Although one can never truly say that they have arrived at the final destination to the answer of this mysterious question, it is still a question I believe is a mandate for every believer to ponder on daily. From this internal inquiry of seeking to understand who he is, God in turn through the power of the Holy Spirit reveals himself to each one of us in a way that often at times cannot be articulated with words. Something that we often observe in most testimonies of coming to faith. This concept of seeking first in order that we might understand, is the classical and theological premise that theologians Anslem of Canterbury’s “Faith seeking to understand” and St. Augustine of Hippo’s “Believe that you may understand” statements towards discovering who God is are rooted in. In recent times, Karl Barth one of the most significant theologians of the twentieth century argued and supported this premise of “Faith seeking to understand” who God is as well. Barth argued that Anslem began with the God of revelation, which in turn rules out natural theology because God cannot be known without God. According to Barth revelation is an inverted pyramid in which all rests on the special revelation of God in Jesus Christ.1 I know for my fellow Theological Scholars out there in terms of exegesis, what I have said implies my bias towards the Existential Approach in Biblical analysis or study. Which basically means engaging with the text (Scripture) spiritually beyond literal truth. I still greatly uphold that the Synchronic and Diachronic approaches are still very valuable and important in engaging with scripture. However I still believe that with a posture of faith first God is able to open our minds to things our natural minds and hearts can't perceive on their own.
We must therefore consider that because we each experience and perceive God from different predispositions, God therefore though being both immutable and mutable (not a paradox) is not going to be the same for everyone outside of scripture. People have different definitions of who God is often shaped by different socio and economic factors such as race, ethnicity, culture, gender, economic status, family dynamics, and life experiences etc. The list is endless! This underlying motif of interpretation and perception is also expressed by the African American female theologian Delores Williams who says that “Womanist theologians bring black women’s social, religious, and cultural experience into the discourse of theology, ethics, and religious studies. They also bring black women’s social, religious, and cultural experience, and consciousness into the discourse of biblical studies. Thus, African American women’s historical struggles against racial and gender oppression, as well as against the variegated experiences of classism, all comprise constitutive elements in their conceptual and interpretive horizon and hermeneutics. This is because experiences of oppression, like all human experience, affect the way in which women decode sacred and secular reality.” 2
However, despite all these different lenses from which we might all perceive God, the divine essence of who God is was revealed to us through the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Christ is the center of Christian faith and the manifestation of God through the Holy Spirit. We can all differ all we want on whom we say God is, but the beautiful mystery of who he truly is lies beyond all our perceptions that are sometimes distorted by our own brokenness. He is who the Bible says he is, as revealed to us in Christ. In John's Gospel Jesus says, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, Show us the Father?" (NKJV John. 14:9) It is at this juncture of one God in three persons (The Trinity) that Christianity as a monotheistic religion differs from Judaism and Islam. These other religions cannot wrap their minds around the notion that Jesus is “God the Son” fully God and fully man (Hypostatic Union). A truth that is declared unapologetically in John’s Gospel when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (NKJV John. 1:1)3 Christ is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity because him and God the Father are of the same substance, referred to in Greek as Homoousios.4 The third person of the Trinity is God the Holy Spirit who according to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed proceeds from both the Father and the Son.5 The journey to understating who God is therefore is not for the faint hearted. Your heart must be open and prepared for him to truly unveil himself to you in all his Majesty, Sovereign and Glory as you too are transformed in the process. God calls us to holiness because he too is holy, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” (NKJV Leviticus. 19:2) I believe that this is the prerequisite into discovering the answer to the question of God is. Unfortunately at holiness is the place where most people’s hearts are hardened because this call means confronting our sins, repentance, and humility. As well as laying down the desires of our flesh and turning away from the things of this world.
I remember a few years ago; I became so overwhelmed with a deep desire to understand who really God is despite having lived all my life assured I already knew the answer to that question. As if being led by a divine force from within (I believe that this was God the Holy Spirit directing and guiding me) I found myself opening my Bible to the very first chapter of Genesis and deciding that I would read the story of God from its beginning to the very end. I was so convinced that somehow, I would answer the question of who God is by the time that I would have gotten to the end of the Bible. As we all know the Bible is comprised of 66 books, so such an endeavor was going to take an exceptionally long time. Fortunately for me this was during the time when Covid had just started, so I had all the time in the world. What I learned just from reading the beginning chapters of Genesis alone ended up setting the foundation of who God is to me fundamentally today. I believe that because Scripture is God’s inspired Word, as much as there are many profound philosophies and theories out there about who God is, none of them can compete with simple Word of God and how the mystery of who he is unfolds from the beginning to the very end of the Bible. In the book of Genesis alone without getting into the other chapters, I found God to be:
Triune God (Communal within himself) And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...” (NKJV Genesis. 1:26)
Personable God “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” (NKJV Genesis. 3:8)
Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” (NKJV Genesis. 18:31)
Just and Judge of all/ Redeemer "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NKJV Genesis. 3:15)
Covenant Keeping & Faithful God “I promise that you will be the father of many nations. That is why I now change your name from Abram to Abraham. I will give you a lot of descendants, and in the future, they will become great nations.” (NKJV Genesis. 17:4-6)
Redeemer “Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” (NKJV Genesis. 50:25)
Creator/Life Source “In the beginning God created the heaven 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. And God said, let there be light: and there was light.” (NKJV Genesis. 1:1-3)
These are just the few ways that my understanding of who God is evolved from my engagement with first book of the Bible. As I dove deeper and deeper into the different chapters more facets of who God is compounded on this initial understanding. By the time I got to the New Testament, God had become “Elohim, El Shaddai, Adonai, “I AM,” YHWH “Abba” Father, Protector, Fortress, Deliverer, Healer, Shepherd, and Friend.” God in his steadfast love knew exactly how I needed to experience him as the text continued to illuminate who he is to me. Not the versions of everyone else such as the church, family, and friends say he is but who He says he is to me in the depth of my soul. Karl Barth says that “The Gospel speaks of God as He is, it is concerned with Him, Himself, and with Him only. It speaks of a Creator who is our Redeemer, and a Redeemer who is our Creator. The Gospel requires faith, only for those who believe it is the power of God unto salvation. It can therefore be neither directly communicated nor directly comprehended.” 6
References
1 Moody, D. (1981). The Word of Truth: A Summary of Christian Doctrine Based on Biblical Revelation. Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source.
2 Smith, M. J. (2015). I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Cascade Books.
3 John 1 (NKJV). (n.d.). Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=NKJV
4 homoousios | Definition, History, & Importance. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/homoousios
5 The Spirit Who Proceeds | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org. (n.d.). Ligonier Ministries. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/spirit-who-proceeds
6 Zahl, S., Ford, D. F., & Higton, M. (2011). The Modern Theologians Reader (1st ed.). Wiley- Blackwell.
7 Hofer, A. (2012). Who is God in the Old Testament? Retrieving Aquinas after Rahner’s Answer. International Journal of Systematic Theology, 14(4), 439–458. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2400.2011.00617.x
No comments