what is god

[mikeyrobbie]

So this is just a silly philosophical and abstract question lol…

Is God alive? Is he like a non-corporeal all powerful being or alien?

Did he come from some place far away and just create us?

What is God? Surely someone in the Church has thought of this?

And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…

The Catholic Philosophers!

I’m not questioning his existence or divinity lol…

 

[Johnnyduffy]

God is the supreme being, infinitely perfect who made all things and keeps them in existence. He is eternal, He always was, always will be and always remains the same. He is a spirit and cannot be seen with our bodily eyes. He created us out of love, He didnt need us , and by creating us He was not made any happier, but created us purely out of love.

 

[Julia_Mae]

So this is just a silly philosophical and abstract question lol…

And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…

.

Sooooo… maybe not so silly?

I keep paraphrasing Thomas Merton, someday I’ll have to look up the exact wording:

“Sooner or later the contemplative must come face to face with the fact that he no longer has any idea what God* is*.”

It is common in many forms of mysticism to only define God by negation. In fact, the Hindu have a common reference to God which is neti-neti - “not this, not this.” The idea being if you could point at every single thing in the Universe and say that is not God, if you elimated it all, God would be left. They also have a few thousand “gods” which are really representations of various aspects of God.

So. Hmmmm. Nothing we say that is True about God conveys the reality of God. God is “spirit.” Do we mean energy? Like that which comprises Time/Space? No. Does that mean God isn’t “here?” No.

There are people who have the experience of being “oned with God” and in these cases they all, as far as I know, lose any sense of “self.” They also cannot convey in words what it was like, not really.

All the things we say about God are True in the Church. All the things we say are incomplete. In His Mercy, God came to us as Jesus, so that we might know Him as much as anyone can know Him.

Oh yeah. My answer to the question is: I have no idea. I just know God is more real than the keyboard I type on. And He loves me. (Also you.)

 

[JRKH]

On the Program "Catholicism, Fr Barron described God as “That which nothing greater can be thought”

In 1 John 4 we are told that God Is Love…

Putting these two things together we have, God is Love greater than can be thought…

When Moses asked God for His name, God said “I Am who Am”…

The Totality of God is indescribable in our human capacity to communicate.

Peace
James

 

[ESMDHokie77]

If you can fully understand it, it is not God.
Our ways are not His ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

 

[sw85]

So this is just a silly philosophical and abstract question lol…

Is God alive? Is he like a non-corporeal all powerful being or alien?

Did he come from some place far away and just create us?

What is God? Surely someone in the Church has thought of this?

And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…

The Catholic Philosophers!

I’m not questioning his existence or divinity lol…

God is pure being: the principle of existence itself. Whatever is, is in God.

God is omnipresent, i.e., completely present in all places at all times.

God is omniscient, i.e., perfectly self-aware and possessing knowledge of all true propositions.

And God is omnipotent, i.e., capable of doing all that is possible.

God did not “come from” anywhere. Everything came from God.

 

[Armyvet007]

“And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…”

Um, you ask for the “heavy stuff” but yet don’t want us to reference those who dealt with the “heavy stuff” or what we as Catholics would consider a very valid source for the correct answer/basis for our answer.

Not to sound like an ***, but that’s like asking us to accurately describe in great detail the Battle of Thermopylae to you based solely on watching the movie 300.

If you want the “heavy stuff,” you want the answers provided by/based on the Catechism and the Doctors of the Church.

 

[ESMDHokie77]

THIS… IS… CATHOLICISM… Splashes you with Holy Water

mikey, God created space and time, before their existence… He was.

 

[Nita]

So this is just a silly philosophical and abstract question lol…

Is God alive? Is he like a non-corporeal all powerful being or alien?

Did he come from some place far away and just create us?

What is God? Surely someone in the Church has thought of this?

And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…

The Catholic Philosophers!

I’m not questioning his existence or divinity lol…

If you’re sure you’re ready for the unregurgitated “heavy stuff”, here’s a link to Part I of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica dealing with God.
newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

 

[Lisa44]

So this is just a silly philosophical and abstract question lol…

Is God alive? Is he like a non-corporeal all powerful being or alien?

Did he come from some place far away and just create us?

What is God? Surely someone in the Church has thought of this?

And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…

The Catholic Philosophers!

I’m not questioning his existence or divinity lol…

Interesting question. I don’t know! However, the O.T. has God saying "I am the Lord, YOUR God, …
So I would have to question the assumption that there is only one god. So this God, that is “your” God, must have adversaries. Don’t worship strange gods…etc…

Do we know for a fact there is only one God?

It’s possible that God is a being, located some place else, perhaps another dimension. He might even have a body, I don’t know? There are references to his body in the O.T…

I believe he definitely created some of us. (our souls that is). But some souls are evil from the start (the bible speaks of this). So he didn’t create evil souls if in fact he is love and all good. Evil cannot come from good and vice versa.

There are definitely many locations and the location where God is is not earth, and its not hell, where is it? I have no idea.

 

[Lisa44]

“And I’m not looking for a regurgitated answer from the Catechism or Doctor of the Church… I want to hear from the heavy stuff…”

Um, you ask for the “heavy stuff” but yet don’t want us to reference those who dealt with the “heavy stuff” or what we as Catholics would consider a very valid source for the correct answer/basis for our answer.

Not to sound like an ***, but that’s like asking us to accurately describe in great detail the Battle of Thermopylae to you based solely on watching the movie 300.

If you want the “heavy stuff,” you want the answers provided by/based on the Catechism and the Doctors of the Church.

But, that is not entirely true.

James 1:5
Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him."

Thomas replied: “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me.”[35] (mihi videtur ut palea).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas

If you put men in the place of God, and worship them and not God, then you are an idolator I’m sorry. I know that is not what you meant. I think you meant that we can learn from the wisdom of others and that is true, but wisdom doesn’t come from men it comes from God so we have to remember that and ask God for the wisdom we seek.

Yes, no?

 

[John7]

what is god

God is a spirit

(John 4)

 

[promethius]

Is God alive?

Yes

Is he like a non-corporeal all powerful being or alien?

In the person of Christ, He is man AND God. In the two other persons of the Trinity, He is spirit (non-corporeal)

Did he come from some place far away and just create us?

No, He did not “come from” anywhere, and in terms of God’s being, God is infinite and therefore exists outside of the finite and measurable universe… ergo the term “far away” has no meaning for God.

What is God?

God is.