Chapter 1 - Who is God?
Who is God? I realize that if I could simply and easily answer that question, the answer alone would be worth the price of several book stores! Philosophers, scientists, theologians, authors, and nearly everyone else that lives or has lived has pondered at some point that question. However, whether or not you are comfortable with what you have concluded to be the answer to that question, your personal worldview has already incorporated some answer. Now, before we discuss what you think, let’s think about thinking (okay, sorry about that, first paragraph and I am already giving you a headache!)
I discovered early in life that information is often open to interpretation. I could think something to be true based on some data, only to encounter someone else using the same data who came up with an entirely different conclusion. What would seem to be a perfectly sound conclusion, using what I thought to be impeccable logic, could be absolutely rejected by someone else who was also using some form of rational logic. So, which one was right? This is where many people pull out their can of gray spray paint and start discussing some form of relativistic thinking, usually saying that both, or perhaps many other options could be right. Since most questions in reality don’t have multiple correct answers, the “who-is-right question” really boils down to either everyone is wrong or one is right, not multiple answers being correct. So why the disparity? To understand the differences, we need to take a step backwards and look at the various thinking processes. Which of course requires us to ask additional questions such as: Was the logic that was applied applicable? Where did the data come from? If measurements were made were they done correctly? Were the right instruments used? Were the facts analyzed properly, were the right questions asked and what was the basis of the conclusion?
We all have learned, either directly through others such as teachers, parents and peers, or indirectly through someone’s writings. We regularly accept the thinking process and conclusions of others and incorporate them into our own thinking process. Many of these thoughts and ideas become presuppositions, things we believe to be true and in some cases, the mind is set, based simply on the source, be it a person, book, internet, etc. Since we accept these ideas as facts, we usually don’t take the time to examine the ‘facts’ or evidence for ourselves, assuming of course, that we could even understand the subject matter in the first place. As a result, we simply accept favorably the words of historians, scientists, professors, medical doctors, etc. But what if their facts, thinking processes or conclusions are wrong? That would make our presuppositions wrong too! But what choice do we have?
The advancement of communications in the past 20 plus years allows us access to vast amounts of information almost instantaneously. It would be an understatement to say that today we can research a subject comparatively very quickly. For example we can spend a few hours searching online that would be the equivalent of several months of library visits and research for previous generations. Combine this with the advancements of technology, a person with a question, such as what are my best options for medical treatment, can receive an exhaustive and thorough set of answers nearly instantaneously. So, when we seek answers to questions like, “Who is God?” we can view multiple responses, not only quickly, but we can often review the author’s logic, especially if they took the time to explain their position. I believe the answer to the question, “Who is God?” is actually more important than discovering and settling on a medical treatment since the answer can affect every aspect of our lives and let me just say for the moment, beyond our lives. So why is this question, “Who is God?” so difficult to answer? Some people point out that if we were created and “sent on our way” by a divine being we may never be able to truly comprehend since the intelligence gap between us and someone who could create us and all life, would be enormous. History has shown that mankind has always been on a quest to identify entities with “higher powers.” Cultures around the world have embraced a wide variety of potential answers, from spiritual beings to personification of nearly everything physical. Would God create something and then leave? Abandoning everything? What other explanation could there be for so many so called gods and goddesses? Or perhaps there is no God. As we fast-forward in time to the modern era, a period when man began to rationalize using knowledge collected over the ages and applying scientific methods, including since no god has stepped up to claim its creation, the drive to explain our existence has shifted from seeking God to seeking answers from science, promoting the idea that there is no need for a god. I had an instructor in college tell me that science (a term I will use to refer to the scientific community at large) doesn’t like ‘easy’ answers. In other words, the people of science want some form of naturalistic explanation and not take the “easy way” out, such as accepting the idea of a God and creation. But what if God does exist and He indeed created everything? Is it wrong to have an easy answer, if the answer is actually correct? And perhaps God did claim He was the Creator as well as explain who He was and how we are to interact with Him like what we see in the Bible.
We human beings are strange creatures, while we may say we want to know the truth, our minds are often unwilling to accept other viewpoints due to our blind defense of our presuppositions. Call it pride, ego, peer pressure or indifference, it doesn’t matter, we just don’t want to admit that we might be wrong! No one likes to be called wrong, right? So how do we find the truth? Would we be able to separate the truth from all the various philosophies surrounding us? Can we be open minded enough to recognize our errors and accept the truth? With questions like these, we can see why higher education now include subjects like ontology (the nature of existence) and epistemology (the theory of knowledge).
Earlier I mentioned something called a ‘worldview’, it is generally defined in most dictionaries as either a philosophy of life or a conception of the world. While both definitions may be true, neither definition is very useful. Everyone has a worldview and after you recognize what shapes our worldviews, you will see why every person’s worldview is uniquely different.
This may sound like a far-fetched question, however to understand the construct of a worldview we need to ask, “What is reality?” Now before you walk away shaking your head, think about the process for a moment that you go through in your mind to determine if something is real. There is no need to dig out those old text books or wish you paid more attention in your philosophy class, if you are like most people you can quickly realize that, even though the majority of people don’t spend a lot of time analyzing their surroundings, the process of sorting out reality is somewhat complex. For example, our understanding of what is real is strongly based on a combination of perception (what we see, hear, smell, touch, etc.) Plus, facts determined from past experiences (such as touching something that was hot), and learned knowledge, which includes our inferences, deductions, assumptions, presumptions, etc. All combined within a strong sense of what we believe is possible (things we were taught as well as discovered on our own).
If you were right now distracted by a small bright point of light that quickly flashed from one side of you to the opposite side, would you think it was a small creature like a fairy or just a reflection off something like a passing car outdoors? Probably most of you would consider it to be a reflection. Why? To begin with there are no such things as fairies, right? What about that small dark spot that is moving next to your foot? Is it a bug or a creeping ink spot? Our worldview is largely responsible for how we process information, not only to answer questions like these but also how we navigate through life (being our decisions, values, morals, priorities, goals, etc.)
Everything from where we were born, where we lived, where we went to school, who our teachers were, who we had as friends, who were our parents, who were their parents, our neighbors, wealth, demographics, ideologies, race, religious upbringing, level of education, exposure to politics and a lot more all have some influence in shaping how we view the world, creating our own personal ‘worldview’. So, you can see that you truly do have a unique view. The fact that you are unique is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good in the sense of having a unique perspective, something that you might be willing to share with others helping them see things differently. But unfortunately, since you do have a different view point it may mean more arguments or create contentious moments.
So, what does your worldview say about the answer to the question, “Who is God?” are you tapping into your collective of presuppositions or have you examined the evidence for yourself? Please tell me that you aren’t thinking about asking the question, “What evidence?” Take a moment and disregard everything you have been taught regarding origins of things and look around you. Does what you see (or hear) align with your understanding of how things could have begun? Did you notice the varied colors, the diversity of life around you or the fact that you could breathe? Get close and look at the surface of something, did you notice the complexity of how things are made?
While you are at it, did you notice that you could notice? Why have eyes to see if there was no light to illuminate or have ears if there was no sound to hear? These observations give us some idea that there may have been some forethought involved. How could something as intricate as an eye develop, especially if there was no way of knowing that light existed and that there was something to see. We can apply that same question to sounds, odors, temperatures, flavors and textures. There is an abundance of evidence pointing to design. I am saddened that science has attached the “Religious Argument” tag to the subject of Intelligent Design. Many people when they hear or see that statement immediately stop reading. We can debate creation versus some naturalistic explanation or get into a teleological argument involving some watchmaker analogy, but the evidence of design is real and should not be simply classified as being some form of religious or Christian propaganda.
I am not trying to make a persuasive argument regarding creation or even the existence of God, I am simply asking you to think through the evidence on your own. While there is no way to understand a being or entity that can create life, okay let me stop here. This is an important point, we may be capable of creating things, designing things and make machines that work for us, but we still are unable to make something that lives, to create any life, not alone something that thinks on its own. Whenever I think about man trying to create, I think of the old joke that ends with the punchline of, “get your own dirt!” It is easy to speculate on the origins of things but let’s face it, we still don’t have a clue on how life started nor do we really know how to create something out of nothing.
If we were created, then the creator would have set into motion ‘time’ and all the various laws that govern reality, including the laws of physics, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of planetary motion, etc. While at the same time remain outside their influence.
Even if we conclude that the world around us is too complex to happen by chance and that creation is more than likely, combined with the fact that the creator would be far more advanced than us, we can summarize that our creator chose either to remain anonymous or reveal themselves. Then if they chose to reveal themselves to us, how would they do that and be understood?
Again, I feel the need to point out the intelligence and ability difference between us and our creator. Now let’s think, okay stop, think about the fact that we can think and for the most part be autonomous. Wow, that reminds me of so many science fiction stories about artificial intelligence and how they turned on their human creators! Being truly autonomous essentially means they are free to do anything they want, free to obey and free to disobey.
Let me ask a silly question, I say silly because once again I believe trying to think like our creator is futile, but bear with me for a moment. If you were a creator of living beings, how would you choose to communicate with them? Would you pop your head into their existence and say, “hi!” or would you choose a different route that wouldn’t cause them to be so overwhelmed? Of course, that would set you up to be worshiped rather quickly, but what if you wanted them to be completely autonomous and give them a choice to accept you or reject you? Perhaps you would choose to talk to a few individuals and have them communicate to others on your behalf, then the only thing that remains would be to authenticate those messengers and messages as being from you. Since you are the one that created time you would be unaffected by time, so you could validate your messengers by giving them facts about history before it happens. This form of ‘prophecy’ could be your ‘signature’ of authenticity, verifying you were the real creator and of course, God.
This is exactly what we read about in the Bible, we see hundreds of prophecies that have come true at precisely the right time. Technically, this gives the Bible credibility beyond any other book written. Okay, what was that sound? Did I just hear a number of presuppositions and questions pop into your mind? There are a lot of supposed arguments against the Bible. Some of the more popular ones are, “Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?”, “How can you trust it since it was written by people?”, “The Bible? Doesn’t it contain errors?”, “The Bible is too hard to understand!”, “The Bible is just a list of things you can’t do!”, “The God of the Old Testament is mean and nasty, how can He be a good God?”, and many more like these. I call these “smoke screens” that are put up by non-Christians to hide from being talked to by Christians. Sadly, most Christians do not know how to respond and the conversation never gets started as the non-Christian makes their getaway in the smoke. You may have used those smoke screens yourself.
Let me ask you a quick question, if you were in a building that was burning or in great danger and you did not know about the danger, how would you react to someone who came in and tried to warn you? Would you ignore them and act like nothing is wrong? Perhaps you would want to see if the danger existed before acting, perhaps the warning was too vague or delivered without emotion. But in reality that person was performing a self-less act wanting to help you and everyone else in danger from destruction. From a Christian’s perspective that is exactly what they are doing when they ask you about God, the motivation is love and concern, not hatred or contempt. While the message will undoubtedly make your feel guilty, it is really about keeping you from eternal destruction. The motivation is love not hatred. God commands us to love the person but hate the sin, unfortunately many Christians have difficulty in separating the two. Sin is a word God uses to describe our disobedience of Him. We are all sinners and fall short of perfection. Because some Christians act like they are perfect, the world at large has some difficulty accepting all Christians. We will discuss sin and why it is a serious subject with God in the next chapter. Let’s go back to the Bible for the moment.
Even though the Bible contains several individual books that were written by many different authors, it was inspired by one true author, God. He has spoken to many people, not special people, these were ordinary people like us, to communicate His message to other people, these words were then written and safeguarded over many years. The prophecies that are interwoven in the Biblical text make it clear that they are legitimately from someone outside of the realm of time. I won’t attempt to answer all the issues regarding people’s queries about the reliability of the Bible, but one can easily refute each issue to most people’s satisfaction.
Okay, now that we have discussed the issue of how God might have wanted to communicate, let’s talk now about why He would want to. There are a number of potential reasons a creator would want to talk to their creation, especially if those that were created had some ability to comprehend who He was. For parents, this is an easy question, you had kids! So, you can see why one needs to set the boundaries, otherwise there would be chaos. To begin, there must be some things considered wrong and some things considered right and good. If someone disobeys, there should also be some form of punishment and perhaps some enticement for good behavior. Wow, in just two sentences we identified good and wrong behavior, boundaries, the need to obey, punishment for disobedience and enticements as things we need for our children. Can you imagine what else we need to add to the list for a child growing up, all the way from toddler to being an adult?
Parents can also understand that children should not be spoiled, okay, that gets lost when one becomes a grandparent, but it’s true nonetheless. If everything is provided for a child, they can lose, or perhaps more precisely, never gain a sense of value. Things of value, tangible as well as intangible, become our primary motivators. For example, we can be motivated to do something for someone else because we love them. We go to work because we get something of value in return. If God automatically gave us everything we need, when we needed it, we might not value our relationship with Him, nor would we be motivated to do anything. Oddly enough, God does want us to depend on Him for everything, as He is a loving God who wants us to cast our cares on Him, we will come back to this subject later.
The Bible is one of the few books that begins, well, at the beginning! Now, before you ask about science and the Bible, I just want to say that the Bible was never intended to be an exhaustive resource on all things and cover all subjects, besides that would make the Bible somewhat difficult to carry! The Bible contains everything we need to know about God. Since infinite knowledge will not fit into a finite package, namely our brains, we need to accept the fact that we are not ‘wired’ to fully understand God, including what He is able to do or why He does what He does. God has revealed Himself to us, not completely, as that would ultimately be a waste of time as I just pointed out. However, in the Bible He tell us what we need to know about His character, His nature, His power and abilities and perhaps the most important thing of all, His love. That’s right love, something God created us to experience.
It is through the Word of God that we understand that God is a loving God. One of those smoke screens we discussed earlier that are used by non-believers often begin with something like, “If God is a loving God how can He allow…(fill in the blank)” First of all, how did they know that He is a loving God? They must have heard it from someone or read it for themselves in the Bible. Others might claim that the God in the Old Testament is violent and perhaps evil, while the God in the New Testament is humble, loving and kind. The answer to those statements is simple, read the book for yourselves. I know that sounds rather strong and heavy-handed, but unfortunately it is true that most people that are against the Bible, have never read it. Okay, you noticed I never answered either statement, the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament is the same God. He cannot and will not change. But something obviously changed, if God did not change, it must have been mankind. They disobeyed God (remember, the Bible calls it sin, we will explain later what that word means), the rules were broken. As a parent, what would you do?
One of the reasons for the perception of God being a violent and mean God early in the Bible is that discipline needed to be enforced. I’m sure if you are parent you can understand the delicate balance between tolerance and discipline. If you are not a parent, then you can probably think back how you were treated when you “crossed the line” with your parents. The prime motivation for compassion, tolerance, forgiveness and discipline, for both God and those that have children, is love.
So, what happened? Why did God get so angry that He had to do the things He did, that got Him the title of being a ‘mean’ God? We don’t have to go far into the Bible to see the first-time man disobeyed God and sin was introduced. In story telling there is a method often used by authors that is called, “setting the stage.” This is where the pertinent history leading up to the beginning of the story is provided, including who the characters are and just as the name implies a term taken from live theatre, gives us the location, time and setting of the scene. As pointed out earlier, God starts at the beginning of time and briefly walks us through creation and the beginning of human beings. Since we would not understand the process of creation, we are swept quickly to the point where the first man, Adam (which in Hebrew actually means ‘the man’, not very imaginative but it works) was made from dust of the ground. He is placed in an incredible garden and then given the responsibility to name all the animals. God wants Adam to have a companion and makes the first women, Eve, out of a bone from Adam. Remember this is God working, not mankind, He didn’t need to take dust to make man nor did He need to take something from Adam to make Eve, but He did, so she was called a ‘woman’ (essentially “taken out of man”).
In the third chapter of the first book of the Bible (known as Genesis), we read how Adam and Eve, even though warned, disobeyed God. More on the details later, however, as a result of this action, all of creation was cursed and all human beings from that point in history inherited what the Bible describes as a sinful nature. The result of which is death, prior to the disobedience mankind was perfect and would have remained alive forever. At first this may sound like harsh punishment but we will see later that it was for ours and all of mankind’s benefit.
You might be asking about the curse I mentioned earlier. A curse is generally defined today as an expression of a wish or invocation of evil or ill will upon someone. Used in Genesis the word implies something bound and rendered powerless to resist, in this case all of creation has been restricted. How? Since we do not have detailed records of what the world was like during this period, we can only say that the world went from being perfect to being less than perfect. I believe it was during this time many of the physical laws we know today began. One specifically to take notice of would be the second law of thermodynamics (also known as the law of entropy). To summarize the law into a few words, we can say everything is slowing down, cooling down and going from order to disorder. Applied to life this means we age and eventually die. Now, if you are like me you are probably shaking your head and wondering how a loving God can respond to one event of disobedience with such a long-lasting horrific curse!
The Bible explains that it only takes one sin to be a sinner, much like today we might call someone a criminal after they only committed one crime. God’s law is perfect, just as He is perfect and His law says the penalty of sin is death. There are a few things we need to understand regarding God’s law and His actions, first we need to remember that we will never be able to fully comprehend God and certainly not understand His perspective. That would be like a newly hired mail clerk wondering why the CEO of a company made a decision. We also need to remember that God loves us and since sin separates us from Him, sin is a very serious issue to God and it should be for us. Since we are sinners, we cannot return to our pre-sin perfection without help. The good news is the story does not end there, but before we discuss the ultimate salvage operation, let’s first review why God is often called a despot or a ‘mean’ God.
In the fifth chapter of Genesis we hear about several generations with little to no information about the individuals or any of the events leading up to the time of Noah and then the Bible slows down a little to give us details about a rebellion, beginning with Genesis chapter six. Nearly everyone has heard about the story of Noah, the ark, and the worldwide flood. But most are unaware of the reason why God wanted to eliminate all of mankind except for eight individuals. Ever since God said in Genesis chapter 3 that there would be someone that would come out of humanity to destroy the devil, we see the devil trying desperately to keep that from happening. Now let’s rewind time back to Noah’s day, we read that mankind has become wicked with every thought bent on doing evil continually. We also see that there was an evil influence through what the Bible calls the Nephilim. However, Noah found favor in God and so in the following years, Noah and his family built the ark, a large floating container vessel, and the family was ultimately spared destruction.
Shortly after the flood, in Genesis chapter 11, we read about how another rebellion led up to the creation of various languages and why there are so many cultures and varied people groups. Then the Biblical narrative begins to narrow down to one person at Genesis chapter 12, named Abram. God made with him an incredible multipart unconditional promise, which is still in effect today. Part of that covenant included a portion of land which is often called, “The Promised Land.” We then hear about how this family that started with Abram who God later changed Abram’s name to Abraham, becomes a nation of potentially being millions of people that were, several hundred years later, enslaved by Egypt.
Through a man named Moses, God led this sizable family, now called the Israelites named after Abraham’s grandson, out of Egypt to occupy the Promised Land. However, the king of Egypt at that time, known as the Pharaoh, was not very keen on the idea. In what will be remembered by God’s people and the surrounding nations for many years, God displayed His power in ten unbelievable plagues against Egypt, concluding with the death of each family’s first-born child, unless the family applied the blood of a lamb on each home’s doorposts and lintel per God’s precise instructions allowing the bringer of death to ‘passover’. Pharaoh denied permission for the Israelites to leave through the first nine plagues, it was when his own son died in the tenth plague that he reluctantly allowed them to leave.
As they were leaving Egypt, Pharaoh changed his mind and ordered his army to pursue them. God brought Moses and the Israelites to a point that required crossing a large body of water. God divided the water, opening a path to cross and the Israelites crossed safely. Pharaoh’s army was soon eliminated when God closed the water on top of them as they attempted to cross behind them. The Israelites proceeded towards the Promised Land.
As they progressed, the people started to rebel against Moses and God, many died en route. In fact, except for a few individuals, that entire generation died with only their children being allowed into the Promised Land. While they were in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land, this group stopped at a mountain located in modern day Arabia referred to in the Bible as Mount Sinai (today it is called Jabal al-Lawz). While there, God gave Moses what is known in Hebrew as the Torah, which means simply, “The Law.” The Torah is more than just a set of rules, as it covers subjects from finances to mold, from things that need to be done to things that should never be done, making this additional covenant, very conditional. Which included aspects regarding the occupation of the Promised Land and should not be confused with what was unconditionally promised in the covenant given to Abraham years earlier.
Since over 400 years had gone by while the Israelites were in Egypt, the devil had plenty of time to make the promised land unacceptable to God by bringing in various people groups that practiced despicable rituals that were an abomination to God. In other words, the land was now spiritually polluted. God did not want His people to be influenced by these people groups so He had His people forcibly remove them and kill them all.
I am going to stop here to summarize why God is often perceived as being an evil or mean God: 1) He established a curse on all creation, requiring death for all things living, due to a single act of disobedience; 2) many people died in a global flood, due to defiance and rebellion; 3) language and cultural diversity came about due to disobedience; 4) the first-born of many families were killed as the result of disobedience and indifference to God; 5) the Egyptian army was slaughtered due to a disbelieving and prideful Pharaoh; 6) nearly a whole generation of people died in the desert, due to rebellion and 7) God had his people destroy the occupants of the Promised Land because they practiced rituals that were, not only rebellious to God, but highly offensive to Him. We could go on as there are many similar stories in the Bible, but you are probably ready to say, see! Suggesting that God is indeed evil and mean, but did you notice that in each case there was something that provoked God to punish? Do you think God was too lenient or do you think He was too intolerant and quick to condemn? Remember He made us and we are to obey Him (in other words, His creation, His rules). Secondly, we also need to remember that there is no way we can understand why He does the things He does and that includes a true perspective of what is fair. Okay, even when we take in consideration of these factors, the perception of Him being a mean God persists for some, especially if we are to believe that He is a loving God.
Let’s try thinking like God here for a minute, okay, I know I have been saying that we can’t think like Him for a number of reasons, but bear with me for few quick points. Point one, in each case there was disobedience or rebellion before some form of punishment. Next, think about the person doing the punishment, God is unique in that He is the only one that can know someone else’s heart, not only know what they are thinking, but whether they would continue in their sin. If they were to resume their disobedience and rebellion, would they influence others to sin too? Can you see the dilemma? God’s love for us not only includes discipline, it includes protecting us from corruption. Now, let’s return to thinking like a human being, can you see now why this statement that God is an evil or mean God is not only an incorrect view, but it has the potential of being motivated by our own selfish desire to find fault in our creator (that of course, would not be too dissimilar to a tantrum!)
The Bible calls God a jealous God, not in the sense of being blinded by emotion to exact revenge or seek retaliation, like a dejected and hate-filled lover might act. But in the sense that He wants to have a close relationship with us and wants the best for us. God desires us, His creation, to voluntarily accept Him and comply with His Law. Since we continue to sin (remember, we sin because we are sinners) we keep pushing God away. He desires to have fellowship with us. Think about the fact that the creator of all things wants to spend time with you! God could have created people with absolute reliance on Him, but would that be real love? Could a robot that is programmed to obey your every command be considered a form of love? No.
So, who is God?
It seems that the God of the Bible is the real God and that He loves us. But man was disobedient and our fellowship with Him was broken due to our sin. Since God is outside the realm of time, He knew that sin would occur and due to the fact that sinful people can’t get out of the state of sinfulness on their own, God would need to provide the solution, that is if He loved us enough to salvage humanity. The good news is that He does and He did!