The Mystery of “I Am”: Unveiling God as Being Itself

Abstract:
This essay embarks on a poetic and philosophical journey into the biblical claim that God is “I Am.” We explore the fourfold dimensions of this concept: (1) Its Scriptural and Ontological Foundations in Exodus 3:14 and across theological traditions; (2) The Mystery of the Invisible Presence, where the ineffable divine “I Am” meets human understanding; (3) Patterns, Consciousness, and the Image of God, linking universal truths and human creativity to the divine Logos; and (4) The Fall, Free Will, and the Knowledge of Good, examining how human morality and freedom mirror the divine image. Throughout, we interweave voices from the Bible and early mystics, language and symbols, creation’s echoes from the Big Bang to moral law—all converging into the profound affirmation that “God = I Am.” The tone is poetic and reverent, yet intellectually sharp, inviting the reader into a multidimensional contemplation of sacred mystery.

📖 Part 1 – Scriptural and Ontological Foundations

The Burning Bush: “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” and the Hebrew Context

In Exodus 3:14, Moses encounters a paradox in the burning bush. God names Himself “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”—commonly rendered “I Am Who I Am.” In Hebrew, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה is a phrase brimming with meaning. Ehyeh is a form of the verb hayah, “to be,” carrying both present and future connotations: “I am” and “I will be”. This divine self-disclosure is not a conventional name; it’s a statement of being and presence. Rather than giving Moses a handle by which to conjure or control, God reveals an identity that transcends naming and categorization

. The Israelites in bondage didn’t need an abstract ontology lesson, they needed assurance of God’s presence. Thus, Ehyeh also implies “I am present” or “I will be [with you]”. God is telling Moses: the One who sent you is Being itself made present, Being-for-us, unconfined by past or future, eternally “I Am.”

This revelation stands in stark contrast to other ancient Near Eastern deities. Pagan gods often had specific names tied to roles or elements (e.g., a storm god or a harvest goddess). They were individual beings within a cosmos. Here, however, Israel’s God is revealed not as a being among others, but as Being Itself

. The name given—YHWH (the Tetragrammaton)—derives from the same Hebrew root for being (הָיָה) and is understood to mean “He Who Is”. This name is considered so sacred in Jewish tradition that it is left unpronounced, replaced with titles like Adonai (“Lord”)

. Unlike gods of neighboring cultures who could be invoked by name and manipulated, the God of Israel resists such control: “I Am Who I Am” denotes an utterly free, self-existent Being. As Gregory of Nazianzus observed, God’s “absolute existence” stands independent of anything else—an idea foreign to mythologies where gods sprang from primordial chaos or fought other powers. YHWH has no genealogy, no rivals; He simply IS.

Names of God: Elohim, YHWH, Adonai, and More

Throughout Scripture, various names and titles for God reveal different facets of His identity:

Elohim: The plural form used from Genesis 1:1, suggesting God’s majesty and power as Creator. While grammatically plural, it functions as singular, hinting at a fullness or multiplicity within the One (early Christians later saw a veil of the Trinity here).
YHWH (Yahweh): God’s personal name given to Israel, rooted in “being.” Wherever “the LORD” (small caps) appears in English Bibles, it’s this unpronounceable Name, signifying God’s eternal, self-sustaining life.
Adonai: Meaning “Lord,” emphasizing God’s sovereignty and authority. Pious Jews say “Adonai” instead of pronouncing YHWH, keeping reverence for the Holy Name.
El Shaddai: Often translated “God Almighty,” a name used in the patriarchal narratives. It conveys God’s ultimate power and sufficiency, the One who nourishes and sustains.
El Elyon: “God Most High,” pointing to God’s supremacy over all other powers or gods.
Theos, Kyrios: Greek terms (for “God” and “Lord”) used in the New Testament, especially once the message expanded to Gentile audiences. Kyrios (Lord) in the Septuagint and NT often stands in for YHWH, meaning that when early Christians called Jesus Kyrios, they ascribed to Him the divine Name and authority.
Father: The name Jesus most frequently uses, unveiling an intimacy within God’s being, and inviting us into that relational understanding (more on this in Part 2).

Each name serves a function in Scripture, yet none fully contains God. In a sense, all the names circle around the burning bush mystery of “I Am.” The biblical terms aim to describe God’s interactions and attributes (Creator, Almighty, Lord, etc.), but Exodus 3:14 uniquely unveils God’s ontological secret: that His very essence is to be. God is not merely the highest on a scale of beings, but existence underived – “He Who Is”. Christian theologians seized on this. Saint Augustine marveled, “What mind can grasp ‘I Am who I Am’?” He concluded that God’s very nature is unchangeable being. Thomas Aquinas later expounded that all creatures have being as a received gift, whereas God alone is Being in Himself. He frequently referred to God as “Ipsum Esse Subsistens” – the Subsistent Act of To-Be. In other words, if you could peel back reality itself to its core, you would not find an abstract state or infinite void, but God – actively being, pure Esse. Aquinas, echoing Exodus, wrote: “This is God’s proper name: He Who Is”. For any creature, what it is (essence) is distinct from that it is (existence). But in God, there is no distinction; God’s essence is existence.

Early theologians and mystics echoed this theme. The Cappadocian father Gregory of Nyssa insisted that when God told Moses “I Am He Who Is,” He declared His real, unique existence, in contrast to the fleeting or illusory being of idols. God alone truly IS, and everything else only borrows existence from Him. Pseudo-Dionysius and the apophatic tradition would even say God “is beyond being” – not in the sense of non-existence, but in being so truly real that our category of existence fails to capture Him. Meister Eckhart, the German mystic, preached that in Exodus 3:14, God revealed Himself as “plenitude of being, pure naked existence… without this or that quality”. For Eckhart, God is an eternal boiling cauldron of being – an overflow of life that ever pours into creation without being emptied.

In the Judeo-Christian view, God’s name reveals Being itself – not a being among others. The pagan question, “which god is appearing?” is met with God’s answer: the only One who IS. This is a profound philosophical statement nestled in narrative form. Little wonder then that later centuries saw convergences between this revelation and classical metaphysics (as seen in Augustine, Aquinas, and even comparisons to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover or Plato’s Good beyond being). The Bible’s use of YHWH and Elohim might not read like a metaphysics textbook, but early Christian thinkers like Gregory of Nazianzus felt that the “metaphysic of Exodus” was confirmed by the whole Biblical witness. Ethically and devotionally written though it is, the Old Testament’s insistence on God as the sole Creator implies the same truth: everything else is contingent; only God is self-existent.

Early Theologians and Mystics on “He Who Is”

Church fathers and mystics found endless depth in “I Am”:

St. Augustine – In his Confessions, Augustine reflects on God as “higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self”. Struggling to comprehend “I Am Who I Am,” he understood it to mean God is unchangeably eternal. What truly is must always be; change implies a transition in being (something was and now is not). So God’s declaration signals an existence with no past or future, an eternal present. Augustine wrote, “God is being itself, the essence of which is beyond human comprehension”. He contrasted this with our creaturely state: we exist in flux, only partially real because we’re mixable with non-being (we can not be at some point or in some way). But God is fully real, with no admixture of nothingness.
St. Thomas Aquinas – We’ve seen how Aquinas systematized this: God as actus essendi (the Act of Being). Drawing directly from Exodus, he taught that in God alone “essence is identical to existence”. All other beings have existence (and can lose it), but God is existence and thus exists necessarily and eternally. Aquinas also observed that “He Who Is” fittingly reveals a God who is outside of time (since the phrase is present tense, without past or future).
St. Gregory of Nyssa – In his Life of Moses, Gregory offers a beautiful mystical progression. He notes that Moses first approached God in light (the burning bush), then in a cloud, and finally, “Moses entered the darkness where God was”. This dazzling darkness signifies that as one ascends in understanding, concepts fall short and God is met in the cloud of unknowing. Gregory ties this to “I Am” by saying the ultimately real God is found beyond all mortal seeing. We begin with clarity (God exists), move to obscurity (we cannot comprehend He Who Is), and finally realize that the truest knowledge of God is that He exceeds all knowledge. The One who IS dwells in light unapproachable and in a darkness of mystery. This idea harmonizes with apophatic theology, which we’ll expand on in Part 2.
Pseudo-Dionysius – This enigmatic 5th-century writer likewise speaks of God as the “One who is beyond being” and uses Exodus 3:14 in his treatise The Divine Names to illustrate how even the term “being” ultimately fails to describe God. In a paradoxical way, saying God is affirms His reality to our minds, but God’s mode of being is so unique that it’s “super-essential.” Thus Dionysius would pray to “the nameless One, the I Am beyond all name.”
Meister Eckhart – As mentioned, Eckhart revels in the notion of God’s pure being. He even speaks daringly of the soul’s oneness with God in the ground of being, implying that the same I Am animating existence shines at the spark of the soul. (He was careful to maintain distinction, but his language soars in mystical union imagery.)
Thomas Merton & Modern Mystics – In the 20th century, contemplatives like Thomas Merton recaptured the mystical sense of God as the hidden ground of our being. Merton described a “point of nothingness” in the soul – an inmost sanctuary where God’s image shines in us, inviolable and pure
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. This isn’t a negation of being, but the point where God’s pure Being touches our created being. Merton’s famous Louisville vision (standing on a city street, overwhelmed by love for every stranger around him) arose from sensing that each person secretly “shines like the sun” with the presence of God. This realization – that at the heart of reality and each person is the great I Am upholding us – is a modern articulation of the ancient truth.

Thus, from early fathers to modern seekers, “I Am” has been a wellspring of spiritual insight. It anchors God’s transcendence (He is beyond all) and immanence (closer to us than we are to ourselves). The name is a beacon of philosophic clarity (God = Being) and a lure into mystical contemplation (God infinitely exceeds our grasp).

Jesus’s “I Am” – The Word Made Flesh Speaks the Ancient Name

No exploration of God as I Am is complete without turning to Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, Jesus utters a series of “I Am” statements pregnant with meaning: “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the resurrection and the life,” and climactically in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

That last statement nearly got Him stoned on the spot. Why? His Jewish listeners recognized it as an implicit claim to divinity. Jesus did not simply say “before Abraham was, I was,” which would be astounding enough (claiming pre-existence). He deliberately said “I AM,” echoing the very Name of God revealed to Moses. The Greek phrase “Ego eimi” by itself just means “I am,” but given the context and the Old Testament background, the Gospel writer clearly intends the allusion to Exodus. In fact, the Septuagint (Greek OT) renders “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” in Exodus 3:14 as “Ego eimi ho ōn”, meaning “I am He Who Is”

. It further says, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: Ho ōn (The One Who Is) has sent me to you.” In Revelation, John expands this Name into a title for God: “He who is and who was and who is to come”, essentially a paraphrase of the eternal I AM. So when Jesus uses ego eimi in an absolute sense (“Before Abraham was born, I AM”), He is identifying Himself with the eternal being of God. Little wonder the crowd reacted; they heard it as blasphemy – unless it were true.

Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus personalizes the ancient Name. Each “I Am something” statement ties the ineffable I Am to a relatable image: bread, light, shepherd, vine, truth, life. It’s as if in Jesus, the transcendent “I Am” now speaks to us face to face, in words and metaphors we can begin to grasp. John 1:1 had already prepared us: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos)… and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh”. The Logos (rational principle, divine self-expression) that is God comes to dwell among us as Jesus of Nazareth. He can say “I Am” in two natures – as the humble son of Mary and as the eternal Son of God. Thus Jesus Christ becomes the perfect bridge between the incomprehensible I AM and human understanding.

When Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life” or “I am the light of the world,” we hear the voice from the burning bush resonating in new frequencies. Now Being Itself wears a human face, Truth Itself speaks in human words. Each of Christ’s “I Am” claims invites us to fill in the blank with our need: I Am your bread, sustaining you; I Am your light, guiding you; I Am your life, raising you from death. Yet all these predicated statements derive from His deeper identity: “I and the Father are one.” Jesus can say “I Am” without predicate, walking on the water (John 6:20) or in the garden of Gethsemane, where His mere utterance — “I am (he)” — knocks soldiers backward (John 18:5-6). These moments show that the full power of “He Who Is” resides in Him.

Early Christian thinkers were struck by this continuity. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in defending the deity of the Son, emphasized that when we say God, we must include Jesus, for the true God revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Name I AM ultimately encompasses this triune life – one divine Being, three Persons co-equally “He Who Is.” Gregory pointed out that Jesus, the Word, was present in the burning bush and in all the Old Testament theophanies, as the One through whom the Father is revealed. Athanasius wrote that the very Logos who said “Let there be light” in the beginning also said “I am the light of the world” in His incarnate ministry.

Thus, in Jesus’s “I Am” statements, the infinite becomes intimate. The abyss of pure Being that made Moses tremble now draws near in flesh and blood, not to eliminate the mystery but to invite us into it personally.

In summary, Part 1 has established that from Sinai’s fire to the sermons of Jesus, “I Am” is the ultimate self-disclosure of God. It signals God’s eternal, self-existent nature – Being itself, Source and Ground of all that is.

It also discloses a God who is with us, present to sustain and save (the context in Exodus and in Christ). Theology, linguistics, and devotion converge on this point: God is the One who is, who was, and who is to come. We now turn to probing the mystery and paradox this entails in our understanding of God.

🌌 Part 2 – The Mystery of the Invisible Presence

Inward and Beyond: “I Am” as an Apophatic Beacon

When God says “I Am Who I Am,” it both reveals and conceals. It reveals that God truly is – more real than the world which had so enslaved Israel – yet it conceals God in a cloud of mystery. A name like Ra or Zeus could be slotted into mythologies; “I Am” melts the mental circuits. It forces us inward and upward beyond normal conceptualization. The invisible God gives a name that turns our minds from idols and images toward being itself, something we cannot visualize. This is where apophatic theology (the way of negation) becomes helpful. Apophatic teaching says the most truthful way to speak of God is by recognizing how utterly beyond our comprehension He is. For every positive attribute we say (God is good, God is love, God is power), we must remember God is good without limitation, love without condition, power without composition – in ways that transcend our understanding of those words.

“I Am” functions as an apophatic name. It tells us God is, but does not say what God is in terms of form or category. In a sense, it’s not a name at all (as God effectively says, “you cannot name Me like other things”).

It’s a bit like saying: If you must call Me something, call Me Existence. All else about God – what He is – must be pursued in the knowledge that our ideas will fall short. As Gregory of Nazianzus cautioned, even using the same letters to write “God” and other words made him uneasy, so far above all else is the divine nature. “He Who Is” was for him the most fitting title, precisely because it “surpasses all thought and time and nature”.

Yet, paradoxically, this nameless name “I AM” also draws us intimately close. It points inward. Where do I find this God who simply is? Not in a statue or a cloud or a concept, but at the very root of my own being, and beyond, in a place beyond places. Augustine pursued God inwardly: “You were more inward to me than my most inward part”, he exclaims. This interior turn is a hallmark of Judeo-Christian spirituality. Unlike the Babylonians who looked to the stars, or the Greeks who speculated in the abstract, biblical faith says God’s presence is with us – as near as our heartbeat, as present as our existence.

When Elijah experienced God on Horeb, it was not in wind, fire, or quake, but in a “still, small voice” (a sound of sheer silence). So too “I Am” invites a silencing of images and noise to encounter the One who is invisible yet undeniable. Apophatic mystics like the author of The Cloud of Unknowing or John of the Cross would say that to meet God, one must enter the cloud of unknowing, surrendering intellectual grasping. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses beautifully portrays how ascending Sinai, Moses first sees God in light, then in cloud, then in darkness. The darkness wasn’t the absence of God, but the overshadowing presence of the God who can’t be seen with mortal eyes. Moses “saw God in the darkness,” meaning he experienced God beyond vision or concept.

This is the “invisible yet revealed” paradox: God is everywhere present (all of creation reflects God’s glory), yet God as God is never a thing in creation. St. Paul echoed this in Athens, telling Greeks that God is “not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28). Indeed, a later Christian poet would say God is “the One in whom all existence exists.” We swim in the sea of God’s to be. As Paul Tillich put it, God is the Ground of Being – “not a being, but Being-Itself”. Therefore, any attempt to carve an image or fully define God will fail; God is the Reality in which all images reside.

Yet, lest we drift into a vague abstraction, the Biblical revelation insists God also speaks, relates, loves, wills. “I Am” doesn’t mean an impersonal force; it’s spoken in the context of a relationship (“I am the God of your fathers… I will be with you”). So apophatic negation (saying what God is not) must be complemented by kataphatic affirmation (saying what God is, analogically). God is invisible yet revealed – revealed truly in Scripture, in Christ, in creation, but never exhausted by those revelations. This guards us from both idolatry and agnosticism: we truly know God through His self-disclosures, but we never comprehend Him entirely. As Gregory Nazianzen said, our impressions of God from creation are like “a swift bolt of lightning” – in a dark night, it illuminates briefly and then it’s gone. We gain glimpses that awaken desire, leading us on, purifying us, making us more “deiform” (God-like) as we yearn for the Unseen One.

Jesus: Making the Ungraspable, Graspable

Enter Jesus once more. “No one has ever seen God,” writes John, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made Him known” (John 1:18). Here is the marvel: the I AM who cannot be seen or named becomes flesh so we can see and name Him. Jesus doesn’t abolish the mystery (He often increased it with parables and paradoxes!), but He accommodates it to our condition. Christ is, in person, what the burning bush was in symbol: the place where God’s presence burns visibly without consuming or being consumed. The bush burned yet remained green; Mary bore the Infinite yet remained a virgin; Jesus died yet destroyed death. The early Church saw the burning bush as a type of the Incarnation, even depicting the Virgin Mary and Christ Child mystically in the flame of the bush in icons. In Jesus, “I Am” has a heartbeat. The unknowable wears a human smile.

Consider how Jesus handles the Name. In Gethsemane, when the soldiers seek Jesus of Nazareth, He replies “I am he” (in Greek, “Ego eimi” without a predicate). John notes they fell to the ground. A simple word from His lips revealed a sliver of divine majesty—the power of Being itself, before which non-being recoils. Yet this same Jesus reaches out to touch lepers, to weep at a friend’s tomb, to wash disciples’ feet. The great I AM becomes Emmanuel (“God with us”), not only in a general sustaining way, but personally, tangibly.

Jesus thus solves a paradox: how can the formless One be seen? By taking form. How can the eternal Word be heard? By becoming flesh, speaking human words. As Hebrews 1:3 beautifully states, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His being, upholding the universe by the word of His power.” In Jesus, the imprint of God’s being is accessible; we have a bridge from the world of form to the formless Source. He upholds the universe (divine “I Am” power) yet walks within it (creaturely existence). This is why Christians proclaim Jesus as the only Mediator: He mediates between I AM and “I am not” (us creatures who are not our own being). He even mediates in language: “Father… I have made your Name known to them” (John 17:6). And what name did Jesus constantly make known? “Father.” Here we realize: the full meaning of “I Am” isn’t solitary existence, but relational being. The Father is the source (I Am), who eternally begets the Son (the “I Am” spoken, the Word), and breathes forth the Spirit (Love as Being in action). Jesus reveals that the eternal I AM is an eternal communion of love, now reaching out to include us. The Son, who is one with the Father’s being, can say “Before Abraham was, I Am,” and also, “I and the Father are one.”

Thus, Jesus makes the ungraspable relatable without diminishing its transcendence. It’s like bringing an infinite light into a finite prism: the light remains infinite, but now refracts into colors we can see.

Creation’s Testimony: From Genesis to the Big Bang

The idea that “all creation reveals God, but is not God” flows naturally here.

If God is Being itself, then every existing thing bears some imprint of that ultimate Source. The book of Wisdom (Wis. 13:5) says “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.” Paul in Romans 1:20 echoes that God’s “invisible attributes” are “clearly seen” in what has been made. Yet, crucially, neither Judaism nor Christianity ever equated the creation with the Creator (that would be pantheism). Instead, they taught creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) – God didn’t form the world out of His own substance (like Play-Doh, as one analogy in Part 1 said), nor out of some pre-existent matter or rival stuff. He spoke and it was – meaning all things exist by His will and power alone. This keeps God utterly transcendent (He’s not made of the world) yet intimately immanent (the world cannot be without His continuous “Let it be”).

Modern cosmology unexpectedly provides a wonderful parallel. The prevailing scientific model is that the universe had a beginning (the Big Bang). Before that singularity, no space, no time, no matter as we know it. This aligns remarkably with “In the beginning, God created…” (Genesis 1:1). Some scientists like Arno Penzias, who co-discovered the cosmic microwave background (the “echo” of the Big Bang), said the best data we have “are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”. In other words, the idea of a universe springing from an external, transcendent cause rather than being eternal itself surprised mid-20th-century science but fit ancient scripture. Penzias, a Nobel laureate, further reflected that order in the universe (cosmos rather than chaos) suggests purpose, and purpose implies a Mind behind it. He essentially voices a natural theology: seeing the creative Logos through what has been made.

Think of the moment of creation as a kind of cosmic “Let there be…” (Genesis 1:3: “Let there be light”). The Big Bang was literally an explosion of light (and energy) from an initial point. Science traces it to 13.8 billion years ago; theology says “God said, and there was.” These are not at odds – theology describes the agency and purpose, science the mechanism and unfolding. The sheer existence of a creation that began points to “I Am” as its uncaused Cause. Every star that shines, every tree that grows, echoes the original Fiat Lux of God, saying in effect: I exist because He is.

Yet, creation is not God. This distinction is crucial. The sun, moon, and animals were worshiped by pagans as gods; Genesis demythologized them – they are creations, good but not divine. This is the heart of monotheistic transcendence: God is other than creation. And still, God is reflected by creation, as a painter leaves a bit of soul in a canvas. The Psalms declare “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1). Paul told pagans in Lystra that God “did not leave Himself without witness” but gave rains, fruitful seasons, satisfying hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). All these good things are vestiges of the I AM – signposts to the Source.

One might say creation is like cool, solidified light from the fire of God’s being. It’s real, tangible, shaped – and it points back to that roaring furnace of existence from which it came. If God’s being is the light, creation is the ray. The ray illuminates our world, but trace it back, and you end at the sun. Likewise, trace existence back, and you meet God.

The prologue of John’s Gospel ties this together profoundly: “In the beginning was the Word…and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men… The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” Here Jesus (the Logos) is depicted as the one through whom all existence came (“all things were made through Him”), containing life and light that animate creation. Creation both reveals and veils God—it reveals Him as source (for those with eyes of faith or reason open), but it veils Him in the sense that one could mistake the ray for the sun and worship the creature rather than the Creator (hence idolatry is a constant biblical warning).

Thus, to say “forms from the Formless” expresses that all the varied forms we see (rocks, trees, galaxies, people) originated from the formless Creator who is not any one of those things. God is formless not as a lacking (like a blob) but as a perfection—containing all forms eminently, like the prism containing all colors of light invisibly. When He creates, it’s like splitting the white light into a spectrum: now we have red, blue, green – particular beings each reflecting something of the pure light. Yet none of the colors alone is the light itself. Similarly, all creatures reflect God in some way (wisdom, beauty, power, life) but God’s fullness infinitely exceeds any one trait or all traits combined.

Jesus is unique because He is not a mere ray, but Light from Light, true God from true God—He is that uncreated light, yet entering creation. This is why we say Jesus is the icon of the invisible God (Col 1:15): in Him the transcendence and immanence of I AM perfectly meet.

In sum, Part 2 has peered into the mystery: God’s Name “I Am” nudges us towards deep contemplation. We’ve seen how apophatic theology embraces the cloud of unknowing, how Jesus Christ bridges the chasm by bringing the I AM into human life, and how creation itself testifies to God as source of all being – every thing that is whispers of He Who Is, yet no thing is He. It’s a delicate balance: God is present in all things (immanence) yet not contained by any (transcendence). With this in mind, we can explore how “I Am” echoes in patterns of reality and within our own selfhood.

🔮 Part 3 – Patterns, Consciousness, and the Image of God

The Logos Imprint: Mathematics, Language, and Cosmic Order

Have you ever marveled at how mathematics – a pure abstraction – so uncannily describes the physical world? Or how laws of logic and patterns in nature (like the Fibonacci sequence in sunflowers, or the elegant orbits of planets) suggest an underlying order? These observations have led many thinkers to propose that the universe is founded on a kind of Divine Mind. In Christian thought, this is articulated through the Logos – the Word or Reason of God. The Logos is not just a part of God; it is God (John 1:1), and through it “all things were made.” So the intelligibility of the universe is seen as an imprint of the Logos.

This is why early scientists (who were often devout) believed in a rational creator – they expected nature to be orderly because it was fashioned by Divine Wisdom. As Albert Einstein reputedly said, “the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” Why should contingent matter obey consistent laws that a mind can grasp? The believer answers: because a rational God made it so.

Mathematics then, in its truth and beauty, can be viewed as God’s language. Humans didn’t invent math; we discovered it. 2+2=4 would be true whether or not humans existed. Circles would still have a constant ratio of circumference to diameter (π). These truths point to a universal reason underlying reality – which theology holds to be the Logos (the Mind of God). When we do math, or physics, or any science, we are essentially “thinking God’s thoughts after Him,” as astronomer Johannes Kepler put it. The logos structure of creation is a shared code between the Creator and our own minds.

Likewise, consider language and creativity. Our ability to use symbols, to speak truth, to even conceive of truth, is a hallmark of being in God’s image. In Genesis, only humans are said to be created “in the image and likeness of God.” This is tied to our rational and moral capacities – reflecting God’s mind and character in a creaturely way. We have the unique position of being self-aware echoes of the great I AM. When God breathes into Adam, he becomes a living being – and shortly after, Adam is naming the animals. Naming is a profoundly godlike act (recall God named day, night, heavens… in Genesis 1). It shows humans share in the Logos capacity: to categorize, to bring order by words, to communicate meaning. Our linguistic ability is a finite mirror of the infinite Word.

Moreover, our consciousness has a self-referential depth. We not only experience, but we know that we know. We can say “I am.” In doing so, we’re not claiming the Absolute Being of God, of course, but we participate in being enough to have a sense of self, an “I,” that is unique and capable of communion. This is mysterious in itself. No animal, as far as we know, ponders the fact of its existence or says “I am” with all the philosophical weight behind it. We do. We ask: why is there something rather than nothing? We sense our contingency and reach out for the Absolute.

This human condition of being able to say “I am X…” (fill in the blank: a father, a teacher, etc.) and ultimately to say “I am” (simply affirming our existence), is actually a gift from the original I AM. It’s like radio tuning: all existence broadcasts from the frequency of God’s Being; as rational beings, we have receivers that can tune into that broadcast and even broadcast back (in worship, in reasoning, in loving). Logos is the transmitter and also the inner code that makes our minds capable of reception.

Justin Martyr, a 2nd-century Christian philosopher, spoke of the “Logos spermatikos” – the seed of the Word planted in every person. By this, he meant that any truth anyone speaks, if it is true, comes ultimately from the one Logos, Christ. Thus, pre-Christian philosophers like Socrates or the prophets of other cultures had “seeds of the Word” insofar as they grasped realities of ethics or reason. The fullness of the Logos was revealed in Jesus, but its light has always been shining, enlightening every person (John 1:9).

If we dive into universal realities like mathematics, logic, moral law, aesthetics, we keep finding a strange objectivity combined with a personal appeal. For instance, why is music harmonious? Why do certain ratios of sound waves produce beauty (a perfect fifth interval, etc.)? It seems built into the fabric of reality. People across cultures can appreciate harmony, symmetry, narrative, heroism. We are “tuning in” to something universal, something that reflects the mind of the Creator. The medievals spoke of the transcendentals: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Unity – which are like the facets of the diamond of Being (ultimately facets of God). All our pursuits of science, art, love, and justice are various ways of touching those transcendentals, which ultimately emanate from the One who is true, beautiful, good, and one.

In this sense, whenever a person discovers a true equation, writes a moving poem, tells the truth despite cost, or creates a beautiful painting, they are echoing the divine Logos. They manifest those divine patterns in the world. That’s why one can get a sense of the sacred in great art or profound thought – it resonates with the source of all truth and beauty. Even abstract patterns like the Mandelbrot set (an intricate fractal arising from a simple formula) hint that underlying chaos is a hidden order – perhaps a signature of the Logos.

The Imago Dei: Mirror of “I Am”

“So God created man in His own image… male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). This line has inspired volumes of reflection. To be the image of God means at least that we represent and reflect God in creation. We are like living icons or statues placed in the cosmic temple, to make visible the presence of the invisible King. An icon is not the thing itself but shows the thing. So each human being, by simply being, shows something of God.

One aspect of this is our ability to say “I” – to be a subject, not just an object. God is Supreme Subject (“I”), and He endows us with subjectivity. This is profound. It means persons are not reducible to their material components; there’s a spark of true selfhood that mirrors God’s own self-existence. Meister Eckhart even boldly said, “the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me,” pointing to a mysterious meeting point of our inner being and God.

While that might stretch things, it underscores the intimate link between our existence and God’s: we are capax Dei (capable of God) because we are from God.

We also see the image in rationality and free will. God is intelligent and free; so are we, albeit finitely. We can reason, which connects to Truth (Logos), and we can choose, which connects to Goodness (the will oriented to good). Our creativity reflects God’s creativity (we invent things, write stories, procreate life through love). Our appreciation of beauty reflects God’s glory. Even humor – our ability to laugh – some theologians see as an imprint of God (not that God jokes as we do, but joy is divine).

Especially, our call to relationship reflects God’s own triune relationality. In Genesis, note that “male and female He created them” immediately follows “in His image.” The image of God is not isolated in a lone individual but is expressed in relational community (the family is an image of creative love, man and woman’s union bringing forth children mirrors the triune love that is life-giving). Each “I” finds its full meaning in relationship with others – just as the eternal I AM is Father, Son, Spirit in an eternal relation of love.

Now, language deserves a second look. When we speak truth, we align our small “logos” (word) with the divine Logos. Lying, conversely, is a kind of anti-God act, aligning with non-being (since a lie has no reality; it’s a privation of truth). This is why the devil is called the “father of lies” – he turned away from I AM (Truth and Being) toward non-being, falsehood. But when we name truthfully, whether in science (correctly describing nature) or in everyday honesty, we are participating in God’s self-revelation. We become His mouthpiece. In a very real sense, humans speak for God when we speak truth – not that we are God, but we act as His image, articulating the reality He sustains. This is one way to interpret what Genesis means by giving humans dominion and the task of naming creatures: we are to exercise a stewardship that reflects God’s own rule, and a knowledge that reflects His knowledge.

Consciousness itself – that inner light by which we experience reality – has often been noted by philosophers as a mystery. Some, like Descartes or Kant, nearly stumbled into calling it divine (though orthodoxy would distinguish creaturely consciousness from the divine mind). Still, consciousness is a kind of spark from the Logos, allowing us to be aware. It sets us apart from unconscious matter. It’s as if the universe became aware of itself through us. A Christian might say the I AM wanted partners who could freely know and love Him, so He made a world that evolves beings capable of “I am”-ness themselves.

Patterns in Being: Language of God in the World

Across cultures, there’s an intuition that things like numbers or sacred geometry (think of the circle, a symbol of eternity; or the triangle, of the Trinity; or the number 7 for completeness) carry divine significance. While one can go overboard (numerology and such), the underlying notion is that the world is meaning-full because it stems from Mind. The Gospel of John calls Jesus also the Logos made flesh, and this Logos is the same through whom all logoi (rational principles) of creatures exist, as theologian Maximus the Confessor later expounded. Maximus said each thing has its logos (idea/purpose in God’s mind), and all the logoi unite in the one Logos. Therefore the unity of all knowledge and being is in God. When we discover a unifying theory or a deep symmetry (like E=mc^2, linking energy and matter, or the DNA code linking all life), we get a glimpse of the Unity behind diversity – which is the One God, expressing His wisdom.

In practical terms, think how mathematical truths feel eternal – they don’t change whether we discover them or not. This eternity of truth is an aspect of God’s eternity. We sometimes imagine God’s mind as containing all truths, all possible realities, like an infinite library. When He creates, He selects some of those and grants them existence. The patterns we find – why DNA is a double helix, or why physical constants have the values they do enabling life – can be seen as choices of God’s artistic design. The late physicist/theologian John Polkinghorne spoke of a “fine-tuning” that’s so precise it’s as if the universe “knew we were coming.” It suggests intentional calibration by the Creator.

Even abstract concepts like prime numbers or the structure of music could be seen as part of the divine blueprint. Language itself, some rabbis and Church fathers suggested, is built into creation (they mused that Hebrew letters might have been the “building blocks” God used to speak the world, much like how DNA letters code life). Regardless of literal language, the idea is that reality is scripted in a meaningful way – hence we talk about the “laws” of nature (as if there were a lawgiver).

Our role, bearing God’s image, is somewhat like sub-creators (to borrow J.R.R. Tolkien’s term). We can take the raw stuff of creation and rearrange it meaningfully: write novels, build microchips, compose symphonies. None of that would be possible if the basic fabric of reality weren’t orderly and open to being understood and re-shaped. The Logos provides the canvas and paints; we get to participate in the art. When we do so in line with God’s intentions (that is, towards truth, beauty, goodness), our works tune in to the divine harmony.

Conversely, when we misuse our creative freedom (to lie, to distort beauty, to harm), we create disharmony – essentially “untuning” ourselves from the Logos. The world’s brokenness (which ties into Part 4) can be seen as what happens when images of God act out of sync with God. Instead of echoing “I Am,” we chase illusions of being on our own terms, which actually echo non-being (since apart from God, nothing can truly exist or flourish).

To sum up Part 3: We examined how God’s mind undergirds reality, and how humans, as bearers of God’s image, can “tune in” to His mind. Mathematics, language, creativity, conscience, and consciousness all serve as reflections of the divine Logos and thus of the great I AM. We are like mirrors – when aligned, we reflect God’s light; when we turn away, the light still shines, but we go dark. We act most “in God’s image” when we engage in truth-seeking, art-making, loving, and moral choosing, because in those acts we participate in God’s own attributes. This leads us into the question of morality, freedom, and the tragic turning away – the theme of Part 4.

🧠 Part 4 – The Fall, Free Will, and the Knowledge of Good

“You Will Be Like God”: The Anxious Separation

In Genesis 3, the archetypal tragedy unfolds. Adam and Eve, made in God’s image, walking and talking with God (the I Am in the garden, likely the pre-incarnate Word communing with them), are lured by the serpent with a cunning suggestion: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The irony? They already were like God (made in His image), and God’s plan was for them to grow in wisdom with Him. But the serpent sows distrust, implying God’s holding out on them. In essence, the temptation is: assert your own “I am” apart from God. Define good and evil on your own terms, seize autonomy.

This is the Fall – a turning of the human will away from the true I AM in favor of an illusory self-sufficiency. It’s as if the mirror (our soul) turned away from the sun, thinking to shine on its own, and in doing so lost the light it had. The immediate result was shame, fear, hiding – symptoms of disconnect from the Source. The inner sense of “I Am” in humans became troubled: instead of the peaceful presence of God inside, there was a void, a sense of loss. Yet, paradoxically, the echo of I AM remained – the conscience, the longing, the remnants of original righteousness.

Now humanity experiences separation – not an absolute metaphysical one (we’d cease to exist if God utterly abandoned us), but relational and spiritual. Augustine described sin as a curving in on oneself (incurvatus in se). Rather than our “I” being open to the Thine (God) and the Thou (others), it collapses inward. We still bear God’s image, but like a portrait smeared with grime.

With separation comes a new knowledge: the knowledge of good and evil acquired against God’s warning. This phrase likely means experience of good and evil by doing evil. It’s not that God wanted humans to remain ignorant; He wanted them to learn by obeying (choosing the good in relationship with Him), not by rebelling. Once they do rebel, they gain a knowledge – the knowledge of guilt, of alienation, of what life is like out of sync with I AM.

This is actually a testament to our free will and moral nature (itself part of the divine image). God allowed the fall because genuine freedom necessitates the possibility of choosing against God. Without free will, “image of God” would be hollow – we’d be automata, not lovers. But with free will, we can love or reject, tell truth or lie, do good or evil. In Eden, humanity chose to try defining good and evil without reference to the Good (God). That’s like unplugging a lamp and expecting it to still shine. All our moral intuition thereafter is a mix: we still know good (the image isn’t erased), but we also experience skewed desires, a darkened intellect, weakness of will – what theology calls concupiscence or simply sinful nature.

Yet even in fallenness, the inner sense of I AM isn’t fully lost. We might call it the conscience or the imago Dei tug. We have an inherent understanding that some things are right and others wrong. Paul writes in Romans 2:15 that even those without the law “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.” This aligns with the idea that morality is not just cultural but rooted in Being (God’s character). “God saw that it was good” is repeated in Genesis 1 – goodness is anchored in God’s own nature. Therefore, when we perceive something as good, we are in touch with reality; when we call something evil, we’re noticing a privation or distortion of that good. Morality is rooted in Being because all being comes from the supremely Good Being. As Augustine and Aquinas taught, evil is not a substance but a privation of good. It’s like a parasite on the body of being. Everything that exists insofar as it exists is good (because existence itself is good, a gift from God); evil is a lack or twist in an existing thing – a goodness gone missing or misdirected.

For example, health is a good of the body; disease is a privation of health (the body lacks proper function). Evil choices (sin) are often good faculties used wrongly or good desires in wrong measure. This is why God can say of creation “It was very good,” and yet we experience evil – the evil isn’t a created thing, but a disorder in things, due to misuse of freedom starting with free creatures (humans, and in Christian tradition, even before that, some angels).

The Emergence of Morality and the Divine Image

If evolution is true (which many Christians accept as God’s method of creation), one might ask: when did morality emerge? At what point did the Image of God get stamped? Different views exist (some tie it to a historical Adam and Eve as representatives or ancestors endowed with souls). But regardless of the mechanism, the key is that at some point humans became aware of objective right and wrong – a law above instincts. That itself is extraordinary. C.S. Lewis argues in The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity that this moral law is the clearest evidence of something beyond nature within us. Nature might teach self-preservation, but morality often tells us to risk ourselves for others (courage, altruism). It might warn us not to harm even if we could get away with it. Where does that come from? The Judeo-Christian answer: from the character of God, into whose image we’re made. We have a sort of homing beacon toward the Good. When functioning, it’s conscience; when malfunctioning, we rationalize evil as good.

Thus morality is indeed “rooted in Being, not just culture.” All cultures have some moral overlap (honesty valued, murder discouraged, etc.) because of the shared human nature from the one Creator. Cultural relativism can’t erase the fact that when someone murders or lies, deep down they know it’s wrong (or have seared their conscience to numb that knowledge). “God saw that it was good” – goodness is fundamental. And so even after the Fall, when God asks Cain “What have you done?”, Cain knows he did wrong in killing Abel; he doesn’t reply, “What’s wrong with murder?” Instead, he fears punishment. The knowledge of good remains, though often muffled.

In Christian theology, Christ’s redemption aims to restore and elevate the imago Dei. Jesus as the “Second Adam” shows what the image of God in man is meant to be: perfectly obedient to the Father, full of grace and truth. By uniting with Christ, humans begin a transformation (sanctification) that cleans the smeared mirror so it reflects God more and more brightly again.

“God Saw that it was Good”: Speaking for God, Bearing His Image

One remarkable responsibility humans have, even post-Fall, is to speak on God’s behalf in the world. This is seen when Adam names animals (exercising a delegated authority). It’s seen when prophets speak (“Thus says the Lord”) – their words aren’t theirs only, but God using human speech. It’s seen when any of us speak truth or act justly, we effectively echo God’s judgment that reality is good and ought to be aligned with His will. When we condemn evil (like denouncing injustice), if done rightly, we are echoing God’s own moral law.

Take for example a court judge – the ideal of justice is that the judge’s ruling corresponds to truth and goodness (thus to God’s law). In that moment, one might say the judge stands in for God in maintaining order (hence in many traditions, oaths are taken on scripture, etc., acknowledging the higher lawgiver). The danger, of course, is when humans speak for God presumptuously or unjustly (hence the command not to take God’s name in vain, which includes misusing religious authority). But properly, as we conform to the Good, we participate in God’s ruling of the world.

This is the basis of a biblical concept: humans as priests and kings in creation (we mediate creation’s praise back to God, and we mediate God’s care to creation – that’s what priests and kings do, respectively). We lost some of that clarity in the Fall, but in Christ, it’s restored – 1 Peter 2:9 calls believers a “royal priesthood.” Ultimately, in Revelation, the redeemed are seen as reigning with God (not in a domineering way, but in harmony with His benevolent will).

Free Will as a Mark of the Divine Image and a Share in the Good

To revisit free will: it’s interesting that God values our free “I” so much that He won’t override it even though it causes much evil. Why? Because love necessitates freedom. A forced love is not love. So God, having made us in His image with the dignity of causality (we can cause things, not just be caused), respects the freedom He gave. This means suffering for Him too – as the Father suffered the loss of His son on the cross to redeem our misused freedom, and as God’s Spirit “grieves” over our sin. But rather than revoke freedom, God works within creation to heal and persuade (grace) and ultimately will set things right in a way that doesn’t annihilate our freedom but perfects it (in heaven, free will and God’s will fully align not by coercion but by our will being healed and harmonized with His).

Thus, even the Fall and redemption narrative underscores the importance of our share in I AM – not that we are I AM, but we have a real, if finite, capacity to say yes or no to I AM. This is an awesome and terrifying gift.

The Good and the Good News

“God saw that it was good” – meaning the original state. After the Fall, we see statements like “every intention of man’s heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5) before the Flood, indicating how far we fell. But God’s pronouncement of goodness on creation isn’t revoked; rather, God sets in motion a rescue plan (immediately hinting at a coming “seed of the woman” to crush the serpent). The Good (God) will not abandon the good (creation) to evil’s distortion. The rest of the Bible is the outworking of God restoring the good, culminating in the ultimate Good – Jesus calling Himself “the Good Shepherd” who lays down His life for the sheep. In Greek, “good” (kalos) can also imply beauty. Jesus is the truly beautiful image of God, unmarred by sin, come to restore the beauty in us.

Humans, bearing God’s image, are thus God’s partners in manifesting good. We are moral agents. We intuit that goodness is not just a social construct but woven into being. That’s why injustice or cruelty feel cosmically wrong, not just unpleasant – they offend the very fabric of how things ought to be, which is to say, how God intended. Sometimes people say “how can there be a God when there’s so much evil?” But as many apologists point out, calling something “evil” in an objective sense actually implies a standard of good beyond human opinion – which points back to God as the standard. In a materialist view, what is, is, and calling it evil is just personal distaste. But we know slavery or genocide aren’t wrong just because we don’t like them – they are inherently wrong, which means there’s an inherent Goodness (God’s nature) that they violate.

So even our outrage at evil indirectly testifies to I AM. We scream “this should not be!” – to Whom are we appealing? To some larger notion of justice that hangs in the air. That is the echo of the divine moral law.

“Humanity as mirror and mouthpiece” – we mirror God by our being, and we’re meant to be mouthpieces by our action and speech, declaring what is good. When we create just laws, when we praise what is virtuous, we are speaking with God’s authority in a derivative way. To connect to Part 1’s mention: when God made humans “in our image” He also said “let them have dominion.” It’s like a king making a viceroy; we reign under Him. Our trouble came when we tried to reign without Him (again, the Fall). But the calling remains, and in redemption God invites us again to “overcome and sit with me on my throne” (Rev 3:21).

What about the knowledge of good in the title? In the Fall, we took a shortcut to know good and evil outside of God’s timing, and it resulted in a curse. But in Christ, we are taught anew what good and evil truly are (He, being God and man, shows us both God’s holiness and exposes sin’s ugliness yet defeats it with love). He restores the knowledge of good in that He is the Good incarnate, and union with Him writes God’s law back onto our hearts rightly (the promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:33). Ultimately, in the resurrection, humanity will fully share God’s life again, knowing good without the mixture of evil (because evil will be no more), as originally intended.

TL;DR for Part 4: The divine image in man includes free will and moral understanding, which got bent in the Fall when we attempted to ground morality and identity in ourselves rather than God. This led to disorder (evil), yet even that disorder testifies (by negative contrast) to the prior order of God’s good creation and moral law. Morality is not mere convention but connected to the structure of reality given by God – “God saw… good.” Humans are made to embody and voice the Good in creation, essentially acting as God’s representatives. Though we fell, God’s image and purpose persist, and through conscience, law, and ultimately Christ, the I AM keeps calling the finite “i am” (us) back into alignment.

🔁 Summary

In conclusion, “I Am” encapsulates the entire mystery we have journeyed through:

God as Source and Sustainer: The Name revealed to Moses declares God to be Being itself – the underived Source of all existence. Everything else that is comes from He Who Is, and He continually sustains creation at every moment. God alone can say “I Am” in the fullest sense, for His being is eternal, necessary, and self-sufficient. We live through Him and because of Him. He is the ocean of being; we are the droplets, real but ever dependent. His transcendence means He is not one being among many, but the ground of all being. His immanence means nothing exists apart from His presence giving it being.
Jesus as Revealer and Bridge: In Jesus Christ, the Great I Am has drawn near to us in the most personal way. Jesus gives a face and voice to the ineffable YHWH. He declares Himself the I AM of the Old Testament, thus identifying as one with the Father. At the same time, by becoming man, He forges the bridge for us to return to communion with God. Jesus is the mediator between the infinite I Am and our finite existence – true God and true man. He revealed God’s heart (“Father”) and God’s character (full of grace and truth) in a way we could see, hear, and touch. In Christ’s “I Am” statements, millennia of divine mystery became concrete love: the Bread of life feeding souls, the Light of the world opening blind eyes, the Resurrection raising the dead here and now. He not only speaks the name; He bears the name (John 17:6,12) and shares it, as seen when believers are baptized “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Jesus is the bridge by which the gap of sin and unknowing is overcome – “the way, the truth, and the life,” indeed.
Humanity as Mirror and Mouthpiece: We humans were made in the image of the I Am, endowed with reason, will, and the capacity for relationship. We are meant to mirror God’s attributes (in creaturely measure) and to be His representatives (mouthpieces) in creation. We reflect God’s being by simply existing as personal, moral creatures; we reflect God’s love when we give of ourselves; we reflect God’s mind when we seek truth and create beauty. In our conscience and our best impulses, we “speak” on God’s behalf that which is good. Tragically, as free beings we also mirror God’s independence in a distorted way when we assert self against God (the Fall). Yet even in our wanderings, the echo of “I Am” in us – our ineradicable hunger for meaning, love, and goodness – points us back to our origin. By living in alignment with God (truth-telling, justice-doing, creativity, compassion), we become the mouthpieces we were meant to be, declaring by our lives “God is good” and “life has purpose.” In Christ, we are being remade into a clearer mirror, so that St. Paul can say “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18). Ultimately, glorified humanity will perfectly reflect God’s light, as the moon reflects the sun.
Reality as Expression of the Divine Word: Finally, all reality – from quarks to galaxies, from math equations to musical harmonies – is an expression of the Divine Word (Logos) who is one with the Divine “I Am.” Creation is an intricately ordered, dynamic poem spoken by God. As science discovers laws of nature or as art unveils beauty, we are effectively reading the sentences of that Divine Speech. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and even silent atoms obey His ordinance. The Big Bang’s echo, the “Let there be light,” still resounds. And through the Incarnation, the Author wrote Himself into the story without ceasing to transcend it – thereby inviting the characters (us) into an unspeakable collaboration and communion. In the end, reality’s purpose is to manifest God’s glory – not because God has ego needs, but because sharing being and goodness is the nature of Love. As the catechism says, God made all things “not to increase His glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it.” We, as part of reality, are thus living words in the Divine Drama. History is heading toward a renewal where, as Revelation describes, the Name of God (I Am) is written on the foreheads of the redeemed – symbolizing that all our being will openly signify Him. God will be “all in all,” not by abolishing distinct beings, but by fully indwelling them in love and glory. The I AM will forever communicate His life to all that is, and all that is will joyfully respond “You are.”

In closing, the journey from the burning bush to the present moment reveals a sacred thread: “I Am” is not just God’s self-identification; it’s the key to everything. It tells us who God is (the One who Is), who we are (those dependent on and made by the One who Is), and the meaning of everything that is (to reflect and partake in the sheer goodness of He Who Is). It’s a Name that is ultimately ineffable – as Augustine sighed, “What does it mean?” – yet through faith and revelation, it becomes the very bedrock of understanding.

Let us, like Moses, take off our sandals in awe before this mystery. And let us also heed the invitation embedded in the Name: the God who is I Am wants us to be – fully and eternally. Jesus said, “Because I live, you also will live.” The I AM has spoken: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”. Here the voice from the bush and the man from Galilee are one, calling us out of non-being (sin, death, meaninglessness) into the light of life. Our every breath can become a prayer echoing the Name – when we breathe in, we say “I”, and when we breathe out, “am” – acknowledging that in God alone we live and move and have our being. Thus, from the dawn of Scripture to the depths of metaphysics, from the silence of the mystics to the songs of the redeemed, one affirmation resounds: God = I AM, the Beginning and the End, to whom be all glory and in whom we find our true existence. Amen.

Two Witness Revelation

The Mystery of God