The Reality of God

THE REALITY OF GOD

Ruth Burrows, in a recent book, points this out by presenting us with the following image:  “A baby in its mother's womb is in a relationship with her but is unaware of it and does not respond to the mother's intense love and desire to give herself to the child. The relationship with God on the human side can remain as minimal as that of the baby.”

The first thing this image tells us is that an atheistic consciousness does not negate the existence of God, even if our age seems to think so. The reality of God does not depend upon our conscious awareness of it. God does not cease to exist simply because we cease to think about him. God's reality is not threatened by our lack of awareness.

This image can also help us better understand something else, namely, the Christian doctrine of creation. Most of the time, almost all of us misunderstand this doctrine. We believe that God created us (past tense) and that we now somehow have life and existence independent of God, tantamount to a toy that has been created by some craftsman. But that notion is false.

The dogma of creation asks us to believe that God is actively creating us right now and is sustaining us in being right now. There is no past tense as regards creation. If God, even for a second, ceased creating and sustaining us, we would cease to be. We have no reality independent of God, no more than a baby in the womb is independent of its mother. The baby may not be aware of the mother but the mother's reality is what is massive, life giving, and life sustaining. That is also true in our relationship to God.

(Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI)