Outside The Human Box: Our Father Who Art An Alien

Do not be dismayed, God is not mocked in this article. This will become evident, I promise.

Human beings have a knack for anthropomorphizing things. It’s a quirky, but efficient way of relating to something non-human by giving it human traits. For example, a bird looks angry, a ship is a she, or the wind just howled all night long, are examples of humanizing otherwise non-human entities. We do it all the time, using metaphors and similes. We also use them in reverse, such as “he has a heart of gold.”  In fact, The Old Testament anthropomorphizes God frequently!  Why?  Because, God is spirit, infinite at that, and as such it is difficult for us to relate to his reality.

How often have you heard the phrase, in reference to God, as the “man upstairs.” That’s a way, a rather poor way frankly, of a human describing “God in Heaven.”  In truth, other than the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ, God can only be imprecisely described in human terms because he is nothing like us; which makes him alien.  God is spirit and light, without form, matter, shape or size, and that is thought-provoking, if not awesome.

The Greeks and Romans tried to grasp the essence of a “god” by carving them in marble and giving them names, such as Artemis and Zeus.  These gods were made in the image of humans and imbued with created powers and characteristics. At the other end of the spectrum are those who worshipped nature, sometimes “as-is” (worship the sun directly) or under a humanized form of nature, such as the Egyptian sun god (Re) and the Aztec sun god (Huitzilopochtli). From sacred trees to a golden calf, humanity has attempted to put a “face” to what is, in reality, faceless.  In his essence, God is wholly indescribable in human terms, because he is infinite spirit and light.  This is something our limited intellect cannot begin to grasp, for God is totally out of our league!

Stop for a moment and close your eyes and think about what it means for God to be infinite spirit.  If you did that little exercise, you may have responded as I did by opening your eyes quickly.  How does one relate to endlessness? Thankfully, God supplied us with a less than mind-blowing idea of spirit when he described himself to us in human terms we can relate to.    

Beginning in the Old Testament, God is given hands, eyes, arms, ears and a face in the following verses:

Ezekiel 20:34-35, “With a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, where I will enter into judgment with you face to face.”

Psalms 34:15-16, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are inclined to their cry.  

Yet in reality, God possesses none of these human traits.  Which begs the questions, why did he speak to us as if he were like us?  For the very same reason why we humanize things, to relate.  God, as spirit, does not need physical eyes to see or ears to hear, but he knows we do and can therefore relate better to him if he describes himself in such terms. But wait, it gets better!  After the Old Testament comes the New Testament where God totally outdid himself.

With the birth of Jesus Christ, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word, became incarnate in human flesh!  No longer did God simply describe himself to us in ways we could understand, but he gave us himself in human form.  That should give us shivers.  God became human in every way but sin, to live, love, hunger, thirst and bodily die only to overcome death by his supernatural resurrection.  Ironically, even with God present in Jesus Christ, some of his disciples still wanted to see the Father.  In John 14:8-9 the disciple Philip asks Jesus,

“Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” And what did Jesus reply? 

“Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

Wow! Forget about what we cannot attain (1 Tim. 6:16), what else do we need than God in human form who can be seen, heard, hugged and worshipped!  How much more could God the infinite spirit do than to anthropomorphize himself for us!

Attempting to see God in his essence will break a human mind.  But when God became incarnate, he fulfilled our every desire to see him.  Sometimes it is good to think outside the human box.  Our Father, the Holy Trinity, is alien to us, but in God’s great mercy the Word became incarnate and sits on a throne in heaven, with eyes that see and ears that hear.  Thank you, God, for your great gift to us.