Who Is God? Part 1

Chapter 9

Who Is God?

            “In the beginning God.” Who is God? It is easy to state that God exists, but how does He exist? Does God have a body, or a form with which his intellect is housed? The Bible says we are created in the image of God, does that mean God has a body like us? Let’s see if we can’t tackle one of the most complicated doctrines in all of Christianity.

The Bible says, “God is a Spirit…”[1] This word Spirit is the Greek word pneuma, meaning air or breath. Neither air nor breath have a body. This makes perfect sense according to what we studied when we talked about dimensions. If God had a body, it would mean that God is held by a dimension and if God is held by a dimension it must be concluded that something created that dimension and thus God is not the originator of creation. Thus god must not exist, for we would go on forever explaining a god higher and still higher to create the gods that came before it.

            Like I said in the chapter about the 4^th dimension, God is dimensionless. God operates in many dimensions but He himself is not created, and not held captive by creation. So what does it mean then that God created man in His image? The word used for image in the Hebrew means a phantom, or shadow. We are the shadow of the character of God. God created us with the ability to experience emotion, to experience relationships, and to love deeper than anything ever created. We have the gift of man and woman, the ability usually reserved for God, the ability to create. God bestowed us with these gifts because they are a revelation of His character never before seen. In this aspect, we are created in the image of God. Not in body and form, but in mind, character, and personality.

I see God as the essence of things. God is formless. To see God would be like trying to peer into a black hole. God does not “exist” in the way we see existence. God was not created. We would not be able to see the form of God because God does not have one. The universe is the representation of God, it is not God, but it reveals truths about Him. If God were to pull back the curtain of our created universe and give us a glimpse into His reality we would see nothing because God has no created form accept that which he desires to relate to us through. So if God does not have a body, who is Jesus, and why does He have a body? That brings us to an important subject that is often taboo in Christian circles, the nature of the trinity.

God, or Gods?

Who is God, What is God, how does God exist? These are questions that have plagued humanity from the time of creation till today. One thing I have learned throughout my studies is that you can almost always take the popular view of God and disregard it almost entirely. So who is God? We have already seen that God cannot exist inside of this reality. Indeed God cannot exist inside any reality at all, for to do so would be to be a created being himself, which if we are to believe in God at all, we must believe that He is not created but is himself the essence of creation. So what about this very controversial subject of God being a part of a trinity? This is the idea of a triune God existing as three separate individuals in one.

To answer this question we need to examine the places in scripture where God is revealed to humanity. Let go back to the very first time that God is ever spoken of in the Bible. Genesis 1:1.

“In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the Earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”[2]

            So which God was this, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit? The next couple verses give us a clue, it says in Genesis 1:2, “Let US make man in OUR image.” Who is the “us” in this statement? Moses here first refers to God in general as creating all of creation, he then refers to the spirit, and then he refers to the plural form of God. What does this mean? Lets go to John 1:1. Referring to Jesus, John says this:

“All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.”[3]

            So John makes a claim here that Jesus was the one who created all things. He is claiming that Jesus is God, Jesus is the plural form of God, and He is the supreme deity, creator of heaven and earth. Lets go back to the interaction of God with Moses. Specifically the first time that Moses ever encountered God, at the burning bush.

“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush…I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.”[4]

            Notice that Moses refers to God as the angel of the Lord. Is God also an angel? Why is this God so confusing? It will all become very clear shortly. Look at what God tells Moses when Moses questions his identity. Verse 14, “I AM THAT I AM” This statement is packed with immense meaning. I AM is the word Hayah which means to exist, to always be. In other words, God is claiming, I am the one that exists to exist. He simply does. He is existence itself, He has always been, and without Him nothing would be that is. Can you guess another time when this phrase was used again? It is in the story of Jesus. The Jews were mocking Jesus because He claimed that Abraham rejoiced to see His day and saw it. The Jew answered back,

“…Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, Verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM.”[5]

I AM was the Greek word eimi, which means to exist, or to be. Jesus makes a claim here, He is God. He is the everlasting existent one, and just as John claimed at the beginning of His book, Jesus claims here, without Him, nothing was made, that has been made. Jesus is the beginning of creation, the creator himself. Jesus is God. What about Abraham seeing the day of Jesus? It says he rejoiced to see His day, and saw it. We need to go back to the story of Abraham and see what Abraham saw to understand what exactly Jesus meant by this. In Genesis 22:11 God has asked Abraham to kill his only son. As we will look at in future chapters, God asked this of Abraham because Abraham thought that God was actually capable of that. All the other gods around that time required child sacrifice to be appeased, so Abraham just assumed that God was like that too. So Abraham takes his only son up to the mountain of the Lord and prepares to sacrifice his son on an alter. Just before he is able to perform the sacrifice, however, the Bible says this:

“And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of the heaven, and said, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.”[6]

            This is what Jesus was referring to, the day that Abraham saw, the day of Jesus. Here God is once more referred to as the angel of the Lord, when that same angel claims he is God. This takes us back to the question we had at the burning bush. Why is God referred to as an angel? Lets take a look at a New Testament text that deals with God as an angel.

“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses…”[7]

This verse is simply to distinguish Michael as the archangel in heaven. Now look at who this archangel is. Revelation gives us a clue.

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.”[8]

Michael was there at the beginning. He was there when Satan fell, and He was apparently chief among the angels, leading the armies of the Lord. Not only was Michael there at the beginning, but also according to Daniel, He will be there at the end to. In Daniel chapter 12:1 it says that Michael will be the one to decide when the time of the end has come. He is the one playing the active role in the end of the world. The New Testament sheds light on this subject and nails down the identity of Michael the archangel.

“…They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”[9]

Jesus is referring to himself here. Revelation gives us even greater details into the role of Jesus in the end of the world. We will not go into it that far in this study, but it is enough to nail down that Michael the archangel is Jesus, who, as we have learned is God.

            If we begin to look into the subject of all the times when God appears to humanity, we began to see something very interesting. The pillar of cloud that led the Children of Israel through the desert during the day, and the pillar of fire at night, that was Jesus, the same one who spoke to Moses at the burning bush. The God who descended on the mountain to speak with Moses in a voice like a trumpet, that was Jesus. Every single time God interacts with humanity, it was Jesus. When Ezekiel portrays his awesome vision of God he is describing Jesus. Lets look at his description of God,

“…Upon the likeness of a throne, was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about it. As the appearance of a bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness…”[10]

            Now lets compare this with the description of Jesus found in Revelation. John hears a voice like a trumpet, similar to the voice heard by the children of Israel. And He turns to see the one who is speaking with him and this is what He describes:

“I saw…One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.”[11]

            This description is identical to the description that Daniel gave in Daniel 10. In that vision Jesus explains to Daniel that he was not able to come right away because he was resisted by the prince of Persia. Just a few chapters before this Gabrielle told Daniel that Michael was coming to him but had met with opposition from the prince of Persia. This is yet another confirmation that yes indeed, Michael, God, Jesus, the Angel of the Lord are all the same thing. They are describing God. So what is my point? I promise I am about to make one. But before I draw my conclusions let’s look at one more thing. Let’s look at John’s description of the thrown room of God. John is taken into vision in Revelation 4, and He sees a thrown room. He begins to describe almost the exact same image He saw in the first chapter, complete with the description of Jesus and the seven golden lamp stands that Jesus was standing between in the first chapter.

“…And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”[12]

John then proceeds to tell us of this book that cannot be opened that is in the right hand of the one seated on the throne. John recognizes that this book is the revelation of God to humanity and without it being opened humanity would not be able to be saved because this book reveals to the world the true character of God. No one was worthy to open it, because no one was worthy to reveal to the universe who God really was. But then one of the elders seated before the throne of God says this:

“Weep not; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And behold, and lo, in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain.”[13]

            This lamb takes the book and begins to open the seals. This is an allegory to what actually takes place. It was shown John to reveal to him something of God. Both He who sat on the thrown and the Lamb are a description of the same thing; they both represent Jesus. And now we come to my point. Whenever God is seen by humanity, it is ALWAYS Jesus. The father is never seen.

Jesus says in, “I and my father are one”[14], and again, “…He that hath seen me hath seen the father…”[15]

You see Jesus is God. There is no such thing as three separate individuals ruling together as one. There is God, plain and simple. Why then does the Bible speak of God in so many different forms? Here is what I believe to be the reason; God is seeking to reveal Himself, the non-created and eternally existent one, to the finite created being. How does the nonexistent relate to the existent? He reveals himself to them in a way they can understand. He prepares himself a body so that we can understand who God is in terms of His relation to humanity. From the beginning, God has chosen to reveal to His creation Himself in their form. God is triune, but not in the classical understanding of the trinity.

God is so multidimensional that He has to reveal himself to Humanity in multiple ways. There are not just 3 by the way. Everything created is a revelation of who God is to humanity and indeed to all created beings. Every plant, every rock, every mountains, every planet, every star, every galaxy, is a revelation of who God is. But to his sentient creations God specifically reveals himself in a trinity to help us understand a little of what He is like. For all eternity we will be exploring the dimensions of God, discovering new aspects of the character of God that we never thought possible.

It isn’t this way for just humanity, I propose that this is how God interacts with everything He has ever created. Remember Michael the archangel? Why would God be revealed as an Angel? I believe it is for this simple reason, God created angels, thus he revealed himself to them in a way that they understood. That same Michael made himself in the image of humanity to reveal to us, and the entire universe, who God really is. We will never see the father, or the Spirit, “why?” you might ask. The answer is simple, because Jesus is the father. Jesus is God made into the likeness of sinful flesh, the three dimensional representation of the father, So that we could understand who God is. The personable creator of the entire galaxy, all billions and billions of light years of it, He desires us to know and understand who He is. If this God exists, oh how exciting eternity will be.

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[1] John 4:24

[2] Genesis 1:1

[3] John 1:1

[4] Exodus 3:2

[5] John 8:58

[6] Genesis 22:11

[7] Jude 1:9

[8] Revelation 12:17

[9] Matthew 24:30

[10] Ezekiel 1:26-28

[11] Revelation 1:13-15

[12] Revelation 4:3

[13] Revelation 5:5-6

[14] John 10:30

[15] John 14:9

You Try Too Hard

A relationship with God is not hard. I see it time and time again, someone mentions how hard it is to surrender, or overcome, or humble themselves, or what have you. My response to this exclamation of despair is this, “you're doing it wrong!” If your relationship with God is impossible for you to obtain and makes you depressed just to think about it, then in truth, you have no relationship with God at all. At least the God I worship is not the same God you do. 

You see, my God is not interested in your sacred rituals, your acts of devotion, your morning prayers, your scheduled study of his word, or even your acts of piety, dedication to the church, or feeding the homeless. All of these things are not bad things in and of themselves; the problem arises when you start to see them as a requirement for the Christian life. Christianity has made all of these things into an idol, we worship the actions rather than the God behind them. 

I often hear people say, I need to surrender my will to God; I need to surrender my desires to him, or my love, etc. etc. The list of what we "need" to surrender to God can go on and on. This is also wrong. God originally endowed humanity with a mind. We have an amazing gift, the ability to choose, to desire, to want, to love, to cherish, and to make plans, to develop our future. God has given us these things so that we can experience all of creation. We were created to give meaning to the universe God has created. We are here to explore this tiny little speck of dust that is our world and now today, our solar system. We are the universe contemplating itself. We give it purpose and meaning. God does not desire to take that away from you.

Christianity has so distorted the character of God that they have made into a good thing, that which is evil, the destruction of human choice and will power. They see it as an act of humility to surrender your wants and desires to God. God gave them to you, why refuse his gift given in love? It is an understanding of Him that God desires of you. God desires to be known, to be understood on your level, to have a relationship with you. That can only be achieved if you discover him in your own. You must discover who God is to you, to see that he is Love itself, that understanding him is absolute joy, love, life, freedom, and knowledge. Only when we see God for who He is will our will be his will, our thoughts his thoughts and our desires those which He Himself would have. By beholding we become changed and until we behold how awesome and infinite our God is, we will not be able to “surrender" anything. You see, until "surrender" no longer feels like surrender, you have not done anything worthwhile. Until surrender feels like your normal thought, like your natural decision, you do not understand God correctly. 

I am not there yet, but I strive for that. I do not worry about that which I do not do; I worry about where I am at in my personal understanding of who God is. I do not make lists of do’s and don’ts, I look to nature, to science, to scripture, and I study the awesome character of God, because only then will I see an actual change in my life. My life is full of joy, every moment is new and incredible and happy. I do not fear for my salvation because I am starting on a road that leads to eternity, the searching of the awesome infinity that is God. Depression, despair, anxiety and fear, all of those things are no more. That does not mean I will never be sad, or never experience anger or depression, but they are nothing like they were in my life before. I wake up every morning praising God for the miracle that is life. My life is full if joy because I have caught a glimpse of God. By beholding I am becoming changed. Try it, start focusing on your understanding of God and stop trying so hard to please him, instead start focusing on who he is and then allow that revelation to change you. 

Miracles are Not the Miracle

Chapter 8

Miracles are Not the Miracle

            I just wanted to briefly discuss a topic that many people take equally as many positions on. This will be a brief discussion encompassing only one short chapter. If you want an extremely detailed discussion of this topic, there is a really great book by C.S. Lewis, called Miracles. C.S. Lewis’ thoughts on this subject are extremely insightful and probably are the source for the bulk of my beliefs that I will discuss in this chapter.

            So let’s jump right in to it. If the universe operates off of certain rules, and everything behaves based on these observed rules, then wouldn’t God be breaking his own rules to do something contrary to what He has determined? Let me ask you a question. Which miracles defied the course of nature? “All of them!” you might say. Well, let’s take a look at a few and see. I want to propose to you before we start this study of the Miracles of God, that God does nothing without obeying the laws He has set in place, and that every miracle is following the nature result of the laws of nature, with only slight deviations. The miracles of God happen every day! They are not reserved for single points in time, but occur on a giant scale every single day.

            God created the entire universe so that we could experience who He is. Everything in existence was created for the express purpose of interaction. God created reality so that we could understand Him, thus his interactions are almost always through natural processes. This does not limit God; the idea that God limits himself by using natural laws is self-defeating. If God created reality for the express purpose of interaction then why is it limiting of him to use it for it's intended purpose? It defies logic to think in such terms. Thus, if studied out fully, we would probably find that all miracles, small and great, have a natural cause. Existence itself is the true miracle. The very fact that life happens and that existence thrives is evidence of THE miracle. Let’s look at a few miracles found in the Bible and see if my theory holds true.

            Let’s start with the foundation of Christianity, the virgin birth. Did not God destroy the natural in interfering and making a virgin conceive? Isn’t this breaking His own law? Let’s look at this from a different perspective. How does conception normally happen? A man and a woman each provide a piece of themselves, the man provides sperm, and the female an egg, and a baby is created. How is this possible? It seems impossible when you actually think of it. How is it possible for two to be made one, and for something as complex as a human to arise out of two single cells? It seems like a miracle, that is why it is often called, “The miracle of life.” With the virgin birth, God did not break his law, only continued on with what He has been doing all along. It was nothing more than supplying what was needed for a baby to be conceived, and then nature followed the results of nature and a virgin conceived and bore a son. God did not break His law, He simply extended what was already a miracle of nature and Jesus was born.

            Let’s choose another one, take the withering of the tree, I’ll quote it for you,

“And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.”[1]

            Magic! That is what it seems like to us. Does God have magic that he can curse the tree and at his command it dies? Well, I want to ask you, is this any different than what happens every day? Trees in the forest die, and wither away. The withering of the tree in the Bible was nothing more than what we observe every day on a huge, worldwide scale! Go out in to a forest and look around you, trees with vibrant colors, different shaped leaves, and different kinds of bark, all grow up from a single seed, they grow tall and reach for the sky, and then they wither, their leaves fade and fall and the tree begins to decompose, it falls over and gives life to the next generation of animals and plants. This is the natural process of life. Which one is more a miracle, the withering of the cursed tree, or the beautiful, self sustained forest? Are they not both, one in the same?

            How about the feeding of the 5,000 people from 5 loaves and 2 fishes? Surely that miracle is beyond any natural cause. There is nothing in nature that speaks to that great of an actin. Let’s look at a single seed of grain, one grain seed produces dozens of other grains seeds. It is the natural “law” of multiplication. The fishes in the sea multiply by the thousands. This miracle of life is so vast that it supplies every living soul on the planet, man and animal alike are fed buy the miracle of multiplication. On the mountain, God did nothing more than that which happens every single day, and has been happening from the beginning of time! I do not share this to diminish the miracles of God, only to show that the true miracles of God are the miracles of everyday life. Our life is one giant miracle, reality is a miracle, existence is a miracle, conception is a miracle, and time and space itself are miracles.

            Even take Jesus’ very first miracle ever performed, turning water to wine. You might think at first glance, “Aha! We caught God doing something that doesn’t normally happen, turning one thing into another.” Well, let me ask you this, how is wine made? The roots of a grape vine take up the water and absorb the sunshine, and produce flowers, those flowers swell and become grapes, and in those grapes glucose, starches, and antioxidants are formed, making up the grape juice. It is a miracle that water is turned to grape juice inside the grape, but it happens every day on a massive, worldwide scale. The only difference between Jesus’ miracle and what happens every day is that Jesus did the miracle on a much smaller scale, and he did it much quicker than would normally happen inside the grape. So which miracle is more astounding to you then, turning 6 pots of water to wine, or turning water to wine in billions of grapes every year? Just because it is ordinary and we observe it every single day, does not make it any less of a miracle.

            God is in the business of miracle making. It does not break the laws of nature for Him to perform miracles either. These so called “laws” we refer to are extremely limited in what they actually explain. As mentioned in previous chapters, the “laws” of nature describe everything in the universe after an event has occurred. They describe how a ball in motion will act as it is thrown, they do not however describe the throwing of the ball. The laws of nature, in short, describe everything but the event, they cannot make things happen. An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by a force. This is a law of nature; the force by which the ball moved is never actually described. Let’s say that a person then comes along and pushes the ball, ah, now we can calculate it and describe its motion by the laws of physics. It took free will, however, for the person to move the ball, they chose to push the ball and that choice science can never explain.

C.S. Lewis had another masterful example that I will use to make this point clear. Say there is a ball on a spaceship in outer space. The ball is at rest with its surroundings, there is nothing to interfere with it, but suddenly the ship lurches and the ball rolls relative to the ship. “Aha!” you might say, “The ball moved without freewill acting on it!” but did it? The ball moved because the ship lurched, but what caused the ship to lurch? Waves hit the ship, perhaps in the form of gravitational disturbance, or some such thing, and what caused that? As you keep going farther and farther back you eventually come to the big bang, and what caused that disturbance? Something with free will had to choose for it to happen, indeed, the free will agent had to make it happen.[2]

So you see, we are a crucial part of miracles every day; the miracle of involuntary action by the voluntary actions of a being with free will. We have the ability to choose which objects we move and which we don’t. Science will never be able to explain the cause of the event they study. These “laws” of science that people hold to so strongly, are not laws at all. They are a description of how things move once they have been caused to move. The laws of nature do not take into account that free will plays a role in the turning of the universe. We humans, as free will agents, shape the universe around us. We decide how it is going to act, and what is going to be produced by those actions. How much more can God do?

If we, as created beings, can shape the universe around us by the gift of free will, how much more do you suppose God can shape our universe through so called “miracles”, as the giver of free will? Remember the example of the pool table and the scientist? Science is studying the pool table with great skill and accuracy, but they have forgotten to take into account that free will agents may alter the path of the pool balls at any point. God, standing outside of time and space itself, can, at any moment, change the circumstances of their study and “ruin” their perfectly constructed experiment, we would call these miracles, science would call them impossibilities.

In my view, the universe exists inside the mind of God. Perhaps picture the matrix, but with the one difference, it is not created machines that we exist inside of, but a loving God, who has given us the ability of free will. Yes, as we have studied, reality may just be our imagination, things are relative to the observer, and time and space can be twisted and distorted in ways that we are just learning to understand through relativity and quantum physics. Instead of despairing and desiring to be in the realm of God, which in the next chapter you will learn is impossible, we look at this universe in awe of the God who created it, and not only gave us the gift of life, but gave us the gift of free will. There are no “agents” going around making sure no one learns the truth. God has given us every bit of truth possible for us to know, and his given us the ability to discover truth for all eternity. He has made himself known through the miracles He performs around us, He has nothing to hide.

God created reality around us for the express purpose of knowing Him. All things in existence are to point us to our creator. It is our duty to study, to search out, and to question the things around us. This miracle of existence is THE miracle. So often we ask for signs to prove to us that God exists. We desire to know for a certainty that God is real and a part of us. This desire is a human one. We want God to be like us, and we are frustrated when it turns out He is not. Yet we can know something about God, by studying the world around us we can gain a deeper knowledge of what God is. As David said, “The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.”[3]

So often we demand of God a sign, but in so doing we miss the whole point of life. We live our lives from one “miracle” to the next, always looking for that “big break”. It is like a person who desires to get rich but instead of working towards his goal sits back and waits for opportunity to come to him. To such a person Jesus said, “Why does this generation seek after a sign? I say that there will be no sign given to this generation.”[4] We need to wake up. After studying this amazing universe we live in, how can we still live a mundane life? God has given you abilities beyond your wildest dreams; it is your choice to take control of your own destiny. What will you do with the Miracle God has given you?

Prolog To Part 1

Here ends a brief study of the created universe we live in. I have not even gone into depth of all that science has taught us. I did not speak of M-theory, or the reason why the electromagnetic force is millions of times stronger than gravity itself. I did not discuss biology and the irreducibly complex cell. Nor did I discuss the mystery of the human intellect. This book is not meant to be a science textbook; I only wish that you gain a deep understanding of the mystery of God. God is not like us. He is not an elevated human, created in the image of our imagination. God is beyond our ability to understand.

I have written about these things because I believe it is safer to view God as an impersonal force, or the essence of things, than it is to see him as just an elevated human, for if God is an elevated human, than He is no longer God, and if He is not God, than why should we say He exists at all? After all, through all our scientific research, we have seen no proof of an elevated Human out there anywhere. Science has rightly rejected such a God, and I plead with you to reject Him as well. Learn to see God as He is, as the intellect that crafted this universe, which created it, and is the sustainer of it. The creator of time and space itself, his wisdom can be seen in the stars, and his mind and character can be found by studying His creation.

As we traverse into the next section of this book, I want to ask that you once again, put aside your ideas of who you think God is, and what you think His character is like. Kill the God of contemporary religion. Study with me as we explore the character of this imaginary God. A God so great, that He created such a complex universe dependent on massive distances that are beyond our comprehension, and built it on such small particles of energy that we cannot imagine them. Yet, while He is great enough to do all of that, He still cares for you and me, and is intimately involved in our experience, as you will learn to see in the next section, God is love, and His goal for you and me is happiness and peace forever.

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[1] Matthew 21:19

[2] Lewis, C.S. Miracles.

[3] Psalms 19:1

[4] Mark 8:11

"God IS" – 22 statements of belief

This is a list of 22 statements that briefly describe the basis of my faith. This is here simply for you to orient yourself as I discuss certain subjects. This list is not exhaustive, it is extremely basic and should not be used solely in understanding what I believe. For more detailed descriptions of these issues you must read the chapters of my book that I post on this blog. I cannot explain each idea in a short sentence, truth is not for the lazy, you cannot simply read a list and understand, you must study long and deep before you understand fully. I dislike lists like these because it reminds me of the 28 fundamental beliefs. As short general statements of belief they are good, but there is danger in them as well, laziness being top among them. Too many people point to a set of statements as their belief system without ever truly exploring it for themselves, don't be that person. My understanding is fluid and constantly changing as I grow in my understanding of God. This document reflects my current understanding of God today, but may not be he same tomorrow as I am continually learning more and more about the character of God in new and exciting ways. I reserve the righty to change this document to reflect growth in my understanding as revelation is inevitable to those who search for it.

1. God is Non-existent. He created existence, he himself does not exist inside of it.

2. God does not have any created form besides that which he choses to relate to us through the 3 dimensional revelation of himself through Jesus/Michael.

3. God is infinite energy and infinite mass contained in zero volume. In other words, he is what is needed for the universe to exist.

4. God is love, not the emotion, but the essence of love. 

5. God does not have emotions, for emotions are created to help finite beings understand what God is but we cannot think of God in created terms. To describe God as wrathful, vengeful, judgmental, loving etc. does not describe God correctly. We ascribe human emotions to God, it is humanities way of understanding, but it is not accurate. 

6. Any definitions we place on God cannot actually describe him.

7. The universe is the 3 dimensional representation of the "mind" of God. 

8. God created every aspect of reality to explain himself.

9. God is multidimensional, he cannot be describe by 1, 2, 3, or even 10 different dimensions.

10. The idea of a trinity is a man made understanding of God. It is a way in which we can understand the multidimensionality of God in our own terms.

11. The Father is: the dimension of God that cannot be understood by humanity. It is the type of God that explains the nonexistence of his person. It explains that all though we have aspects of God we think we know, God is beyond it.

12. The Son is: the aspect of God that is in the form of creation. This is God relating to us. To the angels he was Michael, to fallen humanity he is Jesus. Jesus is simply the dimensional aspect of the greater whole that is God. One God but different aspects of the same concept. 

13. The Spirit is: the concept of God that describes a relationship with the infinite. The Holy Spirit is my relationship with God. This is why the sin against the spirit is considered the unpardonable sin, because if you choose to end your relationship with God, he cannot force a relationship. Relationship and force are mutually exclusive, so when you decide to end the relationship you "kill" the spirit since the spirit is a name for the idea of friendship with the infinite. 

14. God is not arbitrary: evil is not evil because God says so, but because we have the free will to choose nonexistence. Evil is whatever leads us to choose to be outside of the existence god has created. Evil is a choice. Heaven is not exclusively for "righteous" people, heaven is self selective. Those who choose it just happen to be "righteous". "Evil" people will not choose heaven because they self select nonexistence. Heaven is NOT a reward for good behavior, heaven is something you can choose. 

15. God is not controlling: God designed free will in the very existence of reality. Quantum mechanics guarantees that each of us has the ability to choose for ourselves. Free choice can not be determined absolutely, only estimated through behavior. 

16. God created reality so that we could understand Him, thus his interactions are almost always through natural processes. This does not limit God, the idea that God limits himself by using natural laws is self defeating. If God created reality for the express purpose of interaction then why is it limiting of him to use it for it's intended purpose? It defies logic to think in such terms. Thus, if studied out fully, we would probably find that all miracles, small and great, have a natural cause. Existence itself is the true miracle. The very fact that life happens and that existence thrives is evidence of THE miracle.

17. Belief in God and correct actions gain you nothing but what their own benefit can bring to you naturally. God gives the potential blessings of life, love and happiness to everyone alike equally. To the atheist, life, love and happiness, to the Christian life, love and happiness, to the satanist, life, love and happiness, all alike regardless of decisions made. Any negative aspects of life come from the natural consequences of the decisions we make themselves. Bad things are not the divine retribution of God but the consequences of life decisions. This does not limit God, as stated before, this IS the way God chose to create reality to work. If he intended reality to work a different way he would have created it the other way. 

18. Prayer is for our own benefit. We pray not so God can hear, but so that we can change. Prayer is a type of meditation, it teaches us what we really desire, it calms us, it puts us In a state of mind to search our hearts, and to review our circumstances. God does not change circumstances, but he has given us the ability to change them, and to learn from them. God has designed us with the amazing ability to discern, learn, explore and reason. 

19. Revelation is our experiences with God. Men wrote as they were moved by the spirit. The spirit is the relationship we have with the divine, I have written as I have been moved by the experiences I have had with God. Paul wrote as he experienced his connection with God, Ellen White wrote as she was moved by her connection with God and experience with him. Andrew Murray wrote as he was moved by his experience with God. Since god has created our brain to discover and question,and has created the universe to help us understand him, it is crucial that we question and reason, study and explore the world and universe around us. Science, philosophy and all study that leads to understanding is the key to revelation. 

20. The Bible is the experiences of dozens of individuals all experiencing different aspects of God. God relates to each individual differently. The apparent differences in understanding in the Bible do not point to its falsehood, but it's truth. We need the experiences of others in order to gain a more complete picture of the Character of God. There may be specific cases of "special" revelation, but the majority of divine revelation is simply the written experiences of men and women of faith. Thus, not only should we read the bible in its literary context, but in cultural context as well. The Bible devoid of culture does not make sense. Not all understandings found in the Bible can be transferred to a modern way of thinking, such as slavery, male superiority etc. To understand those concepts you must compare it with the culture of the time, and every time you will discover the Bible to be progressive in its beliefs. According to our culture it may not be progressive, but according to their culture, it was. Thus, truth does not end at the Bible but follows the trajectory of it carrying truth to its intended goal. 

21. Humanity fell: This fall was simply a choice to walk out of the presence of God. We should have ceased to exist at that moment since to be outside of the reality of God is to not exist. God bent reality to include us, however, so that we would not die, he saved us for a plan that he desired to implement, a plan by which he could reveal himself to humanity and cause us to desire eternity once again.

22. Salvation: because of humanities decision to be outside of the presence of God, terrible things happen in this world. Not because of some magical force called sin, but because humans make some pretty terrible decisions that effect the lives of others. God does not cause the pain in the world, or allow it even, he has simply created reality to work a certain way, we have chosen to pervert that system, and now chance is the major ruler of this world rather than our own decisions. Man was originally supposed to be in control of his reality, to shape it as he saw fit, and that is what God desires to bring us back in to. Through Jesus, God revealed to the world that He is a personable God who desires to interact with his creation. The entire life of Jesus was meant to reveal the character of God. Jesus showed that It is in your power to take control of your own reality and to shape it for the betterment of the world around you. You can choose what you desire, and God has revealed his character in hopes that your desire is life.

22. God is Love. You will notice I state this twice because I believe it is the central foundation to my philosophy. He is the essence of what it means to love. Everything created is guiding us to understand what that means. God's primary purpose for you and me is eternal happiness, joy, and love. As we experience the universe around us and relationships with each other we connect with the divine and gain deeper and deeper knowledge of what God is. "We are the universe contemplating itself" in other words, we were created to comprehend God. Piece by piece we are stitching a picture together, and hopefully step by step we will regain that image of God that we were created to understand and have since lost.