A UNIVERSAL, INCORPOREAL, SPIRIT

(This is chapter four of my systematic theology of love in progress. I’d love to get your suggestions on how the chapter might be improved. That might include suggestion citations, ideas, grammar changes, and more. Paid subscribers will get a signed copy of the published book and will be mentioned in the book’s acknowledgments. Click here to get the whole chapter on Substack.)

CHAPTER FOUR

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I’m addressing three attributes in this chapter: God’s spiritness, bodilessness, and universality. The three are closely related. It’s hard to imagine how God could be present to every entity in every universe, for instance, if God had a localized body. But a universal and incorporeal spirit can be omnipresent. Exploring what this means helps us answer where and what deity is.

Theistic traditions speak of God as Spirit or a spirit. This is true to varying degrees of Christianity (pneuma and ruach), Judaism (ruach), and Islam (ruh), although many Christians adopt a trinitarian view that sees the Holy Spirit as one of three divine persons. Those in Bahai, Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian traditions use spirit language to talk about deity, and indigenous peoples and animistic traditions across the globe speak of the Great Spirit.^[1] How each tradition understands God as spirit varies, of course, and this diversity increases when one looks at movements and figures within each religion.^[2] But the fact that many religious traditions think of God as spirit is highly significant.

John’s gospel records Jesus identifying the “stuff” of the divine: “God is spirit” (2:24). This statement comes in Jesus’ conversation with a woman from Samaria. The woman came to this conversation alone, and she’d been married many times. Jesus’ disciples would have considered her a foreigner and a member of a false religion. In other words, this Samaritan was of the “wrong” faith, at a place not considered holy, without community, female, and not maintaining the primary relationship — wife — that society expected.

Jesus tells her that worshiping God is not confined to mountains or Jerusalem. He twice says believers “worship God in spirit and truth” (4:23, 24). Then Jesus says, “God is spirit.” The point seems to be that true worship is possible anywhere and for anyone, because God is a universal spirit rather than a localized object or regional deity. The Spirit of Love is not confined to sacred spaces, groups, genders, social expectations, or religions.

Universal?

Most theologians claim God is present to all creation. The usual word is “omnipresent.” If taken literally, that word could connote pantheism: God is everywhere because God is everything. To avoid this connotation, we need clarity.

Instead of omnipresent, I’m using “universal” to say the Spirit of Love is present to everyone and everything in every universe. The Spirit can be present to all without being all. For a host of reasons, I reject pantheism.^[3] Insofar as creatures are experientially affected by others, however, God is in all creaturely experiences, albeit with varying degrees of influence. I embrace a form of panentheism.

The biblical support for a universal God is not as clear as one might think. Various passages seem to support the Spirit’s universality. For instance, “’I am God at hand,’ says the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’” (Jer. 23:23-24). “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” asks the psalmist, as an apparently rhetorical question. “If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Ps. 139:7-8). Jeremiah speaks of a God who “fills heaven and earth” (Jer 23:23-24) and is the “God of all flesh” (32:27). Paul endorses the words of poets, which seem to suggest a university deity: “In [God] we live and move and have our being” (Acts. 17:28).

Other passages suggest God is not always present, however. “Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself,” says the writer of Isaiah (45:15). “Because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations,” says God in Ezekiel’s writings, “therefore I will withdraw” (5:11). The writer of 2 Thessalonians says some people “will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (1:9). God cannot be universal if sometimes withdrawing, hiding, or not present to some.

I interpret passages that say God is not present as reflecting 1) the writer’s feeling God is absent or 2) lack of creaturely cooperation with God. The first interpretation suggests that some passages reflect the author’s psychological state and not the truth about the universal deity. The uncontrolling Spirit of love can be present without creatures being aware of Her.

The second interpretation suggests that the manifestations of the Spirit of Love depend, in part, on how well creatures align with God’s call. Situations can be dire, seem God-forsaken, and generate evil consequences because creatures failed to cooperate with deity. The Spirit’s activity is more obvious when creatures align themselves with love, beauty, compassion, and justice. When we fail to re-present the Spirit well, God can seem hidden.

The universal presence of the Spirit is one way divine loving transcends creaturely loving. The extensiveness of the Spirit’s love is universal, whereas a creature’s love is localized. God loves the whole world (Jn. 3:16), and nothing can “separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:38f). By contrast, a creature’s love has a limited sphere of influence.

Not only is the Spirit universally present to all creation, all people and all creatures have access to Her influence. A God always available can realistically be understood to always care, always empathize, and always empower for the good. And if this Spirit is always uncontrolling, creatures possess the independence necessary for free decision-making and responsibility. To put it another way, the Spirit’s love is mother-like, without smothering.

(For the remainder of the chapter, click here for the Substack link.)