The Oneness of God

Dictionary Definition

Oneness: n. 1. being one, singleness.  2.  unity, union, agreement, concord

Some thoughts on our use and understanding of the word Oneness:

• Because we can label parts doesn’t interfere with the truth of oneness.
• Because we prefer specialness (good children of God or bad sinners) doesn’t impact the reality of God’s Oneness.
• Is there concern with the idea of Oneness implying Sameness or Equality?
• Is there concern that if we acknowledge our God’s oneness with creation and humanity, that we somehow demean God or artificially elevate humankind?
• Is there concern with the use of “oneness” with God while it is OK to say that Creation is composed of or one with the Holy Spirit?

Perspective

Looking from the outside, we would say, “Yep, there’s only ONE of them.”  Only one God.

Looking from the inside, we would talk in terms of unity union, agreement or concord.  It doesn’t have to be just singleness.

In the Sacrament of Marriage, two become one.  What converts two to one?  Love. 

 

Jot down responses to questions A thru D. 

A.  With Whom or with What is God unable or unwilling to:

• offer amazing grace?
• extend forgiveness?
• share love?  (His Enemy Satan?)
• be present with?
• be connected?
• “know” intimately?

 

 

B.  By what is God limited?

• time?

[ God must wait for…

[ God “hopes” for…

[ God regrets and judges the past, makes corrections and does better with…

• chaos in Creation – disasters, sickness, etc.?
• Evil – Satan’s actions?
• Human Disobedience?

I AM THAT I AM…

except for…?

C.  What in REALITY is outside God’s sphere of influence/connectedness/love?

(Real, not imagined or illusory (e.g. I can “imagine” that God is limited because He can’t

make a rock so big that He can’t lift it.)

 

 

 

 

D.  What remains permanently unrelated or disconnected?

Some other ways to understand Oneness:

• Overlapping circles which share a common area can be said to be One.
• Geometrical shapes which “contain” different shapes within the larger shapes integral structure.
• Parts in a whole

[ is my heart “one” with my body?

[ are my cells “one” with my body?

[ are the planets “one” with our solar system and galaxy and universe?

• We can be said to be “unified” or “one” because of a high percentage of the same shared components, traits, etc.

[ One in the Spirit

[ One in composition of atoms, DNA, etc.

• Oneness over Time:

[ Is an acorn “one” with the oak tree it becomes?

[ Is the baby “one” with the man into which he grows?

[ Is the sinner “one” with himself who moves through Wesley’s stages of Grace to Perfection and who then reflects the Image of God?

I find nothing in the Bible that speaks directly to this except through the action of Love and the statements about God/Christ (Alpha and Omega, I AM THAT I AM) that fail to end with qualifiers, exceptions or limitations.  Also Christ’s parable about “doing unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

The scripture about “in whom we move and breathe and have our being” and the image of the birds of the air immersed and supported in their environment like we should feel supported in God.

You asked me a question about “Why, over all our years of discussions, do I have such a problem with the existence of evil?”  My response is “because from my EXPERIENCE OF GOD in prayer and otherwise, I continue to see no evidence that it is real in the way that God is real.”

In terms of my beliefs, I rely first on my Experience of God, second on my experience of the Mind of God as witnessed through my Reason, third through my experience of God as I read Scripture, and practically never on Tradition.

Two questions for you. 

Why is compatibility between Christ’s teachings and the teachings of Eastern thought of concern to you?  The Judeo/Christian thought system can be shown to have sprung from those seeds.  There are many Biblical metaphors, stories, parables, images, etc. recorded long before the Bible in Eastern scriptures.

Have you noticed in your struggle over the pastorate last year, that it was when you opened to God’s Word “to your heart-experience” rather than just what you could find printed in the Bible, that you began to know God’s Will for you?

The Bible isn’t a manual for heart surgery.  Many things are not confined and limited to “Biblical.”  Oneness is one of those.  Our experience of God has only the limits that we impose.

 

 

 

^{Ge 2:24} For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united ^b  to his wife, and they will become one flesh. ^c  

 

^{Mt 10:29} Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ³⁹ ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

 

^{Mt 10:40} “He who receives you receives me, ^m  and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.

 

^{Mt 19:4} “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ^{79 w}   

^{Mt 19:5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ⁸⁰ ? ^x   

^{Mt 19:6} So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

^{Mk 10:18} “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

^{Mk 12:28} One of the teachers of the law ^l  came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

^{Mk 12:29} “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵² 

^{Mk 12:30} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ^{53 m}   

^{Mk 12:31} The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ^{54 n}  There is no commandment greater than these.”

^{Mk 12:32} “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ^o  

^{Jn 3:13} No one has ever gone into heaven ^r  except the one who came from heaven ^s  —the Son of Man.

^{Jn 5:22} Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ^o   

^{Jn 5:23} that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

^{Jn 8:15} You judge by human standards; ^j  I pass judgment on no one. ^k   

^{Jn 8:16} But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.

^{Jn 10:14} “I am the good shepherd; ^a  I know my sheep ^b  and my sheep know me— 

^{Jn 10:15} just as the Father knows me and I know the Father ^c  —and I lay down my life for the sheep. ^d   

^{Jn 10:16} I have other sheep ^e  that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock ^f  and one shepherd.

^{Jn 10:27} My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, ^v  and they follow me. ^w   

^{Jn 10:28} I give them eternal life, ^x  and they shall never perish; ^y  no one can snatch them out of my hand. ^z   

^{Jn 10:29} My Father, who has given them to me, ^a  is greater than all ⁵⁴ ; ^b  no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 

^{Jn 10:30} I and the Father are one.”

^{Jn 10:38} But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

^{Jn 17:11} I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, ^f  and I am coming to you. ^g  Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one ^h  as we are one.

^{Jn 17:20} “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 

^{Jn 17:21} that all of them may be one, ^w  Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. ^x  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ^y   

^{Jn 17:22} I have given them the glory that you gave me, ^z  that they may be one as we are one: ^a   

^{Jn 17:23} I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me ^b  and have loved them ^c  even as you have loved me.

^{Jn 17:24} “Father, I want those you have given me ^d  to be with me where I am, ^e  and to see my glory, ^f  the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

^{Jn 17:25} “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, ^h  I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ⁱ   

^{Jn 17:26} I have made you known to them, ^j  and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them ^k  and that I myself may be in them.”

^{Rev 1:8} “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” ^x  says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, ^y  the Almighty.”

^{Rev 22:13} I am the Alpha and the Omega, ^z  the First and the Last, ^a  the Beginning and the End.