What does God look like? German priest and theologian Karl Rahner wrote that to ask a question like this is tantamount to looking at the most beautiful day in June, seeing all the trees and flowers in full blossom, and asking a friend, “Where is summer?” To see certain things is to see summer. To see certain things is to see God. Rahner used to ask people when they asked him this question about God:
- Have you ever kept silent, despite the urge to defend yourself, when you were unfairly treated?
- Have you ever forgiven another, although you gained nothing by it, and your forgiveness was accepted as quite natural?
- Have you ever made a sacrifice without receiving any thanks or acknowledgment or feeling any inward satisfaction?
- Have you ever decided to do a thing simply for the sake of conscience, knowing that you must bear sole responsibility for your decision without being able to explain it to anyone?
- Have you ever tried to act purely for the love of God when no warmth sustained you when your act seemed a leap in the dark, simply nonsensical?
- Have you ever been good to someone without expecting a trace of gratitude and without the comfortable feeling of having been “unselfish”?
Rahner asserts that if you have had such experiences, you have experienced God, perhaps without realizing it. A little girl, drawing a picture, was asked by her mother: “What are you drawing?” She replied: “A picture of God!” “But we don’t know what God looks like,” her mother objected. “Well,” replied the child, “when I am finished with this, then you will know what God looks like!” If we do what Rahner suggests, we will also draw a picture of God.1
1 Adapted from Ron Rolheiser, “What Does God Look Like,” September 1994.