>>Home >>About MSIA >>The Theological Position of MSIA

Definition of God

The MSIA definition of God/Divine Being is not different than the definition used by other churches. And, if the definition in MSIA appears to change, so it is with other groups. Any definition of God changes over time, as do the names we give It.

We have already sent a number of books which we feel gives Revenue Canada a good idea of the close relationship we have to a divine being. In the event these documents have been lost, we offer the enclosed "What is the Power Within You". It starts this way:

There is one God. There is one intellect, which is God's intellect. There is one body, which is God's body. You are part of God. You are an extension of spiritual energy.

The texts show clearly that "MSIA is here on the planet for only one reason: "to conduct the Soul back to God", as is indicated on the front cover of our new brochure.

Even though God is by nature beyond definition, it has been the job of theologians to try and define It. The foremost non-denominational reference to religion attempts to define Deity in some 10 pages. It begins the 10-page definition in this way:

As a symbol, deity represents the human struggle at its highest; it represents man's effort to discover his identity in confrontation with the limits of his universe. Deity is the symbol of what transcends the human being and the symbol of what lies hidden most deeply within him. In his journey towards self-identity man encounters deity. In a cross cultural context, deity symbolizes the transcendence of all the limitations of human consciousness and the movement of the human spirit toward self-identity through its encounter with the ultimate.

We, in MSIA, agree with this definition.

It is our perception that the officials at Revenue Canada have a Judeo-Christian religious background and as I have said, I am attempting to explain MSIA in this kind of language. For this reason, I offer the definition of God from the New Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Supreme Being, Pure Act, First Cause of all, provident conserver and governor of the Universe; the Absolute - infinite, eternal, immutable, intelligent, omniscient, all-powerful, and free; the Creator, to whom creatures owe homage, respect, and obedience; the Sovereign Good, diffusive of all goodness, towards which everything tends as to its ultimate final cause; the supernatural source of revelation; the Godhead composed of three Divine Persons in one divine nature - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

The article which goes on for some 40+ pages. We in MSIA would agree with this definition also. In fact, we baptize members in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also use this language in another ritual, the baby blessing.

Theologians recognize that it is difficult to define God, and it is equally difficult to find a definition that works over time. As the many encyclopedias show, the definition of God, even the Christian God, changes over time:

The diversity of interests that lead to a reflection on God witnesses to the continuing importance of the topic. It also produces great confusion. It is not clear that the different statements using the word God have, any longer, a common topic. In the Christian context, however, one can almost always understand that, despite all the diversity of concepts and imagery, God refers to what Christians worship and trust. Further - with a few exceptions, such as Edgar S. Brightman and William JamesCGod is associated with perfection. Part of the confusion lies in the changing ideal. Whereas for many centuries it seemed self-evident to most Christians that the perfect must be all-determining, affected by nothing external to itself, timeless, and completely self-sufficient, that supposition is no longer evident today. Much of the debate about God is a debate about what we most admire and most desire to emulate.

To further illustrate the difficulty, from the same encyclopedia, we have:

Inherent in the theism where in the above understanding of the attributes is developed is a strong emphasis on God's transcendence in the world, without any denial of his simultaneous immanence therein. From the time of Hegel and Schleiermacher (in the mid-nineteenth century), emphasis begins to shift to the immanence of God. Classical theism is now confronted with a pantheistic notion of God (in which the world is God's unfolding of himself), or a panentheistic one (in which God and the world, without being identical, are correlates each necessary to the other). Insofar as this movement gains momentum, it undercuts the traditional doctrine of the attributes by focusing not only on what constitutes God absolutely, but equally on what constitutes him relatively, that is, insofar as he is determined contingently by creatures. This approach has been adopted notably by process theology. Differing from this but sharing some of its basic intuitions are various theologies following the modern stress upon subjectivity and self-consciousness. These tend to historicize the reality of God, viewing it more as event than being.

There is also a long article in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics on God in different traditions. The article on God (Biblical and Christian) is 17 pages long. It admits that the "Christian concept of God, as it is held today, is the product of a long history, which is the object of this article to trace in barest outline. It is the result of a gradual, but continuous, revelation on the part of God, together with a broken, fitful, and uncertain response on the part of man." We, in MSIA also are receptive to God who continually reveal Itself.

Revelation is by no means restricted to the Bible. Indeed as a possibility, divine revelation must be seen as coextensive with human experience. Insofar as the divine desire to give Godself is concerned, all of human experience is meant to be revelatory. The finality of revelation is not primarily an increase in speculative or practical knowledge but shared life, which necessarily involves knowledge but is not exclusively constituted by it.

Again, I draw your attention to the new MSIA brochure.

Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness Links
Prayer List   |   Headquarters