Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Painting Pictures of God
5:37 PM | 
Posted by
Norma Allen
Christians understand and define God according to the pictures drawn for us in the Bible. We see God as Father, Mother, Shepherd, Judge, King, and Advocate. None of these are perfect pictures of the wonder of God. Each image is limited by the imperfections both of our understanding and the human models provided for our consideration.
All of us have known, and some of us have had, fathers who have not lived up to the ideals we might imagine for them. Some are cold, unloving, irresponsible and downright abusive. These are not characteristics of God the tender, loving, diligent, and caring Heavenly Father revealed in Scripture.
The same point can be made for God who loves us as the best of mothers loves her nursing child. But while a mother might, through cold-heartedness, selfish substance abuse or the ravages of dementia, forget her child, God declares that he will never forget us. He writes us on his hands.
To continue down the list: shepherds can’t all be perfect; history attests to the cruelties of judges and kings; popular wisdom has only unflattering things to say about lawyers. None of these biblical analogies is bulletproof. No analogy can say all there is to say about anything.
The idea of the Trinity, that God is three persons in one, poses challenges to our understanding. It always seemed to me that the doctrine of the Trinity, as otherworldly and unimaginable as it is, must somehow surpass these weak human analogies and get to the heart of what God is as a spiritual being. However, to gain any usefulness from the doctrine in terms of comprehending God, I have found that it is more valuable to me personally to consider the doctrine of the Trinity as one more picture drawn for us by insightful reading of the texts and history. I certainly would not dare say "merely a picture," but it is a picture nonetheless.
If this smacks of sacrilege, ask yourself: what does a spiritual being have to do with numbers, a robustly physical concept? Trying to depict the spiritual in our material world is difficult. This needs to be acknowledged from the start.
All of us have known, and some of us have had, fathers who have not lived up to the ideals we might imagine for them. Some are cold, unloving, irresponsible and downright abusive. These are not characteristics of God the tender, loving, diligent, and caring Heavenly Father revealed in Scripture.
The same point can be made for God who loves us as the best of mothers loves her nursing child. But while a mother might, through cold-heartedness, selfish substance abuse or the ravages of dementia, forget her child, God declares that he will never forget us. He writes us on his hands.
To continue down the list: shepherds can’t all be perfect; history attests to the cruelties of judges and kings; popular wisdom has only unflattering things to say about lawyers. None of these biblical analogies is bulletproof. No analogy can say all there is to say about anything.
The idea of the Trinity, that God is three persons in one, poses challenges to our understanding. It always seemed to me that the doctrine of the Trinity, as otherworldly and unimaginable as it is, must somehow surpass these weak human analogies and get to the heart of what God is as a spiritual being. However, to gain any usefulness from the doctrine in terms of comprehending God, I have found that it is more valuable to me personally to consider the doctrine of the Trinity as one more picture drawn for us by insightful reading of the texts and history. I certainly would not dare say "merely a picture," but it is a picture nonetheless.
If this smacks of sacrilege, ask yourself: what does a spiritual being have to do with numbers, a robustly physical concept? Trying to depict the spiritual in our material world is difficult. This needs to be acknowledged from the start.
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About Me
- Norma Allen
- Founder of Nallenart and author of L'Art de lire, a French as a Second Language program for homeschooling and classroom instruction. In addition to homeschooling her three children, Norma taught French in the classroom, and online. She has offered seminars to homeschoolers and classroom teachers. Since 1991, Norma has taught guitar at Still River Studio.
Her abiding passion, however, has been learning about how God has reached out to relate to us, his creation. She enjoys reading, meditating, and formal study of the Bible, theology, religion of all kinds, philosophy, and the psychology of being human. Norma has taught on these various issues in a number of settings from informal coffee houses to church Bible studies, and in the classroom. You are invited to join in the dialogue at DisturbingTheWorld.org.
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