Friday, January 22, 2010

It Is What It Is


This morning I was thinking about the contemporary mantra "It Is What It Is," and I revisited my previous post about it.


As logically ridiculous as this expression is, I find myself using it from time to time. It usually comes cascading out of my mouth after I have worked myself into a near-frenzy while emphatically and conclusively demonstrating that somehow what is, isn't. Or what is, isn't really, though maybe sometimes.

It's as if I try to convince myself to not trust reality. Rather, I must shift reality somehow. The thing about trying to shift reality is that it never works. But I keep doing it. It must be entertaining.

The theological equivalent of the statement "it is what it is" is "is is." We should be able to say just "is." But we need to somehow fortify or clarify, and so we say "is is" or "God is." There is no blank to fill in after "God is." At least not logically. We do say things like "God is love" to help explain what God is like. But theologically, there is no word after "God is."

This why I say "I believe in God," rather than "I believe in a God" or "I believe in the God." God is not a being. God is being.

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