What Is God Like?
St. Augustine wrote fifteen books on the Trinity, trying to figure out what God is like. He already knew that God was his creator and his goal, but he wanted to know more. He wanted a more complete answer to his prayer: "O God, let me know you!" He wanted to understand the very nature of God. And so, over a sixteen year period (400-416) he wrote his fifteen books about what God was like.
There is an ancient tradition that when Augustine had finished he had a dream. In the dream he was walking along a beach when he came upon a little boy playing in the sand. The child had dug three holes and was busily running back and forth to the sea with a little bucket. He would scoop up the water and rush back and pour it into the holes and then rush back for another bucket and repeat the process. Augustine watched him for a while and then asked:
What are you doing?
The boy answered:
I am pouring the entire sea into these three holes.
Augustine laughed and said:
How silly to try to pour the whole sea
into those three little
holes!
The boy looked up and answered:
It is even sillier to try to pour the Trinity into fifteen books.
Augustine wrote his book The Trinity so that he could better understand the nature of God, to answer the question: "What is God?" But when we ask the question: "What is God LIKE?" we are not seeking a theological analysis of the nature and attributes of a "Being a se" (the technical description of God). We are more interested in finding out what God is like for us in this life. For answers to this question we turn, not to theological tomes, but to simple stories told by someone who should know how God might act if he were living a life like ours. Thus through the stories of the New Testament we hear Jesus telling us that God is friend, that God is healer, that God is judge.
Augustine asked both "What is God?" and "What is God like?" in the course of his long life and, although he only scratched the surface of a full description of God, his discoveries helped him want God more passionately and trust him more fervently. At the end of his investigation, Augustine still did not know too much about the infinite nature of God but he was much happier and confident knowing something about "What God was like" from the stories Jesus told.
After much thinking about the "nature of God" Augustine concluded that we can say more easily what he is not than what he is. (Commentary on Psalm 85, 12) We may approach God through our reason but we will never comprehend him. (Sermon 117, 3) Every part of creation does indeed shout that God exists (Confessions, 11.4) but there is big difference between knowing that God exists and knowing what he is. Augustine believed that no human being in his day was able "not to know" God, but no one can ever know him as he is in himself. (Commentary on Psalm 74, 9)
We can say many words about God. We can say that he exists, that he is unchangeable, that he is infinite, that he is eternal, that he is all beautiful, that he is all good, that he is all just, that he is all kind. We can say all these words and all of them are accurate but we can understand none of them as they apply to God. The one fact that we should know with absolute certainty is that God is so much more than we are that we can never understand all that he is. We should know this but sometimes we don't seem to. The late Frank Sheed once remarked that he was always amazed by friends who were convinced that if God would only visit on occasion and sit down for a serious conversation about the problems of the world, both he and they would profit from the experience. Sheed admitted that if God made such an offer to visit with him on the front porch, he would exit in alarm as quickly as possible through the kitchen.
Some humans do not seem to share Sheed's diffidence. They seem quite comfortable with the idea of God coming to see them. They seem to think that he would approach them as an equal, if not an inferior. Thus they demand that God "prove" himself to them individually before they will consent to believe. Or they ignore him, allowing his messages to remain on their voice-mail unanswered. Or they lecture him like a bad child, saying:
How could you let
this bad thing happen to me?
Bad God! Bad God!
Some even claim to be God's special favorites, to be the channel through which the wisdom and wishes of God are communicated to "earthlings". Usually it is just the opposite. Public proclamations of being the chosen of God are signs of ignorance. Mary of all humans was the closest to Jesus and she spent most of her life in quiet contemplation. Even the jackass chosen to carry Jesus on Palm Sunday kept his mouth shut. Loud claims of knowing God or of being his special vessel are signs of ignorance. GOD IS! but beyond that heartening fact lies mystery.
We should not be surprised. We are limited and God is unlimited. There is no way we can comprehend him. It is for this reason that when Jesus came with his divinity hidden in his humanity, he did not make any attempt to show that divinity to his apostles. He knew that it would only blind them. Nor did he try to explain to them the mystery of God. That would only have confused them. Instead he told them stories which taught them what God was like and what God thought of them.
The stories about "What God is like" told by Jesus are important in our quest to eventually see God. If such stories are pleasant stories, stories that present God as a kind, benevolent friend, our anticipation and our desire and our hope to see the real thing will increase beyond measure. Through hearing we can be driven to thirst for seeing.
Two of the stories told by Jesus that attracted Augustine the most were the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
In the story of the Good Samaritan as told by Luke (10:30-37) God is depicted as a wandering Samaritan who saved a stranger (a Judean and thus a supposed enemy) from certain death. The symbolism is evident. It tells us that though God is far above us, he is still willing to come to our rescue. What Augustine says of the Samaritan is a description of what God has done and is doing for the human race:
He approached the wounded man and he
exercised mercy,
and he showed himself a neighbor to one whom he did not
consider a foreigner.
Commentary on the Gospel of John, 43.3.3
The good Samaritan in the story represents Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who has lifted wounded human beings out of the abyss where heaven was forever closed to them, treated their wounds by the healing "oil and wine" of his grace (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 41.13.2) and carried them on his own back, (Sermon 119, 7) to a place of healing. Indeed, he paid for their healing with the coin of his own flesh and blood, promising that someday he would come back to take them home with him.
The message of the story is that we all are still in the "Inn of the Samaritan". Just now we are not in the best condition, we are cracked, we are weak, we don't always know where we are going or what we are to do. But there is no need to despair. We have been saved from the pit of eternal death and someday we shall be just fine as long as we realize that we are not "cured" and continue to take the medicine that has been provided for us.
We may have been saved but we have not yet been healed and thus we have no reason to become proud. We are not yet on our own. We still need the attention of the Good Doctor who rescued us. We can still fall back into the abyss if we reject the medicine he has given us: the grace to live quietly as uncomplaining, thankful, loving patients awaiting our release from this Inn, our temporary place of healing. As Augustine told his friends:
Let us gladly accept being cured at the
Inn; don't lets boast
of our health while we are still feeble; because all we will
achieve by getting proud is to ensure that we will never be
healed by taking the cure.
Sermon 131, 6
The story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) goes even farther in describing God's intimate and loving relationship to the human race. In this story God is not simply a kind foreigner who rescues humans from the pit; he is a father and we are his children.
Augustine found it quite reasonable to claim that God is father to us all. God has "fathered" us in a much more radical way than any earthly father could. Without God we would not have come into existence and without God we would even now cease to exist. In this life God acts both as father and mother to us. (Commentary on Psalm 26, 18) He not only creates us and directs us but he also cherishes and feeds us. He nurses us, giving us the affection and nourishment we need to get through life. When God creates us as human beings, he
... continues to nourish and
guard us so that we may be
healthy and happy.
A Literal Commentary on Genesis, 8.10.23
It is for this reason that we can be sure that wherever we go this wonderful God is by our side. As Augustine expresses it:
Wherever you go on earth,
however long you remain,
the Lord is close to you. So don't worry about anything.
The Lord is nearby.
Sermon 171, 5.
God as Father is indeed more dependable and constant than our earthly parents. Some earthly parents ignore their children and even brutalize them but God never does such terrible things. All of us are destined someday to be separated from our parents in death. But we are never far from God. This is the message that Augustine takes from the passage in the psalm:
Though my father and mother
forsake me,
yet will the Lord receive me.
Psalm 27, 10
As Augustine comments:
Mortals give place to
mortals. Children are born to
human parents but their parents must eventually leave
them. But the God who created me shall never leave me
nor can I ever be separated from him.
Commentary on Psalm 26/2, 18.
Moreover, God our fathers effects a far more important birth than that accomplished by our human parents. They (with the help of God) brought us into existence in this life. Our Divine Father brings us into eternal life. (Sermon 57, 3)
The story is also important because through the sons it tells us humbling facts about how we humans sometimes act. Augustine had no trouble in identifying with the younger son in the story. (Questions on the Gospels, 2.33; Sermon 112a) Like the Prodigal, Augustine had taken the gifts that his father had given him (his life, his body, his mind) and wasted them in a search for earthly love and fame and good times. Just as the young son in the story left his father to find freedom in foreign lands, so Augustine fled from the call of the heavenly father to enjoy the fleshpots of Carthage and the sophisticated culture of the imperial court at Milan. Augustine did not think of returning to God until he had nowhere else to go. So too with the Prodigal in the story:
He was in dire need. He
longed to fill his belly with the husks that were fodder for the pigs. Coming to his
senses at last, he said: "How many hired hands at my father's place have more than
enough to eat, while here am I starving! I will return to my father and say to him,
`Father, I have sinned against God and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your
son. Treat me like one of your hired hands.'" With that he set off for his father's
house.
Luke 15:14-20
Augustine comments:
His preferring his own
company took him a long way away
from his Father. Indeed, in preferring his own company, he
lost himself. Thus, Luke says, "coming to his senses at last"
(that is, returning to himself) he said: Father, I have sinned
against God and against you.
Sermon 90a, 10
Like the Prodigal Son, Augustine in his wanderings lost not only God but even himself. Of course his flight was not physical. As he says of himself:
Through my evil desires I fled far away
from you. Indeed, it
is not through our feet or by changing our place that we
either turn away from you or return to you.
Confessions, 1.18
In Milan he was on top of this world but he was starving. His spirit was wasting away. One day he was on his way to give an important speech at the imperial court in praise of the Emperor when he and his friends came across a drunken beggar in the streets. The fellow was making jokes and laughing hilariously as he watched the world go by. Augustine turned sadly to his friends and said:
"Why must we struggle for happiness in this life while
this fellow seems to have achieved it? He is happy and I am unhappy. He doesn't have a
care in the world and I am worn down by my anxiety." Oh it is true (he continues) I
did not want to change places with him even though I was consumed by my cares and fears. I
thought I was much better because I was educated. But my knowledge did not bring joy. It
was simply a way of impressing others. It is true that the happy beggar was drunk, but he
would sleep it off. Tomorrow he would wake up sober. But I would sleep and wake and sleep
and wake again, still possessed by the twisted demons that plagued me.
Confessions, 6.6
The Prodigal turned back to his father when he was empty, when he had no one else to go to. His saving grace was that he went with humility. He had wasted his gifts. He was certainly wrong. But when he turned back to his father he at least made no excuses. He said simply:
Father, I have sinned. I no
longer deserve to be called your
son.
Luke 15: 21
In his humility he was like King David who committed adultery but then confessed to the prophet Nathan:
I have sinned against the
Lord.
2 Samuel, 12.13
It may be the case (though I doubt it) that to be in love with a human means never to say "I'm sorry." It IS the case, however, that to truly love God means to be always ready to say "I'm sorry." All of us are wounded and these wounds inevitably cause us to turn from God in one way or another. Only Mary, the Mother of God, is an exception. And thus it was to the credit of King David and the Prodigal Son that they were willing to say "I am sorry for my sin" without knowing what the response would be. Their sin tells us something about what it is to be a human being. Their repentance tells us something about how the grace of God can work with even the most bent and twisted human spirit. And what happened next tells us what sort of father we have in God.
In the story of David, he confessed his sin and immediately the answer came back:
The Lord on his part has
forgiven your sin:
you shall not die.
2 Samuel, 12.13
The response to the Prodigal Son's return was even more dramatic:
While he was still a long way off, his
father caught sight of
him and was deeply moved. He ran out to meet him, threw
his arms around his neck, and kissed him.
And when the son said to him:
I have sinned! I no longer deserve to be your son!
the father did not try to argue the point. He ignored it and cried to the servants:
Take the fatted calf and kill
it! Let us eat and celebrate
because this son of mine was dead and has come back to
life. He was lost and is found.
Luke 15: 20-24
There are important lessons about God to be learned from the story. The first lesson is that God is a father who will forgive us if we ask for forgiveness, but he will not force us to return. He will help us to choose to return (perhaps by providentially allowing us to exhaust other possibilities) and then will rush forward to meet us. There may be punishment for our sin when we return because God is a God of Justice as well as kindness; but the punishment will not be forever.
The second lesson is that we can separate ourselves from the Father by going to foreign places or by staying right at home. Augustine uses the older son as a symbol of all those who consider themselves to be God's chosen ones and who resent God's blessings on anyone less virtuous than themselves. The angry words of the older son tell us much about his true feelings towards the father. When he learned that his younger brother had returned home and that a party was in progress, he was furious. He probably thought:
Here I am returning from a hard day's work in my father's vineyard and they are taking the day off to celebrate this wastrel's return.
They killed a calf in honor of the younger son and got the older son's goat. He would not go in to the party, and so the father came out (a sign that our God will put up with our sulking at home as well as our skulking abroad). He asked his older son to please come in but he would hear none of it. I can imagine him screaming at his father:
For years now I have slaved for you! I never disobeyed one
of your orders, yet you never gave ME so much as a kid goat to celebrate with MY
friends! But when this son of YOURS returns after having gone through your
property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for HIM!
See Luke 15: 29-30
The story of the Prodigal Son ends there. We never learn what happened to either boy. But I suspect that if one of them did end up in hell, it was the older son. He hated his father. He resented his father giving any goods to the Prodigal because he wanted it all. He wanted all of the inheritance. Indeed, he wanted his father dead so that he could be the only god in town. Far from ever asking his father's forgiveness, the older son thought that he was owed by the father and that in being kind to the Prodigal the father had sinned against HIM! The older son stayed at home. He did everything that his father asked him to do. But one thing he did not do: he did not love his father. He would not admit that all that he had was from the father. He made himself into a human god, and, if he stayed that way, he just had to go to hell. Heaven has room for only one God and that God is the Father.
What, then, is our God like? He is so far above us that we cannot comprehend him. And yet we know that he has reached down and has saved us from the abyss. More, we know that he is our Father and that the care he has for us is like the care the father had for the prodigal son. As has been said, we don't know what happened to the two boys. Maybe the younger son went away again once the party was over. Maybe the older son went away too, disgusted with the father's forgiving ways. But one thing we DO know about the father in the story and our Father in heaven: he will always be ready to take back any of his children who return asking forgiveness.
No matter how often we wander from our Father, no matter how far we have wandered, no matter how long we have been separated from him, we who are his children can always say to him "I'm sorry" and hear the wonderful words of the father to the prodigal:
Let the party begin! My child has come back to me!
From the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, we do indeed learn some consoling facts about "what our God is like", but it would be a mistake to believe that we have thereby "Discovered God". To hear from stories "what God is like" is far less than the "vision" of God we hope to achieve in the eternal life beyond death. To learn something about "what God is like" can help us to get an "awareness" of God in this life but this is not the same as the "seeing" of God, that stage of "wisdom" which is the goal of our journey. This difference between "being aware" and "seeing" is demonstrated even in our everyday life. For example, we may be "aware" of being loved and even be aware that we have a loved one at a distance, and although this awareness is delightful, it is never completely satisfying. To be "aware" of someone is not to "see" them and when we love someone we want to "see" them, hold "them", become "one with them". So too though we may become "aware" of God by hearing stories of "what God is like", we always will seek something more. We want to "see" him and become "one" with him. Even though we may have discovered what God is like through the stories that Jesus told, we have yet to discover GOD! Therefore our pilgrimage towards the vision of God which is true "wisdom" must continue. We have not yet arrived.