What is God?: “Quid sit Deus?”
A Five-year-old living in Cassino, Italy, in the 13th Century once asked the question, “Quid sit Deus?...What is God?”. That boy, Thomas of Aquino, continued on to become arguably the most important Theologian in history. The inquisitive mind of the soul does just that, ask. “Inquisitve” comes from the verb “Inquire” which comes from the Middle English “Enquere” which comes from the Middle French “Enquerre” which comes from the Latin “Inquirere” which comes from the Latin word “Quaerere”, which means "to seek". Quaerere is also the root word for Question, Quest, Inquisition, query, inquiry, and enquiry.
The human mind has the capacity to ask and look for answers, which is simply another word for Truth. Truth, again, is not subservient to its subject although it may serve the entertained. It is said of reporters that they are in “service to the Truth”. This symbiosis between the Truth and the beholder is the column by which a knower can know or a beholder behold. What is unique here is that only a human being seeks to go on a diet, no dogs in recorded history sat down and intended for a low-fat or gluten-free diet (perhaps the only diet that a dog may go on is a ketogenic diet but that is a different concept altogether). That tension of tending towards an answer or a Truth is singularly human yet found resounding in the rest of Creation. A simple carrier pigeon or a salmon seeks out the same loci from which they came from. Yet what is unique is that only humans are capable of asking the questions. Perhaps we seek the answers even before we are capable of asking the question.
The human mind has the capacity to ask and look for answers, which is simply another word for Truth. Truth, again, is not subservient to its subject although it may serve the entertained. It is said of reporters that they are in “service to the Truth”. This symbiosis between the Truth and the beholder is the column by which a knower can know or a beholder behold. What is unique here is that only a human being seeks to go on a diet, no dogs in recorded history sat down and intended for a low-fat or gluten-free diet (perhaps the only diet that a dog may go on is a ketogenic diet but that is a different concept altogether). That tension of tending towards an answer or a Truth is singularly human yet found resounding in the rest of Creation. A simple carrier pigeon or a salmon seeks out the same loci from which they came from. Yet what is unique is that only humans are capable of asking the questions. Perhaps we seek the answers even before we are capable of asking the question.
So who is God? Really now. Who is He? In the Twenty-First Century He seems to be something worshiped by those “left behind” in the Twentieth or previous centuries. The popular Twenty-First century “Philosophers” suggested that Science had no use for him (e.g. Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking). Moralists (e.g. Sam Harris) suggested that He was unnecessary in their “Moral Landscape”. Finally, Existentialists, such as Christopher Hitchens labeled His servants with expletives.
Is God indeed a lie or is He the Truth or something else somewhere in between?
Is God indeed a lie or is He the Truth or something else somewhere in between?
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