Do you think God looks like you? Quite a few people do and it says something about their faith.
What does God look like?
The Bible describes God in some places this way,“The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire,”
In other parts of scripture, God is described as a “burning bush”, “pillar of cloud” and “pillar of fire.”
J. I. Packer describes these visions as not truly God but theophanies or appearances of God.
Adding, “No one, though, other than Jesus Christ has seen God in all of His glory. Even the seraphim in heaven cover their eyes as they worship God.”
The biblical admonition that we can’t know what God looks like doesn’t keep us from imagining. Not surprisingly, many envision God to look like them.
Psychologists asked more than 500 U.S. Christians how they perceived God by showing participants hundreds of paired faces and asked the subjects to select the one that looked more like God.
The results showed that liberals saw God as more feminine, more African-American and more loving than conservatives did. Meanwhile, conservatives picked faces that were perceived as older, more intelligent and more powerful.
Younger people selected a younger-looking God and people who called themselves physically attractive chose a more physically attractive God.
The people in the study who tended to envision God as they see themselves.
The study could make one wonder if Christians are making an idol of God rather than worshipping the God of the Bible.