What does God look like?

Lady Chuckles

I don't know if this is a silly unchristian discussion, but after coming across this in an AH thread:

I do not believe some dude with a beard exists /.../

I began to think about the way people think of God. An old man with a beard and a white dress who sits on a cloud... Is that the way God really looks? Has he always looked like that, or what did he look like when he was young? Was God ever young? And if so, does God have parents?

I know we can't know for sure what He looks like, but it would be nice to hear your views
Forgive me if this post came across untaught and silly

PDN

Lady Chuckles wrote: »

I don't know if this is a silly unchristian discussion, but after coming across this in an AH thread:



I began to think about the way people think of God. An old man with a beard and a white dress who sits on a cloud... Is that the way God really looks? Has he always looked like that, or what did he look like when he was young? Was God ever young? And if so, does God have parents?

I know we can't know for sure what He looks like, but it would be nice to hear your views
Forgive me if this post came across untaught and silly

The Christian understanding is that God is eternal. That means He was never young, nor will He ever be old. So, of course, He doesn't have parents.

God the Father is Spirit. The idea of Him having a white beard comes from the imagination of artists.

Lady Chuckles

PDN wrote: »

The Christian understanding is that God is eternal. That means He was never young, nor will He ever be old. So, of course, He doesn't have parents.

God the Father is Spirit. The idea of Him having a white beard comes from the imagination of artists.

Of course. That explains a lot!
I don't think I have ever pictured God in human form to be honest... That's what got me thinking earlier. Perhaps it's still a little too early in the morning for me to think, though... :rolleyes:

Peregrinus

Since God is timeless, he was never young.

Since God is uncreated, he has no parents.

Since God is, well, God, the question "what does he look like?" probably has no meaning. A much more meaningful question would be "how do we picture God?"

The way we picture God is, of course, strongly influenced by the way we speak about God. The limitations of human language and human experience are such that everything we can say about God is true only in an analogical sense. That is to say, I call God "Father" and I have good scriptural and traditional authority for doing so, but God is not in fact my rather; my father is a retired accountant who lives in Dundrum. God is like a father. Still, analogical language is the best we can do. Since God transcends our experience and comprehension, our language lacks any words which refer directly and primarily to him.

So, how do we picture God? Well, as a father, frequently. As a very fatherly father, which is where the elderly man with the beard comes in. More generally, we picture him as a person - in scripture he has hands, a face; he even has what the Authorised Version delicately calls "back parts" but what in plainer English we would call an arse.

But of course scripture offers us lots of other images of God. He is imaged as a mother (Ps 131), a burning bush (Ex 3:2), a still small voice (1 Kings 19:12) and a "glory" (practically everywhere). As visual images, these are extremely diverse, pointing perhaps to the impossibility of nailing down any one image which can satisfactorily depict God.

Terrlock

When you can see everything on God's level, then you will know what he looks like.

There are more dimensions then 4 to be able to process.

The Quadratic Equation

Lady Chuckles wrote: »

I don't know if this is a silly unchristian discussion, but after coming across this in an AH thread:

I began to think about the way people think of God. An old man with a beard and a white dress who sits on a cloud... Is that the way God really looks? Has he always looked like that, or what did he look like when he was young? Was God ever young? And if so, does God have parents?

I know we can't know for sure what He looks like, but it would be nice to hear your views
Forgive me if this post came across untaught and silly

Fair and intresting question.

As most have said here already, most Christians including Catholics would not believe God (The Father) is actually an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud.

"God is a spirit" John 4:24

Many artists thoughout history have tried to portray God in different ways :

This image comes to my mind when I think of God.

It's an illustration by Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
The Celestial Rose
Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven

gimmebroadband

And whoever sees me has seen the Father.

John 12:45

Onesimus

Col:1:15 He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation,


St.Paul himself tells us that Jesus is what God looks like and yet only those who met Jesus are those who saw him. The likes of St.Faustina to be the most recent canonised Saint to see him.

We will all one day see him though.

Onesimus

dvpower

kjb wrote:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Does this suggest a kind of a Barbie God (actually serious question)?

Peregrinus

dvpower wrote: »

Does this suggest a kind of a Barbie God (actually serious question)?

No. Or, at least, not in the mainstream view.

I well remember my childhood Catechism which, in answer to the question "in what way am I made in God's image?" assured me that "the likeness to God is chiefly in the soul".

In other words, the notion that we are made "in God's image" does not mean that, physically, we look like God (or that God looks like us). We often picture God in this way, of course, but that's because we find it helpful to do so.

dvpower

It is hard to distinguish the literal from the metaphorical.:(

Peregrinus

dvpower wrote: »

It is hard to distinguish the literal from the metaphorical.:(

In the mainstream Christian view, everything we can say about God is metaphorical or analogical. There is no "literal".

dead one

who would have been able to see him? for that Oneness is unique. if he weren't unique, and there were even the smallest glimpse of twoness, then certainly he would have been visible somewhere.

snafuk35

Since medieval times the Turin Shroud was venerated as the shroud in which Jesus' body was wrapped and is the obvious basis for medieval and renaissance art which depicts Jesus with long hair parted in the center, a parted mustache and a parted forked beard.



And this is a computer reconstruction of the face based on the shroud which is essentially imprinted with a photographic image.



So the above is what God looks like if one accepts that the Turin shroud is the actual burial shroud.

georgieporgy

This image from 4th century Roman catacomb has him sporting a beard


Only resembles the shroud of Turin a little bit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChristPeterPaul_detail.jpg

gimmebroadband

Akiane Kramarik is a child prodigy, who had an nde experience when she was four years old. Her parents were athiets and converted to Christianity after Akiene's experience. She painted the following image of Jesus as she saw him in Heaven - she was 9 years old when she painted this picture. I think it's astounding!

Lady Chuckles

^^ He's a very handsome gentleman too, if you don't mind me saying so

snafuk35

gimmebroadband wrote: »

Akiane Kramarik is a child prodigy, who had an nde experience when she was four years old. Her parents were athiets and converted to Christianity after Akiene's experience. She painted the following image of Jesus as she saw him in Heaven - she was 9 years old when she painted this picture. I think it's astounding!

Jesus had a hair stylist did he? Or was there lots of static electricity about?

The Quadratic Equation

snafuk35 wrote: »

Jesus had a hair stylist did he? Or was there lots of static electricity about?

NDE claims aside, it was painted by a 9 year old, I'd like to see you do better.