Page 75 - Built For God Handbook (Annotated and Explained Edition) - The Christian Edition of the Tao Te Ching - The New Evangelization - Pope John Paul II
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There is a saying, “Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.”
That saying resonates with this chapter, addressing God's nature, which is a
mystery to be revered and explored, more than understood. There are
atheists who don’t believe in a God, agnostics who are not sure about God's
existence, some religions that believe in many gods, and monotheistic
religions that believe in one God. Within this spectrum, there are also many
images of God, such as Higher Power, Creator, Divine Love, Inner Knowing,
Inner Wisdom, Great Blessing, Great Spirit, Father.
The Christian is blessed to be given an image of God that has been
revealed to us, which we would never have come up with on our own. In
Luke 10:22, Jesus dares to claim, “… no one knows who the Son is except
the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the
Son chooses to reveal him.” That revelation explodes onto the pages of
scripture at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan where we read “… and when
Jesus has also been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a
voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22). Here we glimpse the true nature of God who can
be described as: relationship, family, a perichoresis or divine dance, an
eternal infinite exchange of love, three persons in one divine unity, invisible
yet very present, and even incarnate in the birth of the Son among us.
a John 14:4-6; Genesis 2:1-9; Romans 11:33-34; Isaiah 40:13-14;
b
c
1 Corinthians 2:1; Colossians 1:15-20; John 14:20; Matthew 16:13-20;
Mark 8:27-29.