I know...Althea has said it a million times over..that I think too much..its true...but...
I met Fr Chris after some time, and he invited me to attend Teh Tarik & Theology! We had Fr Aloysius, a Jesuit to impart his knowledge on God, who He is. Fr. Al says often our image of God is that which is painted by our parents at a young age. If a mother says, if you steal something, and you think no one knows, God actually sees it, because He can see everything. The child would in turn grow up having the image of an ever watchful God. If a child has an abusive father, and we say God is the Almighty Father....well then....:)
Anyways, a guy said that he felt that God was not a person, but an entity without a particular form, existent in people, for example, say God is Love and we all have lve in our hearts...So that is what God is. Then Fr Al says that many books have been written about God, and Thomas Aquinas says that all he has written about God is true, and untrue. He shares the story of St Thomas thinking about God and trying to figure Him out, and he sees this boy by the sea on the beach. And this boy dug a little hole in the sand and was pouring the sea water into it. So St Thomas asks the boy what he was doing. The boy says he was trying to put the sea into that hole. And St Thomas says no, you cant do that because the sea is immense! And the boy turns and says, so it is with God! He is like the ocean and your mind is like this hole. You cn never fill it with the understanding of God. And the little boy disappears.
So another girl at TTT asked why doo natural disasters happen? And she felt that it is because we havent prayed hard enough. And then Fr Al says that God is not a puppeteer that chooses what and what not to happen. And I asked would it be indifferent to think that life on earth was a journey, and trouble and trials are just events to prepare us for eternal life? Like God could have stop it, but He allows things to happen as a test. Than Fr Al rebuts me by sayingthe idea of God being able to do everything is another thing ingrained into us from a early age, but is it true? So Fr Al says that God cannot do everything because He cannot contradict himself. And another asks about Divine Intervention, and Fr Al shares that though the Church teaches otherwise, he feels tht there is no such thing.He cannot believe that God will listen to some prayers, and not to others? That God will chose whose prayer of deliverance from illness he listen to?
So, I started thinking. What IF it is true? What if God cannot do everything?I do agree that God canot contradict Himself. He cannot make Hell into a Heaven and vice versa. He can't do evil. And since God has given us humans the gift of choice, would he change the heart of someone to do His bidding? What if I loved a man, and I felt he was the one for me. But because I look unattractive, and I don't excite this man, he chooses not to consider me. What if he is the one God wanted for me, but this guy chooses to go to the prettier, petite ones, and when i pray that if he is the one, let me noe, God cannot do anything because God has given him a free will to choose, and hence God cannot contradict himself and force this guy to come to realise that he would be happy with me?
hence it has been bothering me..
But Felicita put it really wel today..
She said, if Jesus "ask you shall receive, seek you shall find, knock and it shall be open to you" what would he not be able to do everything?...
THINK THINK THINK
