How to Imagine God?

Here’s a child’s explanation…

“One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies.

I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn’t have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers. God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times beside bedtime.

God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy.

So you shouldn’t go wasting His time by going over your Mom and Dad’s head asking for something they said you couldn’t have.

Atheists are people who don’t believe in God. I don’t think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren’t any who come to our church… You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there’s anybody you want to make happy, it’s God.

Don’t skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides the sun doesn’t come out at the beach until noon anyway. If you don’t believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can.

It is good to know He’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But…you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases. And…that’s why I believe in God.

Written by Danny Dutton, age 8, Chula Vista, California, for his third grade, homework assignment

Where Did We Get Our Ideas About God?

Danny’s description succinctly points out how our concept of the Divine is influenced by our experiences and background.

We get our ideas about God from the world around us and from the people with whom we have interacted.

If Dad was angry, mean, overly strict or abusive, then one’s concept of God is skewed toward a punitive and punishing God.

If the important male figure in your early life was frequently absent, and often not around for important events, or if he left the family, then it would be very difficult to conceive of an ever-present and caring God who doesn’t abandon you.

If your father made promises and rarely kept them, or was small-minded and prejudiced, how could you conceive of a God who was accepting and reliable and fair?

Those who have experienced incest, have a rough time conceiving a God who is trust-worthy and caring.

On the other hand- if you’ve been exposed to loving, caring, protective men, it is a lot easier for you to imagine God as caring about you.

And who said God was male anyhow?

 What is the right way to speak about God? This is a question of great importance, for speech itself is important in forming our concepts and understandings.

Traditionally we have explained God using a number of methods, using human terms. We talk about what God is NOT, or we use human qualities as a comparison to God- like saying God is love.

Sometimes symbolism is used to try and talk about something that can’t be described with mere words, as in- God is like a shepherd- so everything one knows about a shepherd is behind the expression.

Mythological interpretation tries to reveal fundamental truths behind religious stories.

Yet words are limiting and restrictive.

As is art.

We can’t get away from artists who depicted God as male!  Thanks Michelangelo and others!

Because the church always talks about Father God, doing so has caused women to be seen in a lesser light, and has restricted folk from thinking about God in any other way but masculine.

Why does everyone cling to the masculine imagery and pronouns even though they are a mere linguistic device that has never meant that God is male.  Carol P. Christ

I know…we use the male pronoun “he” when speaking of God, and we call God father. But that is because God is so “other” that we don’t have the words really, or even know how to speak or describe the unknowable.

Abraham Joshua Heschel noted that:

To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words…G-d  lies beyond the limits of language.  The world of things we perceive is but a veil.

So then- Who/What is God?

We give God human characteristics- the highest and best, good ones, and bad ones as well. 

God is loving, but also judgmental.

God is merciful and kind and all-powerful, but genocide and wars and terrorism exist, and families die in car accidents, and floods, and fires, and hurricanes, and babies suffer and die from cancer.  Why would God permits such things?

What kind of God is that?

Other. Indescribable.  Beyond our knowing or understanding.

The first thing to say is that God is much ‘bigger’ than us in every sense. So we can never completely describe or understand God. It would be like a baby trying to understand the New York Times to expect us to understand God.

When we speak of God, we cannot comprehend the true nature of God and that what we think of God is limited- what we think we know God to be is far from what God really is.

We tend to view existence through a very limited perspective. All things in our realm of experience have a beginning and an end. Such is not the case with God, who exists independently of time. God transcends time, which is why Yahway- “I AM” is what God’s name means.

And yet, we try and box God into this little container of our meager conceptions, and think we have God pegged.

We may have hints and partial ideas of God, though none of us ever has the whole picture. To think that we do is to reduce God to the knowable- and God can’t be fully known.

Our Ideas About God Change

As we grow, our understandings change and we struggle to comprehend the complexities of life.

In his Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis tells us of a meeting between Lucy and Aslan, the Christ figure of his story.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Time to think outside the box!

Take all those constricting images and ideas and chuck them. Seriously!  Your God is too small!

How to have faith—or even think about God—without having to stifle modern rational thought is one of the most vital challenges facing many of us today.                                                         

Marcus J. Borg talks about—

“the beyond in our midst, the life spirit that is within us and all around us—that reconciles faith with science, history, critical thinking, and religious pluralism.”

And John Shelby Spong’s response to who/what is God-

“So who is God? No one can finally say.  That is not within human competence.  All we can ever say is how we believe we have experienced God, doing our best to dispel our human delusions…  My experience of God is as the source of life calling me to live fully and thus to respect life in every form as embodying the holy…  I experience God as the power of life, the power of love, and the ground of being.  I don’t say that’s what God is; I say that’s my experience of God.”

As the world shifts and changes all around us, it behooves us to address all our old conceptions and assertions about God, and discover for ourselves what we think and believe about divinity.

There is no God!

A lot of overly busy people today have disavowed God altogether.

No one’s home-                                 

God’s not in his heaven…And things are not right with the world

A cop-out, I say.

Just because something is profoundly ponderable and possibly without any factual results or answers- is no reason to be dismissive, and is modern laziness at its worse.

The depth level of today’s thinking is lamentable. Too hard and profound?  Hit delete and be done with it.

“A failure to understand something does not mean it is irrational.  It may simply mean that it lies on the far side of our limited abilities to take things in and make complete sense of them.”  Alister E. McGrath

Globally, philosophy and theology have wrestled with ultimate questions for the last two thousand five hundred years or so. And now today these issues are irrelevant?

Rubbish!

There IS Hope!

But I believe that faith questions still lurk in the minds of us all. And I think there is a deep spiritual awakening taking place globally.

Consequently, there will be those of us who choose to wrestle with the ineffable- to tackle the mystery of life and creation- to dig deep and find answers for ourselves.

There are any number of books that might help you on your quest. Let me suggest several.

Karen Armstrong has written two to consider- A History of God, and The Case for God.

The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg is a strong contender.

And Rabbi Rami Shapiro has written God: A Rabbi Rami Guide

Check them out and see if the windows of your mind aren’t blown wide open!

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