By Mike Edwards
I admit choosing a provocative title. I could have said God is like the perfect human being. What is my point? I am not suggesting any human being is God or that an invisible, inaudible God is human. I am simply trying to find a way to write and encourage discussion of what God is like. We can’t claim to know exactly what God is like, but what ideas may be closer to the truth?
It matters what we think God is like.
Our understandings about God shape our attitudes toward God. Our relationship with God cannot exceed our views of God. The more you respect your earthly parents, the closer you are to them. Some are atheists, not because they believe God can’t exist, but because what they imagine a loving God should be like isn’t what God-followers claim.
We can’t be positive what God is really like of course.
I can’t even prove God really exist. I just think that millions if not billions are not insane for knowing or at least hoping there is a Creator who can provide worth, perspective, meaning, and hope of life after death. We need a way to talk about what God is really like. It is often claimed we know what God is like – just read the Bible!
The Bible cannot be the definitive way of knowing what God is like.
The Bible is ancient literature that requires interpretation. Laypeople, much less biblical scholars who respect Scriptures as authoritative, don’t agree what the same passages mean. Some claim the Bible condemns homosexuality; other deny such claims. How do we decide which interpretation may be the best interpretation of God’s true nature? The majority born never had a Bible so a Creator may have thought of others ways to communicate what they are really like.
Doesn’t God communicate through our moral intuitions?
A universal, inborn desire to treat others like we want to be treated could suggest how a Creator communicates what is good. When we read ancient literature such as the Bible and two plausible interpretations exist, we can’t avoid using our moral brains. We are trying to determine what a perfect, loving God is like. An immoral God isn’t worth believing in. Even the Bible assumes we can know what perfect love is, because the Bible tells us to be perfect like God (Mt. 5:48). God’s love surely is what we imagine perfect human love is like.
Even those who play the mystery card assume perfect godly and human morality are the same.
Many claim God is a mystery sometimes because their interpretation of Scriptures suggest God appears evil from a human perspective. Such interpreters are using their moral intuitions and assuming God and human love are the same. It is certain that we don’t always know what perfect love is, but the mystery card short circuits discussions about God’s true character.
Doesn’t the Newer Testament through the eyes of Jesus give us the correct view of God?
Many theologians rightly question if Old Testament writers always had a complete understanding of God. In OT times it was sacrilegious to not speak of God as being all-powerful and controlling even through violence. This may explain violent warfare actions in God’s name. It is suggested Jesus, who claimed to be God in the flesh, had a more complete understanding of what God is like. We still though have the challenge of literature requiring interpretation. Turning the other check is interpreted to claim Jesus never advocated violence, but a possible literal translation of Mt. 5:39 is “do not resist by evil means.” Would Jesus agree violence is never desired but may be necessary sometimes? We can never claim certainty “because the Bible or Jesus says so.”
Lack of certainty about God does not mean anything goes?
We don’t have to make laws against murder. Criminals don’t deny their actions are wrong; they deny they committed such a crime. It is almost universally accepted that it is morally wrong to kill someone out of revenge or for selfish reasons. It is universally accepted that it is morally wrong to behead people for their beliefs unless you are a terrorist. Claiming the Bible can’t be use to definitively tell us what God is like protects from those claiming their interpretation is definitive while demonizing views to the contrary.
God is like the perfect human being!
We can’t know what God is exactly like but we can imagine what God is like by discussing what human perfection is. Those who argue humans are created in the image of God usually accept that God created us to know and hate evil. If God sometimes is evil according to one’s interpretation of the Bible, should we hate God sometimes? We must question not rationalize such interpretations. A God who seeks a relationship is surely more understandable than mysterious. Don’t we get closer to understanding what Godly love is by accepting that loving others like we want to be loved is the same as how God loves us and others.
Done with Religion 
Your idea of imagining a perfect human being and using that as a starting point for getting to know the nature of God is a good one. If human beings can create and appreciate beauty, if they can be moved with empathy for another’s suffering, if they can find delight in the company of others, then how much more should God be able to do these things? We often act like God would be above these things, but how could He be? Did we somehow gain positive qualities that God is incapable of?
Jesus often used the concept of God as a loving father because it speaks directly to our hearts and our need for a supportive and guiding figure in our lives. Personally, I think we would be incapable of generating such a need if there was not the potential for that need to be fulfilled.
I also think just honestly observing the natural world around us can teach us a lot about the nature of its Creator. Science has for too long been portrayed as the enemy of faith in God, but if you examine science with an open mind you find it is just not true.
Since the moment of the Big Bang the universe has been expanding and developing from one incredibly small singularity into more and more complex and inclusive systems. And within these systems we find an amazing ability to reproduce, to maintain and to bring about very highly developed organisms.
If we look at what it takes to bring about a fully developed human being from a single egg, we have no choice but to accept that the knowledge of how to do that is actually present within that single egg right from the beginning.
Within all of life there seems to be an internal intention to grow, to develop and to bring about even more complex systems of being.
Quantum Physics has demonstrated how everything has a connection on the quantum level.
And when we observe all of the conditions that have had to arise in this universe just to support life on this planet, ( and there are a large number of them) it is really hard to accept that they all could have just arisen on their own. This universe seems to have developed with the intention to bring about the perfect conditions for life to develop.
To me, that means that God wanted us to be here right from the beginning. And not just humans in general, but each and every one of us is an amazing development of many, many conditions that just had to come about in order for us as an individual to be here!
The natural world teaches me that God loves to create life, that He loves to make sure that life has all the right conditions to maintain itself and to grow and develop. It teaches me that God loves diversity and color and beauty. How else can we explain why there are so many different flowers and plants and butterflies in this world?
From just observing the world I find myself in, i can see that God has intention and purpose, that He finds delight in beauty and diversity, that cooperation and dependency is built right into the fabric of life.
I can also see that God is kind. Anyone who contributes to the welfare of your life in any way has performed an act of kindness towards you, and God designed this world so that all living beings are constantly contributing to the welfare of all other living beings! He built kindness right into life.
And love? Does God love us? What else could we name this quality that encourages, enhances and supports each of us, if not love?
I apologize for the length of this response. It seems that i had quite a bit to say on this subject! . . . And I didn’t even get to Jesus and what we can learn from how he lived and what he taught!
Good article! Keep up the good work!
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