No one knows any of this for sure. The extremely difficult thing to understand is God beyond our limited minds’ ability to understand Him.
Maimonides was merely a philosopher who tried to interpret the nature of God as far beyond the “anthropomorphism” of being a man with a beard sitting on a throne. He made a lot of people mad at him. I admit it bothers me, too. I can’t think of God except in human terms. I shouldn’t have quoted him-—people are still angry at him and he’s been dead for hundreds of years.
I am a Jew and a Trump supporter. Please don’t hate me.
I know the understanding of Christ as God come to Earth is the basis of Christianity and I fully respect that as part of the Christian faith. Yes, all the Bible has hundreds of references to the human sounding attributes of God and if we are in His Image then that is human.
Please consider my attempt to place God higher and farther and grander than any human form except when Jesus came here. Jesus prayed to Him, when Jesus was sent here on His mission for our sakes. If I am mistaken about Christianity in saying this, forgive me.
I may be wrong but I am trying to get my mind around God’s grandeur being beyond what I can understand. In my form of Judaism we try to follow God’s laws and when we fall short and sin we must work for genuine sincere repentance as David when God was angry with him for his sin with Bath-Sheba for example. God allowed the baby to live a short time from the union with Bath-Sheba and this may have been part of his punishment but David sought forgiveness as shown in many Psalms as well.
Let us accept each other as praying to the same God and accept each other’s sister religions. Please.
And forgiveness can only truly be bestowed by a heart moved with compassion, not just with offense.
Jesus is regarded in orthodox Christian theology as the result of a self emptying of God. God “the Son” is more than the earthly Jesus. The Son had to set aside His crown when He manifested in spacetime as Jesus. And this is how we can see humility itself mirrored in God. We can be humble because we grasp the hand of a God whonHimself became humble.
Don’t ever apologize for your faith.
Without the profound basis of Jewish religion and philosophy, the Western world would never have progressed beyond polytheism and into the understanding of the Unity of all Creation, and of the One God.
(And, for our Christian Friends, we never would have had Jesus.)