The Otherness of Godਨਮੂਨਾ

We want to control God

We do not like the fact that God is completely different from us. It scares us when we have to deal with any form of the unknown, when we are unable to describe or know how something works. When we do understand, we often feel we can control and predict what will happen when we apply specific rules. We don't like it when we can't predict how God will act because then we feel unable to control Him.

If there is no way for us to know how God will act, it is impossible to "force" Him to give us revival by, for example, praying a predetermined list of prayers and confessing certain sins. There also isn't a formula or a set of 'right words' that we can pray to ensure that people are healed of their sicknesses. We don't like the fact that we can't pray in a certain way or use specific passages from Scripture to get God to do what we want Him to do.

We want to diminish God to a small enough size to make us feel that we can understand and manipulate Him. In The Reason for God, Timothy Keller says that if your god never disagrees with you, you probably worship an idealised version of yourself. If we do not understand God's otherness, we will create a diminished god in our thoughts - one who is similar to us – who will not be able to help us in all situations and who does not reflect who He, the Creator of the universe, really is.

We look for weaknesses, loopholes, and observable clues so that we can overcome Him and bring Him down to our level. We want to manipulate Him and "force" Him to carry out our commands. In a sense, we try to weaken God to the point where He will be so weak that we can understand Him, predict His actions, and use Him for our own purposes. When we reach a point where we believe we can do it, we worship an idol, a small caricature of the God of the Bible. When we reach this point, the "god" we worship will only be a figment of our limited insight.