God, who are you really?

Our intention in setting up the box in the quad was to find out what questions you most wanted to ask God. Not that, as someone suggested, God was hiding inside... And not that we were trying to play God either. We set it up because we believe that the Christian faith is credible and defendible, and that it can stand up to even the toughest questions. We believe that the Bible is true, and that through carefully studying it we can get a glimpse of what God is like.

We were stoked at how many questions you posted, the serious and the funny ones too. We were particularly chuffed with the five chocolate crackle questions. In total, you put over 200 pieces of paper, which we’ve sorted through and tried to separate out into categories, starting, in this article, with the question ‘who is God?’

The second edition of the Oxford American Dictionary describes God like this: “the creator and ruler of the universe, the source of all moral authority; the supreme being.”

However, trying to describe God, when it comes down to it, is like trying to describe the colour red to someone who can’t see. Paul, one of the leaders of the early Church, thought so too:

We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompleteness will be canceled.

[...]

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us![1]

So how do we describe God? We look in the Bible, which we call God’s Word, or Message. It describes God as being eternal, infinite, uncaused, and the Creator and Ruler of everything.

If you’re used to thinking in these terms, say if you study Logic or Philosophy, that may sound fine at first. But actually, isn’t that list of big, sweeping words more like a set of ingredients than a description of a person? One of you asked God “Who are you really?” Another person asked “Who is God?”

Luckily, the Bible is not just the Edmonds Cook Book on steroids. It demonstrates not only God’s nature, but also His character — how He does things. The Bible tells us that God is the epitome (perfection) of love, and captures this magnificently in it's portrayal of the hero of the Bible, Jesus Christ. It also shows us that God is perfectly just — completely fair.

On the other hand, these records of God don’t portray a God who is easy to understand, and in this sense Someone so powerful and yet so mysterious can be frightening to read about. But what we can be reassured by is that God has been involved with His world right from the word go, and He has stopped at nothing to put us right with Himself again.

In fact the Old Testament is full of accounts of God’s work in the lives of His people Israel, keeping His promises to them, sticking with them even when He couldn’t stick them.

Some of you seemed to have an image of a spiteful, smiting God (someone asked: “Whatever happened that made God so angry and vindictive?”) That’s the image of God you see bandied around in popular media, but it’s often based on an incomplete understanding of Who God is. That’s all for now, but keep checking Salient for more, and e-mail any more questions to: questions@vuwcu.org.nz. We’re hoping to deal with a lot more questions in a lot more depth soon.

[1] Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:9-10, 12, The Message translation.