God

I suspect that most of us are greatly troubled by wrong ideas about God, and therefore are inadvertently plagued by a form of atheism.

We ought to remember that the idea of "God" is not limited to Christianity or the true spiritual life, but is in fact an idea well-known to all, including the philosophers (witness the arguments for God's existence that have been produced by them).

In view, then, of the fact that every thinking member of the human race is left with an idea of God (against which we rebel by nature), we need to compare and contrast this common idea of God with the God of revelation who is known to us in his Son.

This is obvious to us when we think about it conceptually and abstractly.  We know that the God known to all men apart from Christ is not trusted or worshiped in the way that we trust and worship Him as we know him in Christ.  The trouble we have, I suspect, stems from our retaining in our minds the knowledge of God, as it is known vaguely and philosophically, and then mistaking this philosophical knowledge of God for the revealed knowledge of Him in Christ.  Confusing ourselves in this way, we retain abstract concepts of God which are out of accord with the true knowledge of Him, and thus our religion and spiritual life are weakened and corrupted.  After all, the "common" knowledge of "God" is not the knowledge of a God in which people trust!

The place to begin is with Jesus Christ himself, where he says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."  Jesus Christ is the very image of God the Father.  Look to Jesus in order to see what God the Father is like.  The title "Father" is not something abstract, but it has a meaning!  We should adopt this meaning, in all its glory and grace, for the well-being of our souls!