Q: I see the title of the new DVD in your store, “God is All, in All”, and it makes me wonder about the transcendent nature of God. Is God transcendent? Or, is “God is All, in All” a way of saying that God’s immanent?
A: It is not a matter of either or, but “both and”.
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, transcendent is defined as “existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe Рoften contrasted with immanent Рpermanently pervading and sustaining the universe.”
Let me share one very interesting quote from Joseph Ratzinger:
‚Äú‚ĶIs God, somewhere, a deep dimension of all being, holding up everything like buoyant water, as it were, with no one knowing how or is He the one who acts, who has power, who knows and loves his creation, is present to it and active in it, forevermore, even here and now? ‚ÄòBorn from the Virgin Mary‚Äô is in its core a theological statement: it testifies to a God who has not abandoned his creation. On this is based the Christian’s hope, his freedom, his serenity and his responsibility‚Äù Christ became man so that we can share in the divine.
And a few Scripture passages:
“When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will (also) be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).
“One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).
-Fr. Carl
