Last weekend, a book review in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention: “God: A Biography.” The author provides a psychological study of God—troubled but talented, spontaneous but moody, and very conflicted in His roles as creator, destroyer, judge, warrior, father, and mother. The book is a sad effort to figure God out.
God wants to be known—not figured out. The Bible says God reveals Himself to everyone through His creation. But there is special revelation to those born of His Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14). And that is the ‘key’ to knowing Him. The “natural” man cannot know God—only the “spiritual” man can. God will not be known by intellect and intelligence. In fact, Jesus said God hides Himself from those who think they are wise and clever but reveals Himself to those who are childlike (Lk 10:21).
Maybe it’s because natural men cannot know God that they try so hard to “figure Him out.” But to that God says: “You thought I was like you, but as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Ps. 51:25; Is. 55:8-9). Albert Einstein, an avowed agnostic, once said: "In my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one." At least he got that right!
Man approaches God as something below him. He doesn't think about God as someone being over him, that's why he thinks God can be studied and comprehended by his cleverness of mind, like having a sample under man's microscope. It requires humility to truly know God, and that is acknowledging that He is not beneath but above our heads and minds.
ReplyDeleteHello Dr. Greg,
ReplyDeleteGod is infinite. We are not. Yet we strive to create God in our image. It is our own fear and pride that drives this. In addition, some of the key attributes of God; His love, His grace, His mercy, from a rational point of view, are absurd. We have glimpses or hints of that kind of absurdity when we are loving, or graceful, or merciful to those who are neither deserving nor repay in kind. But when a parent loves a newborn (the perfect demonstration for selfishness), the parent is merely incarnating the image of God, and we do not think that love is absurd. It may be logical to square the holiness and righteousness of God against the payment of the cross of Jesus Christ. But at its heart, the motivation for that act is illogical, because love, mercy, and grace are illogical.
Grateful that God is, Larry Q