“Intimacy With God –
Jesus the Model”
“Intimacy
with God” is
addressed to people looking for a life of intimacy with God, and describes the
journey of the search for God. It sees God as he is: “inside” the universe
because the universe is in him. This book
goes to the deepest knowledge of God that we may attain, because the intimacy
with God is based in the knowledge of God, and is proportional to one’s
knowledge of God. Starting from what we see and touch
in everyday life, it guides the reader into the depths of God.
Inspired by their faith, people
go to revelation in their search for God; but they often forget that the
concept of God cannot contradict science, and that we must use reason also to
have a true concept of God. This book has in mind these three ways to know God,
and comes to the realization that God is very close in our daily life, and that
we may live in a constant and intimate relationship with him.
In one aspect it is a profound theological
insight into the depths of God living in the unfathomable abyss of eternity;
and at the same time it is also a philosophical reflection on what a human mind
may know, reasonably, about God. God is not “there,” God is “here” because the
universe is in God.
But God is also approachable; one can
“reach” him, and have an intimate relationship with him. It is at this point
and under a Christian view, that Jesus—in his human nature—is seen as the Model
of that intimacy with God. One of the most captivating characteristics of Jesus
is his devotion to God, and the book shows Jesus as the Prototype of
identification with God. This is the conclusion of the book: a holistic view
where “God is all in all” as Paul said, and everything will come to “oneness”
with God.
Through the Incarnation God
gave humankind, in Jesus, a perfect Model of intimacy with him, and showed his purpose of
being like a man. The Councils of the Church directed the attention of the
faithful to the divinity of Jesus, but we may wonder if the intention of God
was more the “humanization” of God than the
“divinization” of man. The book sees Jesus, the
Man, devoted to God, and his ‘divinization’ as the symbol of the
last, common goal of every human being, “oneness” with God.
When people demand a definition of God
their request is unreasonable because God is unlimited; and when the enemies of
God demand a physical proof of his existence, their request is irrational:
God—the spiritual One—is non-physical; spiritual and physical are mutually
exclusive and contradictory.
You may
contact the author, here.
You may
read the Foreword of the book, here.
INTIMACY \ HTM \ INTIMACY COMPENDIUM-1 03-20-10