Understanding God (4 of a series)

One cannot understand God if one does not understand the utter worthlessness and transience of human beings' bodies and minds. It is important to understand that individual humans, their bodies and their minds, are not even "blips on the radar" in the sense of the size or wisdom of their bodies of matter, or their importance in natural law. Remember, even in the context of the physical universe (and thus not considering, for a moment, eternity in God's realm), an individual human is a handful of billions of subatomic particles that exists at the most for one hundred and twenty years, until those subatomic particles return to the soil, or ashes. Their brilliant thoughts and witty repartee are lodged in their brains, which also die. Their "wisdom," even if placed on paper, computer media or even etched on titanium have no worth in and of themselves, and do not last either, in the course of the universe. They are quickly decomposed, or covered with sand. Humans cannot even decode and translate the archaeological findings of some of their own writings of within the last several thousand years. (Humans still do not have a clue about their own Etruscan language, for example, or from where the Basque language originated in their own history). Human bodies and minds mean absolutely nothing.

So consider this in the context of what I wrote in the previous posts of this series. God continually sees and perceives all that exists, "down to the smallest unit" (thus my example of how he views all subatomic particles at the same time and individually, past, present and future). If God looks at an individual human, all that human is are a very few subatomic particles that join together to create a "knowing" being for a few short years, in a very small part of the universe. This is why no human can look on God's face and live, because that human would see perfect knowledge and "context" on God's face, and it would be unavoidable to observe, as in a mirror, how insignificant any human, no matter how "illustrious" he or she is, as they are, physically and mentally, mere handfuls of billions of subatomic particles out of the uncountable (except by God) numbers that exist in time and space. This is not God scowling or anything malicious. Humans simply cannot gaze on the face of the one who comprehends everything, who created everything, and can see the less than dust that every person is made out of.

So where is the hope? How can humans even exist?

Humans are humans because they have something within each individual that is beyond the mere subatomic particles of body and mind. That is the soul, which is not made out of matter or energy, and which is not an object of the material universe. The soul is made out of God's own "clay" which is his will. When a human embryo is conceived on earth God creates a soul and sends the soul to that embryo, when it is attached in a mother's womb and "quickens" into its first pulses of growth and life. This is why humans do not dissolve into nothingness in knowledge of their own total lack of worthiness, because they do have something precious, given to them only by God, and that is their individual soul.

This gift is the result of the second attribute of God that we will discuss, which is God's love. We have discussed God's all-knowing-ness first in order to correct the incredible conscious and unconscious diminishing of human's perception of God's true nature and his "capabilities," for lack of a better word. A wise human will continue to remember God's all-knowingness first, before appealing to God's love.

Much has been written, correctly, about how God is love, how God is the source of all love, and how God is love in eternal perfection. However, humans need to remember that God knows exactly all that there is to know about each human that he loves. God does not "know" just what humans choose to "tell" him, or how they choose to "spin" what they do, what they think, and who they have decided to "be" during life. God's love is not blind. This is the great mistake that touchy-feely squishy and even blasphemous and presumptuous new age tainted "spiritual" humans make in modern times, to presume that God's love is unconditional and blind. This has come about for several reasons: 1) refusal to believe in God and all of his nature as he truly is 2) excessive focus on the example that Jesus Christ set with the assumption that God "is" whatever one paints Jesus to have been (despite Jesus's warning not to do that, which I will cite in the next one of this series) and 3) the great human flaw of narcissism, excessive pride, lack of humility and hubris.

I have to use here a human family example, as an analogy, even though I know in the sad state of modern families, fewer and fewer people can relate. So if you had a terrible or absent father, you will have to pretend to understand what it is like. Suppose you are a son, say a teenager, and you need to ask your father, who is a good and upright man, for some money. He may or may not give it to you, and that is not the point. Nor is the point the fact that he loves you, even though you've just asked him for some money. The point is that he remembers life before you existed, he remembers the love he shared with your mother that conceived you, he remembers you as a helpless baby, whether you were a "terrible two" or an "angel," and all the joys and woes of life that you have already experienced. Further, your good father knows the parts of life you, as a teenage boy, have not yet encountered in your own life at your young age. The father knows what it's like to try to find a job, to have to fight in a war, of burying relatives who pass away, and the pressures of being a righteous man. When he silently opens his wallet and gives you, the teenage son, the money you asked for, he may not say anything, and he may not even be conscious of his own thoughts, but the background I have just described runs through his mind. The good father "knows who you are" and who you probably "will become" much more than you do yourself. Again, you have to imagine this analogy if you have had, as so many children of the past several generations, negligent, addicted, violent, weak, occult or absent fathers.

Now, I am not trying to scare my readers, or discourage anyone from praying, but you do need to be spoken to like grown ups and somewhat bluntly, in order to throw off the smoke and mirrors of humanity's own errors and weakness. When you pray to God you are like the teenage son asking the father for money. This is true even if it is a prayer of honor to God and not a prayer of petition (asking for something specific to be given to you.) This is because you are asking for something from God, even if you pray to honor him, because you are asking for his love and attention. Far too many people pray to God thinking that God "has to love them and accept them" and that is to totally forget who your "father" is. If you presume that God "must" love you, then you are disrespecting his all-knowing-ness of your worthiness. I do not mean that only the "good" should pray to God, far from it. I mean that even the "good" tend to diminish in their own minds just exactly who they are speaking to when they pray to God. In fact, the "bad" often are those who "get it" more than the "good" as to the undeserved gift that God's love is for them. Those who have been "bad" who are genuinely on the brink of conversion are usually the most astute at understanding what a gift God's love is (and we will discuss God's third attribute of mercy later in future posts in this here series) and to not presume on that love.

Think of yourself as the teenage son asking his good and upright father for money, again, just for a moment. Are you thinking to yourself? "Wow, this will be easy. My dad is such a dumb soft touch, and he loves me and is stuck with me. In fact, my dad is lucky that I am taking five minutes out of my day to let him know that he is important to me by asking him for money." How unjust that is to your father, even if he has no clue that you are thinking this of him and his kindness. But see, God knows everything there is to know, including your stance toward him in prayer, even before you actually pray, obviously. This is why I say to be sure you understand thoroughly the inherent unworthiness of all humans, and the all-knowing-ness of God, not just before you pray, but all the time, so that you have a proper understanding of not only your standing, but the love that you do receive from God when you do receive it!

God is father to every human being, and creates each human's soul at the time their body is first conceived and grows in the womb, as expression of his love. Do understand that God loves animals also, and the plants, and all the physical matter and energy of the universe and we know that because God pronounced them all "good" as he created them. But God did not create a soul for the rocks, trees, or animals. Everything that God creates is good and thus he loves all that he creates, and God does not need to give them souls because God does not have an ongoing "give and take" love relationship with the rocks, tree or animals. The hallmark and identification mark of beings who have souls is that they seek out a relationship with God. Dolphins, no matter how good, smart, sweet and beautiful they are as animals, do not understand God's existence and seek him out. This is how a human knows that animals, while loved by God, do not have souls. Only humans have been given individual souls by God. This is so that God can express his love for individual humans (just as he does the angels, who while seemingly numberless are all individually known and loved by God).

By the way, do not use this as a way to tell your children that when their dog Spot dies that because he does not have a soul he will not go to heaven. Likewise, do not feel that you are lying to your kids if you do tell them that Spot is in heaven waiting for them. Animals that are part of the joy of human existence are manifested when those who gain eternal rest with God are present in heaven, should that be part of how God gifts each soul's gaining of bliss in heaven. Humans need to distinguish between how God perfectly discerns the difference between a deceased child having his deceased pet in heaven and the over sentimentalizing of millions of years of plant and animal life where plants "scream" and you can't eat a chicken without someone trying to tell you that the chicken has a soul or something. This balance about the reality of life is why Catholic doctrine reminds the faithful that only humans have souls, while at the same time all of creation is "good" in God's eyes.

And so to return to the subject of understanding God's love for humans, realize, then, that God views each living human as being an individual, a loved and equally known individual, based on the soul of the human, which he loved and created, being housed in the temple of the human body. The temple of the human body is, as I described, not of much physical worth in the large scheme of things, and as I said, God continually views the past, present and future of even the smallest subatomic particles of one's body and mind within the entire universe, and of course, God's realm outside of the universe. But what one does with one's mind and one's body shapes the immortal soul that God has given each human from love. This is why excess sin of both mind and body jeopardizes the eternal future of the soul. Just as I often think to myself, "I no longer recognize the culture that I live in, how anti-God, violent, baby hating and coarse it has become," humans must beware that at the end of life God cannot "recognize" the pure and loving soul that he gave a life to, since it has been so warped and dirtied by sin. That is what true "fear of God" is, which is the fear of losing God's love.

Each soul is created by God when there is a "need" for a soul, that is, when a man and a woman conceive a baby. That is the meaning of the frequently cited scripture that each person is known to God before they are born. There is only one exception, a human, Jesus Christ, whose earthly soul was "in existence in heaven" long before his physical birth. That is the meaning of this scripture:

John 8: 54-59

Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God. and you do not know him, but I know him. And if I say that I do not know him, I shall be like you, a liar. But I know him, and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced that he was to see my day. He saw it and was glad." The Jews therefore said to him, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am." They therefore took up stones to cast at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out from the temple.

When God desires something to happen, all God need to do is to "will" that it happens. That means that God's will is the agent to make anything happen, whether it is the creation of the universe (read Genesis) or the creation of an individual soul to send when a new human baby is conceived. Thus, even though time does not exist in heaven, it is helpful for humans to think of it this way. The "soul" of "Jesus" was "made" in heaven by God and kept in "reserve" in heaven at the first moment that God willed that he will send his son to be Messiah and Savior. This is what Jesus was trying to explain to the Jews who questioned him, that he was indeed "alive" in the soul before Abraham was even born, and that Abraham had seen and recognized him, both when Abraham was alive and received vision and visitation from God, and also when Abraham died and achieved heaven, where he recognized the Messiah "to come."

This is why Jesus is entirely correct and justified to call God Father, while those who worry that his reference to being Son to the Father seems to indicate a kind of pagan "family" or co-rulership in heaven are also correct that this is not God nor Jesus' intention to communicate. Jesus was describing the fact that whatever God wills comes into being at the instant of his will. Thus, using human terms of timetables, from the "moment" that God "willed" that the Messiah will be sent, Jesus' came into being, in heaven. Thus as the prophets prophesied the coming of the Messiah, Jesus was "already in existence" in heaven, and thus they had glimpses of him and his future ministry in their God given visions. For all other humans it is God's will that when a man and a woman conceive a baby and the baby embryo is viable and starts its first growth in the womb, that is when a soul is created by God and sent to that embryo. God's will, therefore, is a natural law, when it comes to human beings. Because the soul is created by God out of the "stuff" of heaven, and not of energy or matter, humans can never measure, detect or control the soul; it is totally out of their reach, and can only be "lost" through a life of unrepentant sin and/or denial of God.

I hope that you have found this segment of tutorial useful.