Who is God?

And we got on the topic about the nature of God. Austin was basically saying that it we can't even have these discussions we're having before establishing what we mean by God. Who is God? What is God? Well when you talk about God you can't do it from a neutral ground. You talk about God as you understand God. And I understand God as the Christian God. As God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As a loving, merciful, faithful, forgiving, just, and awesome God. Austin's contention was that we cannot limit God to our understanding. We can't even approach an understanding of God. He goes beyond anything we can ever know. We shouldn't even try to understand God's character. Not only is His character beyond comprehension but any attempts at comprehension are useless because our human minds cannot even think of any adjectives, any beings, any experiences, anything, any person that could ever ever ever come a tiny bit close to an accurate understanding of God.

So what then? Where does that leave us? For Austin, he sees God as everywhere in everything. It's not anything he can pinpoint or put in a box. God just IS. everywhere. everything. all the time. I do think Austin is right to some extent. We shouldn't presume to think we can know God, and it's far better to have thisunderstanding of God as being everywhere in everything, surrounding us in life than to have a theoretical, Bible-taught understanding of a list of God's characteristics. However, my point of contention was that Austin was pushing against any kind of attempt to understand God even with knowing that one cannot ever get at the heart of who God is. That it's insulting and ignorant even to do so. And I take problem with that because I think it's important to know God as a loving, merciful, just, etc. etc. kind of God. It's really a little bit of both Austin's view and mine that I'm advocating. I disagree that everyone should take Austin's viewpoint because for where he is in his faith, this might be a wonderful way for him to perceive God but that's not true for everyone. And I guess what I'm starting to think of, or realize more consciously, is that I (or anyone else) can't prescribe a certain way of approaching faith. It just doesn't work that way. Sure you can recommend approaches but people's minds just work so differently. Our lives are individually shaped so differently how can you tell someone that THIS is how you need to understand God, THIS is how you're supposed to grow in faith.

And then Austin and I were talking about how we're tired of Christianity being seen as a doctrine of rules and regulations. Things we can't do. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex, don't swear, don't dance, don't party, don't do anything where you might be tempted, don't surround yourselves with "bad" people. All these things and more are not what Christianity is supposed to be about. Even that label "Christianity" is a crutch. It's not about being in a religion with this name attached to it. It's about faith and relationship to God. We're both disillusioned with the church and mainstream Christian society. Notice I say mainstream because I know better than to say that everyone buys into what they've been told and don't seek for themselves. If I did say that, then I would be Dawkins. But we both hate that these rules have become the face of Christianity, so we're both questioning and challenging. Asking what things like honoring God with your body actually means and not what the church has always told us which is not doing drugs and not having sex. And they're all difficult questions. It involves looking at historical context and translations, it involves a shit ton of reading.

BUT THEN we started talking about how important is all this really? This also isnt' what faith is about. And here we diverged a little again because he wants to throw out all these details. Important questions to ask yes, but in the end whatever. And again to some extent I agree that you need to look at the bigger picture. But I also think that your day-to-day life, your behavior, your actions, your thoughts, and your character are all important to your growth as a Christian. Otherwise just do whatever the fuck what you want, ignore what God desires for you in your life, and as long as you have the bigger picture in mind then sweet. But from my point of view as a believer, as someone who believes the gospel message, as someone who desires to know God, then that entails wanting to understand how God wants us to live and how we have to carry this banner for His kingdom. Therefore you can't exactly ignore all these things. Again, it's about a balance between this big picture and little dtails. Rah balances. Or can you ignore them? I dunno. I really don't know what I think.

Because what if you take someone who is from like the Deep South or some other super rural place, and he/she has lived a very full and pious life of child-like faith and has never asked these questions. Is their faith less legit? No. I can't tell them their faith wasn't actually real because they didnt' really understand it and they didnt' question or challenge and they didnt' think. But then why do I need to question and challenge? Cuz I know if I don't then it's not real. Then I'm just blindly following. Like that person who lives in a rural area right? No, not right. Totally different because I can't lie to myself and say that this simple faith I have is real. I know it' snot.I have to understand these things.

Omg my head is going to explode soon.

I need a break.