Modern Images of God

    Modern Images of God



    For two thousand years, one of the most central teachings of the Catholic Church is that things in nature symbolically represent attributes of God. As our Creator, God designed the universe to analogically represent Him, so that people could recognize Divinity without revelation, and to corroborate Christ revealed to us. The spiritual ideals characteristic of God’s divine nature can normally only be known to us as philosophical concepts. But with reason, guided by our soul’s continuous reaching towards God, we are able to understand the spiritual codex imprinted corporally on the universe and illustrated in the nature and actions of everything in existence.



    At the most fundamental and philosophical levels of the universe, identifiable patterns exhibit God’s divine traits, with one object or occurrence often representing multiple aspects. Fire can represent the purification of justice and the purging test of sin and contrition. The life-giving but extreme power and cleansing effect of water displays God’s creativity, power and purity. The cause and effect law of nature logically leads to the First Cause or Prime Mover - God. The paradox of living things diligently pursuing life while inanimate objects do not resist change exemplifies the supernaturalism of life and evidences a source of that spirit - God.



    More complex things also represent and provide and image of God. The altruism of animal parents risking their lives to protect their offspring; hive species such as bees willingly sacrificing themselves for the community; the reliance and dependence of creatures on the providence of the earth and even a communal consumption of one another to form a harmonious ecosystem of necessary componential creatures each contributing in some way to the whole.



    With the redemption of Jesus Christ, even the sin of the world which makes things exemplify God to a lesser extent than they should, becomes an even greater proof. The frequent brutal death in nature gives way to life even more abundant than before. The randomness of nature highlights order, making it more obvious and even more valuable. Pain and suffering, both of animals and humans, opens up opportunities for charity, penance, faith-testing and strengthening, of body and character, through these tribulations.



    Humanity and human society perhaps exemplify both the natural symbolism of nature and the redemptive act of Christ with even richer and precise images than the rest of Creation. Because humanity was not only given a living spirit, but also the exclusive gift of an intellectual, conscious and loving soul made in the image of God, destined for eternal life and joy with Him through the direct salvation of Christ, we are able to form highly complex social structures and perform actions with direct spiritual consequence. As conscious beings, we are able - and intended - to experience life subjectively, as individual, unique persons, just as God is. We are given complex sense and mental functions which grant a level of complexity to our life experience exclusive to us. Further, we are not alone - all humans have these souls and every trait accorded to it. We are all able to share our experiences with one another, and to study and love Creation and one another communally.



    We are also inherently given a universal human nature with specific qualities designed to give us a spiritual life. Endowed with free will, we are able to choose our actions. A moral conscience is imprinted on our intellect, and thus we are able to know the spiritual consequences of our decisions. We are also imbued with a universal desire for God - to know, love and abide with Him in a personal relationship.



    But how can these aspects of human nature and our soul be known? They cannot be physically verified. These attestations are not assumption, however. They are discovered primarily by the use of intuitive reason to identify traits of human behavior and life itself. Going beyond logic, reason is the attempt to intellectually critique claims by an objective standard of rationality that is intuitively known by all. Though reason can take us to different ends and its objective standard can be clouded by preconceived beliefs, it is the same faculty and same standard in all people. Indeed, the attempt to understand truth through the objects and patterns in nature using reason is the essence of philosophy, with the Truth it seeks being God.



    Human lifestyles, culture and society are expressions of our choices and fundamental nature. Thus, human social activities can also exemplify attributes of God. Throughout history, people have done this. The Catholic Church has used this practice since its foundation - even Christ Himself did so, utilizing images and parables from our lives to clarify spiritual truths. He took the image of a seed falling from its parent plant and dying, thus leading to new life, as an example of His death and resurrection. The Old Testament did this profusely, in a method St. Paul calls “typology”. Eve was a “type” of Mary, who was the person Eve should have been and was truly the “mother of all living”. The priest Melchizedek was a type of Christ, the pastor who gave bread and wine in Eucharistic foretelling.



    Several images have always been central in Catholic sacramental imagination - the collection of symbols that portray the sacred or divine in Catholic tradition and liturgy. The human family is an image of the communion of saints and members of the Church, for the Trinity and paternity of God, for the matrimony of Church and Christ, for the Motherhood of Mary, and the cultivation of protection, love and life in recognition of our human family. But many Church images derive from historical societies that are difficult to understand and are seen as inapplicable today, such as the Shepard caring for his flock, the hierarchy of a kingdom, royalty of a monarch, and many others. At the time these were very applicable, and indeed in contemporary societies that retain some of these traits, they remain relevant.



    To modern, developed nations, particularly in the West, however, these images are very foreign, even though they are still quite accurate. To me, it seems that few have attempted to use the ideas, perceptions and images from the modern world to exemplify spiritual ideals, as they did with past civilizations. Democracy, free market and corporate employment, individual expression and identity - these are some of the central images of the modern world, especially in the West. I would like to try to use these symbols to illustrate God’s divinity here.



    From a larger, cultural perspective, the focal point of the daily lives of modern people is fixed-schedule, salary employment in a corporate business. Within this frame these are myriad milieu and extensions, such as the part-time and night worker, the small business, family businesses, and various levels of specialization. There is also a disparity between laborers who are paid well, enjoy their jobs, and like their schedules, and those who lack one or more of these. But fundamentally, the modern workplace and employment realm share qualities across varied venues.



    Modern workers do not simply produce things for themselves or their families in subsistence, or as tithe to some feudal lord, as societies have in the past. Rather, every worker performs a necessary task for the community, contributing products and services to the collective market. Fellow workers then partake of these fruits, and together they form communities and nations in subsidiarity. This is reflected throughout Christianity. God initially created a world deep in cycles and communal harmony, with each living thing relying on one another to live. The Israelites, especially God’s chosen prophets and priests, sacrificed the works of the people as an offering to God, as the lamb, bulls and other gifts that God accounted as worship and forgiveness because of the labor we put into them. Jesus Himself helped His adoptive father, Joseph, work, and the apostolic community of the Book of Acts lived in communes centered on harmonious labor and mutual partaking of produced goods. Though modern people work for a salary of symbolic money, that money represents real goods and indeed helps solidify the worth of things not just by practical use, but by socio-economic funds determined by the collective demand and use of them by people.



    Sharing in this emphasis on community and harmony, modern legal courts and democratic governments use bodies of individuals - not single, exclusive despots - to create laws and national policies. Every individual now has the ability - and indeed the right and responsibility - to contribute to national functions, through mediums such as election, jury, committees, endorsement, and impeaching. As opposed to the harsh disparity between nation and individual in past ages, people now are distinct contributors to the society, giving to and being provided by it. This is a reflection both of social interconnection, mutual reliance, and individuality inherent in the Christian view of man and society. And it is an image of the community of the Church Body of Christ, and ultimately an image of the Trinity, whose persons live in a state of perpetual giving and receptivity with one another and pour that self-giving out to the world creatively and lovingly, particularly symbolized by the Cross.



    Finally, perhaps the newest and most popular focus of modern people - especially teenagers - is individual identity, personal expression and freedom. Despite the assumption of many atheists and social post-modernists, the Church and the Christian view of man is not as mere cogs in a community machine. In fact, this is strictly opposed to the Christian worldview and to the personal relationship and dignity God desires and offers to all.



    Every human being is made in the image of God, as shown to us in revelation. But our individuality is obvious. While the Church does emphasize willingness to be self-giving, this is not only for the practical benefit of the group - it is because the highest form of choice and freedom is to conquer our urges and selfishness and give the gift of self to others. This requires the fullest act of will and courage of any other social action, and necessitates a deep recognition of self-worth and individuality guaranteed in the Christian view of man as the living, purposeful creation of God. Though God is Triune, He is composed of individual persons with distinct  attributes and personalities that they assert frequently and without arrogance or fear, and the Church, while a group, is a body with two billion members who are each distinct and unique. Arrogance through self-assertion only occurs with the attitude of one’s superiority over others. But if we were not supposed to express ourselves, God would not give us personality, choice, weakness, and temptation.