A triangular God

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Untitled
If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides. ~Old Yiddish Proverb

This old proverb puts a different perspective on “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NIV) As a triangle would imagine it’s creator to look triangular, humans logically imagine God to resemble themselves. And maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s just that visualizing God is impossible for us except to imagine his love to be like our love, his justice to be like our justice, his anger to resemble ours, his features to mimic ours. Artists who’ve attempted to render God’s essence on canvas have invariably portrayed the figure of a man. (See, for instance, Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam.)

The problem with personifying God in this manner is that it can come disconcertingly close to idol worship, and idolatry answers a need for some person or force outside our reality to give our lives meaning. Rain gods, sun gods, sea gods, gods of thunder and lightning, gods of justice where there seems to be no justice, gods of love where there seems to be so little love. It’s an impulse that can lead to dependence on what is far away . . . because what is near fails to satisfy.
Pagan religions brought this faraway force as close as possible by worshiping objects, fetishes, and it’s not uncommon for present-day religionists of many stripes to place confidence in icons, statuary, texts and other tangible objects, the aura of sanctity surrounding the objects implanted in consciousness as being representative of the being or force from far away. The practice of offering something valuable to these far-away entities (to the point of throwing a child into a volcano) seen typically as “the most that can be done” in either adoration or appeasement.

Granted, Christianity generally is past teaching its children that thunder is caused by an angry god hurling bowling balls, or that there is a god that rewards obedience with great wealth, that prevents or causes events at his pleasure. But we’re not generally past teaching our children that they must believe in a far-away-God as the invisible actor and judge in everything, that heaven is “up there” and hades “down below,” and they’d better watch out. 

We tend only to give lip-service to the idea that when we show mercy to the needy, we may be “entertaining angels unawares,” (Hebrews 13:2) or that Christ’s admonition that “Do not say, lo here, or lo there; the kingdom of God is within you,”(Luke 17:20) or even the oft-repeated teaching that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) If God is love, then the far-away-God is simply not tenable as a faith-nourishing concept. Love is not a far-away thing; it’s up close and personal, intimate, immediate.
The folly of religion generally is that we easily become tied up in ritual and convention, in icons and fetishes, in formulaic guarantees of heaven, in endless introspection and theological bickering—when we could be out there “entertaining angels.” The closer we cling to the idolatry-impulse-driven, far-away-God, the farther we stray from the simple gospel summarized in the golden rule. The spirit of love (God, some call it) is able to grow and prosper under its own energy (Holy Spirit, some call it) and even though it emanates through human hands and human mouths, is able to bring about a kingdom of peace and joy (Jesus called it).

If you were an artist, how would you paint God? I’m not sure, but I think I’d come up with something like this:


Mother and Son - Cynthia Epp painting




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