I’m going to end this lengthy blog by offering a new understanding of God and of the divine-human relationship. Over the centuries, Christians have been taught that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. These “omnis” come from Greek philosophy and offer an ancient Greek understanding of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and all-good.
Until recently, these descriptors of God were good enough for me. But I’ve come to realize that they fall flat in many real-world situations. Take the assassination attempt on former president Trump. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why didn’t God prevent it? If God is all-present and all-good, why did the bullet aimed at Donald Trump miss and kill Corey Comperatore who was behind him? Some believe God intervened to save Donald Trump. If so, why didn’t God intervene to save Corey Comperatore? It seems callous to think God would do something good for one person and bad for another. Is that really how God operates in our world…blessing some and wounding others? Does God play favorites?
In trying to reconcile these questions, I think we come to see that describing God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, just doesn’t work. So, is there a way to understand God that better reflects what we see in the world? I believe there is…or I wouldn’t be writing this blog.
Using the “omnis” to describe God is to view God through the lens of Greek philosophy. The God of the Hebrew scriptures…the original image of God…has to be seen from the Hebrew or Jewish point of view. While the New Testament was written in Greek, Jesus spoke Aramaic. In Aramaic, the word “God” is Alaha. The best translation for Alaha is “Sacred Unity” or “the All” or the “One.” While we may catch glimpses of an “omni” God in scripture, it isn’t consistent with the God of the Hebrew scriptures.
Christianity was born from Judaism, so to understand God and God’s interaction with the world, we have to look at the Hebrew scriptures that would have been Jesus’ “Bible”. How we understand our faith and our God has to begin with that context. Jesus was a righteous Jew. He was a Jewish rabbi. The God we consistently see in the Hebrew scriptures is transcendent, holy, wise, and loving. These are the descriptors we should be using when we talk about God. It seems trivial, I know, to substitute one word for another, but think of it this way. Omnipresence means God is everywhere. To say God is transcendent and immanent is to say God is everything and God exists in everything. We exist because God makes existence, both the good parts and the bad, possible.
A transcendent and immanent God is the God we meet in Exodus. Moses encounters God who, as the story goes, is in the form of a burning bush (again, think of transcendence as being with and in everything). Moses asks for God’s name. God responds simply, “I am.”
How we jumped from “I Am” to the image of God as an old man in the sky or a celestial Santa Claus who rewards us when we’re good and neglects us when we’re bad, is a topic for another blog, but for now, I’m simply going to say, “God is.” God is transcendence and immanence and wisdom and holiness and love.
An omnipresent God is always observing the world, choosing when to get involved and when to stay distant. A transcendent and immanent God is always where the action is…a transcendent God is the reason the action happens in the first place. If we are happy, God is there; if we are sad, God is there. If we are angry, God is there. When we are lost and alone, God is there. When we are abused and broken, God is there. I do not believe God causes those things just as much as I do not believe God intervenes to allow one thing to happen and to prevent another. What I do believe is that no matter what happens, whether it’s good or evil, God is present and in Jesus Christ, God takes responsibility for it. The responsibility for the action itself, however, is on us.
As human beings, from the moment we are born, we have a desire to make sure our needs are met. This desire in and of itself is not good or evil…it’s a survival instinct. But when our desire to meet our needs harms another human being or benefits us while hurting someone else, our desire becomes selfish and self-centered. We call this sin or evil; its source isn’t the devil or Satan or Adam and Eve…we own it ourselves. Free will gives us the choice to act in a certain way. Evil exists because God chooses not to interfere with our decisions – good or bad. Basically, God allows evil to exist in our world. But God also takes responsibility for it.
Isaiah 45.6-7 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I the Lord, do all these things.” Clearly, God is taking responsibility for the good of this world and for the evil that exists in this world. God does not cause good things or bad things to happen to us…our human free will does.
For example, there are numerous routes I can take home from work. Each day, I choose the route I want to follow. Suppose I decide to go home a different way one day and a drunk driver crosses the center line and hits me. The accident wasn’t caused because I exercised my free will in a negative way; it happened because of the free will – the selfishness and self-centeredness – of the drunk driver. Why didn’t God stop it from happening? Because God doesn’t interfere in our decisions.
So, let’s go back to a week ago. Did God move the bullet or choose to spare Trump’s life because it’s what God wanted or it’s an indication that God is blessing him or his platform and beliefs? Absolutely not. I honestly think God could care less about American politics just as God could care less about German, French, or British politics. You can see divine intervention wherever you want in life and in current events, but I think what God really wants is for us to intervene in the affairs of this world. What God cares about…God’s will for the whole of God’s creation…is that we live in a way that allows everyone and everything to flourish; that we partner with God to build the Beloved Community, so the kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. May it always be so!