I Don’t Know the God You Worship
“You’re not Jim!” exclaimed Dwight Schrute after “Asian Jim” greets him at his desk. One of my favorite bits from the show The Office is the prank when Pam, Jim’s wife, has Steve, their actor friend, come and impersonate Jim while he is at the dentist. Because it’s so hilarious, I’ll let you watch it instead of me describing it.
If that wasn’t enough, in another prank, Jim himself impersonates Dwight from his outfit to his manners, to which Dwight famously yells, “Identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!” Roll the clip:
“Joseph,” you respond, “I thought this series you, Johnny, and Emily have worked on was about Christianity versus Liberal Theology, not a recap of The Office.” You are most correct, because did you notice a common pattern in both clips? In both pranks, the impersonators do a great job acting like their subjects, but obviously they are not the actual person. Just because Steve dressed, acted, and even knew key pieces of information like Jim, he is not Jim. Just because Jim procured the exact look for only $11 and perfectly acted his colleague’s mannerisms and speech patterns, he is not Dwight.
Here’s my point: The God of Liberal Theology may look, sound, and act like the God of the Bible, but it is truly not.
In the previous post, Johnny demonstrated clearly how Liberal Theology’s dismissal of doctrine as an essential category in the Christian life is self-destructive, as that “uproots the life of the disciple from objective facts about the person and work of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”1 But the testimony of Scripture shows that what one believes is the foundation for one’s life, and thus sound doctrine is essential for a truly healthy, Christian life. If that is the case, shouldn’t then what we believe about who God is and what he has done be of central importance for our Christian experience?
In other words, how we understand who God is will determine whether or not our worship is real.
In this two-part essay, I will introduce Theology Proper (the Doctrine/study of God) in two ways: the impersonation that Liberal Theology presents and the recognition of historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity in light of Holy Scripture. Much more can be written and researched, but my hope for this theological primer on the Doctrine of God is that you will see how one’s doctrine of God determines the rest of one’s theological framework and beliefs about other tenets of theology. Ultimately, I want you to see both how the God of Liberal Theology is not only false but also not one who is worthy of worship and how the God of the Bible, as recognized by the Church throughout the ages, is truly God and thus the one we ought to glorify and enjoy forever.2
Does Liberal Theology Have a Doctrine of God?
Before answering that question, let’s briefly summarize what Liberal Theology is. “The task of liberal theology was to reinterpret Christian belief within the cultural values and intellectual trends of modernism. It has two basic commitments. On the one hand, liberal theology explicitly embraces the rational and scientific assumptions of modernism. On the other hand, liberal theology retains allegiance to Christianity.”3
First, foundationally, Liberal Theology generally asserts that God is not directly known objectively through propositions and metaphysics but subjectively through experience. This sounds vague, but the major liberal theologians and scholars grounded their epistemology of God primarily on empirical and experiential factors, not on direct divine revelation. Although a variety of expressions exist among liberal proponents, Gregg Allison highlights that a classic example of Liberal Theology’s epistemology of God is typified by its father, Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Allison states that Schleiermacher located “God within the realm of human experience—indeed, within the human consciousness. According to Schleiermacher, religion is ‘a feeling of absolute dependence’ on the Geist, or world spirit that pervades everything. Thus, being in relationship with God comes through intuition one becomes self-consciously aware of being dependent on this universal being. It is not mediated, or passed on, through the Bible, the church, human morality, or religion but, ‘it is a universal element of life.’”4
In Schleiermacher’s own words, “This feeling of absolute dependence, in which our self-consciousness in general represents the finitude of our being (cf. § 8, 2), is therefore not an accidental element, or a thing which varies from person to person, but is a universal element of life; and the recognition of this fact entirely takes the place, for the system of doctrine, of all the so-called proofs of the existence of God.”5 This inner intuition within us, then, is what gives us a sense of God, and this results in us looking for divine revelation not from above/outside us but from within us.6 Thus, Liberal theologians in general held to a form of “Immanentism” which placed a heavy emphasis on divine immanence with creation—even to how they understood the nature of divine revelation.7 As Millard Erickson assessed, for Liberal Theology, the definition of revelation, for instance, became more generalized. In an extreme form, that of Schleiermacher, revelation is any instance of conscious insight.
Thus, the Bible is a book recording God’s revelations to humanity. As such, however, it is not unique; that is, it is not qualitatively different from other pieces of religious literature, or even literature that does not claim to be religious . . . Any truth, no matter where you find it, is divine truth.”8 In short, the Bible is not considered God’s inspired word but instead a collection of people’s experiences of God; the Bible itself cannot be regarded as inerrant.9
Second, Liberal Theology historically blurs the line between creator and creation. As seen in the previous point, theological liberalism emphasized that our knowledge of God comes from within our experience, and, logically, this affects how one understands the relationship between God and the universe. Erickson remarks, “The liberal . . . tends to have a single-story view of reality. There is no supernatural realm outside the natural realm. God is within nature rather than beyond or outside it.”10
Many would thus adopt a view called “Panentheism,” which is “the view that the world, or ‘all’ (pan), is ‘in’ (en) ‘God’ (theos), thus denying the Creator-creature distinction. ‘God’ is greater than the world but not distinct from it. Both God and the world are eternal and dependent on each other.”11 In Machen’s words, “In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name ‘God’ is applied to the mighty world process itself. . . . God, therefore, it is said in effect, is not a person distinct from ourselves; on the contrary our life is a part of His.”12
A great example of this view would be Paul Tillich, who, although he viewed himself as being somewhere between liberal theology and Neo-Orthodox, held that “God is not a being, not even the highest of all beings; he is being itself, or the ground of being, the internal power or force that causes everything to exist. Thus, whereas all finite beings exist, God does not exist. While this may sound like a derogatory statement about God, it is not, but was intended as a compliment. When he said that God does not exist, Tillich meant that God does not merely exist—God is! Finite beings exist; God is, and is the basis of the existence of everything that exists.”13 Although somewhat different from Pantheism, where God and creation are the same, Panentheism still connects the universe to God’s nature, and thus he is affected by events occurring in it.14
This has massive implications which will be expanded later, but as Wellum summarizes, “God is not the transcendent, sovereign triune Creator and Lord. Instead, God is (“in”) the natural processes of evolution by which the world and history take shape as the one who ‘lures’ and ‘shapes’ the world by offering it various aims, but he cannot guarantee his will since he is incapable of unilateral and/or effectual agency, making him mutually dependent on the world.”15
Third, Liberal Theology remixes God’s attributes by interpreting them for modern sensibilities. When thinking about the “what-ness” or nature of God, liberal theologians have reinterpreted God’s nature in various ways.
First, due to many proponents of Liberal Theology’s affirmation of Panentheism, they understood God’s nature as prone to change along with creation, which is a rejection of the classical doctrine of God. As mentioned before, theological liberals held that the universe is part of God’s nature, and although they would say he is still “distinct” from creation, he is still affected or moved by whatever occurs in creation. One key manifestation of this comes as a system called Process Theology, which holds that God is “finite, mutable, less than omnipotent, and via his physical pole suffers alongside of his creatures.”16 Originating from the likes of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, this theology holds that God “should be thought of as fundamentally dynamic and developing, rather than static and fixed. Everything is growing and processing. Change, rather than fixed essences, characterizes reality.”17 Therefore, liberal theology rejected the classical formulation of God’s attributes—especially his incommunicable attributes—like simplicity (God’s nature is not made up of parts), aseity (self-sufficiency), infinity, immutability (unchanging), and impassibility (incoercible), since his nature is prone to change like his creation.18
Second, Liberal Theology overemphasizes the love of God to the detriment of other attributes, like holiness and righteousness.19 This elevation of God’s love over others that seems antithetical to it was common among liberal theologians, though they varied in how they conveyed it. Some, like Albrecht Ritschl, asserted that “the goodness of God, as the general presupposition of everything, is embraced in the specific attribute of the Divine Fatherhood; or, in other words, the truth that He has revealed Himself to the Christian community as love. There is no other conception of equal worth beside this which need be taken into account.”20 Allison remarks that for Ritschl, “any other attribute . . . that seems contrary to the divine love could not be real . . . . From the point of view of theology, therefore, no validity can be assigned to the idea of the wrath of God and his curse upon sinners.”21 C. H. Dodd would hold to a similar view in that he would state that God could not be wrathful against sinners but would deem his judgment as part of the moral fabric of the universe,22 but others like Albert Knudson would attempt to soften God’s wrath against sin by not getting rid of God’s holiness and righteousness but by having God’s love conquering over them.23 We can see from both the mutability of God’s nature and the confusion of God’s love over other attributes that Liberal Theology has not only remixed God’s incommunicable and communicable attributes but also rejected the horror of human sinfulness and thus the need for a savior from his wrath against sin. Which leads us to . . .
Fourth, Liberal Theology emphasizes the unifying “Fatherhood” of God over all creation, leading to universalism. Machen takes note of how many liberal preachers love to speak of God as “Father” in that they derive from Jesus’ teaching that God is father of all humanity and thus we should embrace the brotherhood of mankind.24
Machen comments:
“It is very strange how those who accept only the universal fatherhood of God as the sum and substance of religion can regard themselves as Christian or can appeal to Jesus of Nazareth. For the plain fact is that this modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God formed no part whatever of Jesus’ teaching.”25
It is true to say that God is the author of all life and being that he should be, as creator, called the “father of all,” but what liberal theology asserts to be the “essence of Christianity” is “at best only that vague natural religion” which rejects the necessity of the doctrines of sin, salvation, and atonement by the blood of Christ.26 As previously shown, Liberal Theology’s emphasis on God’s immanence and the conflation of God’s relationship with creation has led many liberal theologians to elevate the Fatherhood of God, thus downplaying the Bible’s description and assertion of the three persons of the Trinity. I will let Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley summarize several liberal proponents on their assessment of the Trinity:
For Friedrich Schleiermacher, the Trinity was not about a distinction of persons in one eternal God, but about how God unites himself with human life in our feelings and experience. Albrecht Ritschl rejected theology as a description of who God is and reduced faith to what God does in us. Adolf von Harnack accused Christianity’s theological system of being a Hellenistic philosophical imposition on the church. He replaced the classic doctrine of the Trinity with a universal affirmation of God’s fatherhood and a denial of Christ’s unique sonship—Jesus was just the most divine of God’s many children.27
If the whole point of the Christian faith is God’s universal fatherhood, then the goal of Liberal Christianity is not the salvation of sinners from the holy wrath of God but the betterment of all human society for the brotherhood of man. Therefore, Liberal Theology’s God does not provide an exclusive message of salvation, as there is no sin to be saved from and no wrath to reflect any holiness because he is only fatherly love.28
In part 2, I will respond to Liberal Theology’s presentation of God by showing how Theology Proper has been recognized by Biblical, historic, and orthodox Christianity in accordance with Holy Scripture and draw some concluding applications.
Author: Joseph Yu (B.A., Boyce College; M.Div., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has been a member of Gospel Life Church in Sunrise, FL, since 2017. In his spare time, he writes on his blog, The “Yu”ng Theologian, where he aims to show that there is always hope for Christians and churches who want to be more infatuated with Jesus.
Johnny Zacchio Jr., "Keep Your Doctrine. Just Give Me Jesus.," Semper Reformanda (Substack), https://www.johnnyzacchio.com/p/keep-your-doctrine-just-give-me-jesus.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1.
Stanley E. Porter and Steven M. Studebaker, “Method in Systematic Theology: An Introduction,” in Evangelical Theological Method: Five Views, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Steven M. Studebaker, Spectrum Multiview Books (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), 10.
Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 205–6.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928), 133–34.
See Allison, HT, 206. See also Louis Berkhof, Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1932), 118–19: “Since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Under the influence of Kant, and especially of Schleiermacher, the difference between the light of nature and the light of God’s special revelation was supposedly transcended. They are no more regarded in modern liberal theology as two different avenues to the knowledge of God, but only as two distinct ways of conceiving of the only avenue there is. The doctrine of the immanence of God is beginning to play an important part. Both Kant and Schleiermacher are “convinced that the only argument capable of reaching Deity is one that starts not from external, but from human, nature; and they believe, too, that it is in human nature, and not in its abeyance in trance or dream or frenzy, that God characteristically reveals Himself.” They represent neither the doctrine of the light of nature nor that of special revelation in its old form, but resolve both in a higher unity. This new representation is in a measure a return to that of Greek philosophy, and it is especially this view of revelation that is strongly opposed by the Theology of Crisis.”
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 275.
Erickson, CT, 276. See also Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 165–66, 175, 410–11. What’s interesting about Bavinck’s references to Schleiermacher and others is that he often regards them as pantheists — even Karl Barth accused Schleiermacher of basically the same thing (see Allison, Historical Theology, 206).
See Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, From Canon to Concept (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 251: “it denies that Scripture is God’s word that yields a true, objective knowledge of God. Instead, it opts for a view of revelation rooted in human experience, today mostly grounded in the God-world relation of panentheism. Hence God does not reveal propositions about himself; instead, he makes himself known in the religious dimension of common human experience. What this entails, then, is that the Bible is simply the record of human attempts both to understand this revelatory experience and transmit it to the people of God through its religious traditions. The Bible, in other words, should not be viewed as a movement from God to humans or the product of God’s sovereign, extraordinary agency in and through human authors.”
Erickson, Christian Theology, 275.
Wellum, Systematic Theology, 1:61n89.
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 54.
Erickson, Christian Theology, 278.
Grenz, Guretzki, and Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, 88.
Wellum, Systematic Theology, 1:544.
John S. Feinberg, “Process Theology,” The Gospel Coalition, accessed September 8, 2026, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/process-theology/.
Erickson, Christian Theology, 279.
Allison, Historical Theology, 225. See also Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 194–232. Many years prior to Process Theology being formulated, Schleiermacher held that “All attributes which we ascribe to God are to be taken as denoting not something special in God, but only something special in the manner in which the feeling of absolute dependence is to be related to Him.” Herman Bavinck, in Reformed Dogmatics, 2:175, refers to Schleiermacher, stating that “Schleiermacher refused to put the simplicity of God on par with the other attributes, regarding it only as ‘the unseparated and inseparable mutual inherence of all divine attributes and activities.’” Thus Schleiermacher, and later proponents of liberal theology following him, held the classical understanding of the attributes of God with little value, since it went against their presuppositions of subjectivism — or, for Schleiermacher, “the feeling of absolute dependence.”
Allison, Historical Theology, 223.
Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1900), 273.
Allison, Historical Theology, 223. See also L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1938), 53.
See Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, vol. 1, Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 857.
See Allison, Historical Theology, 224.
Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 50–51.
Ibid., 52.
Ibid., 51, 53.
Beeke and Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:924.
Erickson, Christian Theology, 277.