God the Creator

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025472949

 

 

 

 

 

 

God the Creator

 

Contents

1. God who exists by himself

2. God who created the world by his word

3. God of Trinity

4. God who became a man

5. God the Creator

 

Reading theological books, I once in a while see absurd arguments. Some arguments explain something with redundant arguments of philosophy, but make me void. Luther was fed up with the minute sophistries of the Scholasticism, so wrote the gospel again in easy words. Luther's writings, which are not difficult to read and provide good spiritual food, give a great impression to many Christians like the Bible. I bought a book of philosophy and read it. One day I saw the book again, and laughed when I saw a passage I’ve written on the margin, 'I respect the simplicity of the Scripture.' If something exists, it exists. What's wrong? If you don't like to believe and acknowledge something, sophistry will break into your mind to make you waste your time. I, who studied natural science in college, entered a graduate school of theology, studied theology, and after graduation, read some books of theology, and thought about God in my own way. I'm writing this, summing up those thoughts. Some contents are different from what I thought in the past, some are new. Here, I will try to be theological rather than philosophical as much as I can. The theme is the creation of God, especially the theological explanation of the existence of the material matter. Would that this writing made some contribution to the modern theology!

 

1. God who exists by himself

 

The greatest mystery in the world is that, although there must be, according to my thought, only the empty space; nevertheless there are the world and the human beings. The Bible says God who is a spirit created world and man. The Bible, without saying of the origin of God, says that God created the heaven and the earth in the beginning. This means God had existed before the world began to exist.

 

God existed by himself (alone) from eternity. He is not a created one who began to exist by other being. We cannot but be awed by this fact. By what can we analyze him who exists by himself? How can we, by our intelligence, analyze him who has no beginning? (A being without a beginning is not an object of analysis, but the object of worship and faith if that is a living being. You can't scientifically analyze him who has no beginning.)

 

In general, existence refers to a real being. The mode of the existence of a being varies as where it exists. A being that exists by itself, that is, a being that exists only by its ability to exist, exists not in any other places but only in itself. (That is, it exists only in itself. Here, 'itself' can be thought as a physical or a metaphysical place.) For example, let's think of the space. Space is not in anything else, but it is it itself. (That is, the space is in the space.) Likewise, the time exists only in itself, and is the time itself. Likewise, the God is the God himself. That is, God, independent of the space and the time, exists by himself in the 'dimension of God' that is different from the four-dimensional space, the space-time. Strictly speaking, time is not dependent on space, neither is space on time. Nor is God dependent on the space-time.

 

But there is a fact beyond our understanding. It is that the God can put his being in the present space. That is, he can put his being in the infinite space that appears at the momentary time of now. We do not understand how it is possible. Nor can we analyze it. All we can do is to accept it as a fact.

 

Material objects, including our body, are confined within the time and the space. They exist here at the time of now. They can never exist by themselves because they are under the influence of the three, time, space and God. On the contrary, God exists not only at 'now' because he exists by himself. The God who exists by himself is able to be nowhere in the infinite space. Isn't it possible to say that God does not exist at 'now' if he does not exist nowhere in the whole space? Nevertheless, then isn't it possible to say that he exists in himself 'now' though he does not exist in the space now? Of course, that also is true. However, God exists ‘by himself’ at the time 'now', but he never exists at the time ‘now’ by the flow of the time or by the thrusting force of the time on him.

 

Every object is exposed to the intrinsic non-identity between the past one and the present one. The identity of the two, that is, an object now and an object one second ago, is questionable even if the two are absolutely identical even in the number and the structure of all atoms, unless we prove that the object one second ago has moved through the interval of time to the time 'now' in order to exist now. Is it possible for an object to go through the time? Who can move momentarily through the interval of three seconds from now to the future to be in the future in advance? A deeper reasoning works like that. (To think precisely, therefore it is not a self-evident phenomenon that an object keeps existing at 'present'.) However, the present God is the very God of the past eternity because he exists by himself. The being of the God, who has existed by his power to be from eternity, has nothing to do with the passage of the time, for he will certainly exist by his power to be, to the infinite future. Rather, he is playing on the time, putting his being in the present space. Perhaps, isn't the God we meet now the present Divinity of the God who exists by himself eternally?

 

It is a mystery itself that the God, who can exist in himself without the space and the time, can put his being in the time-space. The God who exists himself does not have the time and the space as the elements of his being. Nevertheless he can put his being in the space. A material object has some space as the element of his being, so it can be in the space. But God can be in the space despite the fact that he never has the spacial element of his being. This is a mystery we can't explain, so we must accept it as a fact.

 

The moment God places himself in space, his being has a spacial element. Of course, when he shakes off this spacial element of being, he is not anywhere in the space. And the Bible says that the God is a pure spirit. Therefore we can define the spirit as follows: a spirit is a being that exists in itself without the time and the space, and that can place its being in the time-space.

 

The moment the God who is a spirit reveals himself (his being) in the space, his being is clothed with the space; and it looks as if the spatiality were added to his being. The God in himself and the God clothed with spatiality are definitely the same One, then, how can we explain this difference of existence? In this case, of course, we can say that the one God, existing in himself, puts his being in the space at the same time. Strictly speaking, the being of the God in the space is an extension of the being of the God Proper. (The God Proper is the original God.) Because the God Proper is independent of the space-time, we must acknowledge that the structure of the being of the God appearing in the space-time is different from that of the being of the God Proper; therefore let's call, for convenience's sake, 'the being of God extended into the space-time' the Holy Spirit. So it can be said that the being of God extended to the space is the Holy Spirit who has the spatial element as the element of his being. When God reveals his being in the space, he can't leave himself to be only in the space. It is impossible for God to depart his (original) being. However he can place his being in the space by extending his being.

 

The reason why I call 'the being of God extended to the space' the Holy Spirit is that the Bible testifies that the God sent the Holy Spirit into the space to operate and rule the world. The Holy Spirit reveals himself as the Sent. The Holy Spirit sent into the space has the spatial element of being, and he can move to and fro in the space and come upon many places at the same time. This is related to the doctrine of the Trinity, which will be discussed later. For convenience' sake, and at the present stage, let's define 'the being of the God appearing in the space' as the Holy Spirit who is the God himself, who has the perfect divinity of God.

 

What is nothing(무, 無)? Nothing refers to a situation that not anything exists. Meaningful nothing is the empty space for us. Of course, the time and the space are a kind of being, but they do not cognize themselves, and are just unilaterally occupied by other beings. Above all, we cannot but think that the empty space is nothing that is the opposite of existence, for God is the primary being of all beings. It is allowable to say that nothing is a being that can contain other beings. (Nothing is a receptacle of other beings.) Therefore the God is existence, and the empty space is nothing (non-existence).

 

God exists alone. The empty space is nothing. God sent his spirit into the whole space and occupied it. There is only the God in the space. The Bible says that there are not other gods, that only the Jehovah (the God) is a true god. This means a lot. As might be natural, God does not happen to exist by some possibility intrinsic in the time and the space. There might be many Gods in the space if the God could exist by some possibility of the space and the time. But the Bible says Jehovah alone is the God from eternity to eternity. It is a great mystery that there is only one God, not two or more. Isn't it? If a God exists himself, can't another God exist himself by the same principle of the existence of God? But it's not true! The God knows the principle of his being. He can't tell a lie. And he says only he himself is the only God. This means that he is not a union of many self-existing Gods, and that he is not a God who came into being when many Gods unified themselves into a single self. Oh, what a mystery! We know from this that the existence of God absolutely transcends time and space. If the existence of God depends on the space-time, there is a possibility of plural Gods. And the fact that there is only one God means that there is a necessity of singular God in the existence of God. The empty space has, in itself, the necessity that there should be only one space at a time. There is no possibility at all that two spaces exist at the same time. God, too, has such necessary singularity. Considering the space, it has necessarily infinite size, it cannot but necessarily exist, and it cannot but be necessarily only one. So does and is God. He necessarily has infinity of power, self-existence (aseity) and oneness (singularity). We do not know why, but we are certainly experiencing the results of his existence. Man's understanding can't explain him who exists as the only God. We accept the uniqueness of God by faith. He is infinitely worthy because he is unique.

 

Space, by its nature, necessarily subsists (exists by itself) and forms one space at the time now. Likewise, the subsisting God also necessarily exists by himself as the only God at the time now. Strictly speaking, the space one second ago is not the current space, because the space can't move on the line of time. However, the current God is the God who existed one second ago. God is the only One who can move from past to now on the line of time, to exist at the time now. This is the attribute of a spirit. A spirit can keep self-identity despite the passage of the time. This is the fundamental feature of living beings. Space is a dead being forever. The present space that necessarily has appeared at the time now just momentarily exists, then vanishes forever. But the God who is a spirit exists by himself forever as a being who alone is a living being, keeping his self-identity.

 

The God existing in himself is the God Proper while the God existing as the three-dimensional spirit in the space is the extension of the existence of the God Proper himself. The God appearing in the space has a perfect divinity. And if we deepen our thinking, we can see that in this case the result is that it looks like the one God exists as two Gods at the same time. The God Proper can cognize the extended God who has the perfect divinity, and the extended God can cognize himself in the space. It is possible for the God who can place his being in the space.

 

Of course, it is very unfamiliar to us human beings. No human being can put his being at two places at the same time. However, the simulation of 'one God with two beings' is possible. When your right hand feels chilly, you can cover it with your left hand. Your right eye can see your left eye in a mirror. The left eye also can see the right eye. Your left hand can receive the right glove from another person and deliver it to your right hand. Likewise, by the extension of the being of one God, the God can produce the relationship of 'the God Proper and the extended God' and, nevertheless, can exist as one God.

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The God Proper, of course, has a perfect self-consciousness. (Self-consciousness(자아의식, 自我意識) is >the subject of 'I (self)'< where the thinking activity takes place.) But even the God who appears in the space has a perfect divine self-consciousness, then why are the God Proper and the extended God not two Gods but one God? Because the God Proper and the extended God are intrinsically undivided 'one life'. Put your right hand in hot water, and left hand in cold water simultaneously. And you can feel hot on the right hand and cold on the left hand respectively. To think it more deeply, we can say that your right and left hand, with a low degree of self-consciousness, feel and act differently in different environments. If the same God exists as the God Proper and the extended God simultaneously, there is only one will in the two wills of the two divine selves even if each of the two has a perfect divine self-consciousness, for in this case the one God has two self-consciousnesses. One self-consciousness can perform an independent thinking. The God Proper and the extended God can think differently at the same time; nevertheless there is only one will in their thoughts because the two thoughts are two thoughts of the one God. And there can be no mutual contradiction and confrontation between these two thoughts.

 

Your personality can be expressed with your hands. Let the right man see only your right hand, and the left man only your left hand. You can give directions to both men with your two hands simultaneously. Seeing this situation, a third man will think that 'a man of one will and two persons' is meeting two persons at the same time. (A person is a subject of some personality, that is, a living being having one self-consciousness.) Now the key to this possibility is the ability to express one's complete personality in two different places at a time. The God who alone exists eternally can place his being simultaneously both in himself and in the space, and can show his perfect divinity at the two places. (Here, God himself can be thought as a place, a metaphysical place, for he is in himself.)

 

Only this God exists alone. The space-time is but an empty shell, and is the only place where we can meet God. Time testifies God is eternal; space testifies God is infinitely vast. God himself is the most holy place man can't enter; the space-time is where God and man meet. The space-time is infinite, but God, remaining in himself, simultaneously fill all the space-time with his being. Space-time is infinite, but God is the infinity of 'infinity times infinity'. Fill the whole universe with beautiful beads. God can simultaneously exist at all the beads, showing his infinite power there. He can exert infinite power at infinite places at a time, so he is the infinity resulting from 'infinity times infinity'. Nevertheless he is till in himself without losing his original being and power at all, so he infinitely transcends the infinity. Hallelujah!

 

2. God who created the world by his word

 

The subsisting God is an infinite mystery. So is his ability to put his being in the space. So is his power to create a beautiful world. We should praise and worship him who created something from nothing!

 

According to the Bible, in the beginning God created the heaven and earth, and he uttered words of command so that all the creatures including man came into being. Therefore, the material of all things is the word of God, and they all return to nothing when God revokes his word of creation. God could create the world in the space because he could extend his being into the space. He could work in the space, utter words in the space to create the world only if he could exist in the space. For convenience, let's call God in the space the Holy Spirit. Then we can say that the God created the world in the space in (in the mode of being of) the Holy Spirit.

 

The question is how God's creatures are God's words. To prove this, the following syllogism is required.

 

1. God who is a spirit created the world by his words.

2. Man is created in the image of God.

3. Man created in the image of God, too, cognizes the words of God as the world as God does.

 

We know from experience that (material) matter is matter and spirit is spirit. Given that God, the Spirit, had been alone before the creation of the world, there must be an infinite qualitative difference between the created material and the spirit. The material is the word of God who is a spirit. The God, a spirit, cognizes this word as the world. In other words, the world, which we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and feel with our hands, appears to God as it appears to us. This means that the cognitive power of our senses was originally in God, and that such cognitive power was given to us. Therefore human spirit and human body are fundamentally different beings, and the subject of the cognition of the world is not the material body but the spirit. You must have sensational power in yourself in order to cognize objects outside yourself. Could God not cognize the world after he created it? Of course, he could! God created the world and saw that it was 'good'. This cognitive power was originally in God, and man was created in God's image so that his spirit could cognize the world as the world as God cognized it as the world.

 

By the way, thinking about our perception, we three-dimensionally feel. This means that our spirit has a three-dimensional structure. This three-dimensional structure of our spirit is possible because the Holy Spirit works while existing three-dimensionally. Our body is matter, so let's put it aside for now. Let's think about the origin of our spirit. The origin of our body is the word of God uttered in the space. Then what about our spirit? Our spirit has a structure very different from the being of the God Proper. The God Proper is a spirit who exists in himself in transcending the space-time, but our spirit has a three-dimensional structure in the space, which means our spirit has a structure of being similar to that of the Holy Spirit who exists in the space. Humans make objects having forms with material matter(물질, 物質). Similarly, it can be said that God has spiritual matter(영질, 靈質) and makes a human spirit, a living being, with it. If material matter has a necessary form, it can be a guitar or a bag. Likewise we can say that spiritual matter, if having a necessary form, becomes a living spirit, a living being. When spiritual matter has a form of human spirit by God's manufacturing process, it becomes a living spirit that cognizes the word of God as the world.

 

Material matter is word of God, so it is not ‘a being independent of God’ that existed from eternity, nor is it emanation of the being of God. The spiritual matter is not word of God, so it has its being in different way from the material matter. In Genesis, the spirit of man came into being as God breathed into man's nostrils the breath life (Gen 2:7). And the book of Malachi shows that God had spiritual matter and made Adam's spirit with it (Mal 2:15, "Didn't he make only one when he had a lot of spirit? Why did he make only one? Because he wanted to get godly offspring," in Korean version). This spiritual matter came into being not by 'words-uttering' of God but by 'breathing (into flesh)' of God. God who can put his being in the space can put spiritual matter in the space while existing in the space. The fundamental mystery and miracle is his ability to place his being in the space as well, and the mystery and miracle no less great than that is his ability to create spiritual matter that is not himself in the space by the ability to cause himself to exist in the space. This spiritual matter is not (a part of) being of God, but his possession that he created by his power. It is not the emanation of the being of God but a product of his creative power. The Holy Spirit in the space is a three-dimensional being, too. Spiritual matter has a three-dimensional structure of being like this Holy Spirit.

 

God appeared in space and created spiritual matter there. Therefore man can never become the same being as the God Proper, but can just meet the God sent into the space, that is, the Holy Spirit, in the space. God came into the space in order to make our spirit. He clothed himself with space in order to make our spirit. It is necessary for a man not to be a God, because man is in space while God is in himself. No matter how much ability man has, he can't be a God. As mentioned above, there is only one God by the necessity in his being. This means that, even if God by his infinite mercy gives a man infinite ability, he is just a man having infinite ability like God but can never become a God. Spiritual matter has a three-dimensional structure of being, so it can never become a God in its original meaning, for essentially, God does not have the spatial structure of being. Many call the creation of God the grace of God. That's right. It is his grace for God to appear in the space and create spiritual matter. His mercy and grace was so great, for he created the spiritual matter although it could corrupt after becoming a human spirit.

 

He, who thinks human beings to be divine beings because God created the spiritual matter, is a foolish man who calls a child a father. He who ascribes all human sins to God is a foolish man who ascribes children's sins to the father. Why on earth do people use God's kindness, grace and miracles to separate God and man? Man is God the Father's son as a man while God the Son who is the second Person of the Trinity is God the Father's son as a God. And man is his son as 'another self' while God the Son is his son as 'the same I or self (of the Father)'. This issue will be discussed in more detail later.

 

The fact that the world is the word of God makes us think of God, man and the world at a time. God utters words toward man, and the words come to man as the world. There is a good analogy to this. TV stations send video and sound information to each home through electro-magnetic waves, and the information appears on TV in each home as picture and sound. Here TV stations correspond to God, the electro-magnetic waves to the words of God, and a TV set to a spirit of a man. Can you explain the world on the TV screen without considering TV stations, electro-magnetic waves and a TV set at the same time? Similarly, the world before our eyes can be explained when the speaking God and the spirit of man that can realize his word into the world are considered simultaneously. There can be many different meanings in the thesis that man is created in the image of God. Seen from the point of view of the power of cognition, one of the meanings is that man has the cognitive power and the spiritual structure that can reconstruct the word of God into the world.

 

What is a word? There are 'information (meaning)' and 'the will of a speaker' in his word. The Spirit of God, existing in the space, is saying at a place in the space, "There is such and such a thing here." Then God himself acknowledges that there is such a thing there, and so does man. Do you see something in front of you? God is saying that there is such a thing there at this moment. The object is 'a lump of the will of God' having a spatial structure. Also the light moving fast in the space is a lump of the will of the God that moves in the space. Is there an object at a distance in front of you? Right at that place, there is the will of God that there be an object with such appearance. A light is a lump of the will of God that moves (or behaves) according to the attribute of the light, and an elementary particle is a lump of the will of God that moves according to the attribute of the particle. The attribute is the content (the information) of the will. Therefore all things including the lights and the human bodies are the words (the will + the information) of God that are three-dimensionally distributed. Suppose that one particle needs one will of existence. And suppose that one word needs one consciousness. Think deeply. How many elementary particles are there in the world? Considering that, we can say that there are infinite consciousnesses in the God. (A consciousness is one unit of 'mental function of thinking' in a spirit.) Only the Almighty God, who can place his being in the space, who has infinite consciousnesses, can create this world. It's a mythical delusion that God, after creating the world, sees and observes it from a far. If there is no existence of God in the space, neither our bodies nor the world before us can exist. Considering that our bodies are primarily God's will, we can see that God is closer to my body than I am.

 

As mentioned above, only one space exists at present time. And the present space exists just momentarily and vanishes forever, and a new space necessarily came to exist at a new present time. Therefore the space just before and the present space are ontologically absolutely different beings. Then, can spiritual matter and material matter keep their self-identity despite the passage of time? Yes, they can. The spiritual matter itself is a spiritual being. Just as the God, a spiritual being, can thrust himself (from the time past) into the present time and exist at the time now always, keeping his self-identity, so the spiritual matter keeps its self-identity because it is a spiritual being, too. However, the spiritual matter does not subsist, so it has spiritual quality and can keep its self-identity as long as God keeps its being. Material objects are the lumps of the will of God, so they keep their self-identity regardless of the passage of time, considering the will of God who remains the same always. A man with spirit and flesh has his self-identity regardless of the passage of time, in God always. In other words, what he has done before becomes the ground for his reward or punishment of today. The fact that humans have memory proves the continuance of the self-identity of spiritual matter and even of God.

 

Do you know what is really mysterious to us? It is the quality of sense that appears directly to us. Colors, sounds and touch are what the spirit directly feels. They are strange, curious and mysterious. They are the power given to the spirit and can't be explained otherwise logically. In order for us to sense light and sound, an infinite miracle that there is the subsisting God is needed, next an infinite miracle that this God has the ability to place his being in the space is needed, and finally an infinite miracle that the God existing in the space produces spiritual matter that is differ from his being is needed.

 

Man is made up of spirit and flesh. Since spirit and body are ontologically completely different types, they can't be mixed but co-exist in the same space. This can be expressed as 'the spirit possessing the flesh' or 'the spirit in the flesh'. Let's define this union of body and spirit as a spirody (spirit + body, 영물체, 靈物體). All living beings, including humans, are spirodies. Who can say cows and sheep do not have spiritual matter? Furthermore, prove, if you can, that the human spiritual matter is ontologically different from a cow's spiritual matter. Above all, he who does not appreciate God's grace may not say that an ox that fears its owner does not have spiritual matter. And there is another question. Is an ox created in the image of God (in relation to the perception of things)? I don't know! If you are curious about it, ask God yourself. If he does not answer your question, you don't deed to ask any more question for you don't need to know it.

 

I've designated the spirit as the subject of cognition, so it can be said that each cell of a man is possessed with spirit so that the spirit in the cell feels what is thought to be felt by the cell. Therefore the structure of human spirit has the same structure as the human body, I think. A spirit is a spiritual matter that has the same structure as the body. All the cells of the sensory organs of the body correspond one-on-one to the spirit-cells, in which feelings occur and which themselves feel something, and both kinds of cell co-exist in the same space. The sensory cells of the body determine the contents of the senses the spirit-cells will feel, and the spirit-cells actively feel as the contents. A body is a part of the material world and plays the role of determining the information that the spirit will perceive. The spirit generates the will to move the body. Since there is an ontological gap between the spirit and the body, mediation of God who is in the space is necessary in order for the body to move as the will of the spirit. Because the body is the word of God. Not only sensory cells but also the other cells and substances in the body are all spirodies.

 

The spirit and the body, by reason of ontological difference, must be under God's intervention and maintenance in order to be united into one living being. Thus, life and death depend only on the will of God. Death is a phenomenon viewed mainly from the perspective of others. A spirit with the structure of life is itself a live being. A spirit, which is a life, is a living being regardless of whether or not the body exists. Actually, what a spirit feels is not the body but the information the body produces. If the spirit of one of the two men is separated from the body, the body becomes just a material object to the other man, who thinks the man was dead. However the separated spirit can exist as a living being as if it had the body, if it itself feels according to the same information of feelings as was produced when it had the body. Of course, if the spirit loses its life-structure, it will return to spiritual matter. Then a spirit that had a self-consciousness before will lose the self-consciousness, and the person of the man will vanish forever. Spiritual matter which has lost its spiritual structure returns to nothing if God revokes his preserving power. A material object vanishes forever if God stops his word, for it is God's word. Spiritual matter vanishes forever if God stops his preserving power. The spiritual matter is never absorbed into the being of God.

 

I've said that an object in the space (everything, including elementary particles) is a will of God that is acting according to its attribute there. Form and attribute of the object are the information, and the will of God that exists in the space acts as a being that has that attribute, so an object in the space is the word of God. Here it is important to note that the objects in the space are not mere virtual reality. Suppose there is an apple in front of you. The information about the apple coming from your eyes is passed on to your spirit so that your spirit recognizes the apple. But if the spirit is caused to see the apple even when there is no apple, it's a virtual reality. But the world is a factual world where material things really exist, not a virtual reality where there are no material objects but only spirits. Things really exist because there are really the lumps of the will of God that act as material objects in the space. So if you kick a stone, your toes are painful. Because our body possessed with spirit is a material object, a part of our spirit in the body is cut off if a part of our body is cut off by an accident. Therefore the world is not a mere virtual reality. If both the world and our bodies are a virtual reality, how can we be held responsible for our deeds? There would be many people who would say sinful deeds done by a virtual body are not sins. Regardless of our religious responsibilities, the world really exists. Given this, we find that there are two kinds of words. The word as a material object is the unity of information and will while the word given to our spirit is only information. Things really exist in the space by the former word, and we recognize the objects in the space by the latter word.

 

When we are resurrected after death, we will be given the same body as before the death. Spirits can overlap in the same space. Human spirit can exist at the place where the God who is a spirit comes upon. Judging from this, the Spirit of God and the spirit of man exist in the same space at the same time, which suggests that more than one spirit can coexist in one space. The characteristic of spirit is such possibility of co-existence in a space. This does not require any proof because of the reality revealed to us.

 

Let's say there are 20 beads in a space. Suppose God divides the beads into two groups of ten. God can establish a law that beads in the same group react one another as material objects but do not react on the beads of the other group as if they were nothing to the other group. It belongs to God's freedom. In this case, to a bead in one group, there are only 10 beads, including itself. To a bead in the other group, there are only 10 beads, including itself, in the world. An object reacts on another because God acknowledges that the two lumps of the will of God are real objects to each other. We and all things before us exist in the same world since God decided that our bodies and the other things be objects to each other and he regulates the world so. Therefore there is only one absolute space, but God can create several worlds in that space. Each world would feel that there is only its own world in the infinite space. Several independent worlds, if God created them, overlap in the same absolute space. The Bible tells us that the dead go to heaven, so at least this world and the heaven are two worlds in the same space. The Bible says there is hell. Maybe God puts disgusting sinners into another world.

 

If a man dies, his body becomes a being that has nothing to do with the spirit that possessed it. A third person in the same world sees his dead body. Nevertheless the spirit that took off the body is a complete living being even at that moment. The spirit without a body feels as if it had a body, if it is given the information of feelings at the time when it had a body. God is able to create a world where the dead will dwell, and to give the humans who died and took off the body in the world another body that is the same as they had in the world, and to let them dwell there. Now the body in this world becomes a corpse and begins to decay, but the new body the dead man receives again has the same contents as before. One body is the body in the previous world, the other body is a new body given in the other world. Therefore for us to live and die is not a big matter in the God. If a man should die in an accident, his spirit that was torn at the same time as the body was torn will be completely restored by God and be given the same body as he had in this world, in the new world. This is possible because God can show multiple willpower at one point in one absolute space so that there are multiple lumps of the will of God there.

 

Furthermore, even two objects in the same world may overlap in the same place if only God allows it. Then, even if a man is thrown into the fire, even one of his hairs will not be burnt. A man can walk through a wall without any hindrance. The chemical burning reactions and the reactions between objects are just natural laws God made. God has the absolute freedom to ignore those laws for a while.

 

The world is the word of God, so the world will cease to exist if the word of God ceases. Even before that, this world, though existing now, has nothing to do with those who have died and gone to another world. It can be said that it has already disappeared from their point of view. How futile it is to deceive people by setting the last day of the world! Still more important than the last day of the world is the day of personal death. What on earth does the end of the world that will happen hundreds of years after your death to you?

 

Wouldn't our bodies be as holy as the Bible if we admit that our bodies are God's word (will + information)? The Bible tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Spirit of God. Our bodies are holy and precious for many reasons, so we should use them for the glory of God. What about our spirit? Our spirit is never less valuable than our body. God is in the same space as I am. Our existence itself is the proof of the existence of God. But if you still have a sense of distance from God, please touch your body and things before you. They are lumps of the will of God present in the space. Do not doubt the world after death. Heaven exists as surely as your own existence. Heaven exists with the certainty equal to that of this world.

 

3. God of Trinity

 

For this world to exist, there must be at least as many consciousnesses (generators of consciousness) as the number of all elementary particles in the world, because an elementary particle needs one will of the God. This means that the God who created the world and is still maintaining it has an infinite number of consciousnesses. Billions of people live in the world. God can have a personal conversation with all these at the same time. From this we can make an inference that there are at least an infinite number of persons (generators of personality) that are like human person, in God. (Person is a subject (a self) of personality here.) As a man has ten fingers, so God can show infinite persons at a time. Therefore God is essentially different from man. That's why you don't have to feel strange about the true aspect of God the Bible says of.

 

The Bible testifies that God the Creator is the only God who has three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Here a Person is a divine One who is God having divine personality. A Person is not just mental quality of a God.) It seems to me that Trinity is a phenomenon that results not from God’s multi-personal ability but from his exceptional ability to exist. In a parable, suppose there is a man who, having three mouths on one head in one body, can say to three men at a time because he has three-personal ability. There is another man who has three heads on one body, so he can say to three men at a time. Finally, there is a man who can exist as three same men at three different places at a time and says one-on-one to three men there. In my view, the parable most similar to the Triune God of creation is the last one. Let's define a substance as a being that has accomplished the nature (the attribute or the essence) of something or someone in itself. Of course, substance has several meanings. However according to such a definition of substance, a man has three human substances simultaneously in the third parable. Two men in the first two cases are not human substances for they are more than a common human being. A man who has three persons in one head is not a normal man, nor is he who has three heads on one body. Therefore these two are not human substances. Of course, you may raise an objection, asking, "How can the man in the third case be a (normal) man?" But each of the other three men who meet the three same men one-on-one is seeing a normal man. Like this, (figuratively speaking,) the only omnipotent God has put his three complete beings in three places at a time from eternity. Each of the three beings is a perfect God having perfect nature (divinity) of God. That is, they are, as it were, perfect divine substances. In each place each of the three beings shows the full power and character of God. We call these three beings three Persons. We call the three real beings of the three Persons, each of whom has a full divine nature, three hypostases. (In general, substance refers to 'the uniqueness (singleness) and the reality (the quality of substance)' of the only God who exists as the Trinity, while hypostasis refers to the reality of each of the three Persons who have perfect divinity in the only Trinity. Hypostasis can be defined as 'Personal substance'. Each Person has a perfect divinity, so we can say without error that he, too, is a divine substance in a sense. Jehovah, the Creator of the world, is a substance of a God and has three hypostases of ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit’.)

 

Suppose that you exist in Seoul, Washington and Pyongyang at the same time. Your original place is Seoul. You needed to place yourself in Pyongyang and Washington, so you caused yourself to exist at the two places, too. Of course, your two selves in Pyongyang and Washington are perfect 'you'. Then you can feel and say as a man also in two other places. Still living in Seoul, your original place, you go to Pyongyang and Washington simultaneously and feel and live there. Each of your three selves in Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington feels, says and acts at his place and knows the feelings and thoughts of the your other two selves coincidentally with them. Each self feels only what each body gives while he just knows the thoughts and feelings of the two other selves the moment they occur. Because the two other selves are the very your own selves. And you in Seoul can see and talk to your other selves in Pyongyang and Washington. You in Pyongyang can see and talk to your selves in Seoul and Washington. The key to this possibility is your ability to stay in your being and at the same time to be out of your being and to be somewhere else. Let me give you another simile. The Bible is written in Hebrew and Greek. This Bible is translated into Korean and English. The original Bible has been translated into both the Korean and the English version and is present in the two peoples, Koreans and Americans. The two translated Bible, with the same contents and authority as the orignal Bible, exist now as the word of God for Korean speaking people and English speaking people. The original Bible came out of itself to exist simultaneously as Korean Version and English Version and each Version is read as a complete Bible by people.

 

The same is true with the Triune God. God the Father, for his eternal purpose, staying in himself, came out of himself to exist as God the Son and God the Holy Spirit at the same time. In other words, one divine self exists as three hypostases at a time. These hypostases are divine selves with perfect divinity. Each hypostasis is called a Person. God the Father generated another himself by the process of begetting. God the Son is the divine One who came into being by the process of being begotten of God the Father. Bible says that the Son is in the bosom of the Father (Jn 1:18). This Son was with the Father from eternity. Even though he came to be by the begetting of the Father, he has not the same father-son-relationship with the Father as humans, because he is the repeated being of the Father. He exists as the Son of God because he is in the position of 'the hypostasis of Son'. God the Father can be present as a divine entity in the infinite present space. This is not a process of begetting but 'sending himself into the space'. The Son also, having the same divinity as the Father, can be present as the Holy Spirit in the present space. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the spatial existence of the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son can stay in themselves and keep their presence in space at the same time. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God the Father and the Spirit of God the Son. All these divine entities are possible forms of existence because one God can place himself in three places simultaneously.

 

But mustn't there be two Holy Spirits in the space if both the Father and the Son respectively send the Holy Spirit into the space? The Bible and the tradition of Christianity do not say of such Quaternity (one substance and four hypostases). How can the Holy Spirit be one hypostasis while he is the spirit of both Father and Son? Let me explain it like this. The Father who is the first cause of all divinity generated himself once more through the process of begetting so that the Son appeared. And the Father commissioned the Son to send the Holy Spirit into the space. So the Son with perfect divinity put his being in the space so that the Holy Spirit came to exist there. This Holy Spirit is directly the spirit of the Son and the 2nd self the Son. But the Son himself is the 2nd self of the Father, so the Holy Spirit is the 3rd self of the Father. Therefore, as a result, by a deep ontological reasoning, the Holy Spirit is also the spirit of the Father. If not the Son but the Father had sent the Holy Spirit into the space, so that the Holy Spirit who was directly involved in the creation of the world would have had no direct ontological connection with the Son; the following biblical verses about the Son would be irrelevant: >"The world was made through him (Jesus) (Jn 1:10)," "All things were created through him (Jesus) and for him. (Col 1:16)" But if the Son who is the 2nd self of the Father sent the Holy Spirit into the space, the Holy Spirit is the 2nd self of the Son, so that those verses are correct. Moreover, all is in order if the Son created the world through the Holy Spirit, who is his spirit, in obedience to the will of the Father to create the world. Therefore it is true that the Holy Spirit as the 3rd self of the Father proceeded from (came into being by) the Father (though by way of the Son), and also that the Holy Spirit as the 2nd self of the Son proceeded from the Son. The Holy Spirit exists in the space while the Father and the Son are in the Godself-dimension that is different from the three-dimensional space. "No one has ever seen God; the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father (that is, in the dimension of the existence of God), he has made him known. (Jn 1:18)" One thing to consider is this: if the Son is in the bosom of the Father, how different is this from a full-grown baby in his mother's womb? It is very different! A pregnant woman can never have the 2nd self in her baby and think and feel in him. The mother and the baby are connected by an umbilical cord, but each of them has her or his own self-consciousness that can't be shared with the other. But the relationship of the Father and the Son is a relationship that a God is in the two Persons, or more correctly, exists as two Persons. Nevertheless each Person, being a perfect entity of God, can as 'I' say to the other Person as 'you'. For example, let's say there is a living being with only two eyes. Each eye can observe the world independently, and one can see the other. Suppose the eyes are the Persons. Then each Person lives his own life in his own place and have a relationship of 'you and I' with the other Person. Nevertheless all this is the life of one God.

 

A question arise here: an the present God of Trinity cause the Son and the Holy Spirit to disappear, so that there is only the Father as in the original situation? Can the Son and the Holy Spirit disappear by the will of the Father? The answer is “No, never!” Jesus said he had been with the Father from eternity. And the Bible says God does not change forever. Therefore God was the Trinity from the beginning. (Of course, there is no beginning of existence to him.) The Bible and the Christian traditions say of the complete divinity of the Son. Complete divinity includes the concept of 'self-existing'. All creatures, including humans, begin to exist by God's power of creation and by the 'power to exist now' that God gives. So creatures are dependent on the God (in their existence), for they do not have the power to be by themselves. But the Son and the Holy Spirit subsist (self-exist) like the Father without receiving further power to be from some other like all the creatures because the Son received the aseity of the Father in the process of begetting, and the Holy Spirit received the aseity in the space when he was sent into the space by the Son. In other words, the Son does not receive his present being from the Father, nor does the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. The Son and the Holy Spirit are not subordinate in existence to the Father as the creatures are. Like this the Son and the Holy Spirit exist with the same aseity as the Father, and are equal to the Father in all respects because they are the 2nd and the 3rd self of the Father. The only difference is that the Son works as the only begotten Son of the Father and the Holy Spirit works as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Like this, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have the equal divinity and are one God from eternity to eternity. It is God's will that he be the Trinity forever. In this Trinity, there is only one will of the one God, so there is no room for passivity or subordininationism among the three Persons. (Even if the Father had been alone and then begot the Son, his 2nd self, the Son is not subordinate to the Father for they are one God.)

 

Some may disagree with the claim that the God can have three divine entities (three hypostases). Let me explain to you the existence of the Trinity with a more definite similitude. There are blogs in the Internet age these days. The original blog is in the memory of a portal site. And when an internet visitor accesses the blog of the portal site, all the contents of the original blog are transferred to the visitor's computer, so that one blog exists in two places at the same time. That is, an original blog can place its other selves that have the same contents of being and power as the original blog at different places at a time. This is a model of the Triune God.

 

Think of yourself and the world. For whatever reason, the fact that you who had not been before birth have now your being means that the God has the power to cause your spirit to exist in the space. The power to cause something to exist is in the God. When you think of your own existence, you have no choice but to think of the presence of Almighty God in the space; which means God has the power to cause his being to exist once more. The only God is One who has three Persons with perfect divinity, that is, with complete nature of God, at a time. Each Person has perfect divinity, so there is independent thinking activity in each Person, and each Person recognizes others who are different from himself. So the Son has his own self-consciousness and recognizes the Father and the Holy Spirit as others who are different from himself. At the same time, all the self-consciousnesses and feelings of the Father and the Holy Spirit are present in the self-consciousness and feelings of the Son for the three Persons are three selves of one God. Like this, the only God has one self-consciousness in each Person, and at the same time each Person knows the thoughts and feelings of the other two Persons.

 

"Even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, ... (Jn 17:21)" From the Father's standpoint, the Son and the Holy Spirit are himself; from the Son's standpoint, the Father and the Holy Spirit are himself; from the Holy Spirit's standpoint, the Father and the Son are himself. Each Person directly experiences what happens in his hypostasis, and knows, if not direct experience, all the mental phenomena happening in the other Persons simultaneously with them. There is each Person's self-consciousness in each hypostasis. Jn 17:21 does not say that the hypostasis of the Father is in that of the Son (i.e., some elements of the being of the Father becomes the elements of the being of the Son,) but maybe that the self-consciousness of the Father is present in 'the self-consciousness of the Son' in the Son's hypostasis, I think. Maybe this seems to be due to the consciousness of the Son that all the mental phenomena in the hypostasis of the Father are his (the Son's) mental phenomena. Each Person of the Trinity thinks all the mental phenomena of the other two Persons to be his, for the three Persons are one God and a Person knows all the mental phenomena of the other Persons simultaneously with the others. And a Person regards all that happen to the other Persons as his affairs. Thus, when the Father makes a decision, the Son regards the decision as his (the Son's) decision, so we can say that the self-consciousness of the Father is in that of the Son. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son; so the thoughts of the Father or the Son are immediately known to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit regards the thoughts as his (the Holy Spirit's) thought: therefore the self-consciousness of the Father and of the Son are present in that of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, all the mental phenomena of the Son and the Holy Spirit are immediately known to the Father, and the Father regards them as his; so the self-consciousness of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are present in that of the Father. (Of course, it was psychologically reasoned on. Topologically speaking, the Father and the Son are in the 'dimension of (the existence of) God', and both of them are infinite (in ontological size); so they all respectively completely fill the dimension of God. The result is that Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. The Holy Spirit fills all the three-dimensional space, so it looks like to us that the Father and the Son are in the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son can come upon the infinite space as a Person, so it looks like to us that the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son.)

 

The reason why this theory of Trinity is not a modalism is that modalism says of single divine entity that plays the roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by turns while the above theory of Trinity says of three divine entities of three Persons. The modalism results in an error that the Son who died on the cross was, in fact, the Father, while the above theory of Trinity can say that only the Son, one of the three Persons, suffered on the cross. The reason why the above Trinity theory is not a tritheism is that, as mentioned above, the existence of three Gods is not possible for some reason, and that the above Trinity theory tells of a perfect divine entity that extended his being into other two Persons (two divine entities). If the existence of three Gods is possible so that three Gods exist, each God would have completely independent thoughts and feelings. But the three Persons of the above Trinity theory share all thoughts, feelings, pain and glory with one another. The three Persons may be distinguished from one another, but they cannot be separated, because the three Persons are a phenomenon of one God that occurred due to his power to be. The God of Trinity has three Persons of the only God who is never to be separated.

 

Let us consider the Trinity in connection with the creation of the world. God's purpose of the creation of the world was to create human beings in order that he might be worshipped as God by them and might make them his children and live with them forever. God put his being in the space in the Person of the Holy Spirit so as to create the world in the space. And he extended his being into the Person of the Son so as to be the Savior and King of all humans. In addition, the God added the Person of the Son to his being so as to love humans and to be loved by them not only as the spiritual Father but also as a man. It was the eternal purpose of God. Thus God was Trinity from eternity.

 

We can say that Trinity is the nature of the God for he was Trinity from eternity. Three hypostases, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, constitute one substance of one God. There is one divine self-consciousness in the entity (the hypostasis) of each Person. These three divine self-consciousnesses are in mutual interaction. 삼위일체(samwi-ilche, 三位一體), a Korean version of Trinity, means three-persons─one-substance. Samwi-ilche expresses well that the three Persons make up one substance. A Person regards the other two Persons as himself, so it can be said that the three self-consciousnesses actually share the three hypostases. Nevertheless the incarnation of the Son may not be well explained unless not only the three self-consciousnesses but also the three hypostases are distinguished, yet inseparably integrated. Let's take a closer look at the word samwi-ilche. Samwi(three Persons)-ilche(one substance) must be dynamically interpreted as follows: Three Persons constitute the one substance of the God. Here, therefore, samwi does not refer to just the three divine self-consciousnesses but the three hypostases. So the Korean term samwi-ilche is a better expression of the existence of God. It expresses the dynamics of God's existence well. (The English term Trinity, in fact, means just 'three-one'.

 

Considering that there is 'power to be' in God, this is an attribute of God's nature (God's essence) so that, in a broad sense, Trinity, the mode of God's existence, belongs to the nature of God. 'Power to be' is a power to cause the self to exist. This 'power to be' is a power in the self, therefore it is a power to cause itself not from nothing but from itself. The subsisting God has this power of existence in himself as his eternal attribute. If he didn't have this 'power to be', how could he exist by himself? The present space momentarily exists and then disappears forever, and another space occupies the next present. But the God always occupies the present regardless of the passage of time because he has the power to cause himself to exist. And we can say that the God who can exist by himself is able to repeat his being so that the same God as himself appears (comes into being). Therefore the subsisting God necessarily has the power to exist as the Trinity. It's not difficult for 1 to be 2 and 3 if only 1 itself is possible. The God who exists by himself can have his second self and third self. Man wears clothes he wants. God who has ‘the power of being on himself’ takes his favorite mode of being.

 

God exists as Trinity to create the world in the empty space and rule over it. He takes such a mode of being because it is most rational. Creation in space is the work of the Holy Spirit himself. God, having the 'power to cause something to be' in himself, created spiritual matter by the power and created human spirits with it. God has two kinds of power of existence ─ the power to repeat his being and the power to create other beings different from himself. I would say a word to him who would claim that human soul is an emanation from the existence of God. "No! God created from nothing (in the empty space) the spiritual matter (something) by his power of existence."

 

Creation is the work of one God, the Trinity, so three Persons work together. Nevertheless each of the Persons has his particular role. All works of creation are done according to the plan (the will) of the Father. The second Person, that is, the Son, took his role as the son of the Father for he would be incarnated in a man. The Father and the Son can be present in the world through the Holy Spirit. (Of course, they can be present in the world independently of the Holy Spirit.) The Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Father and of the Son. The Person Holy Spirit is necessary because a divine Person must be present in the world before the incarnation of the Son and after the resurrection and ascension of the Son.

 

4. God who became a man

 

Of all the three Persons of the Trinity, it was the Son who became a man. The subject of the incarnation was the self-consciousness of the Son. The Son united the historical Jesus who had a perfect humanity, that is, human body, spirit and mind, with his divine hypostasis. (God has divinity, and man has humanity.) God-personality belongs to the self-consciousness of a God, and man-personality, to the self-consciousness of a man. Of course, God is a personal One, which means that God has divine intelligence, feelings and will. Here a person means a being who has intelligence, feelings and will. However person must be divided into God-person and man-person for the personality of God is essentially different from that of man.

 

As mentioned above, three hypostases of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished, jet inseparable from one another. At the moment of the conception of the perfect human Jesus, God the Son united the man with his hypostasis. So the incarnation didn't happen to the Father or the Holy Spirit but to the Son. The Son took a perfect humanity to (as) his being. It is like graft. A bud of another tree is grafted on a tree, and the two become one life so that the bud grows to bear fruits. The incarnated God ‘Jesus Christ’ is a One who grafted his perfect divine hypostasis and the perfect human entity (the human substance) together into one God-man─entity (one God-man─substance) who has God-man─personality into which a perfect God-personality and a perfect man-personality are incorporated. However the self-consciousness of Jesus Christ (the incarnated Son of God) is that of the Son who was with the Father from eternity. So the case is not that a man became a God but that the God became a man. In Jesus Christ, there are not both the self-consciousness of the Son and that of a man (Jesus) but is only that of the Son. This self-consciousness shows God-personality through the divinity, and man-personality through the humanity. In Jesus Christ (the incarnated Son) there are the will of the Son and the will of the man (Jesus), because Jesus Christ has also a perfect humanity (human spirit and body). If there is no human will in Jesus Christ, how can he say and walk on the ground? It is impossible to say and walk if there is no human will. The Son took all human attributes of a man when he was incarnated. Therefore there is a human will in Jesus Christ. There is one thing we should not misunderstand here. The union of divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ is not like Siamese twins, a union of two men who have independent will. There are two wills in the Siamese twins. But the two wills are independent of each other, because each of the twins has his own self-consciousness. In contrast to this, there is only one self-consciousness in Jesus Christ. This self-consciousness takes control of both the divine and the human will at the same time. Therefore, as a man of two hands does his works with the two hands, so Jesus Christ who has two natures of 'divinity and humanity' does his works by using both divine will and human will. There can never be conflict between the two wills, because the two wills are wills of the self-consciousness of a God-man. The divine will comes from the divinity, the human will, from the humanity. The two wills, too, are distinguished from each other, but can't be separated, that is, can't be in conflict.

 

The divinity and the humanity in Christ are united, being distinguished but not separated. Therefore the divinity was not changed to the humanity, nor was the humanity to the divinity; nor did the two natures remove their boundaries to be mixed into a third entity (a third substance). Look at your body. Many cells must keep their cell membranes and many organs must keep their form, identity and function so that they can work well. Your body functions normally when the cells in you are distinguished but not separated. We should not say that the union of divinity and humanity is impossible or that the divinity and the humanity, being completely different entities, work independently from each other. Jesus Christ is a perfect God and a perfect man. His body is the human body of the Son. So the perfect divinity is in the visible Jesus Christ. When people crucified Jesus Christ, he felt all the pain through his humanity. Some say the divinity of Jesus Christ didn't suffer at all then. What a ridiculous argument! Certainly Jesus Christ suffered through his humanity. However the subject of the suffering was the self-consciousness of the Son. The Son himself suffered through his humanity. Suppose your left hand is burnt. Now, is the pain of the left hand meaningless to your right hand because the right hand is not burnt? You won’t think so. You who have two hands will be painful when your left hand gets burnt. Likewise, God the Son who has two natures suffered greatly through his (acquired) humanity. Let me give you another example. Let's say a man who had no hands received a hand of some other man by transplant. But he got cut on the transplanted hand with a knife. Then the man will feel pain the cut of the transplanted hand will give. The incarnated Son, who had taken humanity, which he hadn't had, to his being, met people or was crucified through the humanity. You must not distinguish the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ too sharply like Nestorius.

 

What does it mean that the Son took Jesus of Nazareth, a perfect human being, as his being? Consider our brain and the members of our body. The mouth moves and says when the brain orders it. If we use frequently a member of our body, a part of our brain that controls the member changes and has a relatively more developed structure than the other parts of the brain. And the image signal that the eyes produce is transmitted to the brain, which interprets the image signal into an image. Like this, the brain and the members of the body are in an organic relationship. Let's apply this to the incarnation of the Son. If the Son is incarnated, we can expect at least these: >1. What the self-consciousness of the Son would do is transmitted to his humanity, and the humanity moves as the self-consciousness wills. 2. All the signals of the feelings of the humanity are transmitted to the self-consciousness of the Son, and the Son feels them. 3. In the hypostasis of the Son, there is a part that has some structure which is needed to use the humanity as his own organ (member of being).< From the moment the first human element of the Son was conceived in the Virgin Mary, the hypostasis of the Son was connected to the human part, and the divinity and the humanity were in an organic mutual relationship. The divine personality of the Son came to have (additional) human personality as the humanity grew. When a man gets married, at first he has only husband-personality; and after having a baby, he has father-personality also. The father-personality is an extended personality from the husband-personality. The husband-personality and the father-personality do not separate apart from each other because a son is born. Likewise, the Son before incarnation had only God-personality; and after the incarnation, as his humanity more and more grew, he had man-personality as well. At first the Son had child-personality, then youth-personality, and finally adult-personality. You must not think that the God-personality and the man-personality of the Son are separate because the humanity of the Son is perfect.

 

The question is, how the hypostasis and the humanity of the Son are united so that they interact to each other. The hypostasis of the Son is in the 'dimension of the existence of God' while his humanity is in the space, so it seems to me that the Holy Spirit in the space connects them. According to the Bible, the Son's humanity was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit. This could be a clue that the Holy Spirit is intermediating between the divinity and the humanity of the Son, I suppose. The Holy Spirit who is between the hypostasis and the humanity of the Son seems to connect the two, just as the nervous system between the brain and the eyes transmits the order of the brain to the eyes to move them, and the image signal of the eyes to the brain to cause it to recognize the image. Of course, the divinity and the humanity of the Son can be connected directly, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The important fact is that only the hypostasis of the Son has some structure that is connected to his humanity. And that only the will of the hypostasis of the Son is transmitted to his humanity for the movement of his humanity, and that all that happen in his humanity are transmitted only to the hypostasis of the Son so that his hypostasis recognizes them.

 

The Son took a man Jesus conceived in Mary as his being. So God the Son became a man. Jesus Christ, the incarnated Son of God, appeared as a man in the world. The self-consciousness of Jesus Christ possesses both the hypostasis of the Son and the human entity (human substance) of a man Jesus. When we see Jesus Christ, we see the Son. And we can meet the self-consciousness of the Father in the hypostasis of the Son where the self-consciousness of the Father is present. The Son spoke through his humanity the words of the Father who was present in the divinity of the Son.

 

Let's take a look at the earthly life of the Son. God the Son through and through lived as a man on earth, because he ought to be an exemplary human being to all humans. There was a reason why the Son was born in a poor house, committed no sin, obeyed God, and was subject to the system of the kingdom of God on earth. It was because of the final judgement of all human beings. Some sinners will say to Jesus Christ sitting on the throne of the final judgement, "You are not qualified to judge us who sinned as weak human beings, because you lived on earth by the power of God." However he can say to them, "You're wrong. I was born in a house poorer than your house. I lived a life only by a power of a man. I suffered very much, but didn't commit sins. So I'm qualified to judge you." How can the God judge human beings without having lived a life of a human being as a human being! It seems to me that Jesus Christ lived on earth as a prophet, giving up his divine power, but with the help of the Holy Spirit. Looking at Jerusalem, he wept. Rebuking the merchants, he drove out them from the temple. He prayed the Father to save him from the death of crucifixion before he was crucified. With that in mind, I think that the self-consciousness of Jesus Christ was that of the Son, but he showed thoroughly only humanity. Jesus said that he healed the demoniacs by the power of the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:28). That is, Jesus received the power of the Holy Spirit and lived as a servant of God and a prophet of God.

 

How is that possible? It is possible if he completely empties his mind. Suppose you are the king of a country. You have absolute power. But you can disguise yourself as a beggar and live as a beggar according to the discipline of the beggars for a while. Jesus Christ lived as a man strictly within the limits and discipline of men. It would be a foul if he made bread from a stone. It would be a foul if angels bore up Jesus on their hands when he fell from high place. (It would be a foul if the Father didn’t punish Jesus when he made the sins of all humans his sins.) Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, sought his will, and obeyed it. He worked miracle by the power of the Holy Spirit as the prophets of God did before. When the Devil tried to test Peter, Jesus did not immediately order the Devil to leave, but prayed to the Father, and consigned the matter to the Father and waited for his help. Like this, Jesus reserved (stopped) his divinity thoroughly and lived as a common man.

 

There are, though rarely, servants of God who have received the gift of seeing-through, and can find out exactly the diseased parts and even know the hearts of others. Some heal diseases. Moses divided the Red Sea with a stick. In view of this, the divine power of Jesus in the Gospel is not so different from the power of the Holy Spirit that came upon the other prophets (and the apostles). Of course, the power to change water into wine is unusual, but several miracles in the Old Testament are no less surprising than that. What I want to say is that Jesus Christ was clearly God, but he lived thoroughly as a man and prophet.

 

Jesus' coming into the world is not to abolish the law but to accomplish even an iota and a dot of the law. If there is not a man who was born a man and has kept all laws of God and has no sin, the law is not the law for man but the law for God. God the Son took human flesh and laid aside his divinity and kept all the laws of God as a mere man. Thus the law became a law that humans could and should keep. The law has at last seized a chance to be effective among humans. Now no one can refuse God's judgment, saying the law is too difficult for humans to keep. In that sense, the law was fulfilled in Jesus. And Jesus received the right to be judge of the final judgment from the Father after he himself had kept every clause of the law. If Jesus didn't strictly observe the law, how could he be the righteous Son of God? The Son became not only omnipotent but also righteous One by observing the law earnestly after the incarnation. A righteous one is he who has kept the law. The Son put on righteousness through the life of incarnation. By this righteousness Jesus was qualified to sit at the final judgment seat, and by this righteousness he was qualified to suffer the punishment of crucifixion for others.

 

5. God the Creator

 

The God who exists by himself exists as Trinity by his power of existence. When we see the world he made, we can see that he has infinite power. Really fortunately, this omnipotent God is full of love. The Creator is not a God who, hiding himself from people, torments them forever, but a God of great love and mercy. And really fortunately, he does not tell a lie. How comforting it is that the God who promised humans eternal life will never change his mind and destroy them! For us to live meaningfully forever is possible when the Creator God's wisdom is infinite. We can live meaningfully forever thanks to the faithful God.

 

The faithful God makes our sufferings in the world a crown in the eternal world. More precious than the golden crown in the eternal world is our suffering on earth for the kingdom of God. The memory of suffering will change into a loving heart then. The more you have suffered, the more you will be filled with love for the God then; and you will live with him with that love forever. But people only want to live an easy life today! The suffering, in a sense, on earth is the work (or the plan) of the faithful God. Praise God for keeping the wicked alive and releasing the Devil among the saints. The Devil and the wicked are our bread. Thanks to them, our faith, love, reward more and more increase. What a faithful God Jehovah is!

 

God the Creator had chosen those who would obtain the eternal life entirely according to his will. The reason why he had chosen them in advance was that he might not disappoint those who would live with him in heaven forever. The believers who will live in heaven will have a stronger sense of identity as a child if the God is their Father from the beginning rather than if he becomes their Father after he was not their Father. Before we are born, God predestinated that we be his children. By this will of God, we were born into the world, are trained and taught to be a mature man, and will go to heaven. God created the world to use it as a place where his children are born and raised. That is the main purpose of the creation. Seeing the beauty and grandeur of the world, the children of God realize the holiness and omnipotence of their Father whom they will meet in heaven. The Devil and the demons are just supporting actors, tools to train the children of God, and means to reveal God's righteousness.

 

I've written this to reassure you that you are precious children of God and that you will taste everlasting blessing and joy in heaven after death on earth. And I've written this to let you know that the original messages of the Bible remain the same truth although they were written in the worldview of the past. However advanced the modern science may be, it just say about the movement of the material matter not about the spirit of man. The truth of the Bible is not merely ethics, self-reflection and self-determination that just teach us to live a good life on earth. The truth of the Bible is a lamp that lights bright the way to the world where God as Father and man as his child can live happily for ever and ever. Our Christian thought must not be too much influenced by the development of modern science. We should keep the fast belief that heaven exists now with the equal possibility to the existence of this world. And we should interpret the Bible evangelically, and with the purpose of deepening the confidence in the future eternal life. This is not a new gospel. It is a suggestion that we should return to that hot, vivid and confident faith of the early church. We need to express the gospel more clearly in the modern language of theology, so that we can feel and serve the God more vividly. Isn't it natural that we feel the God closer as the heaven comes closer and the end of the world is nearer?

 

Bless the Lord only!

 

Chong Tack Kim (Z^_stevision)

 

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