God is Love

In the introduction to my book, The Immortal Soul. I wondered when I first became interested in the human body and soul. I suggested it was probably after reading the book, The Physics of God, and I was struck by the statement in that book that the human body and soul were inseparable until the body dies (or is dying) at which time the soul, which is immortal, is released into the spiritual world. This caused me to explore this statement further and I used Holy Scripture quotes and two additional reference books, The Science of God, and Science at the Doorstep to God to assist me in developing five essays (blogs) which appeared on my website, avoicecryingoutforfreedom.com. Those five blogs became the basis for the book, The Immortal Soul, which was published on Amazon.

The book, Science at the Doorstep to God by Father Spitzer, was probably the most influential in developing the blogs on the body and soul. That book was a scholarly work which provided extensive information on the relationship of God’s interaction with man and I repeated the book’s final conclusion twice in those five blogs. It clearly impressed me and believe it explained how God interacts with man and the world He created. That conclusion of the book is reproduced here again and is shown below.

“As can be seen from this and the last two chapters, there is a high likelihood that we have a transphysical soul capable of surviving bodily death and communicating with God, which is the source of our creativity, free choice, and the pursuits of truth, goodness, love, and beauty. This transphysical soul which distinguishes us categorically from all other animal species must be created by a transphysical  cause with greater powers of self-consciousness, intelligence, freedom, love, and beauty than our own. As such, we are justified in associating this transphysical cause with the intelligent Creator of our universe and the unique, uncaused, unrestricted, intelligent Creator of everything else in reality. We may further associate this Creator with the numen of our religious experience, the voice of our conscience, and the horizon for our search of perfect truth, love, goodness/justice, beauty, and being/home. This God is more than an indifferent, intelligent Creator of the deists; He is also a personal God who desires to enter into relationship with us, reveal Himself to us, guide us through his voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our transphysical nature.”

In the book, The Immortal Soul, I also introduced what I called a “fool’s mission” which was a mission to understand God’s mind. I labeled it a “fool’s mission” because Isaish 55 clearly warns us that God said my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are higher than your ways, indicating that to try to understand the mind of God was beyond our reach. Yet I found the conclusion statement of the book, Science at the Doorstep to God, sufficient in describing God’s thoughts and relationship with man and His creation (the universe) for me to see no reason to continue in my pursuit of the “fool’s mission”. I had my answer.

But there was something about the conclusion of the book, Science at the Doorstep to God,  that still haunted me, much like the quote from The Physics of God concerning the body and soul. It was the last sentence, “He is also a personal God who desires to enter into relationship with us, reveal Himself to us, guide us through his voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our transphysical nature.” So that sentence has become the driving force behind this blog which will explore that comment and more and what will in essence be a companion to the book, The Immortal Soul.

Clearly God, who is the creator of the universe and all things, has no need for this relationship, or for that matter had no need to even create the universe. So why did he do it? Many theologians have offered answers but let us first look at one of the first formal attempts at the answer provided by the First Vatican Council in 1869, it stated that God created the heavens and the earth “of his own goodness and almighty power, not for the increase of his own happiness.” Perhaps we are thinking that seems just like the answer you might expect from the First Vatican Council. Perhaps we might arrive at a more satisfying answer if we begin with the basic building block that God is Love. This is what Bishop Robert Barron did and we shall see that he was able to relate God is Love to both the last sentence of the book’s conclusion and also relate it to the creation of the world. He talks about Love not as a feeling or sentiment but rather an act of the will, precisely the willing of the good for the other as other. With this understanding (and we will return to that later) we can see how God’s creation of the universe is a supreme act of love. It is true that God has no need for anything outside of himself, therefore the very existence of the universe is proof that it has been loved into being – desired utterly for its own sake. And as I have stated in other blogs, it was God’s love that provided the energy for the Big Bang.

But let us go now go back to the last sentence of the conclusion of Science at the Doorstep to God which states “He is also a personal God who desires to enter into relationship with us, reveal Himself to us, guide us through his voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our transphysical nature.” When He says “reveal Himself to us” the us refers to is our immortal soul. We have already learned that the soul is created in the divine image of God, and while the soul is spiritual and is endowed by God with the capability to become transcendent, God realizes the soul cannot reach that full transcendent potential without a personal relationship with Him. So that He can reveal Himself to us, guide us through His voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our transcendental  nature.”

Transcendental and transphysical have similar meanings. Transphysical means transformed physicality or transcending the physical realm. Humans have transphysical  (transcendental) souls that give them certain capacities, such as: 

• Surviving bodily death: The ability to continue to exist in a transphysical  (transcendental) domain after death 
• Abstract thought: The ability to formulate and relate ideas in a non-linear and abstract way 
• Self-consciousness: The ability to experience and understand oneself, and to create a private inner world 
• Conceptual ideas: The ability to have abstract thoughts, syntactical control, and conceptual language 

Clearly God created a magnificent spiritual being (our soul) in His image but He is letting us know that the soul could not reach its full potential without a personal relationship with his creator, God, who needed to reveal Himself to us, guide our soul through His voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our soul’s transcendental nature. Hence, the reason He wants a relationship with us is not because He needs it but because He wants us to become the complete person (soul) he created us to become. Notice this says that He needed to reveal Himself to us, this is best accomplished when we live in His Presence. We will discuss what living in His Presence means shortly.

For me, this need for a personal relationship to enhance the potential of the soul places a whole new understanding of the meaning of Isiah 55 which reminds us that His thoughts are not our thoughts. This does not mean that we should not try to understand the mind of God, rather it clarifies that in His relationship with us, He is in charge and He is there to help and without His personal help we cannot reach our full potential for which we were created. This is the reason He wants this personal relationship with us, to help us reach our true transcendental potential for which we were created. This is the same reason given in a December Jesus Calling daily devotional reading. It begins with; “Take time to be Holy. The word holy does not mean goody-goody, it means set apart for sacred use. That is what those quiet moments in My Presence are accomplishing within you. As you focus your heart and mind on Me, you are being transformed: re-created into the one I designed you to be.” By the way, I love the opening thought in that reading, take time to be Holy, what a wonderful and inspiring thought!

 So, the Jesus Calling reading reiterates that God wants a relationship with us so that we can reach our full transcendent potential! Perhaps this is understood by non-traditional Protestant churches, since they place great emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus. Often this occurs during an ‘alter call’. Traditional Protestant and catholic churches (Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran) usually achieve this through the Presence of God.

Because God is love, we can also look at this need to have a personal relationship in a different way, but with the same conclusion. Clearly love cannot exist on its own, it requires two beings for love to exist and this requirement needs the existence of a personal relationship between God and each soul. Hence, we have laid the groundwork to provide the reasons God desired a personal relationship with us (our souls). The reader can decide if sufficient reasons have been given for God’s desire to have a personal relationship but let us assume that has been accomplished but before we move on let us consider the significance of this relationship between God and our soul.

Recall in the book, The Immortal Soul, one chapter was dedicated to “What is seen is transitory, but what is unseen lasts forever”. This was based on 2 Corinthians 4:18 and basically established the existence of the dual life we humans have, earthly (or physically) and spiritually. In that chapter it is established that the spiritual life is more important because when we die (physical death) everything associated with our physical life on earth disappears but our soul is immortal and lives on. That chapter in the book, The Immortal Soul, details what happens to the soul when the body dies, however the reason for bringing this up is because it is in the spiritual life that the relationship between God and our soul takes place, if it is to take place at all.

While God is wanting to and willing to have a personal relationship with us (our souls) it is important to realize that we must also want that relationship. The best way to maximum this personal relationship with God is to fully trust God. We need to say to God we are totally yours. Recall this was Pope Paul II’s motto, Totus Tuus. What we are saying to God is I am totally yours, and everything I have is yours.

 So, what do we get out of that relationship in which we fully trust God? What we get out of it is peace that surpasses all understanding. Think about that! I believe that is what we all want and was probably  what St Augustine meant to convey when he said, “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you” This is what happens when we live in the Presence of God and this is where God meets us in a personal relationship to reveal Himself to us, guide our soul through His voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our soul’s transcendental nature. I never fully understood this until I begin to live in the Presence of God and developed this personal relationship with Him.  I felt I was a good person before, and perhaps I was, but I did not begin to experience even a hint of the peace beyond understanding until I spent time in the Presence of God in my spiritual life. The more I meditate in the Presence of God the more powerful is the experience of a peace beyond understand. I should mention that when we speak of God, we are referring to the Holy Trinity and the words of God, Son, and Holy Spirit Holy are used interchangeable. In fact, it is most common to speak of being in the Presence of Jesus.

So, since our whole life is immersed in the physical world (what is seen) and we are most familiar with it and want to spend more time receiving the pleasures and delights of the physical world, how do we train ourselves to spend more time in the spiritual world, which is more important?

Recalling it is more important since everything we experience in the physical world will disappear when we die but the immortal soul will live on and that soul is essentially us in every way.  This is the beginning of the understanding that we (our souls) are in this world but not of this world. The real home of the soul is in Heaven.  The whole concept that as humans we have both a physical life (the body) and a spiritual life (the soul) is new to most of us and was the reason I wrote the book, The Immortal Soul.

So, in a practical sense, since we live in this world, we recognize what our actions are in the physical world but how do we recognize what our actions are in the spiritual world? And why is one more important than the other? Jesus Calling is a well-known daily devotional which I previously mentioned and provides guidance and wisdom on how we can both live in this world and yet find Peace in the Presence of the Lord and the daily devotional is written as if Jesus is speaking directly to us. Recently one of its daily devotionals used 2 Corinthians 4:18 as a reference and provided this guidance:” Do not search for security in the world you inhabit. There is a better way to find security in this life, instead of looking in this world, focus your attention on my Presence with you. I will help you sort out what is important and what is not, what needs to be done now and what does not. Fix your eyes not on what is seen (your circumstances), but on what is unseen (My Presence).”  This implies that being in the Presence of Jesus is a spiritual endeavor, and it is.  So, what do we mean by the Presence of God?  The Presence of God is when through stillness and meditation we can block out our worldly concerns and open our hearts and minds to hear the voice of God. The more time we spend in the quiet Presence of Jesus, the closer we come to understanding the Transcendent nature of God and the closer we come to experiencing the peace that is beyond understanding and developing the personal relationship that Jesus wants with us. Living in the Presence of God is a way to improve our spiritual life. We are told that improving our spiritual development is clearly a better choice than focusing on our worldly tasks and that is what fixing your eyes not on what is seen (your circumstances), but what is unseen (My Presence) is trying to tell us.

The best of example indicating the importance of living in the Presence of Jesus can be found in the Bible, Luke 10:38-42. It states, “On their journey Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him to her home. She had a sister named Mary, who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and listened to his words. Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, came to him and said “Lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left me to do the household tasks all alone? Tell her to help me.’

The Lord in reply said to her; Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; one thing only is required, Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it”

Clearly Mary was spending time in the Presence of the real Jesus, and that was the better choice. This is a remarkable example of the importance of developing our spiritual side rather than spending all our time in earthly endeavors, and this advice is given by Jesus himself and it opens us up to a personal relationship with Jesus.

Before we leave the concept of living in the Presence of God and God’s personal relationship with us, I would like to remind the reader that in a previous blog about The Physic of God, Selbie pointed out that two groups, scientists and mathematicians, and saints and sages had made (and continue to do so) the most progress in understanding the mind of God. My path had been primarily through the scientist and mathematician group but the saints and sages have come the closest to fully experiencing the peace that is beyond understanding. They have done this through meditation while in the Presence of God.  The more we meditate, the more we block out the stimulation of the bodily senses and the more we open ourselves spiritually to communicating directly with God. Meditation depends on two indispensable practices: stillness and inner adsorption. Why the need for stillness? Spiritual teachers from all traditions say the purpose of such profound stillness is to withdraw from the continuous flood of information coming through our senses. Achieving this can often be accomplished in silent retreats where nobody speaks to anyone yet everybody speaks to God. Mother Theresa of Calcutta also said, “We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. In it we are filled with the energy of God himself that makes us do all things with joy.”  Inner Adsorption is achieving perfect mental and emotional stillness. Achieving this is not always easy as noted by practitioners such as Lao Tzu who said, “To the mind that is still, the whole world surrenders.”

I have never been very good at meditation but I plan on committing to this effort and have picked out the room and time when I will spend time in meditation. I may not be successful but anything that gets me closer to peace that is beyond understanding is worth the effort. Being able to achieve that may be God’s greatest gift to us.

Having established why God wants a personal relationship with us (our souls) and its importance to us, let me then introduce some new and possibly unsettling thoughts. Since God is Love as mentioned by Bishop Barron, what does that mean? Is Love simply a thought? Can it exist by itself? Some have suggested that the whole universe was created by a thought, Scripture seems to support that, in Genesis. Remember that a thought must precede any action. Recall that Bishop Barron said Love was not a feeling or sentiment but rather an act of the will. Genesis begins with God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. Those words and action continue throughout the creation story.

In Selbie’s book, The Physics of God, he states that according to the saints and sages, creation begins with thought. God’s intelligent laws are conceived in thought before the cosmos vibrates into being. While Selbie mainly deals Western thought, he also includes insights from Eastern thought and here is an interesting quote from Budda, “We are what we think all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world”.

Actually, the fact that thoughts create actions has been proven often. The most dramatic examples of the thoughts in our mind affecting the body can be found in studies of people suffering from dissociative identity disorder (DID), more commonly known as multiple-personality disorder (MPD). MPD is well-known but what is less well-known is that the rapid personality changes are often accompanied by rapid physiological changes. We are more familiar with the effect the mind has on the body through the use of placebos which can produce dramatic changes based on what the person thinks will happen. Thoughts can be powerful and directly affect our physical being.

So, if Love is an act that begins with a thought, then is it possible this God of love’s first thought was to create the Holy Trinity? Clearly the Holy Trinity itself is a union of love and consists of the Love of the Father, the Love of the Son, encircled by the Wisdom and Love of the Holy Spirit. In a previous blog on the Holy Trinity, it was concluded that the Holy Trinity existed since the beginning of time.  Did the thought of Love precede the creation of the Holy Trinity?  Did it precede the creation of the universe? Let that possibility sink in for a while!

Since love is so important to the development of essentially everything, we should try to correctly define what love is. Is love more than a thought? As a reminder, I produced a blog in 2021 on my website describing what the great thinkers thought about love. That essay also appears in my book, A Penny for your Thoughts under a chapter with the simple title, Love.

 Here is a brief refresher as to what appeared in the 2021 blog. In the Western World, the Greeks were among the first address what is love. They basically placed love in four categories and called them Agape, Eros, Philia, and Storage. Agape is the most significant category and is defined as love toward our fellow man. Thomas Aquinas referred to it as “to will the good of another”. Remember that Bishop Barron also said something similar and that love was an act of the will, precisely the willing of the good for the other as other. We will come back to this important category later. Philia means affectionate regard or friendship, usually among equals. Storage is also sometimes known as affection and most often a descriptor of relationships in the family. Eros is intimate love; it is passionate and erotic love and normally associated with romantic love.  So, the concept of love is more complex than a single category and many have commented on the categories. In 1960 a noted author and lay theologian, C.S. Lewis, wrote the book, The Four Loves. It is highly regarded and we will benefit us to take a closer look at that book. Lewis’s Four Loves were Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity. He uses affection for the Greek category of Storge and uses Charity for the Greek category of Agape. It is not clear why he modified the categories but Charity seems to fit Aquinas’s definition of agape as “to will the good of another.”  Clearly love is not simply romantic love.

Speaking of romantic love, raises the question – at least for me, why do we need a body? Recalled from the book, The Immortal Soul, we humans have both a physical or worldly body and we have a spiritual body, the soul. So, we have two lives.  I raise this question because based on our previous discussion it would seem since God has his important personal relationship in the spiritual realm and not in the physical world, is the physical world needed? That perhaps is an important question which we will not resolve here but remember it is eros love that most often gets humans in trouble with the Lord and that occurs in the physical world. Again, refer to the book, The Immortal Soul, and the last chapter which describes the struggle between the influence of the physical body and its world and the influence of the spiritual soul which is the divine voice in our conscience. Perhaps we can address the concept of the need for a body in a new blog, it is a question that perhaps needs to be asked, but not now.

So if love has many categories, which is most important? And is love defined in Holy Scriptures? Let me take the last question first. The First Epistle of John offers several ways to define love and is one of my favorite books in the Bible. In 1 John 4:10 it states, “Love, then, consists   in this: not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and has sent his Son as an offering for our sins.” Then again in 1 John 4:16, “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God him. “ In 1 John 4:18  “Love has no room for fear; rather, perfect love casts out all fear.” And finally, 1 John 4:19, “We, for our part, love because He first loved us”. Clearly the First Epistle of John in chapter 4 gives several definitions for us to consider and ponder.

But let me return to the first question. There are generally four categories. Clearly it must be agape love that is the most important since most theologians and writers have defined it as willing of the good for someone other than oneself. Which is why agape love is known as unselfish love. This may also be the reason C.S. Lewis changed the name of his category from agape to charity since charity deals with helping others. Also, when C.S. Lewis was asked what was God’s type of love, he said agape came the closest as is humanly possible to heavenly love and was probably the type of love experienced by near-death experiencers while in Heaven. But I believe the best reason why agape love is the most important comes from the example given in another one of Father Spitzer’s books not previously mentioned (Christ, Science and Reason). Spitzer called agape love the highest form of love and his reasoning is shown below:

“The highest form of love (called caritas/agape) seeks the good of the other and derives its power from looking for the intrinsic goodness, lovability, and transcendent mystery of the other. For this reason, it needs no rewards like the mutuality of friendship or the romantic dimensions of eros. The good of the other is its own reward. Furthermore, love (agape) would seem to be the one virtue that can be an end in itself. Other virtues do not necessarily result in the positivity or culminate in a good for others.” Notice that this definition rules out two of the remaining three categories, friendship and romantic (eros) love.

I am not sure everyone understands the importance of unselfish (agape) love. This is the love I believe God wants us to spread over the whole world, it is the love that answers his command, love your neighbor. It is how God wants us to love Him! If we practice and show this type of love while we are in this world, it is the type of action that will lead us to a permanent home in Heaven. Agape love is the highest form of love.

So let us review where this blog has taken us. We have raised significant questions about the power of thought and words as well as questioning whether we needed a body,  but the primary purpose of this blog was to answer the question, why does God want to have a personal relationship with us? While God has created a magnificent soul (us) He knows we still need in a personal relationship to reveal Himself to us, guide our soul through His voice and our conscience and help us to find the full eternal expression of our soul’s transcendental nature. So, this relationship is for our good, not His. But in addition to becoming the full eternal expression of our soul’s transcendental nature, this relationship is the way we achieve peace that is beyond all understanding! I believe that is what we all want and was probably what St Augustine meant to convey when he said, “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you”

May the Peace that is beyond all understanding be with you.

 Love

Will Lannes