Part One, God and Man

One Christian writer says: “No one does not love God except because he does not know Him.”

No human mind can deny the existence of God. The fact that God exists is self-evident and beyond doubt on the level of logic. To question the existence of God is an illogical matter. The fact that man knows that he is subsequent to creation and not prior to it makes him admit that creation has a cause for existence and is not man himself. Creation remains, but man comes and goes. So there is a Creator other than man! This is what people call “God.” But the deep question is not whether God exists or not. Rather, the real questions are: Who is this God? What are his attributes? What are his purposes in creating us and the world? And does he ultimately interfere in our lives, and does he interfere for our benefit or for his own? And finally, is this “God” worthy of our taking into account in our lives? These are the essential questions that concern the most important subject in people’s lives, which is God.

Who is God? There are many answers to this question, some of which are similar and some of which are far apart. All religions throughout human history are human attempts to explain this question: Who is God? In paganism, all of these human attempts gave God the attributes of perfection and power, as a natural need in the face of man’s feeling of deficiency and weakness. God has what we humans cannot attain. The God of beauty carries what man cannot gather in himself of beauty… In the end, “God” in paganism is “hope,” meaning that human ideals (some of which are good and some of which are bad) are ideals that exist and can be achieved, but if that is not the case with humans, then there are gods that carry them in their perfection. God is the strong and perfect one to whom man resorts, who knows a longing for these divine attributes and at the same time knows his relative failure to do so. In paganism, God is more like an idea, a power, or a force that ensures that human ideals are possible even in the world of the gods, and thus firstly we can strive to resemble them, and secondly we can turn to the gods to help us achieve them or possess them, even partially. This is why in paganism, sacrifices of forgiveness and appeasement were the basic elements of worship.

The God of the Bible appears in a different way; he is the “personal” God, not the idea or the ideal. He is the God who comes and reveals himself to us, and we are not the ones who invent him because of our sense of his existence. He “is” who enters our lives at moments and in forms that we do not know and often do not expect. This is how the first story of faith appears with the father of believers “Abraham”; it appears as a divine intervention in the life of Abraham, whereby God seeks Abraham before Abraham seeks him. God commands Abraham and changes his entire life and its entire course, so Abraham believes in God, that is, he believes in his requests and promises and walks in the path of fulfilling God’s commandments. It does not seem at all that Abraham gave descriptions of a God who he believes exists. Rather, the opposite seems to be true; it seems that God spoke to him and led him to a new land and life. If “God” in paganism is a human discovery or “invention,” then God in the Bible is a “divine revelation.” Therefore, if God in paganism is a power or ideal that we want, that is, God is “what we desire,” then the God of the Bible is “He is He.” He came, and many of us and those before us did not accept Him as He is. He came not as they desired, “but as He is.” If the gods in paganism had many names that express the ideals and powers that we lack, then God gave Moses His name, saying, “I am He who is,” that is, He did not accept to bear a name made by humans, but sought to reveal His reality to us as He really is, and not as we imagine His perfections because of our weakness. Man is the one who is in the image and likeness of God, and God is not the one who is in our image and likeness.

So God is a person, not an idea. This truth in Christianity has consequences and implications that are deeply connected to our daily lives. For us, God is not like the Epicureans, who said that God exists but wants nothing from us and there is no second life, and therefore our existence has nothing to do with His existence and it does not matter whether He exists or not. That is why their famous phrase was: Eat and drink today, live tomorrow, die.

The existence of the personal God for us is a question that does not accept “neutrality”: it is either faith or atheism. We either respond to His existence by accepting it or we challenge it. God exists means that He seeks us, calls us and wants something from us, and He has a specific purpose for creating us. God exists is a question that takes us out of our static state. It is a truth that changes our life and our entire life in its colors and purpose. This change is so profound that God – as the Apostle Paul expresses it – becomes the meaning, cause and substance of our life, as he says: “In Him we exist and live and move.” God exists means an event in life that has such power and importance that God becomes the center of my life, indeed He is its movement, its guide and its direction.

But these words in themselves may not be reassuring. This “all-pervading” presence may be disturbing and confusing to some! But, my joy, as the saints say, God is here and with us, but also “for us.” “For us” is the word we repeat in all our prayers and with which we conclude every ritual. He was born for us, suffered for us, and rose again. This God who fills our surroundings, directs and moves our lives, is distinguished by two things: first, that by these qualities He never abolishes our freedom, and second, that He is the greatest in the sense of a servant and not a tyrant: “The masters of the nations exercise authority over them, but he who is greatest among you must be the servant of all.” He is the “Redeemer” and not the “Judge.” This presence of God is not a negative intervention in human life but a positive opportunity, not a burden but liberation, not a judgment but happiness.

Some religions and philosophies have greatly offended God by portraying Him as a strong and just being. Thus, in contrast, human weakness makes God a rewarder and judge, and human errors make Him a punisher; but God is not like that. He is the one who “carried our sufferings and took our pains, and by His sufferings we were healed.” The attributes of the God of the Bible are: “The Father,” so when the disciples asked the teacher, saying, “Teach us to pray,” He answered, “Our Father who art in heaven…,” and He often said, “I no longer call you servants… but brothers,” that is, sons like Him, as He is a son of God the Father. And the Apostle Paul corrected the old rumors about God as a judge by his extensive explanation of the theology of adoption. We are sons, and even more than that, we are “members of His body”! Paul sees the Church (we) as a body whose head is Jesus, so Paul speaks of the end of ancient enmity, of reconciliation, and of a new covenant.

 There is nothing more beautiful than the image of the Father-Redeemer and Servant in the human mind. But even this image is not enough for the Holy Bible to describe God; therefore, the human tongue was perplexed and could not describe God in the end except through the tongue of the beloved John: “God is love.” If God were otherwise, our life would be hell, because God is everywhere, filling everything. But O our human being, “God is love,” would that God be all in all, and all for all! Would that this Christian wish would come true. Thus we always pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” and may the earth become like heaven, in which there is nothing but Your will, as in heaven, so also on earth. This is the Christian paradise, it is the divine presence in the absence of anything else. The divine presence is happiness, and everything we see in our world contrary to that is alien to it because of our freedom, ignorance, and weakness. It is a parasite on the original harmony, it is alien to the true origin. How hideous is that scene when the intruder becomes dominant and the owner of the house is treated like a stranger. How strange is that reality in which we treat the intruder like a master and the master we put aside like a stranger! Didn’t Satan (the stranger) say to Jesus (the Creator and the Master) “Worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the nations”? The thief appeared as the master, and the master as the intruder!

“God is love,” which means that the Kingdom of God is “happiness,” and that our prayer, “May your kingdom come,” means “May all hatred and all pain go away,” and as ascetic literature says in a brief sentence: “May the world (in its current distorted form) go away and may your kingdom (the world in its expected form) come.” How does this kingdom come? How is this goal achieved? And how does Christianity lead the world to this true goal? The Bible and human history make clear that human attempts were not always sincere, nor were they always successful! What the Bible also makes clear is that God did not let these experiences go astray, so He entered history alongside us, not to cancel our will, but to support our weakness, surround us with His commandments, and preserve us, contributing radically to helping our choices and strengthening our good will. “He did not disdain” even to bear our skin in His incarnation, to share our human nature, to finally enter into our history and establish our path in the paths of peace “after we had gone astray.” When we were hostile to Him, our God wanted to love us more and come to us. He is a God who does not reward our weakness and sins, but rather “where sin abounds, grace abounds.” When we go astray, He comes, and when we are hostile, He redeems. He is the owner of the principle of the “prodigal son,” the “sheep wandering in the mountains,” and the “good shepherd” who lays down his life for the sheep.

 The first important word after “God is love” is “divine providence.” This is natural because the word “God is love” is an action and not just a static attribute of God. God’s love immediately means “His care.” God’s presence is beautiful, so when a person seeks “continuous prayer” in asceticism, as the Apostle Paul recommended, “pray without ceasing,” this means that the person wants to travel in his life’s time, but always in the company of God, and in the company of this father and servant. Oh, my joy, God is present! Oh, my joy, God takes care of us! Oh, my joy, God supports our weakness but does not abolish our freedom! Oh, my joy, this is His will that the sinner should return and live, not that He should judge us! Oh, my joy, God seeks us when we are lost and does not leave us! Oh, my joy, we are not alone! Oh, my joy, God is with us! These are all one joy and one meaning, that God is present and God is love. God is with us, and His name is Emmanuel.

Amen