What Do We Mean by ‘God?’
When the brand new atheists were at the peak of their popularity, one among the regular sound bites in circulation was: We’re all atheists here. I just consider in a single God less. The implication is that, since most recent folks deny the existence of ancient deities like Zeus and Artemis, the denial of the Christian God just continues that very same logic. Jesus Christ is thus put into the identical category as Zeus or Artemis. The phrase itself was initially uttered by British historian Stephen R. Roberts, but Richard Dawkins did much to popularize it in subsequent years, especially in his bestselling book, The God Delusion.
The problem is: This argument is based on a complete misunderstanding of the character of the Christian God. As theologian David Bentley Hart points out at great length in The Experience of God, we want to be sure we’re operating with the right definition of God. Zeus and Artemis, as an illustration, are demigods, very great beings amongst lesser beings, like humans and lions, tigers, and bears. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, alternatively, isn’t merely a greater being amongst lesser beings. His is wholly distinct. He is in reality the wellspring of all creation. Incidentally, this can also be why one other common sound bite—Who made God?—partakes of the identical category mistake. Since the Christian God is, by definition, un-made, any made being can be his inferior. As John Lennox says so well, the biblical name for the “gods” we craft is idols.
When Christians speak of God, they’re speaking of the one who stands outside of time and creation. He is by no means depending on the created order he has brought into being. Rather, the existence he has granted to us as human beings is pure gift.
Creation Ex-Nihilo
The Christian doctrine of creation ex-nihilo holds that God brought the created order into being from nothingness—a pure and primal act of creation. Space, time, energy, and matter were spoken into being by the spiritual, transcendent, and self-existing I AM. The created order is thus a pure gift from our Lord, and his relationship to it’s one among care and sustenance fairly than necessity. Why is that vital? Because we should be clear that God, the supremely self-sufficient being, is by no means depending on his creation. If we make that mistake, we usher in a false picture of God. Any God who needed us or was in any way depending on us wouldn’t be the God who reveals himself to us in Scripture and in his Son.
As we survey the created order, we recognize that we’re also confronted by the mystery of time. On the one hand, time is linear: Witness the natural processes of birth, maturing, death, and decay. A robust artistic portrayal of this process involves us from the American landscape artist Thomas Cole. In his Voyage of Life painting cycle, as an illustration, Cole portrays the varied stages of 1 man’s lifetime, starting with youthful idealism, encompassing the disillusionment of middle age, and at last concluding with the blessedness of a great death during which the person’s spirit is surrendered to God.
On the Nature of Time
On the opposite hand, time can also be cyclically progressive. We can see this clearly within the patterns of history, where we chart the rise and fall of empires, in addition to the return of previous modes of politics and social organization. Again, Thomas Cole gives vivid expression to this in his Course of Empire series of paintings, during which we glimpse a burgeoning empire that grows to glory, begins to collapse in decadence, and at last gives strategy to ruins. But within the ruins, we glimpse the continued growth of the encompassing natural world, giving us an image of the life that endures, at the same time as great empires come and go. We may glimpse one other clear picture of the progressive nature of time once we take into consideration the explosive growth of science and technology. Technical innovation gives us a transparent picture of the event that takes place inside the context of finite time.
The nature of divine transcendence also modifies our understanding of time. From an earth-bound perspective, we are able to see this in great abundance within the breathtaking beauty that’s on display within the created order. From a fabulous sunrise to the colourful exuberance of the insect kingdom, this world is full of marvels that time beyond themselves within the sheer excess of their beauty.
Great artistic achievements also function signposts of the timeless. An old piece of technology just like the telegraph may grow obsolete with recent innovations, but Homer’s Odyssey and Shakespeare’s plays remain masterpieces because they’ve managed to lock onto timeless features of human experience. Consider these celebrated lines from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 that serve to showcase the timeless features of great art:
By probability or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy everlasting summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in everlasting lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this provides life to thee.
But Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the final word embodiment of transcendence, revealing to us that we’re creatures in his created order, made for an everlasting relationship with him. Our earthbound sojourn is that this punctuated by the bittersweet trials of linear time, but in addition full of the promise of transcendence. As we’re told in Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has set eternity in our hearts. We begin to acknowledge this colossal truth when we’ve got a real understanding of how unique our vision of creation is.
Photo Credit: Unsplash/Bobby Stevenson
Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
