I think that you might be mixing up the personal touch and interaction with Jesus the man with the impersonal and largely standoffish and angry God of the OT. Part of Jesus’ mission to us was to provide that.
I'm not sure what there is to mix up. Jesus interacted with men on a personal level, and the God of the OT did the same. Are they different Gods? Of course not. God exercised His justice in the OT, but He also showed His love for His children as well. How many chances did He give the Jews? Seventy times seven, etc.? :) He disciplined them out of His profound and very personal love for them. The OT God is very personal.
FK: ***The alternative would be an impersonal God, whom we would experience as unknowable, irrational, and subject to chance. No personal relationship would be possible and man would be left unfulfilled.***
Exactly. That’s what the Jews experienced throughout the OT.
How can you say that? The evidence shows just the opposite. Do you think Job would have remained faithful to an irrational God after being through what he went through? No way. All of the OT righteous had personal relationships with God. It's right there in the text.
FK: ***Before there was a creation there was the Trinity.***
There was no ‘before’. God existed, exists and will exist at all moments in time.
Please reread. Creation was an event in real time. There was a time before creation.
FK: ***Without a personal God we would just be rats wandering randomly through a maze.***
A ‘personal’ God in many cases is one that an individual creates.
That has nothing to do with the truth or not of whether the one true God is personal and rational or impersonal and irrational.
FK: ***We belong to Him and no one can snatch us out of His hands.***
We can, however, walk away.
If you are "one" then you are saying you can snatch yourself out of God's hands. The scripture forbids this. Man's need to be independent and powerful causes additions to the scriptures, also forbidden by the scriptures. Your Catechism says that God conveyed what He wanted to convey in the Bible. How meaningless the Bible is since it doesn't include the countless number of exceptions that your tradition adds.
Oh, boy! Please explain what did this "time" measure? Don't you know that eternity is "timelessness?"
Taoists say "Life is the way it is even if you don't understand it." and if God is not rational(measured by our stick)? What are you going to do about it? Hold your breath?
***Jesus interacted with men on a personal level, and the God of the OT did the same. Are they different Gods? ***
They are different faces of the same God. Trinitarian theology and so on. God did not appear to men in the OT as Jesus did in the New. Jehovah tended to lights and voices out of the sky and burning bushes and the threat of death to any man who saw Him directly. That is quite a different appearance than what Jesus gave us.
That is also one of the reasons that the Jews rejected Jesus. He didn’t fit their bill of an all powerful King with a sword of flame victorious over all the nations on Earth.
*** How many chances did He give the Jews? Seventy times seven, etc.? :) He disciplined them out of His profound and very personal love for them. The OT God is very personal. ***
He was a distant and angry taskmaster. That approach failed.
***Do you think Job would have remained faithful to an irrational God after being through what he went through? No way.***
Men have the ability to be faithful to just about anything. Look at all those who remained faithful to Hitler right to the end. Chia Dictator Kim and Robert Mugabe also have their virtual worshippers. Job’s actions and demeanour are very commendable, but hardly proof by itself.
***There was a time before creation.***
What time would this be? God existed before the ages according to Paul. If God created time, as He created everything else, then He exists out of time.
***That has nothing to do with the truth or not of whether the one true God is personal and rational or impersonal and irrational.***
The One True God of the OT showed Himself as burning bushes and deadly fire out of the Ark. The One True God of the NT came to us in human form and died and was resurrected for our salvation. Yet, He was then taken up to Heaven. He is not the travelling preacher now that He was during His brief ministry on Earth. We rely on the Holy Spirit guiding His Church and the body of Christians.
***If you are “one” then you are saying you can snatch yourself out of God’s hands. The scripture forbids this. ***
Scripture most definitely says that man can reject God. The whole OT is the Jewish nation variously rejecting God. When Jesus revealed that His followers must eat His body and drink His blood, many of them walked, saying that it was too hard.
Judas rejected Him; Peter rejected Him three times and yet Peter’s repentence brought him back to Jesus. Peter, the prodigal son, returned. Judas, in despair, didn’t. The Jews who walked away from Him, didn’t return either.
***Your Catechism says that God conveyed what He wanted to convey in the Bible. How meaningless the Bible is since it doesn’t include the countless number of exceptions that your tradition adds.***
Are you saying that God didn’t convey what He wanted to in the Bible? Did those nasty Catholics keep some of God’s word back from Him?
A study of the early Church reveals the growing of the faith over the centuries as people started to understand better the teachings of Jesus, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught us to the best of our ability to understand at the time, and left us His Church in order to teach and develop the faith - and to define what it isn’t which are the heresies defined and acted upon.
Scripture is extremely important since it does contain God’s revealed word to us. We thought it important enough to go on the Great Commission and bring it to the heathens.