Prove that God is not relative. A couple of days ago I suggested several ways to do this. Today, I address the first three:

• God is not relative unless the Bible clearly reveals a trinitarian God.
• God is not relative unless the Bible clearly affirms that God is love.
• God is not relative unless the Bible asserts that all God wants of us is love.

Few readers would deny that the Bible clearly reveals a trinitarian God, clearly affirms that God is love, and asserts that all God wants of us is love. Some, however, would question how this demonstrates divine relativity. Therefore we will review each of these core Christian beliefs.

Love is a personal relationship. Love is the ideal way one person relates to another. Love relates persons. Love is relate-I’ve. Some have suggested that it would be better to say that love is relation-al. To say that love is relational is certainly true, but the word, relational,
breaks down to relate-ion-al. The relational is relative. (I hope you can relate to this.) Since God is love, God is relate-ive/relative in nature.

Christianity is not an ordinary monotheism. It, rather, is a trinitarian monotheism: one God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit, in eternal relation, eternally relating to each other in love. The heart of God is relate-ive/relative.

All of God’s laws, all God’s commandments, all of his requirements are subsumed under the greatest commandment: to love God and to love each other–to rightly relate to God and each other. Everyone is relative to God; God is relative to everyone and everything. Some of us relate rightly, some wrongly. God relates to some of us with blessing and to others he relates his disfavor.

The Trinitarian God is internally and eternally relative. Humanity was created relative to God, to each other, and to the rest of his creation. God is relative to all creation; all creation is relative to God.

In the great ecological web of life, everything is related, ultimately to everything, supremely to God. Relational disconnect is impossible in a world created by the trinitarian God who is love.

I realize that I am using “relative” in a special way, but it is a valid usage of language, and it is sound reasoning. In our next blog I will talk about a second usage of relative, one that echoes throughout the Bible.

I realize also that today’s blog is somewhat abstruse. I will try to avoid this kind of writing as much as possible.

I realize also that this has been repetitive and reiterative, but “repetition is the mother of learning.”