Mistaking God for a Human
A couple of random quotations from the radio this week and my thoughts.
"God was being sarcastic with Job in chapters 38-41." I think because our irony so often becomes sarcasm out of our need for self-glorification, we take God's use of irony and hard questions of Job as sarcasm. Since I cannot think of any time when sarcasm (as distinct from irony or satire) is not used out of a desire to make ourselves look superior and the other look inferior, which are sinful motives, my syllogism concludes that God does not use sarcasm. Sarcasm is beneath God. It's like God saying "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" to someone.
We often say that everything exists for the glory of God, which could sound like God is incapable of being satisfied in that regard, that He is always craving glory and praise and has some deficit. I think we should watch our language more. God does not need our glorification. The whole universe is doing that, including the beings in heaven, and that is because the world is designed to do that and only when God is being glorified is "all right with the world." Having a theo-centric view of the universe doesn't make God a narcissist.
In both cases, and I'm sure more, we are mistaking God for a human. He could not be God if that were so.
"God was being sarcastic with Job in chapters 38-41." I think because our irony so often becomes sarcasm out of our need for self-glorification, we take God's use of irony and hard questions of Job as sarcasm. Since I cannot think of any time when sarcasm (as distinct from irony or satire) is not used out of a desire to make ourselves look superior and the other look inferior, which are sinful motives, my syllogism concludes that God does not use sarcasm. Sarcasm is beneath God. It's like God saying "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" to someone.
We often say that everything exists for the glory of God, which could sound like God is incapable of being satisfied in that regard, that He is always craving glory and praise and has some deficit. I think we should watch our language more. God does not need our glorification. The whole universe is doing that, including the beings in heaven, and that is because the world is designed to do that and only when God is being glorified is "all right with the world." Having a theo-centric view of the universe doesn't make God a narcissist.
In both cases, and I'm sure more, we are mistaking God for a human. He could not be God if that were so.
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