The idea of God is one that pervades our society, even still in our postmodern era. Many people speak of God, and talk about God, in broad ill-defined terms, as though he were merely some ethereal, non-descript being. Many people have a general belief in God—and that’s good—but they don’t having a solid grasp of who God is, or what He looks like. They believe He’s there, but they don’t know where, exactly, or what He would look like if they saw Him. If you mention His name, they know who you’re talking about, but if you ask them to describe Him, then they don’t know who you’re talking about. You mention God and they say, “Oh, yes—God.” But if you start to describe Him, they say, “Who?”
This general belief in God sounds convincing until you get into specifics. It’s here that the image begins to fall apart, if there really was an image in mind at all. Thinking you have an image while not really having it exposes our lack of thought on the matter. You might have a blurry picture hanging on the hallway of your mind, but it doesn’t give any definition of the person. You know who it is; you just don’t know what they’re really like. It’s here that you have to come to terms with this question: If I believe God really does exist, then what does He look like?
You’ve just asked the right question, and a very important question. What does He look like, indeed? While God does evade our placing Him in a box, He doesn’t evade definition; He doesn’t evade mankind on a personal level. Of all the things we can know about God, the most obvious ones are displayed within His creation. We see His love for variety in the countless colors displayed, the panoply of species in the animal kingdom, and our daily experience of the material elements which make up our weather. We see a reflection of His hierarchical nature—each one has its place, but some higher than others. We see on display His penchant for ordered systems. We see His love for process in the death of what was in order to make room for what will be. We see, most glaringly, through the plant kingdom His love for rebirth and regeneration.
For all the blurry-eyed visions we may have of God, we do know that our own reality is clearly defined. We see through scientific discovery that there are a very specific way in which things happen. We see that they happen within very narrow levels of tolerance. A number of pieces have to be in place at the right time. It’s here that we can know that, with such a clearly defined creation, there must also be a clearly defined God. He’s not just some blurry vision of a distant being hanging on the wall. And that all His creation was made for us to dwell in means He relates to mankind on a personal level. He must place us on some level of importance. He’s not disinterested our lives. This is where we begin to gain an image of who He is.