Computers might outdo us at mathematical calculations, tornadoes may be more powerful than us, telescopes might be able to ‘see’ better than us, but we rightly feel superior to them all, because they are impersonal. If God were impersonal, that would make us, at least in one significant sense, superior to our Creator. That’s absurd. If we can think, speak, feel and love, our Maker can do all that and more.

Imagining it indicates a high view of God, people sometimes end up portraying God as sub-human – an impersonal force more akin to a machine or gravity than the Creator of us all. The secret attraction of this presumption is that it is easier to ignore a nebulous force than a God who thinks and feels.

To call God a person, is not to say he has human limitations or weaknesses or imperfections. He has no personality flaws. To say he has feelings, does not mean he is a slave to emotions. His emotions never get out of control or over-rule his intelligence and wisdom.

It is highly logical to assume God is a person. Our basis for knowing the true nature of God, is far stronger than clever guesswork, however. Our highest confirmation is that he came to earth as Jesus and revealed his nature to us.

If to some of us, God seems impersonal, it suggests not the shallowness of God’s nature but the shallowness of our relationship with him.