“I AM” (not a tribal god)
Journey to Reality
Chapter Three: Who is God?
Preamble. First – apologize.
If you want to see an object’s strengths and weaknesses, put it under stress. We do this with our asceticism: prayer rules, regular participation in worship, fasting, and tithing are useful not just because they develop virtue, but because they test it. They show the extent to which we need to work on our patience, reliability (faith), kindness, and trust. For most people, most of the time, the responses are not life-threatening and they allow for repentance and change towards the better.
Big stresses to the system do an even better job at exposing flaws and virtues.
They can also do real damage to people’s souls.
Many have been going through that kind of a trial the past week. As your pastor and, for many of you, your spiritual father, my main calling is to care for your souls.
I understand the complexity and dynamics at work in our society as a trained and experienced social scientist, intelligence analyst, and theologian and, I will be happy to share some observations with you. But these are sorts of things that many of you have been binging on over the past week. And that in itself is often a tell; an indicator of a sickness.
So first, I ask you the most important question: what have you learned about your spiritual health over the last week?
NOTE: I am not asking about your alleged discernment about the spiritual health of others, but of your own.
1 Corinthians 13:4-9. 4. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [But love never ends.]
How are we doing on this? To the extent we have been pulled off our peace, we are subject to manipulation. If the con is well-done, people won’t even know they are being used. Propaganda doesn’t just work on THEM, it works on everyone. And there are always demonic propagandists looking for opportunities to manipulate for various purposes. None of them good.
Now on to the Scripture Preparation for our Reading
There is always a temptation to:
· Turn God into a created and anthropomorphized god
SO THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM (Compare this to the Incarnation)
· Turn God into a tribal god.
This shows up in the Scriptures. God has emotions (anger, jealousy) and sets aside the Jews as his portion/tribe. The Bible is True, but its meaning is not always obvious.
· Deuteronomy 4:23-24. So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
· Deuteronomy 32:5-10. When the Most High divided the nations, When He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations by the number of God’s angels. For the Lord’s portion became the people of Jacob; the allotment of His inheritance is Israel.
We can turn God into our own tribal God and subsume our worship to tribal virtue signaling. But that would be heresy. Christian nationalism brings too many temptations. It is NOT Orthodox. We have the fullness of the faith, but we do not own God and His is the God of all mankind. And more. Worship and prayers are not spells, but our offering to the absolute source of all good things who has adopted us into His kingdom.
Exodus 3:14.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
St. Hilary of Pottiers (On the Trinity); In [the Books of Moses and the Prophets] I found the testimony of God the Creator about himself expressed in the following manner: “I am who I am,” and again, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you.” I was filled with admiration at such a clear definition of God, which spoke of the incomprehensible nature in language most suitable to our human understanding. It is known that there is nothing more characteristic of God than to be, because that itself which is does not belong to those things which will one day end or to those which had a beginning. But that which combines eternity with the power of unending happiness could never not have been, nor is it possible that one day it will not be, because what is divine is not liable to destruction, nor does it have a beginning. And since the eternity of God will not be untrue to itself in anything, he has revealed to us in a fitting manner this fact alone, that he is, in order to render testimony to his everlasting eternity.
St. Jerome (Letter 15): There is one nature of God and one only; and this, and this alone, truly is. For absolute being is derived from no other source but is all its own. All things besides, that is, all things created, although they appear to be, soon are not. For there was a time when they were not, and that which once was not may again cease to be. God alone who is eternal, that is to say, who has no beginning, really deserves to be called an essence. Therefore also he says of him, “I am has sent me.” Letter 15.4.
St. Augustine (Tractate on the Gospel of John): Perhaps it was hard even for Moses himself, as it is much also for us, and much more for us, to understand what was said, “I am who I am” and “He who is has sent me to you.” And if by chance Moses understood, when would they to whom he was being sent understand? Therefore the Lord put aside what man could not grasp and added what he could grasp. For he added and said, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” This you can grasp. But what mind can grasp, “I am who I am”? Tractate on the Gospel of John 38.8.3
St. John 8:58.
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
St. Gregory the Great (Homily 16 on the Gospels). Our Redeemer graciously turns their gaze away from his body and draws it to contemplation of his divinity. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” “Before” indicates past time, “I am” present time. Because divinity does not have past and future time but always is, he did not say, “I was before Abraham” but “Before Abraham was, I am.” And so it was said to Moses, “I am who I am,” and “You will say to the children of Israel, ‘He who is has sent me to you.’ ” Therefore he who could draw near by manifesting his presence and depart after completing his life existed both before and after Abraham. Truth always exists, because nothing begins before it in time or comes to an end after it.
When we have the correct understand of God, that He is the uncreated Arche’ whose essence IS; but that He also works in creation through His energies, we can add words to His Name without limiting Him. Here are some examples (For a more complete list, see “on the Divine Names” by St. Dionysius):
I am …
With you… [I am] your God. (Isaiah 41:10; St. Matthew 28:20)
I am He who comforts you (Isaiah 51:12)
Way, Truth, Life. (St. John 14:6)
Resurrection and the Life. (St. John 14:6)
The True Vine (St. John 15:1,5)
Light of the world. (St. John 8:12)
Bread of Life (St. John 6:35)
The Door (St. John 10:9)
Good Shepherd (St. John 10:11)
Alpha and Omega… (Revelation 1:8)
This helps us understand Dr. Porcu’s point in chapter three. The early Christians knew that God was the arche’, with all that this entailed, but they also knew that he was a Person with a Mind and a Will (p. 28).
WHAT THIS DOESN’T MEAN.
· The example of the rock that is a person. The tree that is a person. The planet that is a person. The star that is a person. The universe that is a person.
· “However, this is not what we mean when we say that the arche’ is a person. We’re not taking some object and adding the idea of personhood to it. We’re saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal.
This is why God’s name – which allows us to relate to Him – is centered on existence.
St. Jerome (Letter 15): As the angels, the sky, the earth, the seas all existed at the time, it must have been as the absolute being that God claimed for himself that name of essence, which seemed to be common to all. But because his nature alone is perfect and because in the three persons there subsists but one Godhead, which truly is and is one nature, whoever in the name of religion declares that there are in the Godhead three elements, three hypostases, that is, or essences, is striving really to predicate three natures of God. Letter 15.4.
HIS BEING, HIS EXISTENCE, HIS ESSENCE, IS NOT SHARED WITH CREATION.
His energies, however, are. Which should we worship? This, not intent or love, is the main difference between the Orthodox sacramental worldview and the pagan one.
Next week: The One or the Many?
