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God Has Many Synonyms

Source: Book “How to Overcome Suffering.” | Updated in January 2023.
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Victor Hugo

Everything that is born of Divine Love is truly sublime. Based on such fact, French playwright and poet Victor Hugo (1802-1885) taught us that, “Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give.”

Without Love, which is God, human beings are adrift, far from Truth, which is His Word: “Father, Your Word is Truth” (The Gospel of Jesus according to John 17:17).

If you do not believe in the existence of the Celestial Father, do not feel excluded by my statement. Resort to good sense, for whoever does not exercise it also lives in disorder.

God has many synonyms, such as Love, Fraternity, Solidarity, Compassion, Clemency, Generosity, Mercy, Altruism, Justice, and everything else that values human creatures and leads them to inner Peace, which is extended to all others.

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Divine Face

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Martin Luther

Consequently, the Creator does not approve manifestations of hatred in His Holy Name. Therefore, this quote by Martin Luther (1483-1546) is highly appreciated: “I would not have the Gospel defended by violence and murder. The world is to be conquered through the Word [of God].”

To which God is the Reformer referring? Certainly not to the anthropomorphic one, created in the image and likeness of men, but to that God as defined by John the Evangelist in his First Epistle 4:16: “And so we know and rely on the Love God has for us. God is Love. Whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God in them.”

And Martin Luther had such great understanding of God that his favorite verse in the Bible speaks for itself, to those who “have eyes to see and ears to hear”: “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have Eternal Life” (The Gospel of Christ according to John 3:16).

The old German preacher knew that there is no other path but that of Love, which is a synonym for Charity. Another man of great wisdom in humanity, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), wrote in The Divine Comedy: “Love [is the power] that moves the Sun and all the other stars.”

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Dante Alighieri

That is why living apart from Him is to suffer the orphanhood of the Soul. The Divine God has neither mustache nor beard. His Face is Love.

José de Paiva Netto is a writer, journalist, radio broadcaster, composer, and poet. He is the President of the Legion of Good Will (LGW), effective member of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI) and of the Brazilian International Press Association (ABI-Inter). Affiliated to the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Union of Professional Journalists of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Writers of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Radio Broadcasters of Rio de Janeiro, and the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). He is also a member of the Academy of Letters of Central Brazil. He is an author of international reference in the concept and defense of the cause of Ecumenical Citizenship and Spirituality which, according to him, constitute “the cradle of the most generous values that are born of the Soul, the dwelling of the emotions and of the reasoning enlightened by intuition, the atmosphere that embraces everything that transcends the ordinary field of matter and comes from the elevated human sensitivity, such as Truth, Justice, Mercy, Ethics, Honesty, Generosity, and Fraternal Love.”