By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Part 7
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). It is impressive to realize that God’s knowledge is infinite, and His love is eternal. Before Jeremias was even conceived in his mother’s womb, God knew him. Jeremias was in God’s mind from all eternity, and God loved him already, and gave him a specific mission: to be a prophet to the nations.
He acts likewise with each and every one of us. He knew us before we were formed in our mother’s womb, and loved us with a love of preference, and gave each one of us a mission to fulfill. The key to happiness in life is precisely this one: to find out what that mission is, and work to fulfill it, with the aid of His grace.
We say we know ourselves. We have a knowledge of what we are, and who we are. But at times, if not often, we do tend to exaggerate our qualities and gifts, or, out of false humility, think too little of ourselves. But God is different: He has a perfect knowledge of Himself.
God, and God alone, knows Himself fully: “No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11). With us common mortals, at times the knowledge of ourselves, our imperfections, our sins, our failures, bring about a degree of unhappiness to us. But God’s self-knowledge is the source of His infinite happiness, for it makes Him conscious that He possesses the highest good. He knows Himself so well that His thought is another Himself, God the Son. And the love He naturally has for His perfect image is another Person, God the Holy Spirit.
From God’s self-knowledge another reality naturally presents itself: God’s omniscience. Omniscience means that God is all-knowing, He knows all reality, existing or merely possible to exist, in the past, the present, and the future.
This is a thought that has always fascinated me: God knows all that is possible. He knows not only what I have done in my life, even in my thoughts and wishes, but also in what I might have done in different circumstances!
Our Lord Jesus Christ gives an example of God’s omniscient knowledge of possible but unrealized situations. He complained about the lack of faith of the cities of Bethsaida, saying, “If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt. 11:21). Jesus, being God Incarnate, knew what Tyre and Sidon would have done if things had happened differently! This is omniscience at its best. . . .
Finally, unlike us, God does not have opinions. He knows the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth. St. Augustine put it in a sentence that we are familiar with: “[Divine] truth can neither deceive nor be deceived.” God knows everything with absolute certainty, for God is Truth itself.
We humans are able to know things by reasoning. The logical syllogisms are well-known to our minds, as, for instance, the classical: “Every man is mortal; Peter is a man; therefore, Peter is mortal.” We reason all the time, if we do not watch too much television or play computer games. But it is not so with God. Literally speaking, God does not reason as we do. God knows all things through one glance, one single thought, one act of understanding. That one act of understanding, however, is identical with Himself.
There are three kinds of persons in the universe, as far as we know: There are divine Persons (three of them in the one God), countless angelic persons in nine different choirs, and a few zillion humans in two different genders, the strong and the beautiful. Dogs and cats and birds are not persons. And how do we know that, you may ask? What identifies a person, as distinct from any other creature? It is simple: A person can think (has an intellect) and can make free choices (has a free will), while all other creatures are enslaved by their instincts and always act in the same way.
God’s will is free, like our wills and the angels’ wills, but only in respect of things outside Himself. We can change our bodies (obesity is a plague in this country), angels can change their minds (look at Satan and his minions), but God cannot change His being, because He is absolutely perfect. But He does make choices, such as, for instance, He was free in creating the world. He had no need of it, and might have created a different world, with flying horses, honest politicians, and underwater humans. But He did not. He had no need of man, but once He created us in His image and likeness, He could not, by reason of His goodness and wisdom, leave us without the means of attaining the end for which we were created.
Since He created us to know, love, and serve Him here on Earth in order to be happy with Him in Heaven for eternity, He had to give us an intellect to know Him with, and a will to love and serve Him with as well.
To love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself is the summation of all Commandments, and the perfect recipe for order and happiness on Earth. It is interesting to notice that God commands us to love not only Him, above all things, but also to love certain things below Him, such as our neighbors. But notice that He says we must love our neighbor as ourselves, which necessarily leads to the understanding that we must love ourselves as well.
As we are created in the image and likeness of God, and God loves Himself infinitely, we must also love ourselves, but finitely.
Yes, God loves Himself. He appreciates the goodness of His Image, God the Son, another Self, and that love is the Holy Spirit, God’s love personified. Now, remember that to love is to appreciate the goodness in another. God loves Himself, for He is the Infinite Good. And God also loves His creatures, especially us men and women, because we are His image and likeness. To love our neighbor is to will what is best for him. God loves Himself for His own sake. He loves His creatures, not for themselves, but because they are images, however feeble, of His infinite goodness. In fact, God’s love is the cause of goodness in creatures.
See how God is just; how patient He is with sinners; how truthful He is in His Revelation; how faithful He is to His promises; how merciful and kind He is — no one can be so kind as He. God Himself has taught us these sublime truths. As we were created in His image, and our neighbor was also created in His image, we are called to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
You see, by studying God’s nature we learn not only to love Him, but also to appreciate our neighbor and exercise charity.
Next article: Other attributes of God.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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