Week 4 Machen Blog

In chapter 3 of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, the topic is “God and Man.” The issue of what we think about God is covered in this chapter, and it is clearly significant. Machen does a great job of explaining why this is significant on page 48.

He says “Certainly, it does make the greatest possible difference in what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion.”

The religion that we hold to today would not exist if not for God. God is central to the religion. If there was no Supreme Being, there would be no religion, or certainly none worth following. The presence of God and an understanding of His being is the key component to a religion that, simply put, makes sense. As Christians, we should seek to understand God. Without this understanding, we may lack the sense to fully experience our religion.

On page 49, Machen says “Rational theism, the knowledge of one Supreme Person, Maker, and active Ruler of the world, is at the very root of Christianity.”

To point out the most important and meaningful part to me, I would point to the active world. Our God is not a passive God that sits up in space. God is involved in the world, after He created it, and did not simply withdraw Himself after creation.

Isaiah 46:10 says “Do not forget this! Keep it in mind! Remember this, you guilty ones. Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.”

The God of Christianity is an active God that is not passively uninvolved in the lives of those who follow the religion. This may be the case in other religions, which I find to be largely discouraging when there is little active involvement of the gods of that religion. As for Christians, we may take confidence in the active nature of our God, as well as the Trinity that lives in different active ways to work in our lives daily.

To wrap this blog up, a final quote from Machen I would like to end with is from page 50 where he says, “At the very root of Christianity is the belief in the real existence of a personal God.” and lower on the page “He loves to speak of this God as ‘Father.’ The term certainly has the merit of ascribing personality to God.”