Seeking God

Don: The need to penetrate the secrets of God seems almost “hard-wired” into the very fiber of our being. It is related to our individual stage of faith.* It could also be argued that it is the root of sin. The temptation in the Garden of Eden was not about a simple choice between Good and Evil but about a choice between knowing (about Good and Evil) and depending (upon God).

The need is not simply for theoretical knowledge about God but for a depth of knowledge that would enable us to control God for selfish ends such as for a better life today on earth and in future in heaven. But there seems to be an aspect of God we just cannot know. The spirit within us speaks to us about a certain knowledge of God, yet there is much if not most that is secret. The general or natural revelation of God in the inner light and in the Creation (Nature) is the revealed aspect of God. But the God of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the God of Judgment, the God of things eternal, is the opaque, mysterious, unrevealed aspect.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

The parallel ideas of our seeking God and God seeking us run throughout scripture. Our seeking God is closely linked to an understanding of God. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)

Is the journey the destination? Is the search itself the result? And what about the parallel notion of God—an elusive God who seems to like playing hide and seek—seeking us? Can we win the game—is that much at least knowable? It would seem so:

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’ (Jeremiah 29:11)

Jesus equated knowledge of God with eternal life:

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

But it seems that the search for God can also be mis-directed:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)

God began seeking Man after the Fall. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke of God seeking his wayward creature and his wayward nation. God spoke movingly of his longing:

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart is turned over within Me,
All My compassions are kindled. (Hosea 11)

The parables of Jesus speak to this same longing for something lost; for example:

“Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:9-10)

In this sentence no longer than a modern-day tweet, Jesus summarized God’s strategic plan, its goals and objectives, and its outcome.

Kiran: What is the end product of knowing God? Moses’ life gives us some insight into this question. His life’s purpose was to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian oppression. First he tried to do it on his own, and later with God’s help. In both cases his temptation was to take things into his own hands in defining who God is and how God works. We know this from the reproof God gave to Moses when he beat the rock for water instead of asking for it. Eventually, after leading the Israelites for 40 years, he himself didn’t make it to the promised land. So the end product of knowing God is not appropriating His power for ourselves while defining who God is and how he works, and neither is it a destination—it is not a “promised land”.

So what should it be then? The life of Moses illustrates that the end product of knowing God is the journey itself. Having a rich relationship with God is the end product of knowing God. Such a relationship changes one’s own self. Moses was transformed from an impatient murderer to the meekest man on the earth. Knowing God should help us look within but we often are tempted to look at others.

David E: The Daoist does not seek the Way (God). Daoism advises “non-action” so that in the resulting stillness, you find the Way (God) without looking for it. That could also be taken to mean that the Way (God) finds you.

David F: Does Daoism warn against materialism, as Buddhism does?

David E: Daoism does not promote active avoidance of the material but it dislikes excess. However, if good material fortune happens your Way simply “Do Nothing”—just accept it.

Don: So do I have no responsibility to seek God? For those who do think they have that responsibility, then what is the outcome they expect from their search? Is it in order to put God to work on one’s behalf? To make life less stressful, free from pain and difficulties?

Donald: Should we be seeking a relationship with God rather than knowledge of him? We think that by knowing God we will have a stronger relationship with him. But relationships are built on more than cognitive knowledge. We should focus more on the relationship and less on knowledge.

David F: We seem to have a deeply ingrained desire to hunt for God, whoever he might be. It is a human urge.

Donald: Is it so that we can clarify what God wants? Or to build a relationship with him? Or…?

David F: We no more understand the urge than the Monarch butterfly understands its urge to journey from Michigan to Mexico.

David E: Job seemed to be seeking God, but what he found was Enlightenment. This is what Buddhists and Daoists and others seek. They would not define it as knowledge of an anthropomorphic God, but as making sense of the past, present, and future of the universe—of eternity. Job had no doubt that there was a God. His concern (like that of most of us) was the way God (life, the universe) was treating him. The answer to such concern is not to be found in knowledge but in enlightenment.

Chris: It is human to seek answers to things we don’t understand. Teachers exist to supply the knowledge needed to meet that demand. Scripture presents no knowledge to satisfy our demand; rather, it presents examples of how God meets various individuals’ needs for a relationship with him. That includes people at different stages of faith. As we progress through each stage we think we are closer to understanding God, but we are not, because it is not about understanding God—it is about our never-ending, ever-evolving relationship with God. We never stop getting to know him. I think it was the message of Jesus that we each should pursue the relationship in our own way.

David F: I fear that if we ever were to find God, we would kill him and mount him on the wall as a trophy. So it’s probably best that we don’t find him!

Donald: But if we don’t know God then what is the good news we are expected to proselytize? The good news is that we can have a relationship with God. The relationship between people in the various stages of faith tends to be uncomfortable; especially between stage 2 and stage 3 people (although bible school tries to combine the two).

Jay: We assume that seeking results in knowing and understanding. The context for the quote from Matthew 6 above sounds almost Daoist in asking whether birds worry about their future or lilies worry about what to wear. Seeking the kingdom of God eliminates the need to worry about what will happen or what to do. Jesus was expressing that freedom (from worry) comes through seeking Goodness, Love, and Grace—things that are not knowable scientifically.

David E: But isn’t faith enough? If we have faith in Goodness, Love, and Grace, then freedom from worry ensues. There is no need for active seeking of anything. That is not just a Daoist notion; it is also expressed often enough in the Bible in the form of “Have faith!” It is a personal mater. Some people may feel an urge to seek actively, but it is not necessary to do so. Faith in God or the Way—the I Am or the It Is—suffices.

Michael: Sure, it’s nice to live without worry, but I’m not sure that meditating all day, every day as some Buddhist monks do is the answer. What’s the point? Do they achieve enlightenment at the expense of avoiding ordinary life?

Jay: There is a call to action, but one that revolves around relationship rather than around knowledge. The call is not to go out and share your [theoretical religious] knowledge with others so that they subscribe to your religion. Rather, it is to go out and share Goodness, Love, and Grace with others. They are calls to action but are very different in nature. Religions naturally favor the former.

Donald: It’s easier to talk about facts.

David E: It’s also easier to talk about external things—things in the public domain—than in the intensely personal inner domain. I suspect enlightenment is so intensely personal as to be unique to each of us, and in that sense enlightenment itself may be impossible to share. All that one might usefully share with others is how one managed to become enlightened—what did one do (or not do!) to achieve it.

David F: A Buddhist friend found peace through group bonding and love. This is true of any religion. You’ll never connect with God on your own, doing nothing. I think knowledge of God greatly increases through love and compassion and unity with another being. Even Buddhists don’t always find the answer in solitude. They find it in positive interpersonal relationships, that leas to a religious experience.

Jay: Community with others is vital to a relationship with God. A relationship with God cannot be complete without it. The danger is in the development of inter-communal rivalries about which is right and which is wrong.

David E: I agree, but that means community might hinder as much as it might help in the search for enlightenment! I belief it possible for a recluse to find enlightenment by living alone in the forest. Tibetan Buddhist monks who live alone on remote mountain caves are not true recluses. Neither was Simon Stylites, nor the anchorites of the middle ages. They all depend on their communities to feed them and remove their waste. These were acts of love that cannot have gone unnoticed by the would-be recluse, who was not then totally isolated. Even so, I believe it is possible to be totally isolated, depending on the environment, and to achieve enlightenment and communion with God. I don’t see community as vital.

Jay: Can the goodness of God be fully realized in isolation? I think the call is not just to have faith in the goodness of God, but to spread the goodness of God to one’s fellow Man. If God has give you his grace, you have a responsibility to pass it on.

Don: There are probably some people who can encounter God and become enlightened in seclusion, but for most of us it seems better approached through community.

Donald: A rich relationship is truly a blessing; a reflection, perhaps, of God’s goodness. Some people go through life without them.

Anonymous: I don’t think searching for God is a commandment. The word “seek” in Arabic is “ask for”. Scripture tells us to ask not for God but for the kingdom of God. We are to ask for his righteousness, not for him “in person” as it were. By “ask for his righteousness” I mean ask to know how Good is the Goodness of God. We are told to be forgiving, humble, caring, and so on. We can only discover the Goodness of God by acting on this instruction and in so doing, we are asking for the kingdom of God. We are not seeking to eliminate prayer. Our prayer should include: “Please, Lord, give me your kingdom.” Sinners that we are, we have no right to the kingdom and can get it only through asking for it as a favor from God.

Don: Seeking the kingdom of Heaven is a different matter from seeking God for personal gain. It involves going the back of the line, putting others ahead of oneself, doing twice what is asked of one by others. This is the complete opposite of seeking God as a way to get out in front.

Anonymous: We gain some knowledge about God, whether it be from the Bible or  observing Nature, but what then are we to do with it? Some people think it has to be used for some purpose, perhaps to teach or even to make money. To me, it is not a matter of doing anything with it. The essential thing is to be still—which, paradoxically, eliminates the need for the knowledge. At the end of the journey through the stages of faith, knowledge has no meaning. All that matters is that this amazing and inexplicable Being called God exists and is trying to connect with you. It is a revelation so overwhelming that knowledge is irrelevant.

David E: That’s enlightenment. It’s precisely what Job experienced, and it is what he asked for. He was not seeking God; he was asking for enlightenment concerning the troubles that had befallen him. Enlightenment is not a substitute for knowledge and cannot be used in the same way. Objective, scientific, material, profane knowledge is valuable and can and should be shared for human progress; but enlightenment is subjective, spiritual, and sacred. It is a different thing altogether.

And—by the by—Job’s community was of absolutely no help to him whatsoever in getting there.

David F: In the three “Lost” parables, God does all the seeking. In the Prodigal Son parable, God was all the time seeking his son’s return. We are more wayward when we do the seeking. If we just calm down and open our ears, God will find us.

Michael: The problem is that unlike knowledge, enlightenment is not measurable.

Anonymous: There’s a verse in scripture that talks about our growing from light to brighter light—of our being enlightened as time goes on. But we will never reach The Light—God—at least not on this earth.

Donald: Given our different stages of faith and enlightenment, how can we build loving, caring relationships among one another? Is the polarization we see happening all over the world a reflection of our failure to relate?

Michael: Tournier compared the stages of humanity to the stages of faith of the individual. Therein might lie an explanation for the polarization.

David E: The polarity is more communal than individual.  Down with community! 😉

* * *

* See here for our first discussion of the stages of faith. Search for “stages of faith” (without quotes) in the search box at the bottom left corner of The Interface website to see other discussions involving them.