We were talking about the Threeness of God on the last post.

The Trinity is a mind-boggling mystery. What we seem to have is a complicated divine society: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all plicated together in eternal common unity, eternally related and interactive with each other .

In spite of what theologians have maintained for centuries, God is not simple. God is singular, but not simple. Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, is commonly called one of the great monotheistic religions of the world, and it is. But it is not a simple monotheism. Christianity is a trinitarian monotheism. Without that modifier we cannot come to see God clearly. I am aware that talk about the Trinity has always been avoided as dull, abstruse, and irrelevant, but as you will see a bit later, it opens the way to a new perspective on God: a relative God.

Not only is God not singular, neither is he remote. God did not form a world, set its laws in motion, breath life into it, and then sit back to see how it all worked out. He stayed in touch. Still does. In Walter Mosely’s Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, Socrates Fortlow’s bitter aunt Bellandra Beaufort, used to tell him, "God ain’t nowhere near here, child, . . . He’s a million miles away; out in the middle’a the ocean somewhere. An’ he ain’t white like they say he is neither."
"God’s black?" little Socrates asked the tall, skinny woman."
"Naw, baby," she said sadly. "He ain’t black. If he was there wouldn’t be all this mess down here wit’ us. Naw. God’s blue."
"Blue?"
"Uh-huh. Blue like the ocean. Blue. Sad and cold and far away like the sky is far and blue. You got to go a long long way to get to God. And even if you get there he might not say a thing. Not a damn thing."
Aunt Bellandra’s God is not concerned with her; is not on her side. Life experience has left countless bitter people with a sense that God is neither interested nor available. If he is, he doesn’t care.

Not so with this biblical God. From the start he has been intimately involved with his handiwork. From walking with Adam in the cool of the day, to speaking to Moses from a bush, to his coming as Mary’s child, Jesus, who is called Emmanuel–God with Us–to "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself," he has been engaged and interactive with his special creation, his created image, homo sapiens, as we call ourselves. To acknowledge that God is interactive opens the way to a radical adjustment of how we look at God.
When God created the world, especially us humans, he entered the scene as a participant, interacting directly with his creation, even while allowing us humans the exercise of freedom. From the beginning God stays in touch. He mentors these inexperienced and vulnerable human beginners. God cares about them and cares for them; he attends to the needs of this special in-his-own-image-and-likeness creation. He creates them with potential, with an open future, and provides them with all the essentials necessary for the development of a rich and satisfying life. He gives both tender loving care, and the discipline that is needed if they are to reach their full potential.

If God cares about us, that means that we make a difference to God. God is moved by what we do or neglect to do. We affect God’s feelings. Our conduct has some bearing on the decisions God makes. In some sense he depends on us, another idea that runs contrary to the conventional picture of a God who needs neither help nor anything else from us. If God depends on us, at least for some things–for anything–he is to that degree vulnerable for we just might fail him (and often do). We and God share response-ability and mutual vulnerability. We re-spond reciprocally; we both can be wounded.

Moreover this means that human history, and each of us individually, has an open future. It is not an already settled, done deal. Erin O’Shaughnessy opens her novel, Pasaquina, postulating that "No Latino villager ever hurries, for, after all, where is there to go? They are either going to heaven or to hell, and that has already been decided. Only the Anglos hurry, and Father Herrera says that is because they are trying to live like hell on earth while at the same time planning how to cheat God into going to heaven at the last minute."

Whether O’Shaughnessy’s view reiterates a worn-out prejudiced stereotype or not, she makes it clear that many Christians of whatever ethnicity or nationality see Christianity primarily in terms of heaven and hell. Later, we’ll have to give some time to that misconception. Our immediate point, however, is the assumption that it really makes little difference what we do with our lives because God has already determined the future in its entirety. If God in any sense depends on our assistance–and as we shall see, he does--much of the future remains yet to be worked out. It means that a great deal of what happens is up to us.

To say we make a difference, that we affect, and that God is dependent implies that God can be changed. No idea is more firmly fixed in Christian thought than that God never changes. To even suppose that God might change threatens the whole picture. If God can change, is anything secure? And yet all through its pages, the Bible manages to affirm both that God changes, and that he can be trusted.

It isn’t just playing with words to suggest that if we affect God, that means he has affections, another idea contrary to conventional Christian teaching. Psychologists use the word "affect" differently from most of us. For them, a person’s "affect" refers to their "feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language." If we affect God, if God has affections (feelings, emotions), does God have an "affect?" Over and over the Christian Scriptures reveal a very affectionate God.

The proposal of a genuinely interactive God raises all kinds of questions. It may well make us uneasy but it also suggests adventure, excitement, and openness to refreshing, brand-new possibilities. It means we count for something; we are needed; our lives can take on new meaning and value. We make a difference to God, and to human history.