Catholic Update

June 1991

Are Our Images of God Growing? by Pat McCloskey, O.F.M.

http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0691.asp
Introduction
Losing your first baby tooth can be very traumatic until you learn that this loss is natures sign
that adult teeth will soon appear. Losing a childhood image of God (for example, the viewpoint
that an all-powerful God would never let anything bad happen to me) can be much more painful
than losing that first baby tooth. Although adult teeth grow in without any conscious help from
us, more mature images of God do not automatically replace those which we must rethink or
rephrase because of our religious education and life experiences.
Childhood images of God reflect a childhood faith. Fair enough; we all have to start somewhere.
An adult faith, however, requires more adult images of God, that is, new mental pictures which
can help adults better understand a God never fully captured in human language. Childhood
images of God as judge and father can be complemented by other biblical images of God, such
as those portraying God as potter and mother.
Childhood images of God are not automatically upgraded to adult images. Childhood images of
God may need to grow if we are to have a vibrant, adult faith. Often a childhood image
combines something true (God is all-powerful) with a mistaken conclusion (God will never let
anything bad happen to me). If we fail to see how our childhood images of God are incomplete,
we risk stunting our growth toward an adult faith.
What Image of God Do I Carry?
The need to grow in ones images of God became very obvious to me the day I heard the
confession of a woman who asked pardon for the miscarriage she had suffered 50 years before.
She was probably at least 70 years old (she was behind the screen), and after she had recounted
the circumstances of the miscarriage, which was not due to any negligence on her part, I tried to
assure her that she had committed no sin and that God not only perfectly understood her situation
but even more so wanted her to forgive herself. I suspect she accepted that intellectually, but I
do not know if that changed anything for her emotionally. God knows how many times she had
already asked forgiveness for that supposed sin.
I remember thinking to myself, What kind of a God has she been worshiping all these years?
What kind of baggage from that tragedy has she possibly been carrying for the last half century?
Has anyone tried to help her develop more adult images of God? How many other people have
been carrying similar baggage arising from personal suffering? What images of God am I
carrying around?
I was reminded of that womans confession when I saw Roland Joffes movie The Mission in
which Mendoza, the repentant slave trader (Robert DeNiro), accompanies Father Gabriel
(Jeremy Irons) and several other Jesuits up the steep slopes alongside the Iguazu Falls. Mendoza

drags behind him a net containing the armor which symbolizes the life he has left behind, a life
where he killed his own brother in a lovers triangle. The former slave trader has already
confessed his sin and now lugs this armor for miles as a penance.
When the other Jesuits urge Father Gabriel to end the penance, he replies that the time is not yet
ripe. Finally, at the top of the falls, the Guarini Indians, whom Mendoza had once hunted, are
waiting to welcome the Jesuits. Tension arises when they see Mendoza, but finally a young boy
steps forward with a machete, pauses and then cuts the rope; the net with the armor falls back
into the river. Mendoza feels a tremendous sense of relief and is generously welcomed by the
Indians. The entire sequence conveys a sense of baptismal cleansing and reconciliation. Gods
forgiveness has been complemented by self-forgiveness and reconciliation with others.
Often you and I drag behind us images of God and related images of ourselves and others
which are increasingly heavy. We refuse to leave them behind, however, because we suspect that
more mature images might require an even greater conversion on our part. Unlike the movie
where someone else could decide that Mendoza did not have to drag that burden any longer, only
we can decide to quit carrying oppressive images of God and at the same time accept new,
interrelated images of God, self and others. God had already forgiven Mendozas sin but would
not force the repentant slave trader to accept more mature, interconnecting images of God,
himself and others.
Images of God Can Grow As We Do
Most of us gravitate toward two or three images of God as long as they help us make sense of
life around us, but those images are not necessarily the whole truth about God. For example,
God is a loving creator who may not answer my selfish prayers (like winning the lottery), but
God will certainly answer my prayers if its more serious (like someones life), or so I think. But
what happens to that image of God when I pray for a very sick person who then dies?
If I have a single image of God and this is decisively contradicted by a new and painful
experience in my life (God will always protect me, but last week I was beaten and robbed), in a
sense, I have the same options regarding my images of God as if I outgrow a pair of shoes: (1) I
can continue to wear the same shoes and complain that they do not fit (why is this good God
punishing me?); (2) I can quit wearing shoes altogether (become an atheist or an agnostic); or (3)
I can find shoes that fit (find images which do justice to all of Gods self-revelation and to all of
life as I have experienced it).
A Christian who chooses the third option must reexamine the Scriptures and reconsider the lives
of holy Christians to see if he or she has missed any key information. In fact, this third option is
a commitment to continual growth regarding the person's images of God.
A Family Comparison
Imagine that when you were five years old someone asked you to describe your parents. Perhaps
you would have answered (or did!) that your mother was very loving (the worlds best cook!),
your father was very strong (more so than your friends father) and that together your parents
took very good care of you. Now imagine that at age 30 you were asked the same question.

Would you simply repeat your earlier answers? Hardly. Although you might use many of the
same words (strength, love, care), they would have a deeper meaning.
Which description of your parents would be the correct one the one you gave at age five or at
age 30? Is it possible that they are both correct and are simply reflections of your growing
ability to appreciate your parents? It would be a mistake either to disregard the five-year-olds
description of his or her parents or, on the other hand, to accept it as the last word. Important
discoveries (positive and negative) await everyone willing to see the whole picture about
another person.
It is, of course, possible to remain frozen in our earliest impressions of our parents. As a result
we may idealize them, never allowing them to become real people with their own difficulties and
shadows, or we may fail to see good qualities we didnt value properly when we were children.
If we can act this way with our own parents, why should we be surprised to find that our
childhood images of God are insufficient? Is God insulted that we did not understand everything
correctly from childhood? Or does God regret, rather, that as adults we are content to rely
exclusively on those childhood images?
We would do well therefore to seek deeper images of God which are in better harmony with our
adult faith and experience.
Thats Cheating!
Wait a minute, you may be saying. Thats cheating. You cant construct an image of God to
explain all your problems or disappointments in life. Youre making God in your own image
rather than being made in Gods image. Not at all. Gods self-revelation in the Scriptures
comes to us through a great variety of images. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God
of the prophets and the psalmists, the God of Mary Magdalene, Martha and the Samaritan
woman at the well, the loving God revealed in Jesus death on the cross this God always
surpasses our words and images.
If my images of God have been quite satisfactory for a long time but are now called into question
by my present experience (If God is good, why is this or that disaster happening to me?), why
should I refuse to consider that my images of God may be too confining for me and for God?
Because Gods self-revelation is given in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament,
followers of Jesus must turn first to those sources for their images of God.
Images of God in the Hebrew Scriptures
What do you immediately think of when someone mentions the Old Testament God? Probably
a stern God, very concerned with people keeping the divine rules, a God characterized by
thunder and lightning on Mt. Sinai. Perhaps you remember the God who turned Lots wife into a
pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah or the God who told Abraham to sacrifice
his only son Isaac and then stopped Abraham in the nick of time.
But what about the God who walked in the Garden of Eden during the cool of the evening
(Genesis 3), the God who compares the nation Israel to an adulterous wife whom God still loves

passionately (Hosea 2-3) or reversing the gender imagery the God who has more tenderness
toward Israel than a mother has for the child of her womb (Isaiah 49:15)? What about the
merciful God whom the prophet Jonah criticized after the people of Nineveh converted, much to
Jonah's surprise and disgust? What about the God who wants to share the divine wisdom with
every man, woman and child willing to prize that wisdom more than silver and gold (Wisdom
7)?
Many Christians are so unfamiliar with the Hebrew Scriptures that they readily believe that all its
images of God are angry and legalistic. The truth, however, is more complicated. All the
inspired writers wrote about the same God, but not all of them had the same images of God. Just
as children can grow toward more truthful images about their parents, so we can grow toward
more adult images of God. Why should we accept from the Hebrew Scriptures only the stern
images and discard all the others?
Images of God in the New Testament
Christians often have the opposite problem with images of God in the New Testament. We can
fondly remember the parables of the Good Shepherd (John 10) or the Prodigal Son (Luke 15),
while forgetting that Jesus parable about the Last Judgment (Matthew 25) presents us with the
tough challenge to serve Christ in the needs of our brothers and sisters.
Christians need to remember Jesus story about the Pharisee praying in the Temple (O God, I
thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity . . .) while the tax collector at the back simply
struck his breast and said O God, be merciful to me, a sinner (Luke 18). Jesus description of
the Pharisee is as stern and uncompromising as his view of the tax collector is compassionate.
The common image of a loving and generous New Testament God should not erase the need for
ongoing conversion to the Lord's ways.
God is neither an ogre in the Hebrew Scriptures nor an indulgent grandfather in the New
Testament. The Bible contains varied images of God because God inspired diverse images.
Growing With Life
The wonderful variety of images of God in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures arises partly
from the dissatisfaction of several biblical authors with the conventional images of God
presented to them. If we could put all the biblical writers into one huge room, we could expect
to hear some very lively debates about the best images for describing God.
Divine inspiration works with the human maturing process rather than replacing it. Whoever
wrote the Book of Job certainly knew human suffering at very close range; the writers persona!
crisis did not stifle God's self-revelation. The Gospel writers and the faith communities for
whom they wrote knew painful challenges to faith and yet worked through them.
The idea of God serenely guiding the hand of the inspired writers should be replaced by that of
God helping the inspired writer to face his or her challenges to faith and to record a message
needed for future believers. Truthful images of God, a healthy image of oneself, an honest image
of others we do not deepen these after the crises of daily life have passed but rather while we
handle those crises in a faith-filled way.

Sometimes our faith fails to grow at a time of wrenching loss (miscarriage, murder of a child or
news of a terminal illness) precisely because we refuse to question our previously secure images
of God and open ourselves to fuller understanding. We may fear that we will lose our faith if
we do so. Such a refusal, however, may keep a person's faith frozen in images capable of
nourishing only a childhood faith.
Developing Adult Images of God
Part of our difficulty in adjusting our images of God is that we must simultaneously adjust our
self-image and the way we see other people. Whether we like it or not, our images of God, self
and others are all tied together. Whatever lenses a person uses to see God are the same lenses for
seeing oneself and others.
Just as children sometimes have difficulty leaving behind early images of their parents in favor
of gradually more adult images, so believers often find it hard to accept the rich variety of
scriptural images which can nourish an adult faith in God. Here changing the way I look at God
is neither automatically progress nor betrayal; it should be evaluated in the light of the Scriptures
and the Churchs ongoing prayer and meditation on their meaning.
Is God male? One potential area for growth in our understanding of God relates to the tendency
to use exclusively masculine language when we talk about God. Today that practice is being
challenged by believers who point out that both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament
apply traditionally feminine characteristics to God. In his 1988 apostolic letter On the Dignity
and Vocation of Women, Pope John Paul II noted that the Bible applies both masculine and
feminine qualities to God. We find in these passages an indirect confirmation of the truth that
both man and woman were created in the image and likeness of God (#8).
In his earlier apostolic letter Rich in Mercy, the pope pointed out that the Hebrew Scriptures use
two different words to describe God as merciful. One of those words, rahmim often translated
as compassion comes from rehem, the Hebrew word for womb. Thus, whenever we speak
of God as compassionate, we are applying a characteristic which in Hebrew was seen as
predominantly feminine. In his Angelus address on September 10, 1978, Pope John Paul I said,
God is our father; even more he is our mother.
Is God "Western"? Another possibility for growth is our rising above the tendency to make
God the flag-bearer of the particular culture in which we were raised. As the U.S. bishops noted
in their 1986 pastoral statement To the Ends of the Earth, at times in the past missionaries
brought not only the strengths but also some of the weaknesses of Western civilization (#8).
The understanding of God brought by the European missionaries was often very Western
though the religious art and popular devotions of the native peoples attempted to bridge the gap.
No one culture has a monopoly on how to represent God. In the past, missionaries were
sometimes too quick to stamp out rather than study with respect the values and perceptions
about creation and its Maker held by the native culture. As the bishops say, The ground in
which we are called to plant the Gospel is holy ground, for before our arrival God has already
visited the people he knows and loves (#32).

Images Fall Short

Developing adult images of God can be challenging, enriching and scary. Shortly after John
Henry Newman retired to Littlemore (near Oxford, England) to reconsider his position in the
Church of England, he wrote, In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to
change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
Men and women become adults spiritually not with the simple passing of years but rather when
they begin to recognize how much their images of God fall short of the reality and how much
God stretches us to respect all men and women created in the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27).
When we truly convert, we surrender our idols and accept life on Gods terms. Only then can
our images develop until we see God face-to-face, so to speak, at the eternal banquet.
(Parts of this Catholic Update are excerpted from Naming Your God: The Search for Mature
Images, Pat McCloskey, O.F.M., copyright 1991, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN 46556. Used
with permission.)
Pat McCloskey, O.F.M., has served for several years as Director of Communications for the
general curia of the Franciscans (O.F.M.) in Rome. Besides the above-mentioned book, he is the
author of When You Are Angry With God (Paulist Press) and of numerous articles.