10 Defective Images of God

When I was a child, I had a very child-like image of God, which came with both positives and negatives.

I remember thinking of God as a wise old man, with a long white beard. He sat on clouds and looked quite sour most of the time. He was a judge who saw everything I did and waited for me to do wrong. When I sinned, He would get me back - one way or another. It was like a childhood idea of karma tha I had projected upon God.

On the other hand, God also forgave anything I asked Him to. He had all the answers and was all-powerful. This gave me some peace and comfort.

Once I took on an adult faith, I had to deal with other defective images of God I had taken on through the years. These faulty images have implications in how I act, how I see others, how I view the world, etc.

The great Christian writer, C.S. Lewis once wrote:

"There are three images in my mind which I must continually forsake and replace by better ones: the false image of God, the false image of my neighbours, and the false image of myself."

All of us must deal, at some point or another, with our disordered views of God. Below are a few of the most common and the problems they may present.

10 Defective Images of God

1 - The Multiple Personality God - God is the same for all religions and beliefs. He/She/It takes on different forms, but is the same. So, it really doesn't matter if you are a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Pagan, an atheist, or a Christian. We all worship the same God, just in different ways and all of them are equally valid.

2 - The Divine Yet Disconnected Watchmaker. This view of God is Deistic (God is creator of the universe, but not involved in it personally anymore), but it is more common than you might think. Less than 50% of Catholics believe in a "personal God"! If God does not care about each of us individually, then the implications are enormous - What does faith matter? How ought I act? Who am I?

3 - The All-Powerful Cop. This understanding of God tends to see Him as a cop, hiding behind a cloud, waiting to pull us over and give us a ticket for our bad behavior. It is the same understanding I had as a child - that God merely cared about what we did wrong. If God loves us, we are more than our sins! This image of God is based in guilt, not mercy. Many folks who struggle with self-image and guilt will have to overcome this idea of God.

4 - The Non-Judgmental Drinking Buddy. If we see God as someone who really doesn't care how we act, then our actions don't matter at all. He is then reduced to a drinking buddy, who doesn't really want what is best for us or care to challenge us to live a great life - rather He just wants us to "feel" good about everything (even sinful & unhealthy ones) we do and ultimately he is an enabler, not God. This God is irrelevant in our daily lives.

5 - The Teddy Bear God. Sometimes we limit God to a nice easy list of concepts we can understand and therefore deal with. It may be that God is powerful - but not ALL-powerful. God might be merciful - but not mercy itself! This comforts many people, because then God is "safer" for them to deal with. These limitations on God are actually limitations on our understanding of God, not on the nature of God Himself. This would make God powerless to change us and one who never "judges" us.

6 - The Me, Myself, and I God. We project God into an image of what we want him to be. In other words, instead of humanity being made in the "image and likeness" of God, we make God into our own image and likeness. This means we can make a God who thinks, acts, and lives just like we would like him to. This kind of God is neutered, even if personal in som way.

7 - The Uncle Joe God. This kind of God is handed down to us from ages past. We follow him because our parents, grandparents, and anscestors did. Far from being a God who we know personally, He is like our long-lost Uncle Joe who is disconnected from the present, but we have fond memories of from our childhood.

8 - The Puppeteer God. This image of God is one who controls the actions of everything and makes no sense in how he orchestrates things. He lets natural disasters happen, lets kids die, gives us cancer, etc. Yet we are never able to figure out the reasons for it all. This God is cruel and doesn't relate to our human suffering.

9 - The Party-Pooper God. God is merely out to suck fun out of your life. You can't do what you want, you can't have fun, you can't... Rather, you have to just follow a strict list of rules. If you don't, then God is goingo to see you singing, having fun, etc and come take away all your goodies - just like the Grinch did to Whoville.

10 - The Cosmic Vending Machine In The Sky. Many people believe God is merely there to serve their needs. As long as the put in their good deeds, prayers, etc. they can "pay" God to do their bidding. This isn't the way a relationship works. If we see prayer and our relationship with God as a mere service in exchange for a payment, we have a vending machine (or a butler) in the sky - not a living God who may not answer our prayers just as we want. Furthermore, we aren't able to do enough to save ourselves. It is only through God's grace that we attain salvation.

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These are only 10 of the many ways we can misunderstand God's nature. The way we fix these problems (and others) is by continued conversion in faith, that is, we constantly seek to allow God to reveal Himself to us, through:

• Sacred Scripture
• prayer
• The Sacraments
• other people
• nature
• etc.

To be attentive to how God speaks to us and reveals Himself to us, we have to make ourselves available to Him and once we receive such grace, we must allow our minds and hearts to be transformed. Thus, we have to choose to act on His grace. In this, our hearts can be attuned to understand Him more deeply. Which is why the discovery of God's nature is a never-ending task, even in heaven.

Yet, these revelations of God to our hearts can transform us deeply, just as when God revealed Himself to St. Augustine:

“Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.” -St. Augustine