•  QUESTION: How we should think and speak about God in a changing and largely secularized world; the nature of the person and incarnation of Jesus Christ – is he fully man and fully God?  – Mathew George Grock

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

Speaking meaningfully about God or faith in God in a fast-changing and secularized world is not easy. In scientifically, technologically, and economically advanced societies, discussions about God or religion often seem irrelevant. Violence, atrocities, fragmentation, and polarization of people in the name of God and religion lead some to believe it is better to live without either. At the same time, a significant number of people succumb to religious fundamentalism and superstitious belief systems. Others cling so rigidly to the dogmas and doctrines of their religions that they resist even expressing their beliefs in language and idioms that are reasonable and understandable to the present generation. Consequently, many have come to believe that humanity can live more harmoniously and foster better relationships without God or religion.

For Christians who are convinced of God-given human freedom and dignity, there is a mission to communicate their experience of God in Christ within a secularized world. This mission aims to contribute to the unfolding and flourishing of humanity as human beings. The Christian experience of God is encountered solely in and through the person of Jesus Christ, who is believed and experienced as the self-revelation of God. This God is not an abstract concept but a God of personal relationships, deeply concerned with the wholeness and liberation of humanity.

In all religions, there has been a resurgence of fundamentalist ideas and practices. The challenges posed by modern and post-modern perspectives on religion and spirituality have driven some people back to traditional practices. However, the inhuman behaviour and broken relationships of many who profess faith in God have caused young people to distance themselves from religion and religious practices. This is a universal phenomenon affecting traditional religions globally

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not the God of philosophers. Abstract philosophical terms referring to God as the Absolute, the Ultimate Reality, or, as the 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich described, the impersonal “Ground of Being” or “Being itself,” fail to capture the essence of a relational God. Such notions cannot adequately convey the Christian understanding of God as one who actively engages with humanity and the world.

The Christian experience of God is inseparable from relationships—both within God (as revealed in the Trinity) and between God, humanity, and creation. This relational nature defines the distinctiveness of the Christian understanding of God. The God revealed through Jesus Christ transcends this world and our everyday experience, yet is deeply involved in it. This God exists beyond history but also entered into history. Christian faith in Jesus Christ affirms that in him, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, the transcendent and the immanent, the trans-historical and the historical, the divine and the human meet. In Jesus, Christians experience both the fullness of divinity and the reality of humanity. He serves as the bridge—or pontifex—between God and the world, embracing all of humanity or including all humans and through them the entire universe.

Speaking and Not Speaking about God

The Christian experience affirms that God transcends not only the world but also all human ways of speaking about Him. God is beyond all names and forms. However, we use evocative and symbolic language to address God, fully aware that these words can never adequately express His reality. We use them because they allow us to articulate our relationship with God and convey the intimacy we feel in that relationship. When human words prove insufficient to describe the reality of God, the Word of God became human to reveal both the meaning of human existence and the nature of God. Humanity is inherently drawn toward something or someone beyond itself—a longing that believers interpret as the human heart’s innate desire for communion with God.

Although God transcends gender and is neither father nor mother, neither “he” nor “she,” Christians have historically used gendered terms such as “Father,” influenced by the patriarchal context of Hebrew culture. While God is beyond gender, the term “Father” was likely preferred because it symbolized God’s transcendence more effectively than “Mother,” which conveyed a sense of nurturing closeness and proximity. Despite the limitations of these gendered terms, they have been used traditionally to evoke relational aspects of God. However, the challenge for modern Christians is to balance this tradition with a recognition of God’s transcendence beyond human categories, while still fostering a meaningful and intimate relationship with the divine.

In all religions, there has been a resurgence of fundamentalist ideas and practices. The challenges posed by modern and post-modern perspectives on religion and spirituality have driven some people back to traditional practices. However, the inhuman behaviour and broken relationships of many who profess faith in God have caused young people to distance themselves from religion and religious practices. This is a universal phenomenon affecting traditional religions globally.

Sometimes we speak too much about God. The ineffability of God is such that silence expresses His nature more profoundly than words. According to Maximus the Confessor, “Perfect silence alone proclaims him, and total and transcendent unknowing brings us into His presence.” Perhaps the most profound expression of God is silence. In the depths of human hearts, God speaks through silence. No wonder, then, that great mystics like St. John of the Cross wrote that God communicates through ‘silent music’—in silence, meditation, and prayer. It is in silence that the ineffable nature of God encounters human heart.

Jesus Christ, God’s Word

God is eternal silence and eternal word. The book of Wisdom says, “For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior” (Wisdom 18:14-15).  The witness of the evangelist John is that this Word became human and dwelt among us (cfr. John 1:14).  This foundational faith experience of the disciples of Jesus and the early Church was their encounter with Jesus as the risen Christ after he was crucified, died and buried. They could not see the event of resurrection as they had seen his crucifixion. But after he was buried in the tomb, they experienced him as alive that transformed their life in such a way they began to proclaim he was alive.  They also found the tomb in which he was buried empty. They recognized him when he appeared to them and he gave them command to proclaim him and his values till the end of the world or to the end of time empowered by his Spirit.

The disciples of Jesus were Jews. They were strict monotheists. For them Yahweh alone was their God. After their resurrection experience, they began to experience and proclaim that Jesus is Lord and God. Only after this transforming experience that they realized that the one who was with them like one of them was not only a prophet but he was Lord and God himself. Now when they look back and reflect on their life with him for three years before his crucifixion, they could see that there were indications that he was more than a prophet. He preached the good news of the Kingdom of God with an authority hitherto unknown to his predecessors. Except a very few of the prophets, all other known prophets were prophets of doom. Further, he welcomed sinners and forgave them. He had table-fellowship with those ritually impure outcasts, so called sinners and the marginalized. Above all he called God, Abba. He was not just a prophet; he was more than a prophet. Then they began to search in the Hebrew Scripture the prophesies about the future messiah. But they thought that messiah would be a political messiah who would liberate them from foreign rule and establish the Jewish kingdom.  Only after the resurrection experience, they could realize that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ but his kingdom is not of this world and the liberation is not from foreign rule but from the bondage of sin.

Sharing the Christian experience of Jesus Christ as the centre and meaning of life seems to be a more effective way of introducing him to others than relying on theological jargon to inspire faith. The all-encompassing and inclusive reality of Christ, revealed through the incarnation of the Word of God, resonates more deeply with the human heart than the distorted images of him sometimes presented by religion.

Reflecting on their resurrection experience they affirmed that Jesus was Lord and God not only at the resurrection he was Lord and God from the very moment of becoming human and even before incarnation. The gospel of John is the last stage of this reflection on Christ. John states the faith-experience of the early Church: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Further he witnesses, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” John 1:14).  By the incarnation or by the hominization of the Word, God became human and some Fathers of the Church like Irenaeus of Lyons and Athanasius of Alexandria would say that it was for the purpose of making humans divine.

Though the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. confessed and proclaimed that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human or truly God and truly human, for many Christians Jesus is only truly God. It is difficult for them to accept that that though he was God, he was human like any other human being. The synoptic gospels or the first three gospels as well as the Letter to the Hebrews witness to this truth that he was fully human. “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He too learned to obey through suffering. “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). God became real human with the limitations of humans with regard to knowledge. He wanted to run away from the reality of suffering and death. At the end of his struggle, he surrenders himself to the Father, “not my will, but thy will” (Mark 14:36) The fact that he was God did not affect his human consciousness, human will, freedom and human knowledge. But his relationship with his Abba was a unique, personal, exclusive and intimate relationship which arose spontaneously from him. The gospel according to John, from the beginning to the end stresses the divinity of Christ. And that is the traditional Christology of the Church. But in today’s world, the human Jesus attracts more people than the divine Christ though he is both divine and human.

Speaking about Jesus Christ in Secular Terms

A large number of ordinary people remain unaffected by liberal thinking and the secularized world. They continue to live outside the influence of advancements in science, technology, and the growing impact of Artificial Intelligence. Their relationship with God is maintained through rituals and traditional practices. They are more deeply moved by symbols, metaphors, myths, and even superstitions than by reason or logic. This is true for many Christians as well. They are not concerned with the reasonableness of their faith but are content with their inherited and, at times, simplistic beliefs. When questioned about their religious practices or beliefs, they often dismiss the inquiries and avoid engaging in discussions.

In all religions, there has been a resurgence of fundamentalist ideas and practices. The challenges posed by modern and post-modern perspectives on religion and spirituality have driven some people back to traditional practices. However, the inhuman behaviour and broken relationships of many who profess faith in God have caused young people to distance themselves from religion and religious practices. This is a universal phenomenon affecting traditional religions globally.

For someone with a Christic experience, there is both a mission and an inner urge to reach out to those who have not had the opportunity to encounter Christ. Often, the traditional language and expressions used to convey his person and message fail to resonate with them. One of the most effective ways to communicate the reality of Jesus Christ involves sharing personal experiences of him as the centre of one’s life. Everyone needs a centre in life—something around which everything revolves. For some, this might be their family, children, work, ideology, or organization, something they hold so dear that they would sacrifice their lives for it. This centre gives meaning to their existence. When we speak of Jesus Christ as the centre of life, He is not merely an ideology but a living reality with whom one can enter into a deep, fulfilling communion. When Jesus Christ is experienced as the centre of one’s life, his or her attitude, behaviour, life-style and relationship are transformed into that of Christ’s. Such a person becomes an effective manifestation of Christ or a Christophany.

In today’s world, more than ever before, many people are experiencing a sense of meaninglessness in life. Anxiety and despair haunt countless individuals across the globe. The human search for meaning is profound and real. Those who have encountered Jesus Christ as the meaning of their lives often feel compelled to share this experience with others, inspired by the words, “The love of Christ urges us on” (2 Corinthians 5:4). When a person discovers the origin and purpose of his/her existence—its beginning and end—he/she finds true meaning in life. Experiencing Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end of one’s life, provides a profound sense of purpose and fulfilment. Sharing the Christian experience of Jesus Christ as the centre and meaning of life seems to be a more effective way of introducing him to others than relying on theological jargon to inspire faith. The all-encompassing and inclusive reality of Christ, revealed through the incarnation of the Word of God, resonates more deeply with the human heart than the distorted images of him sometimes presented by religion.