#defining god

Hey tumbl-folk,

It’s been a while. I wanted so share with everyone a little bit of the conversations I’ve been having that were really interesting.

Friend 1- I had the opportunity this past weekend to sit on a train with a good friend of mine. We wound up talking about faith. My friend had grown up in Christian school and knew the stories of Scripture, but the one thing she couldn’t understand was why God (or really christians) wouldn’t accept homosexuality. “God is love, right? Why would God disagree with two people who genuinely love one another?” I’ve definitely heard angry remarks and truly curious individuals based on that same idea. Isn’t God love?

Friend 2- I had breakfast this morning with a new friend. He went to church and considered himself a Christian, but claimed that God loved everyone. “In the end, aren’t we all worshipping the same God?” “It’s not our place to judge anyone else.” “God saved everyone, right?”

In both cases, I asked them how they defined God. In both cases they said “I don’t think God would….”

It’s of the utmost importance to define our terms. The God of the Bible is not the same as the god of Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism (apparently Hinduism has a figure they call god) or a god that we transpose our view of right or wrong on.

I also asked them who decided what was right or wrong. Both being believers in “God”, they both said, “God”. Then I asked them what Scripture, God’s Word said. In regards to homosexuality 1 Timothy 1:10, in regards to the gift of salvation, John 14:6.

We assign our characteristics to God and the fact that we create things in our own image (projecting ourselves onto other people or things, for example) is itself a property that can be given to God when we, as individuals, define God-we think that just because man makes things in his own image, God must also do so but you see, since we define God, we thus give God a property of ourselves which is creating things in our own image.