How Do We Distinguish between Eternal God and a God of Our Own Making?
Just because something is an honored deity does not make it God
Most of us on this planet believe in “God.” But what does that actually mean? And how do we distinguish between this intuitively infinite Eternal God (a creator and sustainer served by creation) and that image of a divine provider and protector constructed to serve us? There appear to two kinds of “God” in the history of human spirituality, and both appear, at first glance, to be necessary.
The first is the Eternal God of the mystics and spirit-centered religion. This God has an “ineffable” character, that is, beyond human comprehension or experience, “unspeakably beautiful, moving, or horrible… beyond expression… something… so powerful or emotional that you can't even describe it.” This God is infinite, eternal, effortlessly creative, beyond space and time, and expresses a will identical with Reality. This inconceivable, ineffable God above all gods is sometimes referred to as the GODHEAD.
This ineffable God is called the Nameless One, the Self-Existent One, the Uncreated Creator, the Divine Darkness, the Uncreated Light, the Self, the One. I prefer to simply call this called this ineffable God, “I AM” (Hebrew “Ehyeh” and Greek “Ego Eimi”). This is without any predicate. This God is not “I am THAT I am” (“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”, sometimes referred to in the Bible as YHWH or later as Yahweh). This “I AM” God is pure Presence, beyond all space and time, and is rightly seen from our perspective as all-present, all-aware, all-capable, and all-radiant.
Such an ineffable, effulgent God, in short, is everywhere, “knows” everything, creates everything, and shines on all things.
However, this creates an accessibility problem. We want to have an intimate relationship with our creator! The I AM God seems for many to be so far beyond us as to be an impersonal Deus Otiosus or “inactive God”, who creates us but then leaves us to our own devices. Yet our desire for intimate relationship with our Creator, brings up another problem— projection. As with romantic relationships we have a tendency to project ourselves, our needs, our fantasies and deep desires for completion on the Other. We make “them” who we wish them to be for us, in order to fulfill what we THINK we want! Here we have a personal God, but an inauthentic one, an idol who is merely “created in OUR image” and one that serves our often poorly considered ends.
What to do? Is it possible to have an intimate relationship with an “everywhere and beyond” God. Yes. Jesus put it simply, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and “the kingdom of God is at hand”, i.e. accessible and near (Mark 1:15). There is some inherent connection with that Creator from whose eternal substance we ourselves are created. We are therefore AT ORIGIN connected with God as both deeply, intimately personal and at the same time beyond all imagining. Some say that we are all made of stardust, and this may be true of our bodies, but we are also made of Godstuff, which is true of our spirits. It is through our spirits (which Christianity calls the “Holy Ghost” or “Holy Spirit”) that we resonate ultimately and intimately with God. For we have been fashioned not only is God’s image, but God’s SUBSTANCE.
We tend to forget this original blessing when we get lost in our own limitations, lamentations, sins, and pains. Nonetheless, if we are to intimately connect with God, then we are called to ignite and join the spirit. The direct pulsing of God through the veins of the soul creating divine Life is every bit as real as the blood pulsing in the veins of our bodies to provide biological life. In fact, being spiritually “reborn” involves awakening to this spirit.
But what does this look like? How does the above discussion help us “distinguish” between gods we wittingly or unwittingly create for our own needs and ends and the uncreated Self-Existent One that creates us? In addition, how might we distinguish between the Eternal God, our projected, constructed God, and other actual divine beings or deities that are “higher” than us in spiritual power or development but “lower” than the Eternal Godhead?
Let’s apply this discussion to real-life examples:
Is Jesus Christ God?
No, at least, not if you listen to Jesus himself. Throughout the New Testament gospels, Jesus constantly refers to himself as being “sent” from his Father (John 20:21), “going” to his Father (John 14:12), and being given “authority” (Matthew 28:18). In plain logic, you cannot send yourself, nor go to yourself, nor (legitimately) confer yourself authority. Clearly Jesus embodied the spirit of God, and I believe he demonstrated full divinity and humanity, but that does not mean that he was the Uncreated Creator, the ineffable God. He would have forfeited his humanity if he was!
Jesus evidenced UNION or complete identification with God, what the mystics call deification and others call apotheosis. But didn’t Jesus say, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Isn’t this Jesus saying that he is God? Not at all. This is the authority and promise of God conferred through Jesus from union with God.
Identification with does not mean identical to. Jesus also said in Matthew 19:4-6 (referring to Genesis 2:24) that “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” He did not mean that they become literally one person but one union, metaphorically, spiritually, and emotionally… one entity. When I am married according to this understanding, I do not become my wife, any more than Jesus becomes God. However, I am now bound and transformed in this commitment in such a way that I am an indwelling, intimate embodiment and representative of this marriage, as Jesus was an intimate embodiment of the spirit of God through his “marriage” with the Father.
Jesus also, said: “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (NIV John 14:12). Again, Jesus is “going” to the Father, rather than claiming to be the Father. Furthermore, it would be quite insane to propound that you or I could do “greater” things than an all-knowing, all-present, all-capable God. Even if one accepts the argument that “greater” here means greater in extent rather than greater in power, it still strains credibility that we could reach farther or deeper than God.
Is the New Testament Father God? Is the Trinity God?
Well, if Jesus wasn’t God, then surely the Father to whom he referred WAS God, right? Again, the answer is, “no.” The Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit (the God substance in us discussed above) are all as aspects of a co-equal Trinity in Christian theology, which comprise God according to traditional Christianity. This is called the “triune” (“three in one and the one in three”) God. The one at the center of the Trinity, beyond comprehension or reduction, is God in God’s ultimate sense or what is referred to historically as the Godhead.
From Wikipedia:
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (Latin: Trinitas, lit. 'triad', from Latin: trinus 'threefold')[1] is the central doctrine concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons:[2][3] God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons (hypostases) sharing one essence/substance/nature (homoousion).[4] … In this context, one essence/nature defines what God is, while the three persons define who God is.
I do not entirely disagree with this description. In order for us to have a relationship with God, and LOVE God, there needs to be a “who” that we can relate with. But in order to God to be mysterious and beyond our temptations to capture God and claim God’s authority and power for ourselves (I am looking at you religious institutions, ahem), then we also need an impersonal, larger “what” that we can respect, revere, and learn from BEYOND ourselves and our grasping. Some religionists errantly, in my opinion, describe this latter regard as “fearing God.”
You can’t really respect, revere, or learn from something you are afraid of. On the contrary, fearful “obedience” precludes mature relationship, learning, and love. Obedience based in fear is compelled obedience and, therefore, a form of coercion. Furthermore, fear is an instrument of the world, and not love, which is the way of spirit. Yes, fear can help us survive, and occasionally help us avoid fatal sins, but it cannot engender nor create the love upon which mature spiritual faith and relationship MUST depend.
Is the Old Testament Yahweh God? is the Judaic Elohim (Divine Council) God?
“Yahweh”, in the Old Testament, is translated as LORD and primarily refers to the active god who rules the earth and the Hebrew people in ancient times. Elohim, in the Old Testament, is most often translated as GOD and refers to the plural “divine council” of deities responsible for creating (vs. ruling) the heavens and the earth. When one looks into the Book of Job, it is clear that Yahweh is not the Elohim, but possibly a fellow “son of the Elohim,” as he converses with Satan in the presence of other sons of Elohim:
One day when the sons of Elohim came to stand in front of Yahweh, Satan the accuser came along with them. (Job 2:1, The Names of God Bible, ed. Ann Spangler)
Upon further theological and historical analysis, it becomes clear to me that Yahweh (YHWH) was a nationalized god over weather and war, analogous to and competing with the Ba’al god of rival tribes. In an attempt to honor and appease/propitiate Yahweh, and to deal with their own trauma, after the fall of the First Temple in Hebrew history in 587 BCE and their own Babylonian exile and captivity, I believe the Hebrew tribes promoted Yahweh as a ruler not only over the earth and the weather, but as a kind of godhead ruler over the Elohim. In my own spiritual assessment, this was an understandable mistake and reaction to being defeated and captured. It has tremendous consequences for our own conception and worship of “God”: Yahweh, a “jealous” war god, and a possible son of deities who themselves serve an unnameable God, is being conflated with that eternal and all-powerful God.
You can imagine the confusion that ensues. YHWH becomes THE GOD, in order to restore power and prosperity to a people in desperate need. Again, there is a telltale clue, here, from the ancient tetragrammaton YHWH (upon which Yahweh is based) for whether Yahweh is the ultimate God. This is ancient Hebrew for “I am that I am” or “I will be who I will be”). The Eternal Godhead, in my spirit’s understanding, is simply “I am” without a predicate, in other words, pure Presence. That is why I use the Hebrew term “Ehyeh” (“I am”) vs. “Ehyeh asher ehyeh” (“I am that I am”) or the Greek term Ego Eimi, which refers to a self-existent One relying upon nothing else and created by no other.
Are the Elohim, then, collectively God? No. Again, it is clear that the Elohim have traits that place them lower than the Godhead, the Eternal God, including making “male and female” in their image.
26Then God said, “Let Us make [humankind] in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” 27 So God created [humans] in [God’s] own image, in the image of God [God] created [them]; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
Were we to be created as the direct, unfiltered version of the Eternal Godhead, we would simply not have any sex at all. All created things, even very high-up, powerful creative beings, are still sub-deities of the Godhead. No matter how powerful, impressive, immortal-seeming, and godlike to us, these deities are still subsumed under the Godhead which is God alone and no other, the Uncreated Creator.
Are Satan, Lucifer, the Archangels, the Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Nephilim, the Greek, Norse, or Roman gods God?
No, to all of these. It should be apparent by now, that beings, even divine beings and even legitimate deities are not God in an ultimate sense. They all serve the Eternal God in some way, as do we. I am going to do a separate essay on the hierarchy of divinity and divine beings, simply to clear up some of the confusion. Divine beings of dark (Satan), of tainted light (Lucifer, which means “light bearer”), and of light (archangels, etc.) all serve a purpose under the will of God. They may come off as “good” and “evil” depending upon their function, but only God is all-Good, and no deity that is given to a finite nature or power, emotion (i.e. jealousy), territory, or reign (no matter who large or impressive) can be considered the Limitless One from which all others spring.
So then, what or who is the true “God” God, and how can we relate?
We have the ability to relate to this Unnameable One, through our own intimate engagement with our spirits. Spirit itself transcends our bodies and any image of creator deities, and goes “heart-to-heart” with the substance of that God which above all creation, creates all, and wills all. This inherent intimacy is the truth so often missed in the desperate attempt to “please” God. It is what Jesus meant, when he said “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
God needs no pleasing, supplication, prostration, self-deprecation or self-flagellation. In many ways, these dishonor God by harming God’s creation. We are made FROM God for God. We are ever-included and never-abandoned. Through our insecurity and panic, we CAN wall ourselves often from perceiving God and fail to remain actively connected to our own spirits, but, nonetheless, we are, at base, ALWAYS connected… if we but recognize, open, listen, and act upon the voice that arises through the spirit.
Many people call this activated connection “inspiration,” the Logos (Word) or language of God igniting and reminding us of Love, the substance of God, from which all good things come. If you want to pray, if you want to worship— Be inspired. Be loving. And you to shall be one with God. Be joyous as well. Exactly how God’s love and your love play out on the earthly plane is pure creativity— requiring exploration, imagination, intuition, conviction, experimentation, improvisation, dedication, devotion, discipline, suffering, compassion, in short all the deep things in life that make life worth living.
So learn to love and learn to live. Learn to laugh and learn to give. Learn to weep for those who have died and that which is not yet born. Learn to rejoice in the healing of the torn. We are world… and we are spirit. Personal and beyond. Already and not yet.
And EVER the twain shall meet.
Best, Zeus