By Konstantinos Papadimitrakopoulos
God, my good friends, is He who is, of course. Just as we are what we are. To see God (with our spiritual eyes) is everything, not as we would like Him to be, but as He really is. Because if we want to see God as we want Him to be, then we are not much different from the idolaters. Who did what? They made gods to their liking, with their weaknesses, with their passions. They made them to be what they themselves would like to be.
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A study by the University of North Carolina, which was published in the scientific journal "PloS One", were the reason behind these thoughts.
The scientists (psychologists) of his University asked 511 Americans they included in their research, to tell them how they imagine God. The following emerged from the answers they received:
• The conservatives imagine God differently from the progressives!
• Young people imagine God differently from the elderly!
• Those who are more beautiful in their external appearance, imagine a more charming God!
• African-Americans imagine him as black and not white!
And so on and so forth.
Professor of Psychology Kurt Gray, who participated in this research, stated the following:
"People’s tendency to believe in a God that looks like them is consistent with an egocentric bias. People often project their beliefs and traits onto others, and our study shows that God’s appearance is no different — people believe in a God who not only thinks like them, but also looks like them."
So, when we believe and worship such a constructed (by us or by others) God, how is it possible for our life to change? Besides, He is also the God of religions. That is why Christ became a man and lived among us, to reveal to us who God really is.
The Evangelist John says: "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18).
Saint John Chrysostom interprets these words of the Evangelist, as follows: "Having said, 'No one has seen God at any time,' he added, 'The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.'"
And then Chrysostom observes:
"Only the Son sees the Father and the Holy Spirit. For how is it possible for the entire created nature to even see the Uncreated? If it is not possible to clearly see any incorporeal power, even though it is created, a thing which has been proved many times in the cases of the appearance of angels, much more is this not possible in the unbegotten and incorporeal Essence. That is why Paul also says: 'No man has seen or can see Him'" (1 Tim. 6:16).
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The famous music composer Charles Gounod (known to many for his composition "Ave Maria") once said the following wonderful thing:
"When I was very young I used to say 'I'; later on, I said 'I and Mozart'; then 'Mozart and I'. Now I say 'Mozart'."
The exact same thing happens to us. As long as we don't know Christ, then we say whatever we want about God. As long as we know Christ, then we also change our views about God. And the better we know Christ, the better we know God. But when we get to know Christ very well, then we also have the right opinion about God, that is, then we understand who He really is.
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Once in a special seminar I attended on the subject of communication, the professor handed us a sketch and told us, after observing it very well, to tell him what we see.
Then some of us said that they saw the face of their grandmother and others that they saw the face of a young girl. So there was between us, not just a disagreement, but a complete contradiction.
Then the teacher asked us one by one why we saw in the sketch a grandmother or a young girl and how we supported our opinion. Everyone supported their opinion in their own way.
So what did we find? The artist had drawn his sketch in such a way that one person saw that it was the face of a grandmother and another that it was the face of a young girl (it was an optical illusion). The professor explained to us that each of us sees things differently, depending on the people around us. If they live, for example, with their elderly mother, then what they see in the sketch is a grandmother. If they live with their young sister, then they see a young girl in the sketch.
And what was the conclusion? If we do not communicate with others and listen to their views on a matter, as they listens to ours, and do not exchange arguments, each of us will think what we want, and will still insist on it, even without knowing the truth!
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This is what we end up with, my good friends. God is not what each of us thinks. It is He who really is. Only with our faith in Christ will we be able to have the right view of Him. Our communication with those who believe in Christ will also help us a lot.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.