February
11
2018

Faulty Views of God

Faulty Views of God

If people look outside Scripture to discern what God is like they soon encounter a sea of confusion and error. In Understanding Christian Theology (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003), edited by Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck, J. Carl Laney explores several faulty views of God, such as:

Atheism. This is the view of those who believe there is no God. The term comes from the Greek word theos (God) and the negative prefix a (Greek alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet). Atheists believe everything can be explained naturally and materialistically, therefore there is no need to resort to God for answers.

Agnosticism. Since the Greek term gnosis means “knowledge” and the prefix a negates knowledge, agnostics are those “without knowledge.” But this doesn’t have anything to do with their intelligence. This means they don’t know if God exists or not. Some agnostics are open to spiritual things, while others are very skeptical.

Polytheism. Polyin Greek means “many,” and theos, “God.” Polytheism, then, means belief in many gods. This view was common during Bible times. The Egyptians and the Greeks, for example, believed in many gods. Today Hinduism is a clear example of polytheism.

Pantheism. The Greek word pan means “all” and theos, “God.” Hence, pantheism means God is everything, and everything is God. The New Age Movement and many environmentalists who are fond of speaking of “Mother Earth” are pantheistic.

Deism. This view comes from the Latin term deus, “God.” Deists hold that God created the world and then left it free to run its own course. He never intervenes or interacts with the world, according to deism.

Idolatry. Laney writes, “Idolatry misrepresents God in that it depicts Him as having a material body which can be represented by a physical image.” He adds, “You can see idolatry practiced today as worshipers present a basket of fruit before an image of Buddha, or flower petals to a Hindu idol, or burn incense before pictures of their ancestors.”

Laney tells about a woman and her baby traveling by train during a heavy snowstorm. It was late at night and she did not want to miss her stop where her husband was waiting. She asked the brakeman to be sure to let her know as they approached her stop.

When the train did stop, another passenger said, “Here is your station.” She believed the passenger and took her baby and got off the train into the blinding snowstorm. Soon the train moved on.

Forty-five minutes later the brakeman discovered the woman was no longer on the train. But they had stopped to clear the track, not because they were at the station.

Some volunteers went back to look for her and the child. By the time they found them the woman had frozen but the child was alive under her coat. The woman lost her life because she followed faulty directions. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through me” (John 14:6).

 

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