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The Overwhelming Problem of God
- 09/08/06
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Bright and early each Friday morning I meet at a local coffee place with a couple of friends. We read a portion of a book during the week and get together once a week to discuss what we’ve read. Having previously worked our way through Os Guinness’ The Call, we have now begun The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. While only a short book, I have little doubt that it will prove to be profoundly challenging. I have read shamefully little of Tozer in the past and am eager to remedy that oversight.
Tozer premises The Knowledge of the Holy on the statement that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” While he does not provide a Scripture reference to back this claim (I don’t recall a verse that states, “God spake thus: what thou believest about me is the most important thing about thee…”) I believe he is correct in this assertion. After all, “the history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” If no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God, the same is true of individuals. We can never rise above our idea of God.
Why is this important? As Tozer says, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God…Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.” And he is right, for once we have decided who God is, we chase after that image of God. It is critically important that we learn about who God is through the Scripture, for this is His self-disclosure.
And here are words that gripped me and kept me tossing and turning last night (though one too many cans of Coke may have also contributed): “Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the church will stand tomorrow.” This is a sobering though, for when we survey the leaders of the church today we will find a vast variety of views on God, many of which are clearly unbiblical. We have leaders who deny the Trinity and others who deny the atonement. We have leaders who clearly have never stopped to seriously consider just what they think of God. There are many followers who have likewise never stopped to consider who God is, what He has done, and what He demands of us. And as we can see where the church will be led in the future, we can look at the leaders of families, men like myself, and understand where we will take our families. When I survey my heart and ask what comes to mind when I think about God, I will know where my family will stand tomorrow.
“It is my opinion,” writes Tozer, “that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” If this was true of the middle of the last century, how much more true is it in the early years of the current century? And yet, “All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” But still many Christians do not think deeply about God, about what He is like, or about what we must do about Him. “I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”
This is a serious matter. “Before the Christian church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.”
And here is Tozer’s charge: “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worth of Him—and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.”
Having read these words I see, more clearly than ever, the importance of placing myself under the leadership of men who have a high and biblical view of God. If nothing is more telling and more important than what comes into my mind when I think about God, it must also be critically important that I learn from men who think deeply about God and who humble themselves under His word.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (25)
Amazing that Tozer never attended seminary, yet he’s wiser than most who have. Now I’m inclined to dig out my copy of The Knowledge of the Holy and re-read it.
After I’m done re-reading John Piper’s Future Grace, that is.
I don’t recall a verse that states, “God spake thus: what thou believest about me is the most important thing about thee…”)
Jeremiah 9:23,24
Thanks for the thoughts, Tim.
Actually, Tozer’s perspective here is remarkably similar to John Piper’s in “The Pleasures of God.” Piper argues that we become more like an entity when we learn to take delight in the same things as that entity does, so we should seek to find joy in the things God finds joy in. Tozer’s argument is right along those lines, though perhaps they lie even higher.
Also, I hesitate to ask… but you HAVE read Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, right? If not, I would suggest getting it right away. I know many godly men make it a practice to read it at least once a year. I’ve begun this practice as well, and it has done me great good!
Ben
Knowledge of the Holy is definitely on my top 10 list of books to read every year.
I am also currently finishing up John Piper’s God is the Gospel, which I think could also fit into the category of how to view God biblically.
Good stuff! Very humbling, which is good, because God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud (James 4:6).
Sara
KOTH is one of my all-time favorites. This meditation on the attributes of God will NOT disappoint you!
Tozer, and one of his closest disciples Leonard Ravenhill (www.ravenhill.org), are two of my heroes in the faith! We need more men who think, preach, write, and pray like them! They walked with God.
After you finish Tozer take the time to read a few of the short books by Ravenhill. They will change you!
His best are :Why Revival TarriesSodom Had No BibleRevival Praying
~pw
Classic book. All who follow Christ should have a copy, if then can.”this is eternal life, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” John 17:3
Absolute, 100%, all the way around, AMEN…
I just this morning listened to a downloaded sermon by Tozer. It was a real treat. He is very relevant for today (like any good preacher of the Word.)
“I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”
I’m assuming that the above was a quote from Tozer. It seems that the implication here is that “doctrine” and “thoughts about God” are two different things. I’m understanding this to say that our doctrine is molded and shaped by our thoughts about God. Am I reading this right? If that is the case, I might disagree.
It is our doctrine that molds and shapes our thoughts about God, not the other way around.
I once gave a friend of mine, who is a pastor with a seminary education, a booklet entitled: The Reformed Faith by Loraine Boettner. It was just a condensed exerpt from his larger book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. My friend read it and then told me that if he believed what was presented in the book it would change his vision of God and who he thought God was. He preferred to have the God who loved everybody and died for everybody and winked at sin.
Doctrine should mold our thoughts about God and not the other way around. This also proves that “If Error is Harmless, then Truth is Useless.” If you are wrong in your doctrine then you will be wrong in your thinking about God and if this wrong thinking is harmless then why seek the truth.
Our hearts are deceitful and we cannot rely on our own subjective ideas or thoughts concerning God’s character and person. Our wisdom and knowledge must come from Scripture Alone. Sola Scriptura
Jabbok,
You make a good point… doctrine should certainly come before personal preference. However, I think you may be misreading the quote here.
Tozer is saying that failure in doctrine or ethics a results from misapprehending the Truth about God. So your pastor friend, for instance, has an incorrect understanding of God, which causes his doctrine to be wrong.
On the other end of the spectrum would be a pastor who understands correct doctrine, but doesn’t truly understand the character of God and so misapplies the truths (for instance, applying doctrines regarding discipline without understanding God’s love and desire for restoration).
Either way, Tozer’s point is that the closer we come to understanding the Truth about who God truly is, the more correct our doctrine will become. His point regarding “thoughts about God” is that they can negatively change our doctrine if they are incorrect or ignoble, not that “thoughts about God” should guide our doctrine.
Sola Scriptura is clearly the standard here, but its primary purpose is to reveal the Truth about God’s character and purposes to us, which is exactly what Tozer desires that we should come to understand in greater and greater measure.
Knowledge of the Holy by AW Tozer is definitely one of my favorite Christian books (probably about Top 8). It is very short but filled with insightful thoughts from an insightful man.
Make sure you do not miss all of the gems in the book on account of its small size. As far as Page/Quality ration, this may be one of the best books (apart from Biblical literature), if not the best book, on the market.
-mike
Lovely post Tim. Thanks.Nan
Tozer is great.Definately need more men like him in our day,writing and teaching biblical truth.I’ve got several of his and have yet to be dissapointed.I also would recommend A.W.Pink’s The Sovereignty of God ,and The Attributes of God.Both are short yet profound.
Todd
This is one of the books that has deeply touched my soul. I try to read it at least every few months. I too have thought often of how pertinent is Tozer’s comment “that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” Thanks Tim for the review.Blessings,moosiecat
I’ll echo the gushing here in favor of Tozer and his short yet steep books. His Pursuit of Man is pretty good as well.
As for short books that have high impact, I also agree with the Pink books mentioned, but would love to highlight The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal as the absolute best of the little ones.
This is such a good book and amazing how the problems he discusses (especially in the preface) are still here today, and perhaps much worse. A friend has been working through this book on his blog, dealing with some of the same issues and what is wrong with our view of God. Here’s the link if any are interested.
A small group that I was a part of, for a time, read this book and discussed it corporately a while back. I had noticed that on the back of the book it mentioned Tozer as a “christian mystic” and I looked into that as that was somewhat, and remains to this day, a distinct catchphrase that can be tossed around in several different directions depending on what you want to do with it. From what I gathered it was meant that Tozer held to the belief that the impartation of the Gospel truth could not necessarily be strictly taught in a scholastic manner, but that there was a personal, individualistic and stylized manner throughwhich each individual came into a knowledge of Christ and the truth of the scripture and doctrine. This idea - while both true - is one of those true things that like wine; is good but it can be endlessly abused. I think that one of the main tennants of the Emergent church is a notion of a Tozerianian impartation of the Gospel; that it may come to you in a five part sermon or it may come to you in an art display in the corner of the sancturary; however it comes to you - it will be unique to you and while formal, standardized exhortation is endlessly usefull and necessary - that it was a personal jouney that got you where you are and will take you farther, cannot be forgotten. I think this is something I’d like to see some discussion of here. It would be intresting to me…perhaps the ideas of other christian mystics like thomas merton thought out and critically discussed
“I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”
I agree wholeheartedly! We do not have the highest and most noble view of God or of Jesus because we demean both with doctrines.
No matter what terminology has been devised in its justification, a teaching that seeks to characterise the relationship between God and Jesus of Nazareth as anything other than ‘ethical’ is demeaning to God. Such a characterisation - bringing the ‘Creator’ into any form of earthly relationship with a ‘creature’ so to speak - is ‘adamic’.
Doctrines that portray Jesus of Nazareth as something more than a mortal man demean him. They diminish his great qualities of character and our capacity to truly identify with the sufferings he endured on our behalf. They also diminish his demonstration of the enormous potential owned by the rest of humanity.
Let us by all means rid ourselves of ignoble thoughts about God - and about Jesus of Nazareth.
Vynette, your comment fails to wash both logically and theologically. And your stance, denying the deity of Christ, is not new. It’s not fresh. And it’s not plausible. Here’s why:
Logically, you offer a false alternative to Christ being deity by suggesting he was a mere mortal. You suggest this would demean him. In the words of C.S. Lewis, since Jesus claimed he was deity (John 1:18, 14:7), he was either telling the truth, he was a madman, or a devil of hell. We demean him greatly by taking him to be less than he was and is, and less than what he claimed to be.
Theologically, your stance does not square with the teachings of Scripture, otherwise known as ‘doctrine.’ One of the most helpful definitions of ‘doctrine’ I have ever heard is ‘all the Bible has to say about [insert topic here].’ To disparage doctrine is to disparage Scripture, the inspired Word of God, and Christ himself, the Word (John 1:1).
Mark,
I do not disparage Scripture, God or Jesus. Rather, I disparage doctrines that are a product of ‘gentile’ theology and not Hebrew Christianity.
Vynette,I seem to be a little confused. If Jesus was only a mortal man how can he be Christ? And if only a man does’nt that make Hebrew Christianity idolatry?
Todd
Todd,
There is more than one ‘Christ’ in the Bible. Being a ‘Christ’ or ‘Messiah’ does not confer divinity.
No, Hebrew Christianity was not idolatrous as the Greek word for ‘worship’ can be used in reference to the Creator or a creature.
Thank you for your thoughts… Besides the Jeremiah verse already mentioned, refer back to your message on Proverbs 29:18. “Without revelation the people cast off restraint” .. I think that the revelation here is primarily a true revelation of God and what he desires. Thus, Scripture does directly come close to affirming Tozer’s claim and surely action follows thought.
A few other good books, if you have not read them…
“A Mind Awake” Anthology of CS Lewis”Hemotions: Even Strong Men Struggle” -TD Jakes”Every Prophecy of the Bible” - John F. Walvoord