The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe

by Richard Rohr

That God is not an old man on a throne. God is Relationship itself, a dynamism of Infinite Love between Divine Diversity, as the doctrine of the Trinity demonstrates. (Notice that Genesis 1:26–27 uses two plural pronouns to describe the Creator, “let us create in our image.”) That God’s infinite love has always included all that God created from the very beginning (Ephesians 1:3–14). The connection is inherent and absolute. The Torah calls it “covenant love,” an unconditional agreement, both offered and consummated from God’s side (even if and when we do not reciprocate). That the Divine “DNA” of the Creator is therefore held in all the creatures. What we call the “soul” of every creature could easily be seen as the self knowledge of God in that creature! It knows who it is and grows into that identity, just like every seed and egg. Thus salvation might best be called “restoration,” rather than the retributive agenda most of us were offered. This alone deserves to be called “divine justice.” That as long as we keep God imprisoned in a retributive frame instead of a restorative frame, we really have no substantial good news; it is neither good nor new, but the same old tired story line of history. We pull God down to our level.