Following up on yesterday's post on God's incomprehensibility, I want to share an eloquent excerpt on the same subject from the work of Boston College professor Fr. Michael Himes, S.J.:

To begin, what do we mean within the Christian tradition by the word God? God is not anyone's name. There is not some person out there someplace, much older, much wiser, much more powerful than you or I whose name is God. God is not the name of a class of which there happens to be only one member.
 

The word God is a bit of shorthand, a stand-in which functions in Christian theology almost as x functions in algebra. When working an algebraic problem, one's central concern is x. But x is the stand-in for the thing one doesn't know. That is how God functions in Christian theology. It is the name of the Mystery that lies at the root of all that exists. We must never forget that we are talking about mystery.

Matt Emerson's essays have appeared in a number of publications, including America, Commonweal, and the Wall Street Journal. The Catholic Press Association named his September 2012 essay "Help Their Unbelief," published in America, as the "best essay" in the category of national general interest magazine for 2012. He is the author of the book Why Faith? A Journey of Discovery (Paulist Press 2016).Articles:Fruitful Searching (Jan. 5-12, 2015)Preambles for Faith (May 13, 2013)Help Their Unbelief (Sept. 10, 2012)Posts at The Ignatian Educator