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| 'Yellow Curtain,' Matisse |
So, what is God like?
I teach theology so you would think I could explain what God is like, but it's actually not that easy. The problem is that each one of us frames our experience/understanding of God through our own paradigms and personality. We explain God to be a loving God, or an angry God, or a Santa Claus God, or an uninterested God, or a mystical God, or a magical God, or an involved God, or any number of other ideas or concepts that we can imagine.
How, then, can we know God and what he is like?
The easy answer is that the Bible tells us, and that is true....but....I know Christians and teachers and theologians who find the God of the Bible to be a loving God, or an angry God, or a Santa Claus God, or an uninterested God, or a mystical God, or a magical God, or an involved God, or any number of other images that we can draw from the pages of the Bible. Even though God has, I believe, given us a revelation of himself in the scriptures they are still interpreted and understood through our own paradigms and personalities and culture and socio-historical context.
If the answer was as easy as taking the Bible literally in all it says, as some suggest, the problem becomes even greater. The difficulties and intellectual and moral gymnastics required to reconcile a literal interpretation of biblical truth outside of the historical context would seem to be at odds with the nature of the God we seek to know and the kind of people his followers are expected to be. I know, I've tried it.
And yet the Bible is God's revelation of who he is and what he is like. In it's pages we learn his story, his interaction with his creation, and the type of God he is. But how is it so many different people see so many different versions of what God is like?
A few years ago I took my wife to Sydney for a weekend to celebrate her birthday. While we were there we went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw the artistic creations of many talented painters and sculptors - or at least that is what I am given to believe. Although my artistic and creative wife could see the beauty and meaning behind many of the pieces, they just didn't make sense to me. They just seemed to be random colours and patterns without form or shape. Like some of the pictures we have in a box from when our kids were in pre-school.
Thousands disagree with me, because the appreciation of the art isn't based on whether it resembles something but on the use of colour and the response of the person viewing it. Different people can find different beauty and different meanings in the art without invalidating the art or the original intent of the artist.
Is the Bible like that?
Kind of, with a couple of boundaries. You see we can't just make God up to be whoever we want him to be. He is still a person and is still defined by definite characteristics and essential attributes, in the same way I may not understand a piece of abstract art, but I can tell you the colours that have been used in creating the painting. The Bible still teaches a framework within which we understand God - usually expressed within the context of a story - and although his interaction with his creation may change depending on the circumstances (which also tells us something about him and his accommodation to human experience and culture), there are ongoing attributes that are always apparent.
Ultimately there is also one man who stands out from all others in the story of the Bible. Ultimately there is the one man who said, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." Ultimately there is Jesus.
What is God like? Jesus.
In some ways this makes the question easier to answer, in other ways more difficult. It is true that what Jesus taught and how he lived and died and rose all have been understood in different ways, but I don't really think that is the difficulty. The difficulty is to actually live in a way that conforms to his example and his vision of the Kingdom of God.
Because the God revealed in Jesus is a God of love and mercy and forgiveness and justice and humility and sacrifice. He is a God who reaches out to those who don't think he cares and chastises those who use his name for their own benefit or the exploitation of others.
The God revealed in Jesus is a gracious God, an unexpected God, an inconvenient God, and an uncomfortable God.
God is like Jesus. This gives us the colours of the picture, the image, that we can use to understand the rest of the picture. It doesn't mean that learning to appreciate and respond to the picture is going to be easy or that we will all agree, but Jesus becomes the way in which we understand God the Father and the revelation of himself he has provided to us.
When we first entered the Museum of Modern Art I was astonished to see that some workmen had left their ladders and tools and tarps around when the museum was open for visitors. It seemed out of place with the sophisticated nature of the experience. Then my wife explained that the 'tools' were actually a piece of artwork, one of the displays.
What is God like? He's like Jesus, and I wonder how often in our lives, in our day-to-day existence, the 'artwork' of God is visible and just not appreciated by us.
God is like Jesus, but does that mean we see him any more clearly?
I like how you write. I would enjoy a conversation with you. I wonder what a world would be like where we could all share our faith without placing rules on each other based on the God that our experience has shown us?
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say I have been following your blog for a while now and I find it often insightful and challenging. Anyway, I'll stop bothering you now!