The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is God Self Sufficient?

I have been thinking again(Oh No :astonished: ). People keep saying that God doesn’t need us because He is self sufficient and lacks nothing, but that we need God. I’m beginning to wonder about this statement. Could this really be so? I suppose the answers may be different depending on how one sees God. It seems to me that if we are not needed for anything, then there would be no purpose for our existence. Any thoughts on this?

I have a few thoughts and I have pondered the same thing.

A) God does not need us at all, nor wants our love/praise for egotistical reasons. He might value our love, but not because he needs us to validate him.

B) It is possible that God creates us because love creates. I enjoy building and creating things, what if God is the same way? What if he says “Ahh, see this that I built? This is awesome, I built it” and in this sense, it possible that God is NOT actually completely self sufficient and all powerful as he would stop being amazed with himself.

C) It is possible that we exist for our own enjoyment. This might be where conditional immortality may have some merit. Meaning, those who enjoy the gift God gave and follow his ways (which produce happiness/joy) are granted the continued joy and those who are unhappy and view life as just something to squander and end are given their choice, to end their existence.

That said, I speculate for fun, but definitely have no firm conclusions on the matter… I am content to die without holding to any one position, as I am likely to be wrong on some or all of it entirely. Best not put all my eggs and hope in one basket… I trust God is good and not evil and is about all I rest my hopes on.

This I think is incorrect.

Before my daughter was conceived, I was happy. I did not need her, nor do I need her now. If her body were to die before mine does, I would still be happy. Does my daughter’s existence, then, have no purpose? By no means! She adds greatly to my joy.

The Church Fathers explained the Song of Songs in terms of the Beloved being God and the Shulamite being the Church. Let us say in light of this explanation that God ardently desires and longs for us, but not that He needs us. We do not and cannot add to His perfection. We are rather the overflow of His perfection. It is to God’s and to our glory that He is forever the necessary Creator, and we are the contingent creation.

That is abnormal… If my son or daughter died before me, I would certainly not be happy. I would be mourning a great loss, for a great amount of time.

If we were really made in His image, and became a new creation through the death burial and resurrection of Christ, then I would say we are at the very least… VERY IPORTANT. :smiley:

Let me be clear: Death cannot touch my daughter (or anyone else, for that matter). Jesus Christ destroyed death at 3:00 p.m. on April 7, A. D. 30. The only way any of our bodies will escape death is by being one of the small percentage of humans whose body hasn’t already died at the moment of Christ’s Second Coming. Thus we can be all but certain that our bodies will die.

Using my daughter here as Everyman, if her body were to die, she herself would most certainly not die. It’s no more serious than a haircut: dead cells fall away from the living you. She would be immediately rejoicing in the presence of the resurrected and enthroned Christ. She would be closer to me than she is now when I hug her. I could still talk to her, and she could still hear me. She would be beyond any possibility of sin or of sadness or of harm. She would be suffused by joy Himself even as a piece of red-hot coal is suffused by fire. She would be by grace what God is by nature. And in a very short time (since even a “long” human life is but a moment compared not only to eternity but even to geology) I would join her in Heaven.

Any sadness I would experience by her body’s death would be fundamentally irrational. Read C. S. Lewis’s novel, Out of the Silent Planet, for an example of unfallen creatures on an unfallen world not mourning when their elders’ bodies are dissolved and their souls go to Heaven. It’s a good tonic for our craziness. Or contemplate the martyrs singing for joy as even their own children were martyred. Or read St. Athanasios’s On the Incarnation for an example of the Christian’s freedom from fear of death. Or St. Gregory of Nyssa’s dialogue with his sister (St. Makrina) entitled On the Soul and the Resurrection, in which St. Makrina explains in sharp terms that fear or sadness in the face of dead bodies is irrational and pagan.

In short: In spite of any temporary tears, my joy in Christ would be undimmed. (In fact, it would probably be strengthened as I would be forced by the circumstances to rely upon Him even more.) This is precisely what my daughter would want. She certainly would not wish for me to mourn while she rejoiced in Heaven. To the contrary, she would wish for me to rejoice with her in communion with Christ our living Joy.

Or to put the shoe on the other foot: Suppose my body dies before that of my daughter’s (which is of course likely). How many tears do I want her to shed for me? Zero. How many moments of sadness do I want her to experience because of my dead body? Zero. I wish for her joy in Christ to be utterly uninterrupted by the inconsequential death of my body. In fact, wouldn’t it be strange to actually wish tears and sadness upon my daughter or upon any of my loved ones? I instead wish them Christ’s own joy.

“Rejoice always.” (I Thessalonians 5:16)

To be clear, what I am about to write isn’t demeaning your beliefs, nor is it challenging them, nor is this an attempt to change your mind. Just want to be clear before my post.

What you have said is the analytical approach to the situation. It is basically divorcing emotions from facts. I used to think like a Vulcan, that all emotion is just non-sense… It can’t be reliable and thus, shouldn’t even be considered at all. For reasons I cannot quite articulate, I no longer believe that is the correct way to live. We were given our emotions to experience and to feel. We cry because we hurt. Turning them off, as is possible, creates a host of mental health problems. Better to cry like a baby, than to bottle it up and deny the sadness, because it wreaks havoc internally.

Jesus did weep for his friend Lazarus. We might disagree why he wept, but regardless, Jesus was very sad about something - either his friend dying, or because death wasn’t supposed to be part of this world, or that his friends were in such a state of sadness. Either way, Jesus expressed his emotions. He cried. Now, this was God. If God can be sad, how much more would we be susceptible, having just a small part of the spirit in us?

The Bible also says our tears will be wiped away, not that they are already.

What about the ancients who glory in war and believe they are going to a better place such as Valhalla? They were pretty convinced and didn’t fear death either, yet not for the same reasons as you and so the question I have is basically this: Have you considered you could be incorrect? That by not caring because you believe something will be better in the future, causes you to dismiss the big events in this life, thus causing you to miss out on what this life could have been about. To clarify, if I don’t believe my daughter really dies when she passes on, therefore I would no reason to make the most of my time with her. I mean, we have all eternity, so that really isn’t important right now. I want to do “X” instead of this spend time with her.

Does God really put us here on earth, create such strong bonds to people only to have us treat those bonds as ultimately something not important in this life, because this life really isn’t anything at all? I mean, why bother to be around my kids at all? Maybe Fathers should leave their children and go be missionaries, leaving their children behind? See that is done today and that seems so immoral to me. Are our fatherly instincts that cause us to want to be involved with our children just a tool of the devil, perhaps a distraction? I don’t think so.

Now, I hope I am not creating a straw-man, nor implying things you have not said, because some of this is what I perceive you to have said… Your faith, to me, while strong and impressive from that front, doesn’t really convince me that you are correct, as Muslims, Vikings, Egyptians, etc… all have their religion and many within them who share the same basic idea. In other words, I would be tempted to believe the same way as you and your attitude is of great cheer, but knowing that others who don’t have the same faith, believing opposing views, I would never the less has toe discount that as in your favor. See people do that all the time. Christian head-lines “I used to be a Muslim, but I seen the light” and then they will write about how Christianity is growing and Muslims are converting all over… Yet, the Muslims claim the reverse, that many Christian’s are converting… So, again, I can’t really use that as evidence.

That said, your view also has some other problems… Basically, murdering people isn’t a big deal. Why would it be? I mean, people are not really dead. Just the body. It seems like it could minimize sin and allow for justification of terrible acts, ones that don’t require remorse. It could also lean people to rationalize sins they have not yet committed as they are no longer viewed as bad.

Biblically (of course, my view of biblical) speaking, i believe death is indeed death - that is, until Christ raises us from the dead, which won’t happen immediately after we die. It might seem immediate, but I don’t believe it is. I think we truly die and stay dead until we are raised. Mind you, everything i post here is my opinion, none of this is dogmatic and some of my questions are not really attempting to get an answer from you, just throwing out some ideas of where I can’t seem to agree.

Sorry, I have a lot of typos (probably 15-20 of them, but not enough time to fix them) anyhow, what about Matthew 5 - “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted?” Mourning in a very human element and trying to rationalize our way out of it with the unknown doesn’t appear helpful to me. Wishing it away might in fact work, but to what end? I mean, what if you are incorrect and you never see your daughter again, will there be regrets that you didn’t make the most of it? The way I see it, the only life we have is the one right now. I believe there is another life, but because I can’t touch it, feel it, or was made known about it, i can’t bank on it. I can only be a good steward with was given to me now and the idea that I live forever might be toxic to my way of life now. Ever heard this “That man is so heavenly minded, he is useless on earth” - I have seen it. People who only think of this pie in the sky and they are practically worthless here on earth, just waiting to die hoping for something better - in others, escapism. Jesus did not ‘Want’ to die… He wanted another way out, yet some Christians want to die. Crazy (to me) - That said, as I have mentioned many many times in my past posts, I could be very, very wrong. But I am more comfortable doubting the afterlife than banking on it.

Hey, Gabe. I understand your whole tone. I know that neither of us is trying to be combative or unpleasant. We are a couple of Christians having an enjoyable conversation. :slight_smile:

I am skeptical about the therapeutic value of “letting it all hang out”, so to speak. Crying like a baby, raging and throwing breakables against the wall, etc. seem to me to be unhealthy. I am not counselling that we ignore our emotions, nor am I counselling that we do not ever feel emotions. Rather, I am counselling that we subject emotions to the light of the Logos. Given my faith, it would make no sense whatsoever to cry over a loved one being in Heaven. It would make more sense for me to cry over a loved one being in this fallen world.

I think Jesus was weeping over human sinfulness. Weeping for that can make sense in the proper context, when it leads to forsaking sin and obeying God.

If I am wrong in my religious beliefs, then the truth is something even better than what I imagine. I can’t imagine a moronic, fallen human being (such as myself) ever imagining something better than what God has in store for us. (Otherwise we get the preposterous situation of people in Heaven having conversations about how Heaven, while pretty good, wasn’t quite as good as they imagined it. “A bit of a disappointment, really, if you think about it.” :laughing: )

We must spend a lot of time with our families and raise our children and avoid murder (and all the rest) for the simple reason that God commands it. We must not use our fallen reason to try to justify disobedience to God. Alas that our fallen reason can be (and has) been used to justify every dereliction of duty imaginable. (“Well, if you think about it, why not sleep with her?” etc.)

This section made me laugh. I never really thought about that… You are right, I can’t imagine anyone saying that, hence it must be better than we can imagine and of course there is scripture to back that up, but I can’t remember the reference. Was it Jude’s doxology?

To everyone: Thanks for your responses.

Gabe, your points A and B may be possible, as I was thinking about this also. I think everyone has some sort of need to be recognized. I feel like in a world with millions of people we become lost. I used to go to this one restaurant on a regular basis. The hostess there would ask me the same question every time, “have you dined with us before?”. So as not to be rude, I would simply say yes. But in my mind I would be thinking, “This person must be blind or stupid. How many times do I come here and you still don’t recognize me? Get a clue!” Perhaps not the Christian attitude. :imp: , but I wonder if God has this need to be recognized or known. Maybe God needs a receiver, as in a radio or television. It is said in the Bible that after God made man, He rested. I suppose this means that He made a home for Himself in the heart and mind of man, a place to dwell so that He may be known.

God is self-sufficient or He wouldn’t be God:

We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Not because He needs it but because we won’t be complete until we give it. This is love. We are finite and limited. God is not.