On God.
The God of Christianity is one, but is not an individual. This is true on two separate planes that require some unpacking. This mystery may best be understood, albeit in a limited way, by differentiating essence from existence. Essence is the very nature or whatness of a thing. The essence of God is divinity. The existence of a thing is how it manifests itself. God is manifested by the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
This explanation requires us to further define, or at least differentiate, a person from an individual. A person exists in relation to another. An individual exists as an entity, comprised of essence and accidents, but is not relational to another. God exists as a person in relation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the Triune God. God also is understood as a person in relation to man vis a vie the revelation of Jesus Christ. The God of Christianity is a God of relations.
This understanding of God as a personable God is shared only in a limited way with Judaism. Limited because while Judaism widely accepts God as being personable, the revelation of God in Judaism is not completed as it is in Christianity. This, of course, is the rejection of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
It should also be pointed out that there is an ideology within the Jewish tradition that rejects the belief in a personable God. This view is supported by no greater authority than Maimonides who saw no commonality or relation between man and God. In following this train of thought, Judaism views God as so radically Other as to make a relational interplay with man impossible. In fact, Jews considered the use of the Aramaic word “Abba” as employed by Christ as too intimate to be used to refer to God.
Islam, makes claims to the belief that God is a personal God, but these claims are often contradictory and confusing. The Qu’ran seems to indicate that God is unknowable to man and utterly transcendent while also being a personable God (see Surah Al-Ikhlas 112). Christianity takes a more consistent and moderate view of God, seeing God as a mystery. That is to say that one may encounter God, but not fully know or understand Him. This view is summoned up by Saint Augustine, “We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.”
One more step may be taken. It is said in scripture that man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and we said above that God is a God of relations. It seems to me that man is meant to incorporate that relational aspect into his own being. It is this relational aspect, both between men and between men and God that not only make religion possible, but necessary.
