The Meaning of God

Note. This essay presupposes and continues the previous one My Name is Existence, To Be, "I Am." See also the essay Schema about... The "presentnes" of God.

For many people the question is not whether God exists or not, but is there any meaning for God? What is God for? Is he needed or "useful?" Does he have any meaning in human lives?

The meaning of God is God himself. Let me start saying straightforwardly that the meaning of God is God himself. We must look at the meaning of God in God himself, not "outside" him. When we look for a God for our convenience and comfort, we must be prepared to be defrauded. Meaning of God "outside" God himself might be frustrating and need an explanation.

We might talk about some consequential meanings of God which are not exactly the real meaning of his being but a consequence. We certainly are the "beneficiaries" of his being as I'll say later, and we are blessed that God is, but it must be clear that God exists for himself, not for us.

A "dead God." A "God" who is what we want him to be; a "God" who does what we expect him to do; an anthropomorphic "God" who is like a man and acts as man; this kind of "God" does not exist; this is a fantasy-god created by human imagination, but not the existent One. That "God" died already in Auschwitz when that young boy was hanged in front of thousands of Jewish prisoners, and one of them asked Elie Wiesel: "Where is God now?" and Wiesel felt a voice inside him answer: "Here he is; He is hanging here on this gallows." (Memoirs, 62) That "God" died already and dies again every day, every time that the human mind creates it.

If you are looking for the God of your wishes, who does what you want, you will be left without God. If you can't accept that the only true God is that One whose reason for being is himself, you will end up not having any God at all. God does not exist to "serve" us but for himself, although this does not mean either that he has no meaning in our lives.

Creation as the meaning of God. God is the fundamental meaning for the existence of the Universe: that is why everything exists. Why is something there? how did this universe come to exist, or others that might be? Why do we exist? For most people in the world —scientists, philosophers, ordinary people,— the answer is: because God-Existence is. Had he not existed neither anything else would exist.

Of course, not everybody agrees that God is the origin of the universe, and there is not proof of this either; although, when God is seen as the ontological Existence, then there is no need of proofs of God's existence: if something exists, then it is because the Existence is. God-Existence is an evident fact.

What other theories affirm when they say that there is an eternal universe is, in fact, that God-Existence, I Am, has always been, which is true. The only difference would be to see this eternal Existence as Somebody, "personal," or simply as Something, impersonal. Other explanations given for the existence of the universe are almost senseless theories without any scientific base.

Much more in the book and meaningful prayer.

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