Things I Wish Christians Would Stop Saying: "The Man Upstairs!"

Christians sometimes say things about God that really makes little sense, given what we know about our world and the universe today. How many times have you heard a Christian refer to God as:

“The Man upstairs!”

Really, God is a man? Okay, I get the anthropomorphism: Ascribing human characteristics to God. 

The Bible does it all the time, but these anthropomorphisms are metaphors that people used to help explain who God is or how they understand him.

For example, in the Bible God is pictured as a “rock” or as a “Shepherd” or as “Mighty Warrior” or as a “Father.” All metaphors not to be understood literally of course.

But this isn’t what irks me about the statement describing God as the “Man upstairs!” It’s the “upstairs” part that needs some qualifying. At least when I hear folks say this I no longer correct them by saying: “You shouldn’t refer to God as a man!” 

Instead, I say: “Where is upstairs?” 

Do Christians (non-Christians say it too) who say such things really believe God is up there, somewhere above our heads? How can anyone conceive of such an idea given what we know today about how the world and the universe are designed?

And if God is believed to be “up there” is this where heaven is? Of course, the opposite would be true of hell as being located  "down there” somewhere below us.

Okay, this is why I prefer the updated software version of how we talk about God, for example, Paul Tillich’s description of God as the “Ground of all being.” This metaphor makes so much more sense to those of us living on a round planet (where is upstairs located on such a planet?) in a cosmos so vast that the human mind can hardly comprehend it. 

Perhaps the Christian mystics had a better comprehension of where God exists: Deep within us at our deepest core. 

Sort of in compliance with the Apostle Paul’s version of God: 

“For ‘In him, we live and move and have our being’ (Acts  17:28).”

For What It's Worth : Things I Wish Christians Would Stop Saying: "It wa...

For What It's Worth : Things I Wish Christians Would Stop Saying: "It wa...: Christians sometimes say things that are quite frankly based on bad theology.  For example, I have often heard Christians respond t...

Things I Wish Christians Would Stop Saying: "It was just his (her) time to go!"

Christians sometimes say things that are quite frankly based on bad theology. 

For example, I have often heard Christians respond to the death of someone by saying: “Well, it was his or her time to go!” Really? And how does anyone know the mind of God well enough to make such a bold comment? At the very least, such a view smacks of one thing: Determinism! 

It does not matter that Joe died of lung cancer because he smoked two packs of cigarettes forty years as if he didn’t have a choice not to smoke. Or, it doesn’t matter that Alice died of cirrhosis of the liver after a lifetime of alcohol abuse when she could have chosen to get help with her addiction and stopped her drinking before it destroyed her liver. I could go on but you get my point!

The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians that we “reap what we sow”  (6:7). So what does Paul mean by this? Well, our actions have consequences. Everything we do has repercussions. Our behaviors somehow come home to sit on our own doorstep. Stated as a figure of speech it means: 

“What goes around comes around.”

Now I understand why some people think this way. They view God as all-knowing and all-powerful. Okay, I can live with that,. but it is a huge leap from believing in God’s all-knowing, all-powerful nature to God deterministically causing all things to happen, including someone's death. 

So when I hear a Christian say that Joe or Mary died simply because it was his or her time to go it implies a deterministic understanding of God’s relationship with his creation. It’s a concession to the belief that nothing we do or don’t do can alter the timing of our own death. 

Life happens and some lives are cut really short (possibly because of bad choices or someone else's mistake) where some (because of good genes or better choices) enjoy longevity. So please stop saying that anyone’s death was a person's time to go! 

Neither of us has the authority to make such claims on God's behalf!