Thread: What comes to mind when you think about God? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on
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AW Tozer apparently said:
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
So what comes to mind?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Peace, beauty, stillness.
Posted by Mary LA (# 17040) on
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I've been reading articles about and selected writings from Hildegard of Bingen and she describes herself as 'a feather on the breath of God' which makes me think of a very gentle and powerful soft movement of Spirit.
Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on
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Not sure I have the words to describe God - but I 'see' a vast, enormous, tremendous power that encompasses everything, from the galaxies (just think Andromeda) to the microscopic beauty of any sort of life on earth (think bacteria or viruses)
Its the vastness that gets me!
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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Struck by a tremendous Holy Awe which raises me out of myself to a place where I feel deeply loved; nourished and protected where I know it all makes sense and that difficulties and tribulations are nothing in themselves but a test. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I find it quite hard to think about God, to be honest, at least in any abstract sense. I find it a lot easier to think about Jesus, which is where the Incarnation and, indeed iconography, helps.
'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us ...'
That said, I insist on the strictest Trinitarian formularies.
There have been times when I've had a strong sense of the numinous but I'm not sure I actually consciously 'think' about God as such in any deliberate 'let's-sit-down-and-think-about-God' way.
Some of the Orthodox mystics, of course, taught that we need to clear our minds of any physical or imaginative construct if we really wanted to get to grips with the reality of God.
I'm not sure it's completely possible to rid ourselves of anthropomorphic or physical concepts - and I'm conscious of what J I Packer was getting at when he wrote that it's idolatrous to have any kind of physical image when we think of God. I can see what he was getting at but I'm not sure that such a thing is entirely possible.
We are not Buddhists. We believe in a physical Incarnation. What our hands have touched, our eyes seen, concerning the Word of Life.
There's not a void nor an ineffable stillness and silence. There is a presence.
How we apprehend and realise that is the interesting issue, though.
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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If thinking about God is about summarising who or what God is to us, then it does say a lot about who we are.
If thinking about God is about exploration, discovering more of the vastness of who God is, it may be one of the ways in which we worship God.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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Unlike Gamaliel, I find it very hard to think about Jesus and much easier to think about God: a powerful force for good, in everything and through everything. And with very strong arms to hold it all up.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
AW Tozer apparently said:
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
So what comes to mind?
How lousy he is at keeping his alleged promises. How he seems to be utterly averse to plain speech, since his alleged words have to be reinterpreted, redefined and qualified before they match real-life experience. How (as I've said here before) if He and I are supposed to have some sort of "relationship", it wouldn't kill him to pick up the phone once in a while. And what a bloody awful employer he is.
Does Tozer mean that I'm bad at all those things too, then?
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
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Nothing. Anything else for me would be dangerous.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
AW Tozer apparently said:
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
So what comes to mind?
Kneeling.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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How apophatic ...
Mind you, I found it very difficult to answer Ramarius's question. I've gone from a quite goo-ey 'hwyl' pietism mixed with a very propositional and 'modernist' form of quasi-Calvinism towards a position where I find it difficult to articulate anything 'concrete' about God other than that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him ... even if, as per Adeodatus, he doesn't always seem to answer his phone or his emails ...
Posted by EJ. (# 9063) on
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Nothing. And I don't mean to imply I don't believe in God, I do; I just can't imagine anything that'd be enough, so to speak.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
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Amen EJ.
Since I became Orthodox I have ceased to meditate for precisely this reason. Shared meditation in a group is even more fraught with difficulty. It is desperately easy UNWITTINGLY to manipulate peoples' feelings with perfectly straight forward biblical meditations, (of the affective sort I mean). The Cloud of Unknowing and St. John of the Cross (in the west) and St. Dionysios and St. Symeon the New Theologian (in the east) offer a safer path I think.
[ 21. June 2012, 11:23: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
Posted by Fuff (# 14655) on
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Light and Love in that order.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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The ground of all being.
Posted by Paddy O'Furniture (# 12953) on
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I think about God as a friend. The greatest Friend I will ever have. A Friend who happened to create me in Her/His own image and loves me so much that I can't even wrap my mind around it. And, like Father Andrew M. Greeley, I now see God as my Lover. It's scary to admit that here because I open myself up to charges of blaspheme or some such rot but that is the way I think about my God.
Certainly, it's not all peaceful warm feelings. I also feel awe/wonder/some healthy fear bumping up against the magnitude of God but I also feel Her humor, Her mercy, grace, tenderness, and sometimes Her anger when I do something to hurt Her, i.e. hurt another creature or myself.
I go back and forth about whether Jesus is God. Most of the time I think of him as my much older, infinitely wiser brother. I don't think he minds this at all. Jesus and I have an understanding. He knows I struggle with the concept of him as fully human and fully God.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
AW Tozer apparently said:
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
So what comes to mind?
How lousy he is at keeping his alleged promises. How he seems to be utterly averse to plain speech, since his alleged words have to be reinterpreted, redefined and qualified before they match real-life experience. How (as I've said here before) if He and I are supposed to have some sort of "relationship", it wouldn't kill him to pick up the phone once in a while. And what a bloody awful employer he is.
Does Tozer mean that I'm bad at all those things too, then?
Give him a break. He has to deal with humans all day.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
what comes to mind when you think about God[?]
That we had to invent Him because He didn’t exist.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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The word God
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
That we had to invent Him because He didn’t exist.
An "invention" that is part of the evolutionary process then. And of no different status to any other idea, given that all ideas originate through this process (according to the philosophy of naturalism). Therefore this idea is as valid as any other idea.
Which shows how self-contradictory naturalistic epistemology really is, in which all ideas derive their validity through their utilitarian function, and yet this same theory declares that some of these ideas are not actually valid, because they are not "true" (whatever that means). So how can an idea be both valid and invalid at the same time?
More evidence that these smug "new atheist" declarations are incoherent and irrational.
Posted by Ambivalence (# 16165) on
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Creation, observation, morality, a potential afterlife, and how these can be reconciled with each other. A scientist's approach, I suppose.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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One huge big contradiction.
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on
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Singularity
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The word God
Yep, that's what I get.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
More evidence that these smug "new atheist" declarations are incoherent and irrational.
![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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The question may tell us more about A W Tozer than it tells us about ourselves - although, in fairness, he was of a rather mystical bent. But I'm a bit suspicious about the question as it seems to have an inbuilt judgementalism about it - as if to separate the sheep from the goats - which is God's prerogative and not ours.
But that might be a judgemental perspective on my own part ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Felafool (# 270) on
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Alien - totally different and 'other', yet the essence of goodness and unconditional love. Slow to anger, swift to bless.
Posted by PerkyEars (# 9577) on
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Big and multicoloured. A sort of friendly presence that lurks almost out of sight because if we saw too much right now we'd be scared shitless.
I have trouble with letting go of concepts of God and thinking 'nothing', since God to me is a definate entity. I can admit I don't know everything about my mate, but I can't empty my mind of notions about them.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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That He's thinking us from autonomy to glory.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
That sounds like my cat.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
I remember a "God" like that. He was a projection of a particular church leader I once had some dealings with.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I remember a "God" like that. He was a projection of a particular church leader I once had some dealings with.
Wasn't that AW Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
That we are all projecting - thus what we think of God says more about us than it does about God?
[ 21. June 2012, 17:56: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
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Parent.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
That we are all projecting - thus what we think of God says more about us than it does about God?
Not necessarily.
God is not just an empty canvas on which we paint our own picture (which is really just a form of practical atheism). He does actually have a character, as revealed in the Bible, and especially through Jesus. And this true character is revealed through the witness of the Holy Spirit.
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
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Someone who 'loves' me but doesn't like me very much.
Indifferent. Someone who has a different idea of what suffering means than I do.
Inaffable. Distant. Seeming careless with the world except for a few lucky people here and there. Careless of the suffering of the innocent and powerless, and thus must enjoy us more when we are dead than alive.
You didn't ask about Jesus....
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I rather think that it was still Tozer's point, though, EE.
I suspect his judgement on someone's position viz-a-viz God, salvation etc etc would depend on their answer. Which may or may not be the case. How do we know?
If we are Christians then of course what we know of God is revealed in scripture. But it's how we interpret scripture that's the point.
No, God isn't a blank or empty canvas but neither do we 'look' upon him in scripture or elsewhere save through the lenses of our own particular tradition or viewpoint.
I submit that we all anthropomorphise to a certain extent and that with all of us our view or image of God is going to be partial and is going to be flawed. How can it be otherwise?
Sure there's the witness of scripture (and tradition?) and there's the witness of the Holy Spirit but we still 'see through a glass darkly' and only 'know in part'.
I'm now going to sit back and wait for you to accuse me of practical atheism ...
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
That we are all projecting - thus what we think of God says more about us than it does about God?
Not necessarily.
God is not just an empty canvas on which we paint our own picture (which is really just a form of practical atheism). He does actually have a character, as revealed in the Bible, and especially through Jesus. And this true character is revealed through the witness of the Holy Spirit.
I was asking if Tozer was hinting at this in the quote, not saying I believe it myself.
I suspect there is a lot of truth in it though. We can't but project (Even when looking at the words and revealed character of of Jesus)
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The word God
So the word 'God' itself has no meaning to you?
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
We can't but project (Even when looking at the words and revealed character of of Jesus)
I disagree.
I find that I can only comprehend the character of God through the revelation given by the Holy Spirit. If I try to "work God out" by natural means simply from the events recorded in the Bible or in the news, I am often left in a state of confusion. It's hard to imagine a God of compassion when meditating on, for example, the punishment of stoning prescribed in the Old Testament or trying to comprehend God's character and purposes when thinking about the experience of the Haitian child dying a slow death in the rubble of her house after the earthquake.
So in the light of this, why is it that I am convinced that "God is love"? This revelation cannot have come by natural means, because nature (and even the Bible) often defies this conclusion. It has come via the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, which is not a matter of my projection.
Certainly if God is nothing more than what we project about him, then the atheists (or at least the deists - i.e. practical atheists) are right.
Posted by WhateverTheySay (# 16598) on
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Loving creator of everything. But too big to imagine.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
Sounds like one of my school teachers.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Sounds like my Grandma!
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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Timelessness. Beauty. Justice.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
...
Since I became Orthodox I have ceased to meditate for precisely this reason. Shared meditation in a group is even more fraught with difficulty. It is desperately easy UNWITTINGLY to manipulate peoples' feelings with perfectly straight forward biblical meditations, (of the affective sort I mean). The Cloud of Unknowing and St. John of the Cross (in the west) and St. Dionysios and St. Symeon the New Theologian (in the east) offer a safer path I think.
Amen, Father Gregory.
I think there is much cheap watered down "mysticism" available in books, groups etc.
Christian mysticism - the genuine inner path - requires competent guidance lest the would-be "mystic" gets totally lost and possibly gravely psychologically damaged as well.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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EE, I think you are putting 2 and 2 together and making 5 again. I can't speak for Boogie but I'm certainly not saying that God is nothing more than what we project upon him.
Whenever we have this kind of discussion it tends to get all binary and either/or.
All I was saying was that our apprehension of God can only ever be partial at best. How can it be otherwise? And yes, let us praise God that He gives us His Holy Spirit of truth to lead us into all Truth - otherwise we wouldn't have any apprehension of God to begin with. 'He has set eternity in the heart of man ...' etc.
We see in part and we know in part, but one day we will see clearly and fully, as indeed we are 'fully known'.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
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At the moment this.
Posted by angelfish (# 8884) on
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I think of a person wearing a big cloak, with it spread out wide, ready to wrap me up with him when I get there. In a word, Abba.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The word God
So the word 'God' itself has no meaning to you?
Course it does. I can pick it apart.
It's just the word that seems to occur to me first.
p.s. Care to explain why God is a massive contradiction? Are we speaking Theodicy?
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Inter-stellar space.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel
EE, I think you are putting 2 and 2 together and making 5 again.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The word God
So the word 'God' itself has no meaning to you?
Course it does. I can pick it apart.
It's just the word that seems to occur to me first.
p.s. Care to explain why God is a massive contradiction? Are we speaking Theodicy?
Them's big wurds!
No, just a very human response, a lot of the time, to the experience that God is big and powerful, can do whatever he wants, is 'love' and 'good' etc etc, but around me people, including good people, die, grieve, get depressed, suffer terminal disappointment, to say nothing of natural disasters, war and all that.
To my tiny, finite mind that's a contradiction in the nature of the Creator, but I also bear in mind that what can be known about the whole of God by a tiny finite mind must be as near to naught as makes no difference.
I wish I could just think of a word and not the meaning for it: I think 'Mars Bar', 'cake' and 'Jelly Babies' and sadly my mind has already jumped to the image, the texture, the pleasure, the purchase - and the calories!
Posted by sanc (# 6355) on
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Mathematics. He must be the embodiment of mathematics to give such structure to the universe.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Why the EE?
We've had words about this sort of thing before.
Posted by Rosina (# 15589) on
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spirit - someone not limited to our human five senses - someone who can be anywhere and everywhere
superior being - JS Spong puts it "the ground of all being"
giver of Life giver of peace, giver of light, giver of love
creator, lover
if it was possible to put God in a box and say "that is God" it wouldn't be God would it? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on
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a label that we humans give to the sense we have of the ineffable, unfathomable, that does not fit into what we believe to be the normal, everyday workings of our environment.
Posted by Rosina (# 15589) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
a label that we humans give to the sense we have of the ineffable, unfathomable, that does not fit into what we believe to be the normal, everyday workings of our environment.
do you believe one day this "ineffable, unfathomable" sense could be the "normal everyday workings of your environment"? - and if not why not?
Is it possible to walk in the light continually?
another word just came to mind - numinous
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
...
p.s. Care to explain why God is a massive contradiction? Are we speaking Theodicy?
Well, you could start with the Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy
I must confess I took the thread on face value.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel
Why the EE?
Because I can't understand how you think my response to Boogie is not logical. She said that we cannot but project. I am saying that if projection is all there is, then we are all just making God up as we see fit, which is really a form of practical atheism. Clearly this is not the biblical position according to any interpretation that regards the Bible as essentially "true", because it is clear that the entire message of the Bible can be summed up in one phrase: God revealing Himself to man. This is the opposite of projection.
Of course, God has revealed Himself using anthropomorphic categories, but this is no more an example of projection than the mental functioning of the child who tries to understand something an adult explains to her in "appropriate language". The child is not trying to fashion the concepts according to her own outlook, but rather the limitations of her perception of reality determine the language used in which external realities are revealed to her.
So biblical anthropomorphisms are not really "projection", but a form of language.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I'd suggest it was both/and rather than either/or ... but then, I'm becoming increasingly apothatic ...
I hope this doesn't lead me to become apathetic, though.
Seriously, I might be missing something but I don't think that even Boogie was saying that any idea of God we might entertain is purely projection. If she was, then yes, I'd take a similar stance to yourself on the issue. But I do tend to think that you take people's comments further than they intend and then turn them around and beat them back over the head with them.
It might not be what you intend, but it's how it reads to me ...
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Seriously, I might be missing something but I don't think that even Boogie was saying that any idea of God we might entertain is purely projection. If she was, then yes, I'd take a similar stance to yourself on the issue. But I do tend to think that you take people's comments further than they intend and then turn them around and beat them back over the head with them.
"Even Boogie?"
You are right - I wasn't!
I was saying that maybe Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
- may have been that we are all projecting - thus the many 'versions' of God that we see, even on this thread.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
You are right - I wasn't!
I was saying that maybe Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
- may have been that we are all projecting - thus the many 'versions' of God that we see, even on this thread.
This is what you originally said:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
I remember a "God" like that. He was a projection of a particular church leader I once had some dealings with.
Wasn't that AW Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
That we are all projecting - thus what we think of God says more about us than it does about God?
Do you agree with Tozer, or not?
The way you wrote this suggests that you do, but when challenged you seemed to wash your hands of this idea.
What we believe about God may say something about us, but that is not the same as saying that we are all "projecting", by which I understand the word to mean that we are all fashioning the character of God from our own resources. It is manifestly not true that anyone's belief about God is merely projection, because someone could have received a true relevation of God. That may say something about the person - he or she is open to receiving the truth - but it does not imply projection.
Now whether you believe this or not is beside the point. I am challenging the concept to which you refer.
Posted by Drewthealexander (# 16660) on
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What we think about when we think about God says both how God has imprinted himself on us, and how we are responding to him.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
You are right - I wasn't!
I was saying that maybe Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
- may have been that we are all projecting - thus the many 'versions' of God that we see, even on this thread.
This is what you originally said:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
I remember a "God" like that. He was a projection of a particular church leader I once had some dealings with.
Wasn't that AW Tozer's point when s/he said -
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
That we are all projecting - thus what we think of God says more about us than it does about God?
Do you agree with Tozer, or not?
The way you wrote this suggests that you do, but when challenged you seemed to wash your hands of this idea.
Neither.
I reckon there is some truth in it (the idea that we all project to some extent) If we are thinking about anyone's character (including God's) we are likely to bring our own experiences and personality into that assessment.
Why would there be so many different answers to the question 'What is God's character?' otherwise?
If God's character were self evident, then we'd all give the same answer.
The idea that so few people have the One Truth is wrong imo - and what Jesus taught against. He taught the Jews that God was for all humankind.
I don't think God hides. But I do think we all experience God very differently. We can only see through our own lens.
(It would be great if we could hand the camera to others so that they could see what we see - but we can't, we can only describe. I am a painter and photographer, and I describe the way I see God much better in pictures than words. So I apologise if I can't say clearly what I mean)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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To a certain extent, whilst I can see what Tozer might have been getting at and don't disagree with Drewthealexander that how we think about God 'says' something about us and reflects our response to his working in our lives (for want of a better phrase) but I somehow think the whole premise here doesn't quite 'cut it' ..
We can say and think all manner of 'right' things about God but it's what we DO and how we behave that counts. Sure, 'as a man thinks within himself, so he is' and there is a connection between the inner and the outer - or at least, there should be.
But it can be a bit like Talkative in 'Pilgrim's Progress' - he said and thought all the right things about 'Gospel verities' but he was a dry old windbag full or hot air ...
The Rechabites weren't officially part of Israel nor, nor presumably did they believe the 'right things' about God but were commended for their way of life and used as an example and an object lesson for wayward and drifting Israel.
Surely the Parable of the Good Samaritan is making a similar point? The Samaritan didn't 'think' about God in the 'right' way but his actions showed he was a true 'neighbour' to the man who fell among thieves.
Talk is cheap. Thinking possibly even cheaper.
It isn't just about how we think and how we talk but how we act.
Posted by Rosina (# 15589) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
If God's character were self evident, then we'd all give the same answer.
[/QB]
Hmm it's interesting that no-one has written the word Jesus isn't it?
Surely the most accurate image of God ever presented was that of Jesus who described the mind and nature of God.
Posted by Rosina (# 15589) on
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oops apologies to Gamamaiel who did write "Jesus"
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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And who didn't write 'Gamamaiel', Rosnina ... errr ... I mean Rsoanian ... I mean ...
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Rosina:
Hmm it's interesting that no-one has written the word Jesus isn't it?
Surely the most accurate image of God ever presented was that of Jesus who described the mind and nature of God.
I did (up thread)
Yes - I agree, but that image, given by Jesus, was projected to us by people. So it's still subject to inaccuracies and interpretation. For example, John interpreted what he saw of Jesus very differently from the others.
Posted by kaytee (# 3482) on
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That which demands a response.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And who didn't write 'Gamamaiel', Rosnina ... errr ... I mean Rsoanian ... I mean ...
Don't be so sensitive!
Oh. That's another thread.... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I'm not being sensitive, I'm just messing about Anselamin ... I mean Asnelmian ... I mean ...
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not being sensitive, I'm just messing about Anselamin ... I mean Asnelmian ... I mean ...
A bit of fun, whilst EE seems bent on a bit of thread sinking may be just what the doctor ordered.
Posted by Deputy Verger (# 15876) on
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I think of the messengers, the angels, intermediaries, the ones described as shielding even their own faces from the sight, the ones who occasionally appear to folk and say: "Do not be afraid." I'll never be enough of a mystic for a vision of God, but I will always live in hope of a vision of an angel.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd)
...EE seems bent on a bit of thread sinking...
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on
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Wild, untameable, extravagent, profligate love. The One who sets our hearts on fire.
[ 26. June 2012, 21:32: Message edited by: Jolly Jape ]
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd)
...EE seems bent on a bit of thread sinking...
OK. You were seeking clarification. It came across as a wee bit laboured and pedantic to me. Sometimes that happens on a one dimensional discussion forum where you just get the written word.
Posted by Nunc Dimittis (# 848) on
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When I think about God what comes to mind is either intense nothing (as Fr Gregory says), or a passive watching presence, just looking at me. It makes no difference whether this watching presence is called "God" or "Jesus".
[ 28. June 2012, 03:48: Message edited by: Nunc Dimittis ]
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
How very, very sad. Where did you get this view from?
Didn't you know that the Christian gospel is supposed to be good news. The view above is extremely bad news and so cannot, by definition, be Christian.
Posted by Rosina (# 15589) on
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I agree Leo - this from Marvin:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The Judge. Always watching. Always knowing. Who demands perfection as a minimum standard. For whom nothing we do can ever be good enough.
The sort of Father whose first words, when we come home on a Sunday evening full of the joys of having scored our first ever half-century on the cricket field, are "so why wasn't it a century then?"
sounds more like a human father than 'Our Father who art in Heaven" to me.
I read a long time ago that the first impression kids have of God (of those that believe from childhood) is closely related to the impression they have of their fathers.
This makes perfect sense, in at least the big three monotheistic religions, as God is referred to as "father". In that way, the armchair psychologist could probably make a good case that
those raised theistic with nasty, mean fathers might well have an association with the word god as nasty and mean.
And maybe those raised atheistic with nasty, mean fathers might sometimes become fervent believers, at least initially, in seeking the better father they were denied in childhood?
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on
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A father who asked for bread gives a stone, or a father who creates souls with whom he is so irreversibly angry that he destines them to endless pain (or perhaps just takes any opportunity of failure of belief, ritual, or behaviour to justify the pain - and does he inflict it himself or hand the punishment over to demons and devils as his agents)?
No the Christian God has not entirely answered the question of his Son - why hast Thou forsaken Me.
Well, we can and ought to hope for better than my carelessly constructed despair.
Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on
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Inpenetrable darkness with the sound of stone growing on a cliff but with the comfort of knowing I'm safely in the shadow of his wing. The Omega nebula. A newborn infant's face.
[ 30. June 2012, 00:28: Message edited by: art dunce ]
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
AW Tozer apparently said:
"The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God."
So what comes to mind?
That's an idea I can agree with. What comes to my mind is Jesus Christ, glorified and resurrected, God of heaven and of the universe.
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