In antiquity many knew and spoke about the God who is "unlike anything." In fact, the whole apophatic tradition proceeds from the understanding that God or the Absolute is so unlike anything in our world that He can be defined not by likening Him to anything, but by unlikening Him from everything...
In antiquity many knew and spoke about the God who is "unlike anything." In fact, the whole apophatic tradition proceeds from the understanding that God or the Absolute is so unlike anything in our world that He can be defined not by likening Him to anything, but by unlikening Him from everything and everyone. Of course, no positive definitions are possible in this case; only negative ones are possible. And certainly all this can be applied fully to the God of Israel. Yet there is an essential difference between the God of the Bible and the Supreme Mind or Absolute of Greek or Indian mystics. Neither the Supreme Mind nor the Absolute condescends to the human person, who is absolutely indifferent to them. But from the very beginning of the history of Yahwism, the God of Israel speaks with the human person, overcoming the abyss that separates Him from the human person, while remaining infinitely distant in His essence from the person with whom He communicates. So in what does the dissimilarity of which the prophet speaks consist? And in what sense, then, does the Bible say of the human person that he is created "in the image and likeness" of his Creator? Perhaps in the fact that every person is always in some way similar to every other person, possessing self-consciousness and free will? Yes, perhaps. But here, apparently, also lies the main dissimilarity between God and every creature. Everything created is in one way or another subject to certain laws external to itself that limit it. Everything created is natural, even if the creature has a spiritual principle, as for example humans or angels do. And nature is always limited; it is limited by definition, insofar as it exists according to laws that it did not establish for itself. Even a spiritual creature is limited: the self-consciousness and free will proper to every spiritual being are preserved, but the measure of this freedom remains incomplete. Full freedom is possible only when the one living determines for himself the laws by which he lives, and determines them fully and absolutely. But only God can possess such full freedom, for He Himself determines for Himself all forms of His own being. For Him there are no external laws with which His will would have to reckon, and His freedom is absolute. Here, apparently, lies the main difference between God and the created world. This difference will remain forever: even after transformation, creation will not cease to be creation; it will only begin to exist according to other laws. Only for God does no external law exist. And therefore no limits and no boundaries exist.
