Days of Awe and Wonder by Marcus J Borg

Author:Marcus J Borg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Originally published in The Christian Century, August 28–September 4, 1985, pp. 764–67.

Chapter 11

Healing Our Image of God

TODAY I WANT TO TALK ABOUT the character of God, about how we see the character of God and the effects of this on the Christian life. Or to turn it into a question, “What Is the Character of Your God?”

I want to explain a bit more about what I mean when I speak about the character of God. The character of God has to do with the very nature of God. It is deeper than the will of God, for will flows out of character. So my question is: What is God’s character? What does God care about? What is God’s passion? Our sense of God’s character, our perception of what God is like, is conveyed by our images of or metaphors for God. I typically distinguish between concepts of God, which I see as more abstract, and images of God—images or metaphors are more concrete, more visual. Indeed, I sometimes think of metaphors as linguistic art or verbal art. Some of the biblical metaphors or images for God include the following: God is like a king, like a judge, like a shepherd, like a father and, less commonly, like a mother. God is like a lover, like a potter, like a warrior, and so forth.

These images for God matter, to repeat my foundational claim. They matter because they shape how we see the character of God. I want to talk about two primary images or metaphors for God’s character that have dominated the Jewish and Christian traditions throughout their long history, reaching back into biblical times. They are two very different models for the character of God. A model, as Sallie McFague, an author and theologian from Vanderbilt Divinity School, puts it, is a metaphor with “staying power.” To which I would add, a model is a way of constellating or gestalting metaphors. That is, the biblical metaphors for God gravitate toward one or the other of these two models or primary images for God. Both of these have been present throughout Christian history. Both are alive in the contemporary church. But they are so different from each other that they virtually produce two different religions, both using the same language.

The first of these models or ways of imaging God’s character sees God as the lawgiver and judge who also loves us. This is the one that I grew up with and the one I suspect that many of you grew up with. It is probably also the most common or visible image of God within the Christian church today. As lawgiver, God gave us the Ten Commandments and other laws about how to live. God told us what is expected of us.

As judge, God was also the enforcer of the law; there would be a judgment someday. (I took all of this very much for granted when I was growing up in the church.) And God also loved us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.