Monday, June 20, 2011
I Try Not To Have One
Godspace asks "What Is Your Picture Of God?":
Puritans will argue that such is idolatry. Some of that is born in anti-Catholic sentiment, but there is a strain of good thought there. I remember a great book from my youth that I do not hear discussed much anymore. "Your God Is Too Small" by J.B. Phillips. In it, Phillips examines the inadequacies of many of the most common images that people have of God.
But the real issue is this - ALL the images we could possibly have a of God are inadequate simply becasue God is beyond our comprehension. When we attempt to form an image or picture of God, we limit Him and in some sense attempt to control Him.
Yet, it is He that is supposed to control us.
This morning I started reading Trevor Hudson’s Discovering our Spiritual Identity. I didn’t get far because its first words What is your picture of God? pulled me us short. How do I view God and how that impact the way I live my life. Part of what this made me realize is that it is easy for me to say God is love but when I start to really think about this I know that my view of what this means is still distorted.Trying to understand God, and trying to form a picture of God, are two very different things and they seem to be confused in this post, but I want to address the issue of "forming a picture" of God.
Puritans will argue that such is idolatry. Some of that is born in anti-Catholic sentiment, but there is a strain of good thought there. I remember a great book from my youth that I do not hear discussed much anymore. "Your God Is Too Small" by J.B. Phillips. In it, Phillips examines the inadequacies of many of the most common images that people have of God.
But the real issue is this - ALL the images we could possibly have a of God are inadequate simply becasue God is beyond our comprehension. When we attempt to form an image or picture of God, we limit Him and in some sense attempt to control Him.
Yet, it is He that is supposed to control us.
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