Defining God

How would you respond if someone asked you to say who God is?

A few days ago, someone asked me how I would define God. On the one hand that is a bit daunting, because there is so much that one could say. In fact, I once gave a 30-minute talk entitled 'Who Is God?', and still felt that I had just scratched the surface. On the other hand, if we are looking for a quick definition of the type found in a dictionary, only a few words are required. So here goes ...

No, maybe not that fast. Before arriving at a catchy definition, we do need to think about what God is. Firstly, whatever created all that we find around us, from the smallest part of an atom to the enormous swirling clusters of vast galaxies and everything in between - you, me, our children and friends, our pets, the plants and trees in our gardens, the birds in the sky over our heads, the mountains and the lakes - that is God. However it was done, something outside of time and space had to create time and space and that is the only thing that has the right to be classed as God.

We could leave a definition there, but it is vague and impersonal. God created all this for someone to share. So we were made us as part of Creation and in such a way that, especially in our best moments, we reflect God's nature and personality. That means that God is a person, rather than a thing or a force or energy, but He cannot consist of anything created, so He is spirit. In fact, according to the Bible, the one God, Yahweh, is actually three spirit persons who relate to each other as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God is the person who by His all-surpassing power created all that this is and expects everything and everyone to comply with His rules; God is the person who by his all-surpassing love came to the Earth that He had made to suffer for us disobedient humans and make a way for us to join Him for ever in Heaven.

What then is his nature? We cannot just say that because it is right to be good and loving, then God is good and loving. We cannot impose our limited understanding of ethics on the creator of the Universe. In fact, the Bible actually tells us that God is good and that love is central to His nature. The two commandments in the New Testament that are fundamental to Jesus' teaching are about love and being good to our neighbours. God Himself is composed of a loving relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I have always found Him to be good.

But God is far more than that. According to the Bible He is jealous and just; he gave laws about righteousness along with punishment for disobedience; He upholds His standards and does not shy from reluctantly carrying through His punishment, yet He is also utterly merciful and gracious to those who turn to Him. We cannot get away from the fact that He flooded the world, sent His own people into exile in Babylon for 70 years and allows those who will not listen to Him to end up in Hell; however, He loves us so desperately that He sent his own Son to go to Hell for us, so that if we do turn to Him we can have eternal life with Him now and ultimately in Heaven. God is first judge and then saviour, but mercy triumphs over judgment.

So there we have it - God is a fully unified spirit-collection of three persons, lives outside time and space, and created the Universe and everything in it; He is jealous of His position as the only God and will do what it takes to uphold that position, but is so loving, merciful, gracious and compassionate that He himself took out punishment so that we can live with Him in Heaven.

The Universe that we don't know

The more we learn about the universe, the weirder it seems to be, but also the more we discover that we don't know.

Science is amazing and, as a scientist, I find the wealth of recent discoveries very exciting. Being a physicist by training, what captures my attention the most is the ever expanding knowledge base in astronomy and the related subject area of fundamental particle physics. Human minds have been able to delve in incredible depth into what the universe is made of and how it works. However, one key discovery is that we know only about 5% of what is in it; we have no handle on what the other 95% is. We also don't know what time is at a fundamental level, and even nature of the space that we move around in is a matter for debate.

Scientists know only 5% of what makes up the Universe and we don't fully understand concepts as basic as time and space. How can anyone think that this gives us grounds for saying that there isn't a God?

Now, of course, there are theories to try to move forward our understanding, but there is no scientific evidence to confirm any such theory. For now, we need to be content to recognize that our knowledge is severely limited.

Science explains so much

When talking to people, I quite often hear the argument put forward that because we now know so much about the Universe we don't need to believe in God to explain how and why we ended up existing. We can use mathematics to explain everything back to a big bang and everything evolved from that. These people are sometimes scientists, who believe that science is the only way to investigate the nature and meaning of reality. However, more often, they are from other walks of life and have picked up a narrative promulgated by several eminent scientists and much of the wider scientific community.

What is less often heard is the voice of the many scientists who are Christians and believe that, whatever 'Science' says, the truth is that we are here only because of the actions of God and we are not in a position to rule out the existence of a creator on the basis of our current scientific knowledge.

What does the Bible actually mean?

The Bible is essentially a very old Jewish book, written by vast array of independent authors. How can it possibly say anything coherent to us today?

Of course, some people think that the Bible is just nonsense; if there is no God, that is clearly true. Others think that it tells us something about God and how we should live, but that those truths need to be teased out from what is essentially a collection of myths, half-truths and incomplete information. Yet others consider that it is, at least as originally written, completely infallible in every word. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere nearer to: what it says is the accurate Word of God, but the phrasing was left to the authors.

There are many authors of the Bible, but what they all have in common is that intended what they wrote to be taken seriously.

Personally, I think that a book whose meaning is so unclear that only scholars can hope to understand it, and even then disagree about much of it, is not a useful book for God to have given us. If it says what it means, then we all know where we stand.

A complete story

The Bible is a complete book, albeit made up from a series of writings from various authors over thousands of years. Therefore, it tells a complete story. God made us, as well as the whole Universe. He wanted us to love Him, but we have chosen to go our own way. God cannot have imperfect, rebellious people living in Heaven with him, so we are doomed to live without him after we die; however, he does not want that, because he loves us. Therefore, he sent his son, Jesus, to die for us and, in so doing, take the punishment for our rebellion before rising from the dead two days later. We can either accept that, give our lives to Jesus and become destined for Heaven, or reject what Jesus did and remain destined for eternal life without God in Hell. This is summarized nicely in the Bible by John, who was Jesus' closest friend while he was on Earth, in his Gospel (John chapter 3, verses 16-18).

On the face of it, that is the story that the Bible tells. Along the way, there are a lot more details, a lot more lessons to be learned, a lot of history to discover and a lot of poetry to enjoy. Yet, the underlying story is reiterated and emphasized all the way through. We can safely take this on face value, or risk throwing caution to the wind and interpret it to mean something else.