“God…remains transcendent. His being is of a different and higher kind than that of the world.”
― Herman Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation
It's always interesting to see how our American popular culture views fathers. In a way, each generation designs its preferred version of Dad. So today’s movies, TV shows, books, etc. will often portray the modern father as nurturing and hands-on. That’s a big change from the previous generation’s formulaic dad, who was, to be honest, often an idiot (think Homer Simpson).
But go a couple of generations back, and the cultural father was apparently made of different stuff. The head of the household 50 or 75 years ago was more likely to be stern and set apart from his family.
When theologians like the one above (rightly!) talk about God our Eternal Father as “transcendent,” separate from all creation, our minds might go to that stereotypical old-school dad. God is sitting on his chair relaxing, and I better not bother him unless it’s a REALLY big deal.
Then you read verses like Psalm 97:2 (“Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne”), and it may cement that idea. God is enthroned way up in the heavens and has little to do with my daily life. You could even come to believe that keeping God at arm’s length somehow protects his holiness.
It’s easy for us to project on God an image of our own flawed dads, or to backlash against whatever our culture misses on fatherhood. But that sort of tangled thinking leads to tattered theology. We need a complete picture of the God who is indeed “most high over all the earth” (v. 9) but who also reaches down and “preserves the lives of his saints” (v. 10).
Our compassionate Father sent his Son, our older Brother, to rescue us from our fallen condition! Jesus took on human flesh to accomplish salvation, but now is “highly exalted” at the Father’s hand (Phil. 2). God the Holy One is both set apart from creation, and also faithfully active in it. Maybe we should redefine fatherhood, not based on the imperfect people who try to fill that role, but on the One who perfectly showed us how to be in the world, yet not of the world.
Are you familiar with the doctrine of God’s transcendence? Think about how we could be allowing our culture to define God to us, instead of looking intentionally to how he reveals himself in his Word.