It’s not that I believe or don’t believe in a personal God. It’s that I feel kinda meh on the subject. We have so much that is personal to us, that addresses us as individuals. The more radical notion is a communal God, a corporate God. (Corporate in the sense of corporeal, relating to a gathered body. Not corporate in the monetary sense.)
I find it awesome that God has created us like Him, in that we each have separate personhood, intellect, and a mind / soul capable of thinking of the spiritual aspect of life. I find it even more incredible that God has revealed that all who trust in The Lord Jesus Christ will experience eternity with the same mind and personality (minus the sin) we have now, in a new body suited for that realm. It blows my mind that I will someday I will be able to stand next to family and brothers and sisters that are saved and see Christ and the new heavens and earth, and say, “wow remember back on earth?” He is personal and has made us like Himself, personal.
Dennis, what a beautiful articulation of the promise we have in Christ. And I agree with all of it, save perhaps the male pronoun for the Creator. Perhaps my initial “meh” about God’s personal nature comes from our cultural overdose of relationships being primarily personal. While that personhood of God is indeed amazing, (I love Hauerwas’s statement that truth is not doctrine, it is a person, the person of Jesus Christ.) all the more radical to me is that in the mystery of the Trinity God is also communal. And so God’s address to us comes not only at the personal level but the communal as well.