A God of Our Making

Last week, I had a discussion about God and Christianity with a young man that I had met for the first time. He didn’t like what he had seen of Christianity (of christians, really) and proceeded to tell me that he believed in God, as well as what he believed about God. And he was very comfortable with what he believed about God. He talked and I just listened. Afterwards, while driving back to my motel room, I thought about what he had said and I realized how ridiculous his logic was.

Now, I don’t mean that to sound like I’m picking on him or just being critical. I really enjoyed my time with him. I’ve heard many other folks use the same logic. It usually goes something like this: “I believe in God, but if you’re talking about a God who let’s bad things happen to good people…”; or “…a God who would send someone to hell just because they didn’t say a prayer to Jesus… – then, I don’t believe that God is like that.”  The young man’s beliefs were more like “God put us here and he doesn’t expects us to be so weak that we can’t do anything; he expects us to do whatever we need to do. I don’t like it when people say they have to pray about something or have to call on God before they can do anything, because he gave us free will to do what we saw needed to be done.”  Something like that.

Here’s the problem with that logic. How can you form a belief about someone that you don’t know? And how can you embrace that belief when it has know solid basis in fact?  When a person does this, they are really saying, “I’ve never met this person, but I believe him to be like this way or that way – and therefore, I like this person I’ve never met because I believe they are this way or that.”  Do you see how ludicrous that thinking is?  The one who uses this type of logic and forms their life behaviors and responses on it are really basing their entire life upon their own ideas and opinions – not on truth and facts.

Suppose you found me packing a suitcase full of swim shorts, beach attire, sunscreen, etc.. “Going to the beach?” you ask. “Yeah,” I answer back. Then you ask, “Where?” I look up at you, and smiling, I say, “Antarctica.”  You would probably laugh and then say, “No, really.”  ”Really,” I insist.  You scratch your head and say to me, “There are no beaches in Antarctica.”  Imagine what you would think as I looked you straight in the eyes and said, “I believe there are beaches in Antarctica because that’s the kind of Antarctica that I believe in. Therefore, if you don’t mind, I’m going to finish packing. Now, hand me that bottle of sunscreen.”  You would think I was foolish, wouldn’t you? And yet, so many make statements like this all the time, declaring their beliefs in a god of their own making.

If I can make up anything I want to believe about God and then live my life based on that made-up attribute, I may as well not believe in God – because, in reality, that’s not who I’m believing in anyway. I’m believing in myself, only I’m disguising it as belief in God; only it’s not God, it’s a god that I’ve created to my own liking. And that makes me the Creator, doesn’t it? And that makes me God.