So what got me started on this was a verse out of Jonah 2, part of our Scripture for Sunday’s Worship. Specifically, Jonah 2:8, where Jonah prays, “Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty.”
It led me to notice a pattern of behavior that was in need of theological consideration and correction. (Theology-thinking about God; so consideration in light of thinking about God). It was not much, just a little humorous mental shorthand. I use Google Drive for my church writing, which makes it an easy hop to the Google search engine when I have an item to follow up.
The mental shorthand in question was a thought process of referring to Google as ‘the god of knowledge’. Yes, definitely a small "g” god. But still. It comes out of classical mythology, where the gods (again, small "g”) had their portfolios of powers and responsibilities. To the ancient Greeks, the god of knowledge was Athena.
So, there is a theory of the transcendent out there that talks about humanity creating their deities in their own image. I think there is a lot of truth in that, that it is very possible to draw lines from the culture of a given time and place and the ‘pantheon’ that governs its religious experience.
Where I diverge with this kind of thinking is where it comes back to my own faith. Creating God in our own image, it has been applied to my Lord, whom I believe is revealed (in historic terms) as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what I believe is that my Lord exists (and pre-exists) humanity, is the creative agent of all, and is the reason of my faith and salvation. That is an EXTREME shorthand of what I believe. But, it means God created me, not the other way around.
That tweaks my understanding of the theory of humanity creating their gods in their own image. Humanity has this sense of the divine from their own creation by my Lord. This spiritual echo, if you will, is what humanity is drawing upon to create their own gods.
But the Bible is pretty clear on what those other gods are. Idols. Creations of wood and stone and metal. They continue to exist, creations of advertising, data, and emotional manipulation. So, a ‘god’ of knowledge, that needs some theological consideration. An ‘idol’ of knowledge? Something created by human hands? That fits. Naming it? The Google, the Idol of Knowledge, that comes from the work of another idol of today, the Idol of Brand Recognition.
Depending on your “faith”, your Idol of Knowledge might be the Yahoo, the Bing, or the DuckDuckGo, to name but a few. If this human creation has not reached the level of deification, we generally call it “the search engine”.
When it’s a tool, a useful tool, it does as it ought for us humans. But as with all things, I want to be careful to keep it in its place. So the Idol of Knowledge becomes a personal shorthand. The God of all Creation, that is where true power lies.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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