God as an Imperfect Being - 

Why has God been absent in my life lately? Why do miracles never seem to occur anymore? Why is there evil in the world? What does this mean?

I started to come to some conclusions. There are a number of good arguments by philosophers contradicting the belief that God is perfect. I don't feel like spelling out these arguments here, but suffice it to say that these arguments are critical and pertinent. This got me to thinking... did God ever actually say he was perfect?? I went home and asked my parents this question. We pulled out the concordance and looked for perfection and its pseudonyms. Man wrote everything except for one passage that mentioned perfection. The one passage where God actually called himself perfect involved Jesus. It was somewhere in Matthew, I don't remember the exact verse. It essentially said to "be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect". This piqued our curiosity. The Greek origin for the word used for perfect that the NIV translated into our word "perfect" did NOT mean the same thing that our modern word "perfect" means. It meant "more mature" or implying "growth". What does this mean? This means that the translation lost the original context of the passage! What Jesus was really saying was that we should mature and grow as God matures and grows! This implies change and improvement upon an imperfect being! The only passage in the Bible where God directly addresses his own perfection seems to imply that God does not meet our modern criteria for perfection.

Fine? "So what?" you're saying. This means that God is fallible. He can make mistakes and he is learning much like we are learning. My parents mentioned a part of the Bible in the Old Testament where God is actually convinced by one of his followers not to destroy humanity. God actually changed his mind on something. Would a perfect being change his mind? No? he'd/she'd/it'd know exactly what was the right thing to do in every situation. He would never second-guess himself.

God does not perform as many miracles anymore. Why? If God's relationship to us is as a father's relationship is to a son, at some point in the maturation of the son the father must begin to allow the son to become independent. Otherwise, the son is too dependent on the father for direction and becomes timid and incapable of reaching its potential. Is this what God is doing? Is he weaning us off of his "breast fed" faith? Is mankind reaching a point of independence where God no longer interferes FOR OUR OWN GOOD? Perhaps.

If God is an evolving creature, and we are also evolving creatures, will we reach a state of understanding akin to God's understanding? Maybe?. However, it is much more likely that the universe will destroy itself before we have enough time to evolve that far. God obviously exists in some realm other than ours where the laws of physics do not apply. If this is true, he has no restrictions as to time and evolutionary inconveniences. Therefore, we probably will never reach the level of power that he has attained. This makes us needy of his support in order to overcome our limitations.

God created us for fellowship. Why would he create us to share his vision if we are forever unable to understand? The Bible says that if we were suddenly to see the splendor of God, we would be destroyed. Is evolution and our learning process the slow and safe means to educating mankind in God's ways? I think so. This does not necessitate that we will become godlike, nor does it mean that we rely on him less. But, it does mean that someday we may be able to collectively understand his plan.

Believe me, I am not turning into a Mormon. I still hold the fundamental belief systems of Christianity. I do, however, believe that man has placed God at a level that is unnaturally inconceivable. Christians merely use his power as an excuse to remain ignorant about him. "We are too small to understand his plan." Maybe. But are we collectively? Will we NEVER be able to understand? Why assume so? How much of what we believe is based on what God said and how much is based on what man has put in God's mouth? It's a convoluted concept system, to be sure.

Anyway.

I don't have answers. I just have a bunch of questions. God is not speaking up to answer them and I am posing these questions the best way I know how. I do not plan on venturing so far as to doubt the existence of God. It seems necessary from my perspective to include God in the universal system. While the concept of God is an easy and convenient scientific scapegoat, it seems to be necessitated to factor in his spirituality in the big picture. However, the role that God has on the modern universe in a DIRECT and INFLUENTIAL way appears to be limited. I am merely attempting to discern why.

Knowledge about science is the best way for us to begin to understand God if he has declined the offer for a relationship between him and us. It appears, to me, that science is revealing God's place in the universe the more we dig into the universal sandbox. I just want my own shovel. Gimme.

-Dan Connor