In this, the sixth week of our Sunday School All Week program, we tackle the question, “What is God’s function?”
Many people think that God’s function (in simplistic terms) is to, first, create the heavens and the earth, then to create all living creatures on the earth, then to sit in judgment of them, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.
As I said, this is admittedly simplistic, but it is, essentially, the belief system about What God Does that is embodied in most of the world’s religions.
We have now established in this class that God does exist. And we have discussed the exact nature of God; who and what God is. We have made it clear that God is not a Bigger Than Life Human, sitting up in the sky somewhere, on a throne, with flowing garments and a long white beard.
So, for the purposes of this class, I am going to recap some of that here.
That which we call “God” is the energy that we might call Pure Intelligence.
Pure Intelligence knows everything about everything and, in fact, is everything, because everything that has ever been made has been made through a process requiring Pure Intelligence.
To put this simply, if God had not “thought” of it, it could not exist – any more than anything can exist in your reality that you do not think of or cannot imagine or that is beyond your comprehension.
Everything in your reality must be thought of first.
It is the act of thinking about a thing that places it there, in your reality. Therefore, thinking is the first step in the Process of Creation. There are three steps in this process: Thought, Word, and Deed. Thought always comes first. It can be no other way.
So God is Pure Intelligence, or Pure Thought. Out of this Thought arose everything that Is. This is the nature of what people call “fate.” Fate is the outcome that derives From All Thoughts Everywhere. F-A-T-E is an acronym for just that. So Thought is very powerful – and collective thought is especially so.
So we know that God IS – God exists — and last week we discussed God’s purpose. I will re-state it for you now: God’s purpose is to Know Itself in Its Own Experience, and thus to fully Be.
To simply Know, without Experiencing what is known, would not be fully Being. There are three parts to God: Knowing-Experiencing-Being. First…comes the Knowing, the product of Pure Intelligence. God knows Everything, and God IS Everything that is Known, because the Knowing of something is what produces it in Ultimate Reality.
Second…comes the Experiencing. God chooses to Experience everything that God Knows of Itself – and this is the reason for all of physical life. Physicalization is the process by which God Experiences what God Knows of Itself.
Third…comes the Being. This is the combination of the Knowing and the Experiencing. One is “being” something when one, first, knows that one is that, and then, second, experiences oneself AS that.
Let us use an example, to help make this clear to the mind.
Suppose that you KNOW yourself as That Which Is Love. All of this is well and good, but unless you have an EXPERIENCE of your Self as that – unless you can actually demonstrate “lovingness” – you can never fully BE love. You must move from Concept to Expression in order to Realize Fully who and what you are.
You must Physicalize what you Conceptualize in order to Self-Realize.
Self Realization is a process of Conceptualization and Physicalization.
The same is true — the exact same thing is true — for God.
So we are clear, then, that God has a purpose. Its purpose is to Be. Its process is to experience what It knows of Itself, so that fully Being becomes possible.
Now, today, let’s discuss God’s function.
Let’s begin by noticing that God’s function and God’s purpose and God’s process are not one and the same. A purpose is the the reason that something is done. A process is the method that is used to meet one’s purpose. A function is the application of that methd.
The purpose of a car is to get one from here to there. The process by which this is done is by fueling an engine that turns wheels attached to a container in which people sit. The functioning of a car would take a mechanic to fully explain — because a car is a mechanism.
So, too, is God.
What??? What is that you say???
I said that “God is a mechanism.”
For some — perhaps for many — this is a whole new way of looking at God. Yet if we look at God this way…if we understand that God is a process, behind which is a mechanism, then (and perhaps for the first time) we can begin to understand how to use God to produce consistent and predictable results.
The idea that we are even supposed to “use” God…or are even “invited” to “use God,” is also a new thought to many, many people. Yet it is God’s greatest desire to be used. Like money, having a God without using It is pointless — and produces nothing that we say we want. Money is powerless unless you spend it. Likewise, God is powerless unless you use It.
Fortunately, you cannot NOT use God. You are using God every day. Every hour. Every minute. Every second. This is because the process by which God’s function is performed is automatic.
Now there’s an interesting phrase for you…God is automatic.
We are always using God, it’s just that most of us don’t know it. I’ve bold-faced those last six words because those six words are why the world is the way it is today…and the “why” behind Hurricane Ike.
You will recall that last Friday I asked an intriguing question — intriguing enough for 130 of you to respond in this space. I asked, “Is Ike God’s Will?” In our next post, and for the rest of this week, we will take a look at some of those comments and respond to them, exploring this topic deeply. For now, let’s see if we can articulate how God functions.
God functions by individuating Itself, then sending the individuations of Itself on a journey — a continuing, never-ending, nonstop, eternal journey, as it turns out — through the Triangular Reality that is God Itself…or what some people would call The Kingdom of God.
God’s Kingdom consists of three realms: The Realm of the Absolute, the Realm of the Relative, and what I have termed the Realm of the Absolative (being the Absolute and the Relative, combined.)
I have had to invent a word — “Absolative” — to describe this Third Place in the Kingdom of God because there is not word in human language for it. Few people have even attempted to describe it. It is that place between Knowing and Experiencing that is both and neither. The place where God is greater than the Sum of Its Parts…
The Realm of the Absolute could also be called the Realm of the Spiritual. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) know absolutely everything, absolutely and simultaneously.
The Realm of the Relative could also be called the Realm of the Physical. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) experience everything that you know, relatively and sequentially.
The Realm of the Absolative could also be called the Realm of the All. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) know and experience your Selves sequentaneously. That is, the Knowing and the Experiencing are happening BOTH sequentially AND simultaneously at once. The expression is therefore sequentaneous.
Such a thing could only happen in an environment of Time/No Time. It is the place where all the When-Where’s of Eternity exist Here-and-Now.
Some people call this the Kingdom of God…or “Heaven,” if you will. Yet that is not accurate. The truth is, ALL of it is Heaven, ALL of it is The Kingdom of God.
I will need more time and space now to fully and completely explain how God functions. So join us here next Sunday, as we continue to explore this topic, delving into it in even greater detail, so that you can Understand Everything.
In the meantime, Sunday School All Week continues on the weekdays ahead with some back-and-forth dialogue with members of the class.
In the last Comments section someone wrote…
Neale…Do you ever read some of these responses and wonder if perhaps the magnitude of transformation that is needed may be too much for even God to accomplish?
The answer is, yes, I read every single comment. And no, I do not think that “the magnitude of transformation that is needed may be too much for even God to accomplish?” Quite to the contrary, I think that the transformation is occurring right now, all over this planet! And this is one of the place — this very weblog is one of the places — where it is happening.
So keep returning here…and add to the mix with your own thoughts and ideas. That is what this blog is all about. It is the most active blogsite at Beliefnet.com. No other site is drawing 50 to 130 comments per entry. So you have come to The Place on Beliefnet to truly explore the reality of God. Welcome!
P.S. Incidentally, for those of you who are regular readers of my personal blog in the Messenger’s Circle of my private website (www.nealedonaldwalsch.com), a note that this section of th site is now “down” for reconstruction. It is being reprogrammed for greater efficiency. The Forum will reopen very soon. In the Messenger’s Circle you may also put any question before me in the Ask Neale section, a feature which many people use daily. You may also share your helping energies with others in the Life Support Center. We anticipate that the Messenger’s Circle will be up and running again in a day or two. Thanks.
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