“Synthetic Or Organic God?”

Sunday, April 05, 2015

A lot has been said about the vast differences between synthetic and organic foods. There are ongoing debates about which is better: is it the stuff that goes through man-made processes and manufacturing or the stuff that’s delivered to the table basically like God made it? I don’t want to discuss that here, but I do think the question is a good one to ask about God himself.

Do we want a god who has been manufactured and processed? Or do we want the natural, organic God; the God who is unaffected by human reasoning, processing, and reshaping?

The problem of changing God is more fundamental than one might think. In Romans 1, while the apostle Paul does attribute many problems of sensuous people to their behavior, he points out that their most fundamental mistake was exchanging the glory of the immortal God for an image (Rom. 1:23). This mistake—this simple attempt which could have easily started as an attempt to “make God more accessible”—led to a host of other problems. He goes on to say they were filled with “all manner of unrighteousness” simply because they had refused the real God and accepted a synthetic god instead.

This is why idolatry is such a problem for God’s people today. We tend to think of it as a problem native to primitive cultures with statues in their homes and shrines. But the problem is not just to do with statues—it is a problem of rewriting our picture of God. When we say, “I can’t believe in a God who would send someone to hell,” we have replaced the true God with an idol. When we say, “I can’t believe in a God who would ask me to…”, we have replaced the true God with an idol. The problem is as simple as the difference between the organic God and a synthetic reproduction of him.

Let’s make sure that we know the real God. Not just the god our parents taught us, the god our church leaders talk about, or the god we hear about in religious books. Let’s get to know the organic, original God of the Bible.

- Dan Lankford

Share