God’s Perfection Has No Bounds

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I would like to spend just a little more time speaking about God, about who he is. To be very honest I do not think that even if I were the most eloquent of men, and I’m not, that I will ever be able to do justice in speaking about God and who he is and what he’s done. Even if I were to speak and write about him for a million years, it will never be enough. Because he is so infinite in his being it just is not possible for any human being to fully describe who he is.

Very recently in my own parish community, someone asked me whether we were starting a charismatic group in the church. I believe the question may have come about as a result of the enthusiasm that I would normally put into anything that is related to the church. I would sometimes ask people to sing, in fact I would encourage them to sing and to give their all to God. I can’t remember whether I answered her, but in my mind and my heart I did. You see, in all that I say and do, my greatest desire is that others will come to experience but a small portion of God’s infinite love, and in so doing will strive to love Him in return. You see, I firmly believe that when we truly love God in return for the love that he has lavished on us, how we respond to him, how we demonstrate our very finite love for him, in response to His Infinite Love for us, how we live, will become like second nature. It will be like that woman in that story in one of the Gospels who came with that jar of precious ointment and was pouring it all over Jesus’ feet. That was her expression of loving him.

So in all that I say, in all that I do, my deepest prayer is that all whom I come into contact with, all whom I speak to will come to that deep and profound experience of the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus, a life changing experience that will cause them to love him in return and will cause me to love him even more. When we love, when we truly love, then we give totally and completely from the heart. When we can come to a place where we truly love God, then we would no longer be looking at going to Holy Mass as an obligation. Rather we will want to go to Holy Mass as often as we can. When we come to truly understand the love of God, and we strive to love him in return, we will no longer be looking at our watches during Holy Mass and wondering when will it end. When we come to truly understand, and abide in the love of God, there would no longer be a race to get out of the church as quickly as possible, and passing others who may be in need of a lift home as if they were not there.

So I suppose the question that can be asked at this stage is what does this have to do with God’s perfection? Well because of who he is, because He is God and he alone is God, he lacks absolutely nothing. So in him is found the fullness of all that is good. In him is found the fullness of holiness. In him is found the fullness of love. In him is found the fullness of beauty. In him is found the fullness of peace. In him is found the fullness of joy. In him is found the fullness of righteousness. In him is found the fullness of perfection.

The Bible tells us in Luke 8:19 “but no one is good but God alone.”

The Bible also tells us in Deuteronomy 32:4 that God is faithful and without iniquity and that he is just and right.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 221:-

But St. John goes even further when he affirms that God is love: God’s very being is love. By sending His only Son and the spirit of love into the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

God is eternal.

In the previous article that I wrote on God, I mentioned that he had no beginning and he has no end. God always was. There never was a time when he did not exist. Neither will there be a time when he ceases to exist.

Every created thing including mortal man was created for a time. I don’t know how long I will live but I do know that in my mortal body, in this mortal body I will not live forever – Thank God! There will come a time when I will cease to exist in this mortal body. Everything that is created; the trees, the birds, animals; nothing lasts forever. But God the Creator always was and always will be. He is not limited by time. He God, is eternal!

Psalm 90:2 tells us,

Before the mountains were born, before the Earth or the world it came to earth, you were God from all eternity and forever.

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that awesome?!

Then the prophet Isaiah tells us in chapter 54:10

For the mountains may go away and the hills may totter, but my faithful love will never leave you, my covenant of peace will never totter, says Yahweh who takes pity on you.

God is using the prophet Isaiah to tell His people that his love for them is eternal and it has no end.

I remember many years ago, one of the very hot selling items was encyclopedias. Many people made a living off of this; this was of course in the post Internet era, before the Internet took its root in our lifestyle. With the wealth of information that went into making a set of encyclopedias, can anyone truly claim that all knowledge is contained in any one set of encyclopedias? The answer is absolutely not! But in God, there is the fullness of knowledge. With God, I guess it can be said that there is no need for encyclopedias. God knows everything; past, present, future. There is nothing that God does not know. He knows every single detail about us. He knows every detail of where we have been. He knows every detail of what we have done. But yet in spite of it all, he can still say to us through the prophet Isaiah that my love will never leave you.

The psalmist puts it quite beautifully in Psalm 139 when he says:-

Yahweh, you examine me and know me,
You know when I sit, when I rise, you understand my thoughts from afar.
You watch when I walk or lie down, you know every detail of my conduct.
A word is not yet on my tongue before you, Yahweh, know all about it.
You fence me in, behind and in front, you have laid your hand upon me.
Such amazing knowledge is beyond me, a height to which I cannot attain.

Isn’t our God absolutely awesome?! Are you beginning to see the connection between what I shared in the very early stages of this article and what I am sharing now? It really is not possible to come to a glimpse of who God is, to come to experience a little snippet of His love, and not fall completely in love with him in return. It is just not possible. I would go as far as to say that anyone who claims to know God; anyone who claims to have experienced God’s love, and remain indifferent to his call, and remain indifferent to truth, and remain indifferent to sin, have never truly experienced God. It is simply not possible to experience God’s infinite love and God’s infinite mercy and remain the same. We can however close our hearts to his love and his mercy. In his infinite love, God has made us free. Unfortunately, many use that freedom to reject God and His love and His mercy and His grace.

God is all-knowing (omniscient).

There is nothing that God does not know; nothing in the past, nothing in the now, nothing yet to come that He does not know. He knows our past, he knows the present, and he knows our future. He is the God of infinite love and of infinite mercy. Should we not then place all our trust and all of our hope in him?

God is everywhere (omnipresent).

I remember as a child being taught in Sunday school that God was everywhere, and as a child I was awestruck by that. That wowed me. The adjective that describes this aspect of God is omnipresent. The psalmist again in psalm 139: 7-12 tells us:-

Where shall I go to escape your spirit?

Where shall I flee from your presence?

If I scale the heavens you are there, if I lie flat in Sheol, there you are.

If I speed away on the wings of the dawn, if I dwell beyond the ocean,

Even there your hand will be guiding me, your right hand holding me fast.

I will say, ‘Let the darkness cover me, and the night wrap itself around me,’

Even darkness to you is not dark, and night is as clear as the day.

So wherever we go, wherever we may find ourselves, we cannot escape the love and presence of God.

God is almighty.

God is almighty because he can do and make anything which is good and non contradictory. Thus God cannot commit sin because he can not contradict His infinite goodness. God cannot be infinitely good and sin. That is impossible and it is a contradiction. God is light and no darkness can be found in him. Hence why it is written in the first letter of Saint John chapter 1: –

This is what we have heard from him, and the message that we are announcing to you: God is light; there is no darkness in him at all. If we say we are in union with God while we are living in darkness, we are lying because we are not living in the truth. But if we live our lives in the light as he is in the light, we are in union with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us all from sin.

God is all-wise.

Yes he alone, the creator of all things, is all-wise. He knows what is best for all of his creatures, and that includes you and me. So we can trust God to handle anything and everything that concerns us. The psalmist tells us in Psalm 147 : 5

Oh my God is great, all powerful, of infinite understanding.

Summary

God is infinite and in him is found the fullness of all that is good.
God is infinitely good. His goodness is limitless as are all his perfections.
God is eternal. He always was, is now, and always will be.
God is all-knowing. He knows all things in the past, present, and the future. He knows all things that there ever could be.
God is not restricted to any one place. He is present everywhere, all the time. There is no place where God is not.
God is almighty and all-powerful because he can do and make anything which is good and non-contradictory.
God intimately knows what is best for all of his creation. He is therefore all-wise.
God is all-holy because he is infinitely full of all that is good and lovable.
God is all-merciful because there is absolutely no end to his mercy. As often as we are truly sorry and we repent of our sins, He will forgive us.
God is all-just. He is completely honest and true in all of his ways with everyone.