god has no hands

Consider for a minute that God has no hands. He didn’t lose them, they weren’t amputated or lost in an accident. God just has no hands.

It would certainly explain a lot. We could then rationalize situations where the hand of God is absent. When a mother murders her children, when a husband kills his wife, when a child is born with AIDS or when nearly 4000 people die in a terrorist attack in NYC. We could say, “well God has no hands, how could he do anything to prevent these horrific acts.”

Consider for a minute that God has no ears. He didn’t lose them, they weren’t removed or lost in an accident. God just has no ears.

It would certainly explain unanswered prayers. We could understand then how thousands in a Christian university could pray constantly for a classmate only to have that classmate die. How our prayers of intercession result only in the need for more prayers. We could say, “well God has no ears, how could he hear us and intercede on our behalf.”

Since the beginning of mankind we have searched for meaning and purpose. We sought our creator, ready to be servile and reverent. We could not explain all that was around us or all that was going on in our lives and so we sought a higher power. That could be the only explanation for the wonders we encountered. Early man had no science, had only a limited vocabulary and no spiritual experience. And so a higher power took on the qualities of the sun, the moon, the wind, the water. We conjured up gods.

Having never seen a god, having never experienced a god we tried ways to describe these gods. They took on human characteristics. They had bodies, beards, flowing robes, hands and ears. But weren’t these just the characteristics we expected a god to have? They must look like us, only more powerful.

And so we gave them supernatural powers. If we didn’t understand weather, well the gods must control the weather. If we didn’t understand fire, then the gods controlled fire. And on it went.

The great civilizations of the world, began to postulate that there must only be one God, one great religion. And so they each developed their own. This God was omnipotent, he had to be to protect his chosen people. “My god had to be bigger than your god or you wouldn’t fear me.” I had to protect my land, my food, my tribe. But again this god took on qualities and characteristics I could understand.

Here we are thousands of years later and we still believe this early man view of god.

Well some do.

I don’t believe God has hands, or ears, or a mouth, I don’t believe God is a He or that God has any human-like characteristics. God is not supernatural or omnipotent.

God has power yes, in fact God is power. The power of Love, the power that gives Life and the power that allows us to Be who we are.

(more to come)