Your God is to Small JB Philips Pg 36 - 38
There is a conception of God which seems at first sight, to be very lofty in splendid, but which proves paradoxically enough on examination to be yet another of the 'too small' ideas. It is to think that the guy who is responsible for the ferret terrifying vastness of the universe cannot be possibly interested in the lives of than minute specs of the consciousness which exists on an insignificant planet.
To have even the beginning of the in appreciation of the greatness of the Power controlling the incredible system that science is beginning to reveal to us is a staggering but salutatory experience. We may feel the sense God is so huge in our whole sphere (let alone an individual man) is so minut by comparison, that we cannot conceive his taking the detailed interest in a single human life at the protagonist of the Christian religion affirm. To those oh, and they are not a few, who are secretly wishing for a release from moral responsibility ( and is every argument about religion is colored by the desire),be a great relief -- sort of relief of a Schoolboy might find in realizing that in a school of a thousand Corey's his peccadilloes are very unlikely to be noticed by the Headmaster. To others the thought of their insignificance may be desolating -- they feel not so much set free as cast adrift.
But whatever a man's reaction may be to the idea of the terrific 'size' of God, the point to note is that his comment is this: 'I cannot imagine such a tremendous God being interested in me' and so on. He 'cannot imagine': which means simply that his mind is incapable of retaining the ideas of terrifying vastness and of minute attention to microscopic detail at the same time. But it is in no way proves that God is incapable of fulfilling both ideas (and a great many more).
Behind this inability to conceive such a god there probably lies the unconscious, but very common, cause of "inadequate gods' -- the tendency to build up a mental picture of God from our knowledge and experience of man. We know, for instance, that if a man is in charge of fifty other men he can fairly easily make himself familiar with the history, character, abilities, and peculiarities, of each man. If he is in charge of five hundred he may still take a personal interest in each one, but it is almost impossible for him to know and retain in his memory personal details of the individual If he is in charge of five thousand men he may in general be wise and benevolent; but he cannot, indeed he does not attempt to know his men as individuals. the higher he is, the fewer his individual contacts. Because in our modern world we are tending more and more to see men amassed in large numbers, for various purposes, we are forced to realize that the individual care of the ' one in charge' Maestro left a mess this realization has permeated our unconscious minds, and we find it inevitably suggested to us that the Highest of All must have the que es contacts with the individual. Indeed if He is Infinitely High the idea of contact with the infinitesimal small individual becomes laughable.
But only if we are modeling God upon what we know of men. That is why it is contended here that what we at first sight appears to be almost super adequate idea of God is, in reality, inadequate -- it is based on two tiny a foundation.
Man may be made in the image of God; but it is not sufficient to conceive God as nothing more than an infinitely magnified man.
You do know I'm still there who do the lines to you can just fill in that I thought you drew it in if I thought you drew the tracks
Second hand Gun
A skillful writer can make us feel that we have entered the very hearts and lives of these, and many other, people. Almost without question, we had what we have read or seeing to the sum total of what we call 'experience'. The process is almost entirely automatic, and probably most of us would be greatly shocked if it could suddenly be revealed to us how small a proportion of our accumulated 'knowledge of the world' is due to our first-hand observation and experience.
The significance of the second-hand knowledge of life to the subject we are considering is this: the conception of the Character of God which slowly forms in our minds is largely made by the conclusions we draw from the 'providences' and 'judgements' of life. We envisage 'God' very largely from the way in which he appears to deal with (or not to deal with) His creatures. If, therefore, our knowledge of life is (unknown to us in all probability) faulty or biased or sentimental, we are quite likely to find ourselves a second-hand god who is quite different from the real one. pg 39-40
False Galilean
If they were completely honest, many people would have to admit that God is to them an almost entirely negative force in their lives. It is not merely that He provides that 'gentle voice we hear . . . which checks each fault', but that His whole Nature seems to deny, to cramp, and inhibit their own. Though such people whole never admit it, they are living endorsement of Swinburne's bitter lines:
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean,
The world has grown grey from their breath.
Compared with their non=Christian contemporaries their lives seem to have less life and colour, less spontaneity and less confidence. Their god surrounds them with prohibitions but he does not supply them with vitality and courage. They may live under the shadow of his hand but it makes them stunted, pale and weak. Although the thought would appear blasphemous to his devotees, such a god is quite literally a blight upon human life, and no one can be surprised that he fails to attract the loyalty of those with spirit, independence, and a keen enjoyment of the colour and richness of life.
The words written above are a plain exposure of a false god, but of course, the unhappy worshippers never see their bondage as clearly as that or they would break away. They are bound to their negative god by the manipulation of isolated text of scripture or by a morbid conscience. At last, they actually feel that it is wrong to be themselves, wrong to be free, wrong to enjoy Beauty, Ron to expand and develop. Unless they have their gods permission they can do nothing. Disaster will infallibly bring them to heel, sooner or later, should they Venture beyond the confines of 'his planned for them'.
Such people, naturally enough, can only by strenuous efforts maintain their narrow loyalty. They do not get the chance to admire and love and worship and wordless longing one who is overwhelmingly Splendid and beautiful and lovable. At best they can only love and worship because their God is a jealous God, and it is his will and Commandment that they should. Their lives are cramped and narrow and joyless, because their God is the same. There must be compensations in the worship of such a God, and they usually are these.
1. The belief that the joy and freedom of those who do not subscribe to the worship. Of the negative God is just an illusion. Negative God worshippers often sustain themselves by imagining and elaborating upon the inner strange and conflicts of those who do not know their God. In fact, the strange and conflicts of ordinary life are quite rightly felt by sensible people to be preferable to the Intolerable and never-ending strain of worshiping a God who drains the life of all its vitality in colour
2. There is a certain spiritual masochistic joy and being crushed by the Juggernaut of a negative God this is perfectly brought out in him which is still song in certain circles:
Oh to be nothing, nothing,
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and empty vessel
For the Masters use made meet.
The sense of humor is, of course, suspended by the negative God, or his devotees would be bound to see the absurdity of anyone's ambition being to be ' nothing', a 'broken' and, not unnaturally, ' emptied' vessel line at gods feet! Better still, the New Testament ( a book full of freedom and joy, courage and vitality) might be a searched in vain to supply any endorsement whatsoever of the above truly Dreadful verse and the conception of God it typifies. if ever a book taught man to be 'something, something', to stand and do battle, to be far more full of joy and daring and life than they ever were without God -- that book is the New Testament!
3. The comforting idea of being ' something' special. Worshipers of the negative god often Comfort themselves by feeling that what is good enough for 'the world' is not good enough for them: the chosen, the unique. Even though this means a life denuded of the beauties of art, abnormal pleasures, and Recreation, alive cramped in normal means of expression--that is a small price to paying the separate,. unique
This pathetic idea of being '' something special, is clung to with desperation so that we find worshippers of the negative God who knows in their secret hearts that their lives cannot really exhibit any Superior qualities to those of their ' worldly' or 'worldly Christian' friends, clean tightly to the rules of ' separateness-- so that they may at least feel that they are marked out as a special favorites of their God!
All this is very unattractive men in Pleasant oh, but it is quite common among religious people the question for them is: dare they defy and break away from this imaginary god with a Perpetual frown and find the one who is the great Positive, who gives life, courage enjoy, and wants His Suns and daughters to stand on their own feet?
