Reading “A Portrait of Calvin” (download it here for free).

I came across a great quote from “The Theologian”:

“Men’s conceptions of God are formed, not according to the representations He gives of Himself, but by the inventions of their own presumptuous imaginations. . . . They worship, not God, but a figment of their own brains in His stead.”

Perhaps not as theologically astute as Calvin, and maybe even coming from a different angle, AC DC makes a similar statement:

Who made who, who made you?
Who made who, ain’t nobody told you?
Who made who, who made you?
If you made them and they made you
Who begot the devil, and who made who?
Who made who, who turned the screw?

The point is that people from all theologies and walks of life are grappling (intentionally or otherwise) with this question, “Who is God?”

So here’s a question for you, who is the God you worship? Is he/she/it who you want him/her/it to be? Something you’ve created? Something you hope he/she/it will be?

OR is your God one who tells you who he/she/it is and you humbly accept that for what it is and worship?

(BTW, I’ve put the he/she/it in this equation so as to be as unbiased in this discussion as possible. My theological bias is… He.)

Bottom line, how do you know who God is?

For what it’s worth, here’s how Calvin determined who God was:

For all his capabilities, man is a puzzled, groping creature, surrounded by that which is mysterious to him. He not only does not understand God, nor does he understand the world in which he lives, but he does not even understand himself—from where he has come, why he lives, or to where he goes. If help does not come to him from without, he will never know God or find His kingdom. But God, in His loving concern for man, reaches right to him, where he is wandering imprisoned in the labyrinth, and gives him the guidance of the Holy Scriptures, which are like a thread, leading him through this maze of ignorance to the knowledge of God. “The light of the Divine countenance, which the Apostle himself says ‘no man can approach unto,’ is like an inexplicable labyrinth to us, unless we are directed by the thread of the Word.”