impossible
And every good thing I thought was possible.

His greatest gifts, faith, the ability to love and salvation.

 

[Dan_Defender]

We can never understand the mind of God because our human minds are limited. God is perfection which we cannot grasp. So we know what God is not, but when we achieve the Beatific Vision we will see Him as he is. For now we see only through a glass, darkly.

 

[JerryZ]

Many people tend to put GOD inside a box comparing him to the order of beings that exist in our Universe. But GOD created the Universe hence HE cannot be contained in it. Thomas Aquinas said that GOD is an uncreated being HE created everything and does not require a contingent cause to exist HE is existence itself. This is why when Moses asked HIM for HIS name GOD answered “I AM WHO I AM”.
A contingent cause is the relationship between cause and effect. I am contingent to my father and mother. If a being is contingent he cannot be GOD. HE is the cause, the primary cause, the primary move for all that exists.