God as a Baby ...

Friday, December 2, 2011. How is God? How does God relate to mankind? Is God the abstract force, the spirit, the mind behind everything? Or is God even everything, in every atom? We might think about God by thinking about what is human?

Being Human …

What is human? We all know that we have a lot in common with the animal world - we are in fact animals ourselves, with bone and flesh, with all what all the other animals have as well. But we are also beings with a mind, with reason, with language, with relationships and communication.

We are beings which start as tiny cells, then grow and when birth is given to a baby it is small and needs care. We grow up, which takes many years. We have manhood or womanhood and then times of old age, as long as we are well. Our life ends with death - at least that is what we can see and what we are bound to in our natural environment.

Being human is much more than reason and language - which is often identified as discriminating criteria for mankind. But being a baby, being a child, growing up, learning, having parents, having kids … all this is also a key part of humanity. There is no humanity without the knowledge of childhood. There is no humanity without the knowledge of kid-parent type relationships!

The Christmas Prophecy …

The prophets in the Old Testament talked about the messanger of God, who would come and live among the people. He would be born as a child! That is a key point. God is coming into our middle as a human. He experiences all what we know as key points of humanity.

I think that the Christmas prophecy is even more than just a prophecy. It shows that God takes our humanity serious, that in fact he knows much more than our contemporary philosophy. Where are the philosophers who know to put childhood and parenthood into a complete philosophical framework? Where are those who can identify “being a baby” (“being taken care of”) as a constitutive part of “being human”?

We need the bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament! Only the biblical texts point us to a deeper truth which you can find only in very rudimentary ways in modern or ancient philosophy. Thanks, Lord, for your wisdom which is coming to us in Jesus! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts