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God's Personal Nature

“God is not a static object. He is personal and therefore acts in freedom. We can know or perceive Him because He makes Himself known. By and large, people in our culture are looking for a God who can be experienced by the critical faculty. In short, we want a God whom we can consume. Do I like Him? Do I want Him? Will I give Him my life? Do I choose Him? This is largely accomplished by substituting the idea of God for God Himself.” (Father Stephen Freeman)


“God is personal, not conceptual… We also can't truly love just concepts. Therefore while God is love, omnipotent, infinite, divine mind and all of those other conceptual things, He is above all a divine person because He relates to our hearts and our lives personally…The problem with trying to explain God’s personal nature to someone, especially someone who is suffering, is just that. His personal nature can’t be explained only experienced. Therefore it’s probably best to share your experience of God, that is tell your story, and let someone else draw their own conclusion, rather than trying to convince them of God’s personal nature through logic and discourse.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)


“Whereas the Old Covenant was carved on tablets of stone, the New Covenant is personal – the Son comes as a man to other men, to enlighten all nations and peoples… In becoming man, the Lord fully involved Himself in our human condition…He has destroyed the geographic barriers that used to separate us from God, and now leads our blind human race by “a way they did not know” (vs. 16). That way is Christ, the true and living Way (Jn 14:6)…The generosity of God exceeds every human notion of unselfishness, for He enters into the worst of the human condition with His healing love.” (Dynamis 4/11/2019, 4/16/2014)


“Human existence is similar to divine existence in that it is personal. Yet, even if we discount the divisive effects of sin, we must take into account that human beings are individuated physically and psychologically and are subject to biological death. Within human existence, there is a certain order and sequence of freedom and love, love gifted and love reciprocated. Love’s movement is modified by expectation and waiting on reciprocation, which may or may not be forthcoming. Even when communion is joined, it lacks the uninterrupted immediacy of the relation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…Love is personal and that which is personal is communal.” (Vigen Guroian)


“Heaven is not a place but a Person. It is personal communion with the Triune God and experiential knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is eternal Life (John 17: 3). Hell is the loss or refusal of this communion, whether by our conscious rejection or the denial of it by our lives…Faith is not logical certainty but a personal relationship, and because this personal relationship is as yet incomplete in each of us and needs to continually develop further, it is by no means impossible for faith to coexist with doubt…Yet doubt does not in itself signify a lack of faith. It may mean the opposite – that our faith is alive and growing…Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there.” (Archimandrite Sergius, Dynamis 2/9/10, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)


“When Simon the magician attempts to buy some of the power manifested by the apostles (Acts 8:18-19), it exposes another possible clash between true faith and the lies of this world. Underlying Simon’s appeal are dangerous assumptions contrary to the nature of the Holy Spirit and the relationship between the Lord and His creation. The Apostle Peter…rebukes him (vs. 20), telling the magician plainly that his request shows that his heart is “not right in the sight of God” (vs. 21)…In his rebuke of Simon, the apostle speaks of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as “the gift of God” (vs. 20)…The Spirit is a Divine Person, not an impersonal force…Simon, however, perceives the apostles’ power merely as an impersonal force, a view which is consonant with his experience as a magician and manipulator of occult power. An impersonal force does not give, it merely generates output. When we choose magic, gaming, or a cause-and-effect approach to life, we are dancing with error.” (Dynamis 5/19/2021, Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Corinthians 3:16-18)


“If everything just goes back to matter, energy, time, and chance—to the impersonal—then good and evil, right and wrong, are just names we attached arbitrarily to things we happened to like or not like. They have no ultimate meaning because they are inescapably personal, and the universe is ultimately impersonal.” (Donald Williams)


“According to historic, orthodox Christian faith, “salvation is thwarted to the extent that we treat God as an impersonal being, or as merely the creator of an impersonal order to which we have to adjust. Salvation is only effected by, one might say, our being in communion with God through the community of humans in communion, viz., the church...To depersonalize God is to deny the importance of communion and the community of communion that is the church, home to that meal that is called “Communion.” (Charles Taylor, James K.A. Smith)


“Every impersonal view of creation assumes that power comes from fate or from impersonal forces. This assumption is shared by secularism, magic, and pantheistic paganism. However, God is not a force, but a Person. He gives us personal power, He changes hearts, He works miracles. When we detach God from so-called real life and divorce Him from creation, we disregard Him who brings everything into existence from non-existence and continuously sustains it. God’s power may not be manipulated, sold, or exchanged.” (Dynamis 5/19/2021)


“God our Creator and Redeemer is not an impersonal force, not an intangible source of being, not an abstract concept, and not a projection of our imagination. God is a personal being who seeks a personal relationship with us, His creation. We are made in His image so that we might know, love, and worship Him.” (Fr. Basil)


“Faith is not logical certainty but a personal relationship, and because this personal relationship is as yet incomplete in each of us and needs to continually develop further, it is by no means impossible for faith to coexist with doubt…Yet doubt does not in itself signify a lack of faith. It may mean the opposite – that our faith is alive and growing…Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there.” (Dynamis 2/9/10, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)

“But what is the importance of this plurality of God’s being? It’s important because we believe that all of existence springs from this divine love. “We live in a Trinitarian Universe, one where infinite energy of a personal nature is the ultimate reality.” “…the living dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.” In other words, God’s very way of being is life and He creates life out of love. We are part of that life and love and can grow in union with God if we choose. (Sacramental Living, Dallas Willard, C.S. Lewis)

“God is not some far distant deity who set the world in motion and then went about His business. Instead, He is deeply involved in the lives of the people He created and loves us so much that He came down from His high position to save us (Phil. 2:5–9).” (Foundation Study Bible, Psalms 113:6)

“The problem with trying to explain God’s personal nature to someone, especially someone who is suffering, is just that. His personal nature can’t be explained only experienced. Therefore it’s probably best to share your experience of God, that is tell your story, and let someone else draw their own conclusion, rather than trying to convince them of God’s personal nature through logic and discourse.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

"Ultimately the mystery of the Holy Trinity cannot be explained; it can only be experienced." (Archimandrite Sergius)


“[there are] three general categories faiths and world views can be divided into: 1) world-affirming faiths consisting of Christianity, Judaism and Islam who share a reality of what he terms an “infinite, personal God;” 2) world-denying eastern family of faiths that include Hinduism, Buddhism and new age thought whose views can be characterized as “the undifferentiated and impersonal;” and 3) secular humanistic worldview that include atheism, naturalism and humanism whose ultimate reality are characterized as “chance plus matter plus time.” (Os Guinness, Sacramental Living)

“An impersonal force does not give, it merely generates output. When we choose magic, gaming, or a cause-and-effect approach to life, we are dancing with error. Science tells us that a nuclear reaction changes latent energy into manifest power, either in the form of an explosion or the generation of electricity. Every impersonal view of creation assumes that power comes from fate or from impersonal forces. This assumption is shared by secularism, magic, and pantheistic paganism. However, God is not a force, but a Person. He gives us personal power, He changes hearts, He works miracles. When we detach God from so-called real life and divorce Him from creation, we disregard Him who brings everything into existence from non-existence and continuously sustains it. God’s power may not be manipulated, sold, or exchanged.” (Dynamis 4/25/2018)

“God is not merely some philosophical concept or impersonal force in the universe, such as we see in the science fiction movie Star Wars. God is a Person who shares Himself with us personally.” (Father David L. Fontes, PsyD)

“If God were impersonal…then love—something that can happen only between two or more persons—would be an illusion...The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, however, teaches that there is one God in three persons who have known and loved one another from before the dawn of time.” (Pastor Timothy Keller)

"The claim that “God is love” is unique to Christianity. Other monotheists believe that one God means one person— and there can be no true love without more than one person. Polytheists believe there are many distinct divine natures— and there can be no true love without a union of persons. God can be love only if He is Trinity, and therefore only Trinitarians can truly profess that “God is love.” (Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou)

“God is a personal God and wants to commune with us personally and experientially…Incredible as it seems, the Creator of the universe desires an intimate, loving fellowship with the people He created." (Father David L. Fontes, PsyD, Bill Gothard)

“God doesn’t come and go in our lives. He carries on a permanent relationship with us because He is always there for us and in us. We sense His presence primarily through the work of the Holy Spirit, whose role it is to…comfort us. It happens in our hearts and minds and is largely invisible. Yet, it is also what most accurately describes the most important aspect of our day-today life as Christians. As we abide in Christ, He nourishes us spiritually the same way a vine gives nourishment to its branches (John 15:16).” (Foundation Study Bible, John 3:24)

“Our relationship with our God is not of a juridical nature; it is personal. God is not offended by our sin, just as a doctor is not offended by a sick patient and a mother is not offended by her sick child.” (Abbot Tryphon)

“In God’s eyes, a person’s value has no relationship to his or her wealth or position on the social ladder...all people are valuable and useful in God’s eyes…God is concerned for everyone without respect to culture, race, ethnicity, language, or religion (Acts 10:34-35, 42-43).” (Life Application Study Bible, Psalms 113:5-9, Dynamis 5/7/2015)



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