Tried With Fire

Yesterday I posted a list (not exhaustive) of my wrong concepts of God that were the result of a weak and probably nonexistent doctrine of God. I picked up these erroneous ideas from different sources and at different times in my Christian life, but they all have a common denominator. Each one takes away from God's perfection . In None Greater , Matthew Barrett introduces the reader to Anselm (1033-1109) who asked the questions - Is God the most perfect being? "Perfect" meaning "that than which it is impossible to think anything greater." If he is, then what must he be like? Notice where Anselm begins. He begins with God, not  his experience of God.  Given the Fall, our thinking and perspectives are warped. Rather than God being the starting point, we take that on ourselves. "Man is the measure of all things." Umm, no. But this faulty baseline is the reason why the Greek gods were just super-sized versions of people with super-sized sins. Thi...

I am listening to an audio version of None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God by Matthew Barrett and following along with a written copy. Many books have been written on the attributes and doctrine of God, but this one is a little different. It tackles the attributes that are harder to wrap our minds around such as impassibility, aseity, and simplicity and how they interrelate as a cohesive whole. (To make them standalone would be denying simplicity right there.)  These less intuitive attributes are also crucial to get God right so the mental and spiritual stretching is necessary but good. I'm only in the 5th chapter and I find myself recalling many of the wrong ideas I had as a Christian . Some were from childhood, but several were from my adult years. Why did I believe those things? Because I had a very weak doctrine of God. So without any further ado, here are a few of my not-so-favorite heresies and heterodoxies: God was lonely so he created people. God needed...