Psychology of God/Man relationship

[Nick_A]

Since I’ve begun posting in ILP, I’ve noticed how much conflicting emotion is caused by the word “God”. So many of us, including me, have grown up with this word that has raised so many emotions in us.

I’d like to get your feedback from this passage by a Dr. Maurice Nicoll that was sent to me a while back. Is “meaning” an easier way to define God for yourself as suggested here or does even “meaning” raise the hair in the back of the neck that it does with some. Does it make sense for you psychologically to define God as meaning and letting the hurtful invented connotations fade away?

“At the beginning (of time) Meaning already was, and God had meaning with him, and God was Meaning.” John 1:1

When a man finds no meaning in anything he has at the same time no feeling of God. Meaninglessness is a terrible illness. It has to be got over. It is the same as godlessness, because if you say there is no God you are saying that there is no meaning in things. But if you think there is Meaning, you believe in God. Meaning is God. You cannot say that you do not believe in God but believe that there is meaning in things. The two are the same, in that one cannot be without the other. God is meaning. If you dislike the word God, just say the word meaning instead. The word God just shuts some people’s minds. The word Meaning cannot. It opens minds.

Meaning was before time began. It was before creation, for creation occurs in running time, in which birth and death exist. Birth and death belong to the passage of time. But meaning was before Time and creation in Time began. there is no way of describing existence in the higher dimensional world outside of time, save by the language of passing time - of past, present, and future. Meaning is - not was - before the beginning of creation in time. It does not belong to what is becoming and passing away but to what is above Time. if then, there is Meaning above our heads, what is our meaning by creation?