Foundations

God has given us "foundations" upon which we can build our thinking about God. Here are some of them.

But let me first talk about our rationality and the origin of its development.

God gave us the gift of rationality. With it, we can travel from a beginning, through a middle, to an end. Rationality detects whether a premise is sweet, neutral or sour and, based on the detection, points our will to the conclusion to which we must move.

Rationality is the defense mechanism that God established in the children of Adam and Eve to deal with the lies of the serpent, our first predator. In Adam and Eve's world, predators did not exist - until the advent of the serpent. Adam and Eve, therefore, had no need to develop a defense mechanism against the lies of the serpent. There just weren't any serpents until the first serpent to defend against. Defenseless, they were set up to fail. Their fall was ineluctable. Their fall did not surprise anyone. They were no match for the serpent. The contest was unfair to Adam and Eve.  Newly created human beings versus a fallen angel. They had no chance. Their fall, however, had a purpose. God used their fall as the catalyst that triggered the development of our gift of rationality.

God inserted a delay between our creation and the delivery of the gift of paradise. During the delay, the illusion that godlessness is sweet gets shattered. We learn the truth about the sourness of godlessness during the delay. Add to our experience the revelation that paradise is sweet and our rationality tells us to move from godlessness to paradise. To get us to come back to our home in paradise, God is counting on the exercise of our rationality. Rational creatures run away from sourness and run to sweetness. Salvation is as simple as this. Sweetness, sourness, and rationality rescue us from our dire predicament in godlessness. They prevent us from repeating the mistake of Adam and Eve who, like foolish children, ran away from their home in paradise with God and took us with them into godlessness. They ran away deceived by the illusion that a life in godlessness as gods is sweeter than a life in paradise with God. Our rationality worked. However, our rationality worked on the basis of a false premise. Without actual experience in godlessness, we did not detect the lie. Contrary to the illusion conjured up by the serpent, Godlessness is not a nice place. The prodigal son is not going back to the pig sty and nether are the children of Adam and Eve. Thank God for the gift of rationality. Thank God for shattering the illusion that godlessness is sweet by letting us experience the sourness of godlessness for ourselves. Thank God for revealing the sweetness of paradise. God's plan is working. Rejoice. Alleluia!

Rationality is a good thing not a bad thing even if it forces God to provide premises for the conclusions they want us to make. God can do this. The serpent, however, cannot. This is why God gave us the gift of rationality. Unfortunately,  the Church, at times, finds it difficult and impossible to penetrate our defense mechanism as well.

Let us now leave the topic of rationality and return to the "foundations" that God gave us to base our thinking about God.

The Son of God paid us a visit for thirty-three years at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of the earth known as the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. Thirty-three years is an infinitesimally thin slice of time compared to the thickness of eternity. Is it not a wonder that one man who occupied this thin slice of time so long ago and so far away still has such an impact here and now in the present?

The Romans crucified hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Why is it that we only remember and can only name one of the multitude of the crucified? What does this tell us of the significance of Jesus who occupied a thin slice of life in the boondocks of space and time? How is it possible that His name was kept alive through more than two thousand years and across the face of the earth?

At the end of the thirty-three year Visit, we stuck the Son of God with the bill for the Visit and made Him pay it. We made Him pay an exorbitant price. Even though the thirty-three year Visit was for our benefit not His, He reached deep into His own pocket and pulled out the coin of suffering to pay the bill. He did not pass the hat. He did not ask us to defray any of the cost of the Visit. Moreover, He paid the bill not from His unlimited divine resources. He paid the bill from His limited human resources. He kept not a penny for Himself. He never paid more for anything else. He paid all for us. Given the exorbitant cost of the Visit, do you not wonder why God did not delegate the job to a subordinate? Do you not wonder why God did the job Himself? What does the fact that God did the job Himself tell us about the nature of God? It tells us that we are very significant to God.

At the beginning of the thirty-three year Visit, at Bethlehem, the Son of God appeared on earth not on a level above us to accurately represent the relationship between creator and creature but on the same level as us as if God was telling us about our equality with them. God came not in power. God came not in wealth. God came in poverty. Love took flesh in a manger in the boondocks of time and space. God rubbed elbows with us. They say God pitched His tent with us. The nativity of God is the "foundation" for the conclusion that God is humble. The nativity is the proof that God gave us that proves the humility of God.

During His life, Jesus was kind to us. He healed our sick and raised our dead. He fed the multitude. What does this tell us about the kindness of God? Here we have the "foundation" for us to think that God is kind. Here we have the proof that God is kind.

We tortured and killed the Son of God while He was human, alive, tender and vulnerable. We immersed Him in a brutal baptism of pain and suffering. We dipped Him in a boiling cauldron. We impaled Him as live bait on a sharp hook with the same insouciance that a fisherman impales a worm on a hook. We tested Him as silver is tested in the furnace. We committed the sin of sins against Him. Yet, both He and His love for us survived. His survival is the "foundation" on which to base our thinking that God is omnipotent. His survival is the proof that God put into our hands of their omnipotence. However, the survival of His love for us is the "foundation" of something so much more significant than omnipotence. The survival of His love for us is the "foundation" for us to conclude that the very essence of divinity is nothing less than indestructible love for us. 

There is more theology in the thirty-three year Visit of the Son of God that took place at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of the earth called the Middle East more than two thousand years ago than in all of the heads of all of the thinkers who have ever thunked a theological thought.  It is a theology that you can do yourself. It is a theology of common sense and reason. Start with the "foundations"  and apply your rationality. It is amazing what the "foundations" tell us about the nature of God!