Famed evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham was recently asked by a reader to explain how he would respond if asked to "put the heart" of what he believes about God into one simple sentence.
Graham, 97, responded that describing God in such a condensed way would likely be a difficult task, though he didn't shy away from trying.
"In some ways it’s not possible, of course, to put everything about God into one sentence," he wrote. "God is infinite, and we’ll never fully understand his greatness — not on this side of eternity."
Considering the multitude of Bible verses that offer insight about God's nature, Graham's assessment is seemingly correct. According to the Christian scriptures, God hates sin, is compassionate and is eternal — and the list goes on.
With those complex biblical descriptions surrounding God in mind, Graham proceeded to cite Paul's words in Romans 11:33-34 in the Bible: "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" though he did subsequently offer up a proposed sentence.
"If I had to summarize in one sentence what I believe about God, I would simply say that God loves us, in spite of our sin and rebellion — and the proof is that he sent his only son, Jesus Christ, into the world to make it possible for us to become part of his family forever," he wrote.
From there, the evangelist unpacked that message, focusing on his belief in Jesus' sacrifice and death, asking readers whether they have considered that sentiment and message in their own lives.
Graham's response, though, raises some broader questions about attempts to describe God — a task that can clearly be quite difficult. Consider what Daniel Hill, pastor of River City Community Church in Chicago, once wrote on his blog about this very issue.
"For those of us who follow Jesus, it’s pretty darn important that we understand who he was and what he was about. Probably goes without saying," he wrote. "On the other hand, this is also a bit of a trick question. Nobody can say with full confidence that they have the exact right words to summarize the mission of Jesus."
Of course, some might point to Graham's proposed definition as a viable means of at least capturing the overarching essence of the Christian message. Still, the debate and discussion over how the faithful describe God is fascinating.
Pope Francis is another faith leader who has spent a great deal of time talking about the heart of God — that is, the values and sentiments that he believes God wants human beings to exhibit. Among them: compassion for the poor.
"God's mercy toward us is linked to our mercy toward others," Francis once told an audience.
Then there's Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama who has said in the past that he's not sure he believes in God, instead emphasizing the presence of positive values such as peace, forgiveness and treating people well.
Faith leaders' perspectives on the definition of God, of course, are pretty dependent upon the oft-times complex theology that underpins their divergent worldviews. Put quite simply: it's complicated.
Some faith leaders and religious followers still struggle to summarize how, exactly, they would describe God; additionally, explaining one's faith and the feelings that come along with it can be an equally difficult task.
Consider a 2012 blog post that Rabbi Joshua Stanton wrote for the Huffington Post in which he dove directly into this territory.
"Language to describe God remains elusive, even when our understandings of God (or understandings of why God does not exist, for atheist friends) are most real," he wrote. "Spiritual experiences, as well as language to describe the world in which we live, are difficult to find words for."
Stanton went on to say that his "belief in God and ability to describe God are not necessarily correlated," and that he sometimes has a difficult time describing what makes something spiritual, even in the midst of an intensely spiritual moment.
EveryStudent.com, a Christian ministry of Cru, has also spent some time breaking down world religions and their central views on God, offering up an overview to assist Christians, among others, in understanding key definitional differences.
The site describes Hinduism as involving the worship of an "ultimate oneness" known as Brahman — a concept that is represented through many gods and godesses. Then there's New Age spirituality, which generally involves finding "god" within people. You can read more about those definitions, among others, here.
With all of these differences, it's no surprise that there have been some major debates of late over the definition of God, particularly when it comes to the question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same higher power.
The debate over Islamic and Christian theology has raged for eons, but it was comments made by former Wheaton College political science professor Dr. Larycia Hawkins that led to a firestorm in recent months.
"I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book," she wrote on her Facebook page last December. "And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”
Hawkins was suspended by the evangelical college and later left the school, with people on both sides of the theological debate weighing in. Perhaps Wheaton College's own explanation of the dispute helps to get to some of the definitional issues.
“While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths, including what they teach about God’s revelation to humanity, the nature of God, the path to salvation, and the life of prayer,” the statement reads. “As an institution of distinctively evangelical Christian identity, the core of our faith, as expressed in our Statement of Faith, is our belief that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, triumphing over all evil; and that all who believe in Him are justified by His shed blood and forgiven of all their sins.’”
Read more about that debate here.
With all that in mind, Graham's caution about the difficultly in describing God in one sentence is a pertinent one. While it is surely possible for most of the faithful — despite different theological views — to explain God's attributes, summarizing the entire paradigm likely takes a bit more than a few mere words.
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