The Christian Life: An Owner's Manual

Too often we assume people basically agree with Christian teachings. This is a mistake in today's world. Even Christians often need to be persuaded on basic issues like the nature of God.

From Chapter Eight: Who is God?

Now that we've examined sin, salvation, and spiritual growth, it's time to back up and talk about God himself. Understanding more about God is basic to other issues we will discuss, like the Bible, the church and the Holy Spirit.

God is personal

In America, just about everyone believes God exists, but plenty of people are confused about what kind of God is there. I will assume people agree on the basic issue of God's existence and will focus instead on the issue of God's nature as a personal God.

To illustrate the confusion I'm talking about, I'll recall a conversation I had with a non-Christian. This person told me he had been discovering God in himself more and more lately. I asked how he had been seeing this and he told me, "I've just started taking a good look inside. He's been there all along!"

So I asked him to explain more about what kind of God is there. He replied that God is like a power to help you in life. "It's like a strength you can draw on to help you through." It became clear to me that this guy was thinking about God as some kind of positive force that animated things and people. I asked him if God was like a life-force and he agreed with that imagery.

This picture of God as a positive force in the world is extremely popular. A God like this is non-threatening. It's also a challenging notion to understand this God and to get on the same wavelength as him. Some people even feel that they will get some kind of power if they get in tune with God. They mistakenly believe that this view of God is compatible with the Bible's view, which we'll discuss in a moment . . .

. . . Now I want to digress for just a moment and consider something people frequently say about God and religion. We can demonstrate that God is personal according to the Bible, and someone might respond, "That's good for you, but I don't see God that way." People talk this way because they believe we're all ultimately talking about the same thing.

Remember the popular illustration of the blind men feeling an elephant? One blind man feels the side and says, "Elephants are like giant furry walls!" Another feels the tail and says, "No! Elephants are like rough rope!" Yet another blind man feels the legs and concludes, "Elephants are like the trunk of a tree!" People conclude from this illustration that everyone is right and it is just a matter of which part of the elephant they are talking about. There are some serious problems with comparing our discussion of God's nature to the illustration of the blind men. We're not talking about some small facet of God's nature. We're talking about this very essence--what he is. To use the elephant illustration as an example, we're not discussing whether elephants have trunks or tails. We're talking about whether the elephant is alive or dead. We're talking about whether the elephant is an animal or a plant. When we talk about God's nature, we're talking about what the elephant is as a whole.

In that light, those who say God is a force are contradicting the idea that God is personal. In other words, they are saying the opposite. The Bible asserts, "God is personal. He relates to us and to himself, he is saddened, he thinks and plans." Other people are saying, "God is not personal. God is an it. God is a force."

"God is personal" versus "God is not personal" are two contradictory statements. One may be true. Or they both may be false. But they are not both true! This way of reasoning is basic to human thinking. We reason this way all the time. One person could say, "The President is in the next room." Another person could say, "The President is not in the next room, he's in France!" We know one or both of these people are wrong. They cannot both be right . . .

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