The Undefinable God

                                                   The Indefinable God

                                                   By Dr. Juan A. Carmona

In writing this essay, I am reminded of a hymn that has always been one of my favorite ones.  In fact, it was a hymn that I incorporated into a worship service in which I preached while I was still a student at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1978.  The hymn was ¨Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.¨ To this day, both the words and the tune of that hymn ring in my ears and in my heart.

I remember that back in the early 1970´s I read a book which speaks about the ¨semiotic¨ language that we use when speaking of God.  The writer took great pains to mention that the best we can do when making reference to God is to utilize semiotic language, i.e. language which contains a lot of symbols and points to something beyond itself.

I have learned in the years of my spiritual journey that God can be conceptualized (with qualification), but not defined. I remember the saying of one person who stated, ¨God is much greater than any praise which we can give Him.¨  We all have our concepts and ideas as to what and who God is. One concept is not necessarily better or more correct than the other.  It is not a question of ¨better or worse,¨ but rather one of ¨just different.¨ It is not necessary to trump one concept in favor of the other, but rather, just to ¨let a thousand flowers bloom.

We wreck our brains trying to figure God out and trying to put Her/Him into our neat little boxes, as if God could be confined or restricted.  We tend to think that our semiotic language about God settles the problem for once and for all as to who, what, and how God is.

God is beyond concepts and beyond definition.  God is even beyond language, no matter how fancy or lofty our language may be.  God cannot be reduced to our human definitions or to our fallible and erroneous mental constructs.  The minute that we even dare to think that God is ¨like this or like that,¨ we have missed the point, and, in essence, restricted God to our conceptual, ideological, and linguistic limitations.

How, then, do we resolve the issue of trying to relate to a being who cannot be defined?  My formation and experience inform me that the best thing we can do is to let God be God. What does this mean?  For me, this means that we cease for once and for all to attempt packaging and boxing God in. Let God be and work how He/She wants to and let us rely on Her/His grace to help us become the people we should be.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona