Who is God?

 6/16/07

Question:

How can someone who doesn’t know very much about God decide what’s true about him and what isn’t? I’d like to believe, but people have so many different ideas about God that I’m afraid I’ll end up believing the wrong thing.

Billy Graham’s self serving answer:

I’m thankful for your caution, because you are correct – not everything you hear people say about God is right.  They may be merely ignorant about God, or they may deliberately be trying to deceive other people, but the result is the same.  This is why I urge you to discover Jesus. I often suggest people begin by reading through the Gospel of John, because it was written to help us discover Jesus (see John 20:30 – 31).What will you find out about Jesus there? He wasn’t just another philosophy or religious teacher, he was God in Human flesh. And because he was both God and man, he alone  is able to show us what God is like.

Jen’s response:

Oh, the hypocrisy.  What Graham is saying here is  yes, people have so many different ideas about god, and many aren’t correct, but my ideas are, so listen to me. Graham, Graham Graham.  I understand you truly believe, but you offer no proof that what you believe is correct.  How are we to know what you say about God is more correct then what the Jews say about god?  Or what about what the Sikhs say about god? 

If you decide before hand that you believe what the bible says is true, then what the bible says about God (keeping in mind that according to Graham we apparently need to discard the old testament in favor of the new testament, and even then, we need to only really read John because the gospels don’t exactly agree on these matters), then yes, what John says about who Jesus is would be your truth. 

The problem with assuming the bible is correct is that Jesus as god is a completely different sort of person then the God of the Old Testament.  The god of the Old Testament is jealous and he repeatedly says his name is jealousy so you won’t forget it. So, which is correct, the Old Testament, or the Gospel of John?  Good question, Graham doesn’t give us a way to decide.  But, we cannot escape that the bible contains a fundamental contradiction in it about the nature of God.  If the bible is god’s word and reveals the truth about god, then our only conclusion can be that god is confused. 

The only way to not end up believing the wrong thing and getting taken in by cult-ish leaders who are up to no good is to remain confused and to be skeptical of all claims made about the nature of god.  And, if you believe the bible, you can easily claim your confused state is in accordance with what you have read in the bible.