The symbolic language which surrounds and permeates
religious experience or the “sacred” has evolved with the need for humans to
bring into an understanding a sense of need to know the unknowable.
The word “God” or “gods” is used when human beings wish to
place a limit onto language.
Beyond “God” one cannot go! Beyond Him or experience or
expression there is no or cannot ever be symphonies of anything.
Human beings with a propensity for curiosity cannot perceive
of a time when “God” did not exist. The
universe exists, so God exists. He is after all the Alpha and Omega (Rev22:14)
Indeed simply to speak about God must suggest that a prior knowledge of a
“something” called “God” must be assumed. A prior knowledge of the word and it
connotation must be understood; otherwise the word “God” would not make sense.
In our language, “God” transcends limits Transcends the
normal and the sensory. This of course
is not an attempt to try and reduce “God” to the human level but an attempt to
express within our capabilities as “someone” “something” or “some dimension”
that cannot and should not be contained.
Sadly because of our desire to know what lies beyond the
parameters of thought and and cognition, God permits Himself to be limited by
us and in order to do so we need to implement the tools of language in order to
express Him and explain Him and even so we are confounded.
We use the word “God” or “gods” when we want to express the
inexpressible, fill the unfillable and contemplate the mysterious and beyond.
Indeed when it comes to expression of the word “God” or ‘gods” all words,
adjectives, coloratura fade away. To continue to try and describe or explain
“God” leads to a feeling of awesome-ness as feeling of being awestruck. Why one is also awestruck is also impossible
explain because it is again an attempt at finiteness reaching into the
infinite. Frustration must be the outcome because of the necessity we must use
the language of the world, our world, and most often a minute section of our
world, in order to express this notion as “God” Our sensory organs, more often than not,
cannot assist in the things of the unseen
The language of the sacred speaks to humans about the
mysteries of life and death, happiness, sad ness, joy and sorrow and attempts in
its limited capacity to make some sort of sense of the human condition. Religious language is a language which is
full of symbolism myths, stories, miracles, totems and fantasies. It has created around itself an aura of mystery.
It continues to speak of what is already being identified with the
unidentifiable. It continues to speak
about what is already known about the “sacred” and trail blazes and continues
to make further inroads into possible new areas and new expressions of the
numinous (Otto, 1917, The Idea of the Holy).
The God of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.
The God of the Jewish Christian religion is a God who is great. A God whose
love and Mercy encompass the whole creation and universe. There is no God like
Him.
The Jewish people who first proclaimed His greatness have
enshrined their belief in The Shemah
Israel (Dt 6:4-5) with this affirmation
their belief in a monotheistic deity (One God) is proclaimed. There is one God
and He is all Holy.
