Religion

Reflection Paper

"Who is God?", this becomes as impossible a question to answer as the question "Who am I?". Michael Himes, the author of this book which is called, Doing the Truth In Love, expresses his ideas and thoughts on how we are supposed to think about God, feel about God, and understand who and what God is. Mr. Himes, explains first and foremost that God is a mystery. He gives his opinions on how He is mystery and on how we should identify "God with God". Himes states that God is agape, unconditional love. My problem with this is how does Himes know who or what God is? He has never met God, to find out and he has never asked God either. We believe that God has undying and pure love for us but we don't know that for sure. God is the Trinity, meaning the father, son, and holy spirit. So is it that when Himes means that god is mystery, agape, and relationship; he means that the trinity stands for these three definitions of God? I think so.

God is a mystery because we can't fully understand God. We know he exists but we haven't seen him, heard him talk or touched him, so how do we know he is not a complete mystery, I believe that to learn and understand God to our fullest capabilities, we have to undergo a "leap of faith". We have to be willing to read and understand God's message to us. We have to understand what He went through and why He did the things, he did. For example, he died for us. Why did He do this when He could have simply said "no"? I feel he died for us to have a better life and to be dependent

for ourselves instead of having Him "spoon feed" everything to us. He wanted to see that if what he created could function and rely on each other to benefit ourselves.

God is agape, because he loves us. As you said, Mr. Z, "God loves us simply because we exist. I am with you one-hundred percent. I understand that completely, because if He did not love us, he would not only let us live, but we would cease to exist. The best example I heard, is how you used your daughter, Maria, and how you said that after 30 some years you still don't understand agapic love. But you also said that in the past 19 months , ever since that little special person, your daughter, was brought into your life, you have seen a little of that agapic love, and have begun to understand it a little more. You