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Reflections

Has Man Created God?

My college psychology class had been discussing the development of the human personality, and factors that influenced man’s history. In the back a hand went up. “At what point in human development did man create God?” a girl asked in all sincerity.  “At the point of his need,” was the ready reply of the professor.

His reply was the only possible one for someone who does not believe in God as Creator. If God did not create man, as Genesis teaches, the only explanation of a divine being is that man imaginatively created the kind of god he needed when he needed one.

I have seen some of the gods of man’s creation. In a wooded area in one country, we came across a group of men chanting rituals over chicken entrails on banana leaves as part of a voodoo cult. The leader asked us to follow him to his fetish house where, with great pride, he showed us his altar and his handmade god.

In another country, we watched a processional of hundreds of people solemnly marching behind a carved image about two feet tall and overlaid with gold. In yet another country, we watched people moving backwards on their knees, singing goodbye to their god as they began their dark journey homeward. All of these were gods of man’s creation.

My college professor or any of his contemporaries would not be interested in any of these gods. They would probably regard them as superstition and evidence to support their belief that man creates his own divine being.

But these gods of man’s creation are vastly different from the God of the Bible, the self-existent God who dwells in eternity. Isaiah records God’s comment on those who make other gods:

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those   who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame          
(Isaiah 44:9, NIV).

Isaiah goes on to point out the folly of cutting down a tree and making an idol of one part of it, and using the other half as firewood.

Isaiah had no trouble in believing in the God of the Bible. He undoubtedly had been trained in his nation’s history and knew the stories of God’s past manifestations to Israel. But he also personally experienced an undeniable revelation of God’s glory. He describes his vision in majestic terms:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6:1–4, NIV).

By his response we can tell the vision is not just a product of Isaiah’s imagination. The revelation of God’s holiness made him aware of his own sinfulness and need for cleansing. After an angel cleanses Isaiah’s guilt, God calls him into service as a prophet, a position he filled through four dynasties in Judah.

When you have had a personal revelation of the glory of the God of the Bible, it is much easier to believe in His existence. You know He has the power to create man, but man’s finite power could never create His infinity.

Points to Ponder:

Do you see people creating gods of their own making other than the kinds of manmade gods mentioned in this article?  Have you had an unarguable experience with God that sustains you in the tough times? Beyond your own experience, what Scripture convinces you of the existence of God?

PEGGY MUSGROVE is a licensed Assemblies of God minister. She is also a speaker, freelance writer, author and prayer group leader. Her latest book, Musings of a Maraschino Cherry was released in 2004.. You can visit her at www.musgroveville.com.

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