Talking about God

THIS may sound stratospheric, but I think it stands to reason that from time to time we take ourselves to some altitude to be able to see a kind of global picture below.

            Our problem is that our knowledge of God is left to the minimum as we would rather study the things around us. It’s a knowledge often shrouded in strange, vague feelings and moods, and prone to superstitions. If not that, then it goes to the other extreme of denying God exists.

            At the moment, people find it awkward to talk about God. It’s like it’s not cool to talk about him. Some venture to say, only fools do, not realizing that many saints, like St. Paul, precisely consider themselves like fools—of course, from a completely different reason.

            And yet many people cannot deny they somehow cling to an idea of God in their view of life. This is because man, no matter how impious he may be, is always at heart a religious being. He will always find a way to have a God in his life, if not the real God, then a false one.

            It is precisely this predicament that should push to talk more seriously about God, trying to know more about him and the consequential implications, both theoretical and practical, that should affect if not define our life here on earth. This predicament should not freeze us into inaction or disinterest.

            What we know about him is that when that voice in the burning bush was asked by Moses who he was, the answer was, “I am who am” (Yahweh). It’s obviously a very mysterious answer that has fired philosophers, theologians and thinkers to decipher its meaning.

            What can come close to explaining it, at least at the start without ever explaining completely, is that by saying so, that mysterious voice describes himself as the very source and principle of being, on whom all other beings depend.

            In philosophical terms, he is the fullness of subsistent being who is not limited or defined by a particular essence, since his very essence is simply to be.

            While we and every other creature are defined and determined by our essence—as man or animal or plant or inanimate object, etc.—God is not defined by any essence, for he simply is God. In God’s own words, he simply is—“I am who am.” He is not this nor that. He simply is!

            Our mind, though unable to penetrate, fathom and comprehend this completely, can at least sense and know this. This situation should put us into a state of suspense therefore, a situation that we should try to resolve somehow by continually digging into its mystery instead of being indifferent to it.

            This is how our life ought to be characterized. It should be in constant pursuit of God, because short of it, our life would just go in circles, perhaps with periods of worldly fascination and excitement, but rather limited and disoriented.

            The lives of saints reflect this kind of lifestyle. They go beyond earthly dimensions, willing to suffer earthly difficulties or not to give too much importance to earthly joys and successes, because they are sure of the real and ultimate life that is meant for them and, actually, for all of us also.

An old Italian love song somehow illustrates the kind of attitude we ought to have toward God: “Al di là del bene più prezioso / ci sei tu. / Al di là del sogno più ambizioso / ci sei tu. / Al di là delle cose più belle / Al di là delle stelle, ci sei tu. /Al di là, ci sei tu per me, per me, soltanto per me.”

(Beyond the most precious, that's where you are. Beyond the most ambitious, that's where you are. Beyond the most beautiful, Beyond the stars, that's where you are. Beyond everything, that's where you are for me, for me, just for me.)

In a way, to be able to talk about God we need to fall in love with God, just like in this Italian song. And it is in this love that we can forever grow in our knowledge of God that will become increasingly exquisite and sublime.

It would be knowledge that will make us realize deeply and abidingly that we are nothing without him, and that what we need to do is in fact to always go to him. We can never be just by ourselves, since that would take us away from the very source and keeper of our life.