In What Form Does God Exist?
“There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions.”—Thirty-nine Articles.
Compare the above conception of Deity with the anthropomorphic character of God portrayed in the following one hundred passages:
God created man in his own image (Gen. i, 27).
The hair of his [God’s] head (Dan. vii, 9).
Thou canst not see my [God’s] face (Ex. xxxiii, 20).
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro (2 Ch. xvi, 9).
And his [God’s] ears are open (1 Pet. iii, 12).
These are a smoke in my [God’s] nose (Is. lxv, 5).
There went up a smoke out of his [God’s] nostrils (2 Sam. xxii, 9).
That proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. iv, 4).
His [God’s] lips are full of indignation (Is. xxx, 27).
And his [God’s] tongue as a devouring fire (Ibid).
He shall dwell between his [God’s] shoulders (Deut. xxxiii, 12).
Thou [God] hast a mighty arm (Ps. lxxxix, 13).
The right hand of the Lord (Ps. cxviii, 16).
This is the finger of God (Ex. viii, 19).
I [God] will show them the back (Jer. xviii, 17).
Out of thy [God’s] bosom (Ps. lxxiv, 11).
My [God’s] heart maketh a noise in me (Jer. iv, 19).
My [God’s] bowels are troubled (Jer. xxxi, 20).
The appearance of his [God’s] loins (Ezek. i, 27).
Darkness was under his [God’s] feet (Ps. xviii, 9).
The mind of the Lord (Lev. xxiv, 12).
The breath of his [God’s] nostrils (2 Sam. xxii, 16).
In the light of thy [God’s] countenance (Ps. lxxxix, 15).
Thou God seest me (Gen. xvi, 13).
My God will hear me (Micah vii, 7).
The Lord smelled a sweet savour (Gen. viii, 21).
Will I [God] eat the flesh of bulls? (Ps. 1, 13.).
Will I [God] drink the blood of goats? (Ibid.)
The hand of God hath touched me (Job xix, 21).
We have heard his [God’s] voice (Deut. v, 24).
God doth talk with man (Ibid).
The Lord shall laugh at him (Ps. xxxvii, 13).
Now will I [God] cry (Is. xlii, 14).
He [God] shall give a shout (Jer. xxv, 30).
Why sleepest thou, O Lord? (Ps. xliv, 23.)
Then the Lord awaked (Ps. lxxviii, 65).
God sitteth upon the throne (Ps. xlvii, 8).
God riseth up (Job xxxi, 14).
The Lord stood by him (Acts xxiii, 11).
I [God] will walk among you (Lev. xxvi, 12).
Thou [God] didst ride upon thine horses (Hab. iii, 8).
He [God] wrestled with him (Gen. xxxii, 25).
The Lord will work (1 Sam. xiv, 6).
I [God] am weary (Is. i, 14).
He [God] rested on the seventh day (Gen. ii, 2).
The Lord God planted a garden (Gen. ii, 8).
God is able to graft (Rom. xi, 23).
The Father is a husbandman (John xv, 1).
He [God] hath fenced up my way (Job xix, 8).
The Lord is my shepherd (Ps. xxiii, 1).
The Lord build the house (Ps. cxxvii, 1).
The tables were the work of God (Ex. xxxii, 16).
Thou [God] our potter (Is. lxiv, 8).
The Lord God made coats of skin (Gen. iii, 21).
And [I God] shod thee with badger’s skin (Ezek. xvi, 10).
The Lord shave with a razor (Is. vii, 20).
I [God] will cure them (Jer. xxxiii, 6).
And he [God] buried him (Deut. xxxiv, 6).
Thy God which teacheth thee (Is. xlviii, 17).
Musical instruments of God (1 Ch. xvi, 42).
He [God] wrote upon the tables (Ex. xxxiv, 28).
Thy book which thou [God] hast written (Ex. xxxii, 32).
O Lord, I have heard thy speech (Hab. iii, 2).
The Lord is our lawgiver (Is. xxxiii, 22).
The Lord is our judge (Ibid).
For God is the king of all the earth (Ps. xlvii, 7).
He [God] is the governor (Ps. xxii, 8).
God himself is ... our captain (2 Ch. xiii, 12).
The Lord is a man of war (Ex. xv, 3).
The Lord hath opened his armory (Jer. i, 25).
The Lord shall blow the trumpet (Zech. ix, 14).
I [God] myself will fight (Jer. xxi, 5).
He [God] will whet his sword (Ps. vii, 12).
He [God] hath bent his bow (Lam. ii, 4).
God shall shoot at them (Ps. lxiv, 7).
Rocks are thrown down by him [God] (Nahum i, 6).
I [God] will kill you (Ex. xxii, 24).
Thou [God] art become cruel to me (Job. xxx, 21).
I [God] sware in my wrath (Ps. xcv, 11).
I [God] have cursed them already (Mal. ii, 1).
Thy God hath blessed thee (Deut. ii, 7).
The Lord repented (Amos vii, 6).
God did tempt Abraham (Gen. xxii, 1).
O Lord thou hast deceived me (Jer. xx, 7).
He [God] hath polluted the kingdom (Lam. ii, 2).
He [God] is mighty in strength (Job ix, 4).
With him [God] is wisdom (Job xii, 13).
I [God] was a husband (Jer. xxxi, 32).
The only begotten of the Father (John i, 14).
The sons of God saw the daughters of men (Gen. vi, 2).
The love that God hath to us (1 John iv, 16).
These six things doth the Lord hate (Prov. vi, 16).
The joy of the Lord (Neh. viii, 10).
It grieved him [God] at his heart (Gen. vi, 6).
The Lord pitieth them that fear him (Ps. ciii, 13).
I [God] feared the wrath of the enemy (Deut. xxxii, 27).
The Lord ... is a jealous God (Ex. xxxiv, 14).
The fierce anger of the Lord (Num. xxv, 4).
With the Lord there is mercy (Ps. cxxx, 7)
Vengeance is mine ... saith the Lord (Rom. xii, 10).
While many of these texts are simply metaphorical allusions to a Deity, as a whole they clearly reveal the anthropomorphic conception of God that prevailed among Bible writers generally. This God was represented as a being of power and glory, yet a being possessing the form, the attributes, and the limitations of man. He was a colossal despot—a king of kings.
The God of the Bible is a product of the human imagination. God did not make man in God’s image, as claimed, but man made God in man’s image. Man is not the creation of God, but God is the creation of man.
This God who was supposed to have created the universe out of nothing has himself gradually been resolved into nothingness in the minds of his votaries, and to-day, enthroned in the brain of Christendom, there reigns a mere phantom, “without body, parts, or passions”
Part III.
MORALITY.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BIBLE NOT A MORAL GUIDE.
We are asked to accept the Bible as the revealed will of an all-powerful, all-wise and all-just God. We are asked to revere it beyond all other books, to make a fetich of it. Above all, we are asked to accept it as a divine and infallible moral guide. Christians profess to accept it as such; and many who are not Christians—many who reject the authenticity of the most of it, and who doubt the credibility of much of it—parrot-like, repeat the claims of supernaturalists, dwell upon its “beautiful moral teachings,” and abet the efforts of the clergy to place it in our public schools, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is not in any sense a moral guide.