God is always there for those who let Him in

Question: Hello, I am a junior at Mercy High School in Middletown, Conn. I haven’t really thought about this before, but was God a real person? I understand that His son, Jesus, was, which got me to wonder if God ever stepped into His own creation? Thank you for your time! — from K

Answer: The question as to whether Jesus was a person or was God who appeared as a person has divided Christian theologians for centuries. It is called the Arian Controversy, and the side that believed that Jesus was just a person lost out to the group that believed that Jesus was both human and divine. So, if Jesus is God then Jesus was one way God entered creation.

The question of how God enters creation (which is your question) was also very important to Judaism. The Bible begins with God entering creation by actually creating everything. That creation is accomplished by God’s words alone. God said, “let there be light” and there was light.

After creation God continued to be an actor in the biblical drama. God was not believed to be a person but somehow God was able to speak to biblical figures like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses and the prophets. God’s words are not human words but a kind of revelation that special chosen ones and prophets are allowed to receive and hear by God’s will.

Even though God is never described as a person entering creation, there are verses where

God seems to have human form (anthropomorphism) or human emotions (anthropopathism). God is described as walking through the Garden of Eden “at the breezy time of day.” It’s hard to walk without legs. At the time of Noah and the flood, God is described as “regretting” having made human beings. Regret is a human emotion not appropriate to an all-knowing God. However, with these few exceptions God is described as entering creation — but not in human form.

Whatever people believed in the biblical period, it is clear that as history moved on God moved farther and farther away from being directly involved in human affairs. God gave the law of life to Moses to give to the people and God thought that this was enough. God may have been wrong. The powerful presence of God in history was so alluring and so addictive, the people came to depend upon it. Eventually in the time of the prophet Ezra, prophecy ends. Christians, of course, believe that God re-enters creation in the person of Jesus, and Muslims believe that God/Allah re-enters creation in the person of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

The point today is that God remains present in the orderly and life-giving forces of nature that is the foundation of creation. God also remains present in the hopes and prayers and souls of all people who let God into their lives. God is everywhere in nature and God is in every person who lets God in.