The Act and Potency in the Relationship Between God and Man

We learn that God has a pure act. All in Him are all actualized. Perfection is in Him so as of His love. It is a love which is eternal and perfect.

That pure actualized love was shared and is sharing to us of God through the creation. Then, only is act is present but because of creation, the notion of potency came out.

For me, that pure actualized love of God which is shared to us is ever present in our hearts from the very beginning of our existence. It is an actualized gift of God to the human heart. That small and simple hearts of ours participate in the greatest love of God. But as we are unconscious of it, it is also in slumber having the potentiality to be awakened and to be actualized in our own life. As this love is began to actualize in us, the potency of division and sharing of it arising and knocking the door of our heart to make it actualized also in others. The refraction and rippling of love begin in us as it was started in the ever actualized love of God.

Maybe I will be seem heretic to say that God has also potency but let me first explain it. Yes, God is pure act in terms of His very nature. But as part of His creation, much more as His son, I can say and feel that God feels now potency in Him. It is because of the ever perfect love of God which is manifested in creation. He cannot control it but to show and practice it more especially in His relating to humankind.

The ever actualized love of God is His very strength but in relating with us it is his weakness (in the positive sense) in giving us consideration, understanding, and pardon. When we, humankind, disobeyed Him, he experiences the potency. Yes he knows everything about us, he knows us from our very self, he knows us as weak but he has given us the grace which is sufficient to us. He experiences the potency of pain and becomes actualized when the time we do not cooperate to His grace and His love. Yes, this could not affect the pure actuality of God but as a Father, He, too, has the heart to feel the potency and act of pain when we neglect the love that he has shared to us from the very beginning of our life.

Do we not realize how great this heart of ours that we can love even God yet a worst thing which can hurt even our loving Father in heaven. And that this heart of ours can please and God happy yet this can make Him sad as a Father who feels forgotten by His children. For that, as a Father, he experiences act and potency. He feels happy, and more happy, and happiest if we actualized His love in our life. He feels sad, and sadder, and saddest if He was neglected in our life.

But the very best thing that I realized about this love of God is that it is always actualized no matter how creation denies and neglects it. God always loves us. No matter His creation is placing Him out way. He cannot deny His love for us. As a Father to His prodigal son, he is always waiting for us to be with Him to love us more and more and more. And that He is always ready to grant us forgiveness no matter how we hurt Him.

And for our part, as children of God, our love for Him will always in the continuous process of potency and act to be more and more and more until we acquire the pure love of God to the extent of forgetting even ourselves for Him. In fact, from the very beginning, our very potency is to be with Him through eternal life. And in the very beginning, God is in the state of potency in waiting us in heaven. (“,)