Our Belief in God
Author and preacher A. W. Tozer wrote in the early 20th century: “What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us…Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”[1] Our spiritual future can be predicted by what we believe about God. What we think about God sets the course for everything down our spiritual road.
It is critical, therefore, to have a clear understanding of what it is we believe about God. Most Americans, indeed, believe something about God. Despite the efforts of what has been called “the new atheism”—a wave of authors devoted to debunking belief in God—the dominant question in our culture is not “Do you believe in God?” but “What kind of God do you believe in?” The Pew Forum’s massive study of 35,000 Americans finds that 92% of Americans still believe in God.[2] We are a people who believe in God. But what do we believe about God? That is perhaps the most critical spiritual question for Americans to answer. Why? Because what we believe about God sets the course for our entire spiritual future.
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
And while might assume there is great diversity when it comes to what Americans believe about God there is actually a surprising uniformity. From 2002 to 2005 the National Study of Youth and Religion interviewed more than 3,300 American teenagers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen.[3] On the one hand, the study found that teenagers have very little knowledge of biblical teachings.[4] They don’t know much about what the Bible says about God. On the other hand, the study found that teenagers do have a consistent spiritual belief system. And it is not a belief system unique to teenagers. Researchers found that this belief system was given to these teens by the churches they attend and by the religious people in their lives. Thus, this is not just a belief system prevalent among teens. It is the belief system most prevalent among churches and Christians in America today.
What many Americans believe today about God is called by the researchers “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” This belief system consists of 5 basic tenets:[5]
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
The National Study of Youth and Religion calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism Christianity’s “misbegotten step cousin.” The researchers claim it is “supplanting Christianity as the dominant religion in American churches.”[6] If we want to know what the dominant view of God is in churches today, this is it. If we could survey Americans on the content of their belief about God, this is what we would find. When it comes to God, this is the dominant creed of our day. At least according the National Study of Youth and Religion, what most American teenagers and their Christian churches or Christian adult influences believe about God is summarized by Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
But what exactly does this belief system say about God? The researchers describe American Christians “as restless people who come to church for the same reasons people once went to diners: for someone to serve us who knows our name, for a filling stew that reminds us of home and makes us feel loved, even while it does a number on our spiritual cholesterol.”[7] In other words, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a belief in God which is rooted primarily in our desire to be served, comforted, and filled—even though it’s not very healthy for us. We believe in a God who has come to serve us, wants to comfort us, and fills us.
At the heart of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is an image of God that might be summarized in two words: “on call” and “counselor.” In Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, God is my on-call counselor. The words “on call” portray the way in which the God of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism remains in the background until needed.[8] This is a God who watches over us but makes very little demands of us.[9] Like a software program on a computer, he runs in the background until you need him. Then you can click on him and he begins whatever operation is needed. When completed, you exit out of the program and he returns to the desktop, awaiting your next click.
The word “counselor” describes what this God primarily does when we summon him. He is a butler, a therapist, a cosmic lifeguard. He listens nonjudgmentally to us and then helps us feel better about ourselves.[10] He is, above all, nice.[11] When summoned from the background, he does everything in his power to meet whatever need we have, then he returns to his post.[12]
God is an on-call counselor. At the heart of the most prominent creed today is this image of God.
In this series we are exploring what I’m calling “The American Creed”—contemporary beliefs about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and life. Last time we looked at the first tenet of the American Creed: “It doesn’t matter what you believe.” In contrast to that tenet, we saw how Christians have historically argued the opposite, saying, “We believe.” “We believe this and it makes all the difference in the world.” Tonight we take up what the American Creed says about God. And what it primarily says is this: “God is my on-call counselor.”
The Nicene Creed
Christians, however, have long held to a different view of God. They’ve summarized that view in many ways. One of the ways they’ve summarized their theology is by the use of creeds. At first, creeds were simple ways that people being baptized confessed their beliefs. Eventually creeds were used by early Christians to distinguish their beliefs from the beliefs of those in the culture around them. Creeds articulated the defining beliefs of Christians which set them apart from all other groups.
One of the most important historical creeds is the Nicene Creed. In May 381, the Christian emperor Theodosius called for a gathering in Constantinople. One hundred and fifty bishops attended. They approved a creed that became known as the Nicene—Constantinopolitan Creed. [13] Today it is commonly known as the Nicene Creed:[14]
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
This creed provides a helpful way for us to think about the beliefs that define the Christian faith, especially as we consider alterative beliefs in our culture. We are working our way phrase by phrase through the creed. Tonight we take up the creed’s words about God:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
Let’s briefly explore this phrase, its back ground in Scripture, and what it says about God.
One God
As the earliest Christians sought a way to distinguish their beliefs from the beliefs of the world around them, they used this phrase: “one God.” “We believe in one God.” There is little doubt that this phrase in the Nicene Creed is a reflection of one of the earliest creeds—that found in Deut. 6:4–“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This was one of the ways the Jews summarized their beliefs. Above all, the Jews believed this about God: “The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” The writers of the Nicene Creed point back to this statement with their phrase “We believe in one God.”[15]
And in so doing, the early Christians were saying “We believe in the God of this Old Testament story.”[16] “We believe in the God whose drama is told in the Old Testament. Our beliefs are defined by what this book says about God, not by what anyone else says about God.”
Specifically, the creed from Deut. 6 and the phrase “one God” in the Nicene Creed pointed to the belief of early Christians that God was “the top God” and “the only God.”[17] When the Jews said they believed “The LORD our God, the LORD is one” and when the Christians said, “We believe in one God,” they were first of all stating that they believed in a God who was superior to all other gods. They believed in a God who was the top God. That’s what it meant for God to be one God.
This is reflected in places like the following:
- Ps. 86:8 “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.”
- Ps. 89:6 “For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD?”
- Ps. 95:3 “For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.”
When the early Christians said “We believe in one God” they were saying they believed their God was the top God.
But this belief in a God who was the top God eventually grew into a belief in a God who was the only God. When the Jews recited their Shema creed, they did so claiming belief in a God who was the only true God. There was no other God but the LORD God. In the same way, when Christians recited the Nicene Creed, they said it in the midst of a culture which argued there were many gods. They claimed that there was one God who was the top God and he was the only true God.
The Father
Not only did the early Christians confess belief in a God who was one—the one and only. They also believed in a God who was “Father”: “We believe in one God, the Father…” Gerald Bray writes, “It is this personal character of God that distinguishes Christian belief most obviously from any philosophical equivalent.”[18] This, again, was one of the distinctives of the Christian faith—a deep rooted conviction that God was Father: tender, loving, merciful and very, very personal.
If the phrase “one God” was rooted in the Old Testament, then the phrase “Father” was rooted in the New Testament.[19] The image of God as Father is strongest in the New Testament, and especially in the ministry of Jesus. The word “Father” is Jesus’ favorite designation for God. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that God is “your father in heaven” (5:16, 45, 48; 6:1, 14, 32; 7:11, 21) or simply “your father” (6:4, 6, 8, 15, 18, 26; 10:20, 29). Jesus tells his followers to pray to “our father who is in heaven” (6:9).[20]
Thus the first two phrases of the creed point to the Old and New Testaments, respectively. “One God” points to the Shema and the story of God in the Old Testament. “The Father” points to Jesus’ ministry and the story of God in the New Testament. In essence, these two phrases were the early Christians’ way of saying, “We believe in the God of this book. The God whose story is in the Old Testament—that’s the one we believe in. The God whose story continues in the New Testament—that’s the one we believe in.”
The Almighty
But the creed also confessed a belief in God as “Almighty”: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty…” The phrase “Almighty” is not as much an adjective as it is a title. The word “Almighty” is used in English Bibles to translate the Hebrew name of God El-Shaddai.[21] Within the Old Testament “shaddai” carries idea of having the power to protect. For example, in Ps. 91:1 we read “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” This Almighty is a God who has the power to protect.
In the New Testament, the Greek word “all-powerful” or Almighty occurs 9 times in Revelation with an emphasis on the power of God: [22]
- “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8)
- And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” (Rev. 4:8)
- “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.” (Rev. 11:17)
- “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!” (Rev. 15:3)
- “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” (Rev. 16:7)
- For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. (Rev. 16:14)
- Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah!For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” (Rev. 19:6)
- From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. (Rev. 19:15)
- And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. (Rev. 21:22)
This reigning and victorious God is the one proclaimed by the early Christians in the Nicene Creed. Against a culture which told them there were greater powers and greater forces, and in the face of threats and dangers, Christians defiantly believed in a God who was all-mighty and who would reign supreme over all forces and be victorious over all powers.
Maker of Heaven and Earth
The early Christians also confessed that they believed God was the “Maker of Heaven and Earth”: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…” With this phrase the early Christians recalled Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This God was the one who made heaven and earth and continued to sustain heaven and earth. As the one who first made heaven and earth, this God was also remaking and renewing heaven and earth.
For example, God points to his role as maker of heaven and earth as the basis for his role as the one who is renewing the same:[23] 5Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6″I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. (Is. 42:5-8 ESV) Because God is the one who created the heavens and spread out the earth he is able through his people to open eyes that are blind, bring prisoners out of the dungeon, and rule on the earth. As maker of heaven and earth he is also remaking heaven and earth.
The Bible ends with this portrait of God.[24] In Rev. 14:7 we are told to “Worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Then in Rev. 21:1-5 we read “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more . . . and he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’”
Luke Timothy Johnson writes, “The Christian confession of God as creator is not a theory about how things came to be, but a perception of how everything is still and is always coming into being.”[25] When they confessed God as the maker of heaven and earth they confessed that they believed in a God who brought things to be and is still and always bringing things into being.
Of All That Is, Seen and Unseen
Finally, the early Christians confessed “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” God is the maker of everything. God didn’t just make the earth and heaven. He made everything. There’s nothing that exists which he did not make.[26]
The words also reminded them that there was more to life than was seen. Christians were those believed in the unseen, the invisible. And even over those things God reigned and was the source and sustenance.[27]
We Believe in One God v. God is My On-Call Counselor
It’s easy to see that there is a significant difference between the God summarized in the Nicene Creed and the God summarized in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The God of the American Creed is primarily “on call.” He is not involved in a daily way with heaven and earth. He only appears when needed. He only comes when called. In many ways he is a distant God. He created all things. But his is not recreating of all things. He started things. But he does not sustain all things.
The God of the American Creed is primarily “counselor.” He exists to meet my needs, resolve my problems, and fix my life. He’s a nice guy who knows how I “tick” and wants to comfort and assist me.
But the God of Scripture is much more. He is the top God, the only God, the one and only true God. He is Father and thus personal. He is Almighty and thus powerful. He is the maker and remaker of all that is..
Kenda Dean writes, “Who we are and what we do as religious people are decisively shaped by the kind of God we worship.”[28] If we worship God as the on-call counselor, it shapes us into a certain kind of people. But if we worship the God who is one, Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, it turns us into a very different kind of people. What we believe about God sets the direction of our entire spiritual future. The early Christians strongly believed in the future created by this phrase in the Nicene Creed.
Kenda Dean finally writes, “I’ve been told that when FBI agents are learning to detect a counterfeit bill, they do not spend most of their time studying counterfeits. Instead, they memorize the original. By internalizing the weight, smell, and look of a real dollar bill, they can spot a fake almost intuitively, without having to stop and analyze it. Christian formation requires a similar familiarity with the God-story of Jesus Christ.”[29] What’s needed is this age of so many counterfeit beliefs about God is more attention to the real and original God. We need to internalize the weight, smell, and look of the real thing. In this way we’ll be able to spot a fake almost intuitively. What’s needed more than ever before is a recapturing of this image of God as one, Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
[1] Quoted in James Bryan Smith The Good and Beautiful God (IVP, 2009), 88.
[2] http://religions.pewforum.org/reports#.
[3] Kenda Creasy Dean Almost Christian (Oxford University Press, 2010), Kindle location 317.
[4] Dean, Kindle location 356.
[5] Dean, Kindle location 270.
[6] Dean, Kindle location 159.
[7] Dean, Kindle location 171.
[8] Dean, Kindle location 398.
[9] Dean, Kindle location 521.
[10] Dean, Kindle location 335.
[11] Dean, Kindle location 521.
[12] Dean, Kindle location 547.
[13] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters (Image, 2007) Kindle location 574.
[14] Gerald L. Bray, Editor Ancient Christian Doctrine Volume 1 (IVP, Academic, 2009), unnumbered page.
[15] Johnson, 1062.
[16] Johnson, 1062.
[17] Johson, 1083.
[18] Bray, 34.
[19] Bray, 60.
[20] Johnson, 1162.
[21] Bray, 87-88.
[22] Wood, D. R. W., & Marshall, I. H. (1996). New Bible dictionary (3rd ed.) (25). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
[23] Johnson, 1385.
[24] Johnson, 1395.
[25] Johnson, 1405.
[26] Johnson, 1432.
[27] Johnson, 1475.
[28] Dean, 1212.
[29] Dean, 1544.
