GOD is much bigger than the human mind can contain. So we focus on a facet of God. The concept we take affects our behavior in our daily lives and in the vigor we search for God and search for what would please Him. How He appears to us affects how we adore Him and love Him and our relationship with the rest of our world. Fr. Tom Green, S.J. uses three figures of God in his discussion on discernment which I propose to adopt together with an extra fourth figure. He uses that of God as a watch maker, a puppeteer, and a father. In the first figure of a watchmaker, He produces a masterpiece which He hurls out or gives away and never bothers with it again. The watch works following its own structures and operations but the watchmaker never intervenes to adjust it. Man with this concept of God is completely dependent on the laws of nature and science. He does not need to pray nor does he pray for there is no external intervention. 

The second concept is of God as a puppeteer who intervenes but is unaffected by any feedback or effort from the puppet. In this concept the creature has no liberty or capability for self development. A man with this concept is fatalistic, everything happens from the will of God without need of cooperation from man. Man in this case is passive with no incentive to exert any effort.

A third model is that of an arbitrary feudal chieftain who makes all the decisions. The Creator intervenes but the creatures or man has no freedom to make an independent decision. The fourth concept is the Creator as father whose objective is to bring man to the perfect and eternal happiness of union with Him. In this concept the Creator respects the freedom of the creature which is man’s most precious endowment whose exercise is the unique characteristic of man. No other creature now shares this attribute of God, namely, freedom. This jewel can also be the greatest burden of man. His responsibility is to use that freedom to keep on the right path towards the perfect happiness intended for him. With this concept of God, man realizes the responsibility to cooperate with God in developing his faculties to the fullest, while at the same time the need to pray for assistance from on high. In prayer the all knowing Creator already knows the petitions asked even before they are asked. Yet this prayer in a way is necessary to protect his freedom. Prayer then is a form of adoration and searching for the will of God. God as Creator rewards the good and punishes evil behavior. God as father guides man towards his eternal destiny. Man with this concept of God becomes a responsible yeoman conscious of his responsibilities to adore and love the Creator. He has the self-confidence to keep developing his faculties to the fullest as a form of adoration and cooperation with the Creator. He has the freedom to choose and at the same time the confidence that the father will assist him to avoid abuse of that freedom and avoid possible mistakes and their consequences.

Our view of God affects our ordinary behavior. We may view God as watchmaker who abandons his creation after it is finished. Man in this case would not pray since it is useless and feel no responsibility for others and the world around him. In the model of the puppeteer God intervenes in the affairs of man but in a manipulative way removing the freedom which is man’s characteristic endowment. In the case of a feudal chieftain again the freedom of man is curtailed therefore ruining the reflection of God’s attribute of freedom which only man of all creatures is endowed. In the final figure of a loving father, man is conscious of his responsibility to maximize his potentials in order to properly exercise the freedom he has as the crown of his God-given gifts. <emeterio_barcelon@yahoo.com>