Prayer of submission

Schema about the Nature, Attributes and Communication with God

The presentness of God

See the Prayer Conversation with God about his presentness

Third Part

5. Communication with God

The purpose of religion is that we communicate with God and relate to him. To have this, God must be personal. The word "communication" is not the most appropriate talking about God, for the reasons I explained in the essay My Name is Existence, To Be, "I AM," I suggested instead contemplation.

The doctrine of deism is that God created the universe and then no further relation or communication God-world is necessary. But how is it possible that God does not want or is unable to communicate with the world? I may agree that a self-sufficient God does not need the world, but one thing is that he does not need the world, and another one is that he does not "care" about the world. Once the world is created, there is a de facto relationship, and God cannot be indifferent but should continue "caring" for his creation.

The world wouldn't continue in its own existence without the constant concourse of God. We, and the world, are totally dependent on him; we need him just to exist, to move, to live and to think; we must live in a constant dependence of him and he is permanently with us; without him, we wouldn't be, or could move or think.

5.1. Questions about communication

The concrete questions about communication are: can we talk with God and hear his voice? Can we ask him? Do prayers and petitions have any meaning and are they somehow effective? Can we praise God, worship him, love him and give him thanks? Or can we not say to our Creator: "Thank you, Lord," because that is meaningless? In one word, is communication with God something coherent, or is there something illogical or contradictory?

5.2. The answer

My immediate and spontaneous answer is that we are able to communicate with God and God with us. For me it is unthinkable that the human mind cannot communicate with his Creator, with God. Is he deaf and does not hear? Is he dumb and cannot answer? Is he blind and cannot see? Is he indifferent and does not care for mankind? An infinite Wisdom must find the way of communicating with us. (DI 29m).

6. Relations and God

According to Thomas, God does not have relations except the Trinity that is part of his Divine essence, because relations imply change and God is immutable. He doesn't relate to anything. "The relations that God is said to bear to creatures... really exist not in God but in creatures... nothing can come into contact with God or partially intermingle with him in any way" (Summa Theologica, qu. 6, art.2; qu. 3, art 8). And this is for three reasons.

The first reason is his simplicity. Relations imply some kind of multiplicity, and, as God's essence is simple, it must be preserved and has no relations.

The second one is his immutability. Any relation implies some kind of change, and God is immutable: nothing can affect God. God does not relate to the world, and, once the decree is "done," he is not affected by what happens in the universe.

The third one is his necessity. Once the decree is "done," there cannot be events in the world which could be other than they are; they are by necessity, since God's knowledge of them is necessary and immutable.