Menu Close

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: The Presence of God

The Presence of God (6)

George 0 Comments

OMNI

The three “omni” attributes of God characterize him as all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. 1https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/omnipotence-omniscience-omnipresence-god/#:~:text=The%20three%20“omni”%20attributes%20of,lordship%20of%20the%20true%20God.

Embracing a reality that God is present everywhere all the time — God’s presence, constant communion with Him—must define the journey. 2https://www.georgeezell.com/2024/02/the-presence-of-god-4/

Reading and discussing “Practicing the Presence of God” evolved into an examination belief that God is present everywhere, all the time.
Prior to that experience had I been asked, “Do you believe God is omnipresent?” I, as most Christians, would answer without reservation, “Yes, of course!” In my mind the question was: “Do you believe it is true that God is omnipresent?”. Now, as then, the answer is:”Of course!”
“Is it true?” is an essential question, but it is not sufficient. Until we ask “Is it real?” and answer “Of course!” belief can remain superficial—true but not real.

A picture of the Chicago skyline taken almost 60 miles away, is actually a mirage.

 It is possible for belief to be a mirage, true but unreal. The Chicago skylines are real. but the mirage is an illusion. Mirage, an illusion of something that is real… true but unreal.. superficial and ineffectual.
Another helpful description is mental assent.

Mental assent means intellectually accepting the Word of God as true – admiring it and agreeing with it-but not allowing it to have an impact on you, so that it doesn’t do any good in your life. In essence, mental assent agrees with God but does not believe in God.
A variation of mental assent is “sense knowledge.” This is the attitude that says, “If I cannot see it, then it is not real. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
 Sense knowledge is the biggest obstacle to faith because; in many cultures we are trained and conditioned to live by our five senses alone. If we cannot analyze something and empirically conclude that it actually works, then we do not believe it is real. God says He has promised is already reality. Yet it won’t become manifested reality in our lives  until we believe it is real before we see it-

https://allankakinda.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/mental-assent-vs-faith-in-the-almighty-god/

Such belief is consistent with living in “a two story universe”
“We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
FR Stephen Freeman

Contrary to bifurcated illusions of God’s presence in a “two story universe; the “really real” presence of God, is experienced in “a one story universe”.

God present everywhere all the time is the reality of a one story universe, where “..”in Him we move and have our being”. God is with us and has come to abide in us, and that makes the world we live in “the story”.
In a “one story universe” we no longer divide the world into ordinary and extraordinary; into usual and unusual, into sacred and secular. It is only then that we will have the possibility of knowing , much less living the Christian life.

Only in knowing him will we see the world and ourselves truly and understand the gates to paradise have been opened to us.Whenever Christians allow the Gospel to be shoved upstairs, we have allowed ourselves to be disregarded and the Gospel to be marginalized. 3credit to Fr Stephen Freeman https:www.ancientfaith.com/pocasts/freeman/

Next — living in a one story universe VS living in a two story universe.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

The Presence of God (5)

George 0 Comments

The doctrine of the Fall is about the loss of the Presence of God.
(Marshall Davis)

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis3:22-24

The previous post focused on “God is present everywhere all the time” and its essentiality to our faith. Today is an examination of conflicting realities, of the loss of the literal presence of God as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and God’s punishment. i.e.”he drove the man out” and the truth that God is present everywhere, all the time.
Banishment from the Garden of Eden is basis for a “two storey universe” perspective. 1“We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
FR Stephen Freeman The story of God’s relationship with the people of Israel is mostly a “two storey” drama. So the dilemma is: is God present everywhere all the time or not?
At this point my answer is yes and no!
Yes, God is present everywhere, all the time! But, No we not perceive his presence everywhere, all the time. The issue is not God’s proximity but our ability to perceive his presence. We are like Job:
When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him. 2Job 9:11
With the fall, beyond proximity to God, humanity lost communion (nous) with God. nous is the God-given faculty of the soul whose purpose is the perception of God and divine things. Noetic perception was lost. 3“Noetic perception” is a phrase that describes the ability of the human heart to perceive that which is Divine. As such, it is our capacity for communion with God and the whole of creation. … Without such a perception, we do not see the truth of things. By the same token, without such a perception, we cannot know the truth of our own selves.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Deficiency of “noetic perception” is an underlying condition that makes Christians most vulnerable to secularism. Devoid of “noetic perception” and unable to perceive that which is divine, belief is shallow, lacking in meaning and purpose; as Freeman observed, we are unable to even know the truth about ourselves. Desiring God on our own terms, we consign him to “up there” until He is needed.

Practicing the presence of God happens in a One Storey Universe.4A One-Storey Universe is the world in which the noetic faculty is restored to its proper place and role. We do not perceive the true nature of creation, for example, in order to control it. Rather, we perceive it in order to have communion with God through creation. And creation itself is only rightly seen when perceived in this manner. Things cease to be things-in-themselves: everything exists as a manifestation of the goodwill and providence of God.
Richard Beck Prerequisite to living in a One Storey Universe is restoration of  nous, the God-given faculty of the soul whose purpose is the perception of God and divine things. 

Here is my quandary:

  • I am convinced God is present everywhere, all the time.
  • Much of my life is reflective of living in a Two Storey Universe.
  • I am deficient in noetic perception.
  • Spiritual formation and discipleship are dependent on the presence of God.
  • GOD is: utterly beyond me, beyond the sweep of my imagination, beyond the comprehension of my mind His judgments are unsearchable and ways past finding out.

Maybe I need “The mind of Christ”? 5“..but we have the mind of Christ.” 1 For 2:16

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

  • 1
    “We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
    FR Stephen Freeman
  • 2
    Job 9:11
  • 3
    “Noetic perception” is a phrase that describes the ability of the human heart to perceive that which is Divine. As such, it is our capacity for communion with God and the whole of creation. … Without such a perception, we do not see the truth of things. By the same token, without such a perception, we cannot know the truth of our own selves.
    Fr Stephen Freeman
  • 4
    A One-Storey Universe is the world in which the noetic faculty is restored to its proper place and role. We do not perceive the true nature of creation, for example, in order to control it. Rather, we perceive it in order to have communion with God through creation. And creation itself is only rightly seen when perceived in this manner. Things cease to be things-in-themselves: everything exists as a manifestation of the goodwill and providence of God.
    Richard Beck
  • 5
    “..but we have the mind of Christ.” 1 For 2:16

The Presence of God (4)

George 0 Comments

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139

One of the most fundamental principles of the Christian vision of reality is that God is present everywhere, filling all things. This underlies the essential Christian task of becoming consciously aware of that Presence and bringing that awareness into every aspect of our life.

Fr Stephen Freeman

God is everywhere and in everything, and we cannot be without Him. It’s simply impossible.

Thomas Merton

“The presence of God changes you.”

unidentified

…the Christian mystical tradition teaches us, life with God is more about knowing than believing. The mystics didn’t believe in God; they encountered God.

Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (pp. 11-12).

Reflecting on the comments above, reminded me of the consternation I felt engaging in study of practicing the presence of God.
Grasping that God is present everywhere all the time is unpalatable to a child of the Enlightenment like me. Raised on reductionism 1a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. and rationality2 “uncertain but sensible” arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience … ; God present everywhere all the time is, at best, incomprehensible; at worst, nonsense.
Richard Beck describes that condition: “… operating as if God doesn’t exist. We don’t expect to bump into God around the watercooler or doing the dishes. We might believe in God, but we don’t expect to encounter God.
We think we’re living in a two-story universe. In this two-story universe, the cosmos is a house with two floors. As Freeman describes it, “We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
When we live our lives in the two-story world, we practice what Freeman calls “Christian atheism.” Since God is “upstairs,” God is “not here.” God isn’t close; God is elsewhere, far away and distant. And not just physically distant, mentally distant as well. God is at the back our minds, an afterthought, if we think of God at all.” 3 Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)

I want to minimize Beck’s description as hyperbole; but continuing to grapple with the presence of God and engaging in self-examination, reveals my daily life too often abides in a two-story universe. I’m not prepared to be labeled a Christian Atheist, but upon further consideration, perhaps I am closer to a Disenchanted Christian. 4..disenchanted Christians attack miracle stories with a battery of questions. Every miracle story is fiercely interrogated as a “more rational” explanation is sought. Perhaps that chance encounter or the money in the mail wasn’t God but a mere coincidence. Perhaps the doctors, rather than God, healed that person. We’ve all asked these sorts of questions and expressed these doubts when faced with stories we find too incredible or too neat and tidy to believe. Some of us, especially those of us who have been thoroughly disenchanted by the modern, scientific world, just can’t stop raising these questions.
Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (p. 191).

Until now, my spiritual journey has been determined mostly by reasoning and thinking.
Embracing a reality that God is present everywhere all the time — God’s presence, constant communion with Him—must define the journey.
What that means will be the subject of future posts.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY


  • 1
    a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.
  • 2
    “uncertain but sensible” arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience …
  • 3
    Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)
  • 4
    ..disenchanted Christians attack miracle stories with a battery of questions. Every miracle story is fiercely interrogated as a “more rational” explanation is sought. Perhaps that chance encounter or the money in the mail wasn’t God but a mere coincidence. Perhaps the doctors, rather than God, healed that person. We’ve all asked these sorts of questions and expressed these doubts when faced with stories we find too incredible or too neat and tidy to believe. Some of us, especially those of us who have been thoroughly disenchanted by the modern, scientific world, just can’t stop raising these questions.
    Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (p. 191).