"What c
omes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
- A.W. Tozer
“Everything in our lives is influenced by our view of God.” - Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade
These are two phrases quoted last April 1 by Pastor Peter. He said that “What we think tells who we are. How we behave is a determinant of what we know of God.” And that what matters is not whether we believe in God, but what we believe about God.
If that’s the case, there is really little difference then for those who do not believe in God and for those who believe in God but has wrong idea about Him. Simply put, all atheists and agnostics could be lumped together with theists who have wrong concept of God. To quote a phrase often made by our pastor “they are sincere, but they are sincerely wrong.”
Pastor Peter cited one wrong view of God in which I’m very much interested to ponder. That is the view that “God is not fair.” My friend Mel and I were just discussing last Sunday about some atheists whose reason not to believe God is because of the existence of evil. They deny the existence of God because for them, if there is a God why then would He allow evil to persist? But the conclusion to eliminate God is already flawed because the question does not deal with God’s existence. In fact, atheists or agnostics who have this rationale already acknowledge God’s existence unknowingly. Their only question then should be of why God allows such evil to persist. But in asking so, wouldn’t one be subject to defining God in his own term?
Whenever we feel the desire to question the fairness of God because of
certain events in our lives, consider the words of God in Job 38:1-4: Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.”
I have always believed that although God has revealed Himself to us through His Son Jesus Christ, there would still be limitations to our knowledge. Pastor Peter oftentimes illustrate that of an ant (or a bug of the same kind) trying to understand human. We can only know too much. Thus, if God can be fully explained and defined by man, then He is no God at all.
I am not promoting ignorance, neither am I belittling man’s capacity to understand and think. The human brain is such a complex machine to be belittled. On the opposite, I believe we should be like the Bereans (see Acts 17:11) who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”
What then is our concept of God?
omes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”- A.W. Tozer
“Everything in our lives is influenced by our view of God.” - Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade
These are two phrases quoted last April 1 by Pastor Peter. He said that “What we think tells who we are. How we behave is a determinant of what we know of God.” And that what matters is not whether we believe in God, but what we believe about God.
If that’s the case, there is really little difference then for those who do not believe in God and for those who believe in God but has wrong idea about Him. Simply put, all atheists and agnostics could be lumped together with theists who have wrong concept of God. To quote a phrase often made by our pastor “they are sincere, but they are sincerely wrong.”
Pastor Peter cited one wrong view of God in which I’m very much interested to ponder. That is the view that “God is not fair.” My friend Mel and I were just discussing last Sunday about some atheists whose reason not to believe God is because of the existence of evil. They deny the existence of God because for them, if there is a God why then would He allow evil to persist? But the conclusion to eliminate God is already flawed because the question does not deal with God’s existence. In fact, atheists or agnostics who have this rationale already acknowledge God’s existence unknowingly. Their only question then should be of why God allows such evil to persist. But in asking so, wouldn’t one be subject to defining God in his own term?
Whenever we feel the desire to question the fairness of God because of
certain events in our lives, consider the words of God in Job 38:1-4: Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.”I have always believed that although God has revealed Himself to us through His Son Jesus Christ, there would still be limitations to our knowledge. Pastor Peter oftentimes illustrate that of an ant (or a bug of the same kind) trying to understand human. We can only know too much. Thus, if God can be fully explained and defined by man, then He is no God at all.
I am not promoting ignorance, neither am I belittling man’s capacity to understand and think. The human brain is such a complex machine to be belittled. On the opposite, I believe we should be like the Bereans (see Acts 17:11) who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”
What then is our concept of God?
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