Series: The Big Questions
Who is God? This is a fun question. What is God’s nature, wiley, unpredictable, on one side or another, a hater, forsaking everyone but a chosen few, a judge with a big hammer? If we understand the nature of God then we understand that God is none of these things.
An ontology can be defined as a set of the basic nature of things, and we can describe God’s basic nature as a list of characteristics, “spirit” being among them.
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” – John 4:24 (NASB)
God’s characteristics that we know about: God is love. God is merciful and forgiving. God loves everyone. God is all powerful, truth, and justice. God is knowledge and wisdom. God is in everyone and everything. The spirit of God is in all flesh. God allows us free will to do as we please and doesn’t control us. We’re like free range chickens, but not good to eat.
What is spirit?
Spirit permeates everything. It’s part of our composition. We are body, soul, and mind-spirit. We are physical substance: body and brain. We are souls in which is the essence of our being, our personality, our experiences, attitudes, angst, our decisions and their outcomes, our likes, our loves, our direction or motivation – everything that is us, yet can’t be examined by modern science. We’re also spirit, but what is spirit?
I describe the spiritual as compelling ideas. Maybe ideas isn’t the right word, or is only part of it, but I don’t yet have a better word. Spirit mostly comes from God. God is power, love, creativity, and knowledge.
Compelling means forceful, evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way. The spirit is compelling.
Unless driven by need and attitude (experience and emotion), then love, creativity, life, our quests, our interests, our focus, our knowledge, all are driven by spirit.
Purpose in life
“So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?””
– 1 Kings 19:11-13 (NASB)
In the paradigm of who we are, which includes religion, education, culture, family, neighborhood, profession, politics, experiences and attitudes, and many other things, it’s the spirit of these things that gives us purpose. Some more than others.
In the “spirit of the law,” it’s the why behind a law. It’s intent. It’s the resolve of the law or our resolve to uphold or break it.
We have entire institutions devoted to educating us about these things, and while we find them essential to our world and lives, none fit in empirical science – there is no cause-effect that can be clearly identified. We do things because that is the spirit within us, the compelling force, the intent.
We look to science for the “why,” and find hints, see typical behaviors but find limited predictability. Much of behavior can’t be replicated enough to satisfy empirical science. We can find instances of determinism and free will. But life and our larger motives are a mystery and only “spirit,” that wispy force like the wind, seems to hold the answer.
In spirit there is wisdom, love, justice, truth, and power. It’s compelling.
Takeaway
Like the wind that is unseen but nudges us in one direction or another, the spirit compels us into our life pursuits, reactions, and quests. It’s the unseen nature of love, truth, justice, empathy, helping others, ideas, and creativity – things that we can’t touch or feel or study empirically but they exist. We can fight against spirit, reject it, and claim it doesn’t exist. It isn’t the cause or deterministic. It’s a gentle influence offering direction and wisdom in our lives and it’s for the best for us and others.
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Some Notes
We are like God, and God is spirit. “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”” – Genesis 1:26 (NASB)
The spirit is everywhere and in everything. “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” Psalm 139:7 (NASB)
We find freedom in Christ and God, and seek to be transformed into the same. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” – 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NASB)
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The standard of belief and conduct for Christianity is love. God is love. We’re asked to be like God.
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Our answer is God. God’s answer is us. Together we make the world better.
– Dorian
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