8.21.20 - God's Attributes

First, some housekeeping. I have been trying to cover 3 things in our bible meetings:

1) bible instruction on the OT/NT

2) explore the meaning of the readings for that week, and

3) discuss a topic of your choice.

Our 3rd topic lately has been the Trinity, which is one of the hardest concepts in the world. We have reviewed the Son/Logos, the Holy Spirit, and now we are on the Father. After reading below, if you think this analysis is getting too complicated, we have lots of topics we can move to, such as prayer, Mary, Catholic responses to critics/atheists/Protestants, the sacraments, Heaven/Hell/Purgatory, you-name-it. In fact, Taylor recently suggested that we stop at 8pm occasionally and have an open question period – whatever anyone wants to ask. I have no problem with any of these. Please feel free to share your opinion with Taylor, me, or bring your thoughts to our next meeting and we’ll discuss.

Speaking of meetings... there are some interesting survey results. We can discuss Monday. Since some of you can’t make it Monday, next week only I will be having the bible study on both Monday and Tuesday at 7pm.

Regarding our discussion about the attributes of God, it is important to clearly understand the difference between the physical laws of nature and the spiritual laws (principles) of nature. It is important because when God breathed his Spirit into humans, he essentially “planted” a spiritual nature in us. I say planted as in “seeded” because they are seeds; they are intended to be developed.

With our spiritual natures came our souls, our minds, our consciences, and free will. This is the reason that we are “made in God's image and likeness,” and it is why humans are driven to have more and more of these attributes (such as happiness, love, justice, truth, etc.). It is also why humans have dignity/equal dignity – our image and likeness to God. Of course, the first rule of this dignity is to imitate God by seeing all our fellow humans with the same dignified-granting eyes.

Physical versus Spiritual Laws of Nature

The Physical laws of nature govern the behavior of all things within the material/ observable universe. Everything in the physical realm is finite, meaning limited in space, time, and quantity; they are also entropic, which means limited in stability: all things break down, degrade, or expire over time (entropy). This applies to everything: energy, products, services, life, and the entire cosmos.

The Spiritual laws of nature govern all behavior in the spiritual, non-material (and therefore physically-unobservable) universe. Examples are justice, love, hope, happiness. Their nature is infinite (they are not limited by space or time); there are no limits to their quantity; and their quality is elastic, which means their effects expand and contact with use/nonuse. Take love, for example. Love is unlimited in nature. It can’t run out. In fact, the more you love, the more love you have. Also, the more you love, the better you learn how to love. Conversely, the more unwilling you are to love, the less love you will have to give and the less love you will receive. Also, the more you try to control love, the less love you end up with. Can you see how the nature of love operates entirely opposite of the physical laws of nature? That’s part of what is meant by God’s ways are not our (worldly) ways.

Since these spiritual laws are extensions of God’s attributes, they are perfect in their conception. And, although humans naturally comprehend them perfectly (i.e., we all want perfect justice, perfect happiness, and the absolute truth), we do not possess or employ any of these them perfectly because a) we are imperfect, b) we try to achieve them, or control them, the way physical laws work (according to worldly/material standards), and c) we seek their benefits without God who is their origin and source (the fall of man all over again, repeatedly, just like Israel for 2000 years). Pursued this way, happiness, justice, truth, and the rest of the spiritual laws will always remain out of man’s reach. They will be short-lived and shallow. Fool’s gold.

Human mastery of these spiritual attributes can only happen in connection, or partnership, with the Source of their existence - God. Properly pursued, this becomes a kind of paradoxical journey towards our destiny. Paradoxical for the same reason mentioned earlier: just as you gain more access to love when you give it away, the same applies to everything. For instance, true human greatness is achieved through humility; happiness is best achieved through making others happy; success comes through servant leadership; to be first, you likely have to be last in some way.

This journey is available to anyone and can only be taken away by one’s own free will, usually because we have chosen apathy or some form of self-absorption instead.

Because of human concupiscence*, this journey is rather like spiritual boot camp. Learning and implementing these spiritual principles into our lives requires much trial and error (learning by failing) and finding meaning in every bad turn of events, including suffering. Suffering not only can make us better, wiser people if handled properly, but we can also attach our suffering to Christ’s original suffering and, similar to how he used his suffering to save the human race, we can ask him to deposit our suffering into His “bank of compassion” and it will be redistributed via blessings to others who need it. We can even designate who should get it.

*Concupiscence– the unrelenting human desire: to get something for nothing; for self-absorption /self-gratification; self-actualization; self-glorification; to put self first in all things.

The most important factor in a successful journey is developing a relationship with the Source (God), which is, at the same time, a rejection of our concupiscent desire to control every outcome. In this way, every step on this journey delivers more spiritual attributes, such as the ever-elusive Wisdom.

Let’s start with just a few of the spiritual laws that were already mentioned.

Hope: Belief or trust in a better outcome, in spite of the odds. Hope yields confident expectations, optimism, and resilience, which, in turn, strengthens one’s faith. Hope is the basis for all positive intentions, goal-setting, being able to see problems as opportunities, and the refusal to fail, which is simply the desire to try again or start over no matter how many times one fails/falls. A strong hope gives humans a new canvas every day; a new painting of our lives; a new chapter. Hope for positive personal outcomes then advances to hope for positive group outcomes, which then advances to hope for positive outcomes for all others, even ahead of oneself.

Love: Love is a verb, intentional and proactive; it grows through giving, kindness, and by keeping commitments. The highest form of love is agape, or unconditional love. Love exists not in promises but in the present. Love is something that grows by overcoming obstacles with another. Over time, the spiritual tools one picks up are more patience, kindness, understanding, wisdom, and generosity. Love is never about “me”; it only exists in relationships and therefore is always about the other. Relationships are also the only building blocks humanity has to build peace or happiness. Conversely, all disunity, brokenness, hatred, violence, war, and misery have their origins in the opposite of love: Self first. In the end, love is measured by one’s willingness to serve, sacrifice or suffer for another. When two people enter into a relationship with such a mutual mindset, there is no limit to the relationship.

Justice: “The moral quality which perfects the will and inclines it to render to each and to all what belongs to them.” From our earliest age, we understand and expect fairness; it’s in our spiritual genes. According to ScienceDaily: “Justice is a concept of moral rightness based ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, equity and fairness, as well as the administration of the law, taking into account the inalienable and inborn rights of all human beings and citizens, the right of all people and individuals to equal protection before the law.”

Gratitude: a learned, chosen, grateful disposition; giving credit to God and to others for one’s talents, accomplishments, and blessings. The fastest way to lose spiritual attributes is to take (anything valuable – love, friendships, our job) for granted. We have to lose them to appreciate them, but then it’s often too late. A sense of appreciation can be learned once we get the self out of the way. None of the other attributes can be held for long without developing a sense of gratitude. The other side of the gratitude coin is humility. Of course, the Eucharist is Greek for gratitude. Also, “worship” comes from the word “worth.” Worship of God is simply the celebration of our recognition that our own worth comes from the worthiness of God.

Humility: respectful of others; unpretentious; open-minded; patient with others; instinctively grateful; “self-surrender” (being able to surrender the ego); comfortable being wrong; comfortable apologizing. Perhaps strangely, or paradoxically, the most humble being in all of existence is God, as expressed in the incarnation of Logos for our sake. The most humble example we have for a human being is Mary.

Creativity: Like our Father who is the Ultimate Creator, we also want to create (even if it is technically “re-creating”). The workings of nature and the cosmos is undoubtedly impressive from a logical or scientific standpoint, but the beauty of nature and the cosmos falls under our creative ability to appreciate things of beauty; which, in turns, spurs us on to be creative ourselves. Our creative powers allow us to solve problems, invent things, discover new ways of doing things. Inspiration and imagination are part of the creative gift, as is our incredible ability to appreciate nature, music, and the arts. Wonder and revelation, also.

Perfection: Most of us have a “problem” with some kind of perfection desire, whether its orderliness, pictures being hung straight on our walls, a culinary presentation, some part of our work, or the bed being made correctly. Logos brought order out of chaos, so that’s how we tend to operate also. We like harmony, sublimity, immaculateness. But remember, only our Father is absolutely and infinitely perfect.

A Prayer to the Father…

Father, by your spiritual principles may we come to know You and ourselves better, and so that we may see our journey more clearly. Help us recognize and attain our mortal and eternal potential hidden behind the curtain of our fall: to embrace the wisdom and strength concealed within every mistake, difficulty, and human suffering; and that in this process of developing our physical-spiritual natures, we might reflect You more nearly, which has been Your invitation, and our destiny, from the beginning.