"Blog, blog" / "Who's there?": Reconciling different apprehensions of God

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Reconciling different apprehensions of God

How can I reconcile:

The God who seems to be so personal, personally loving and present; who is there when I "lift up my heart to the Lord with a gentle stirring of love, desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts;" the God without whom life is desperate, depressing and meaningless?
God, the Creator, which is enormous, awesome and terrifying; which is the Universe, which created the Universe; which saves us by ignoring us?
The God who is not: the God of the apophatics which/who cannot be known; the God which does not exist; the God which is no-thing?

I need the personal God. He makes my life possible and gives me energy and meaning. He is my energy and meaning. I am no longer alone, unknown, without redemption. I am a hopeless case: unloving, uncaring, subject to addictions, so limited in my ability. Only God can help me; only God can save me; God is my only hope.

And yet, God is these other things as well, so far from the personal, the loving, the compassionate. So other.

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