David Vancelette’s fascinating book, HOW GOD THINKS–with possibly the most original thesis of any spiritual discussion on the market–begins with a harrowing account of the author’s alcoholic, violent father. A World War II veteran who suffered from PTSD, the father was abusing Vancelette’s mother for what must have been the millionth time, and Vancelette decided to intervene. He ran up to his father and said, “Stop it or I’m gonna kill myself!” He must have thought his father would sober up, drop to his knees, and beg the family’s forgiveness. Instead, the man reached into a drawer, pulled out a knife, and wordlessly offered it to his son. His meaning was clear: Do it. I dare you.
The cruelty of this act didn’t make sense to Vancelette as a child. The adult Vancelette, however, has it figured out: his father “failed miserably at representing God to his wife and children.” This, he later realized, was his first encounter with symbolism, without which “we would literally know nothing about the God who loves us and who desperately wants a relationship with us–a deeply symbolic and meaningful relationship.” Why this talk of symbols? Because, according to Vancelette, God thinks in symbols. God feels in symbols. To God, everything in heaven and earth is symbolic. The way to know God, then, is to learn to interpret the symbols with which He filled our world. No other current book has such a bold mission statement, nor advances a theory as extraordinary as the one Vancelette builds to: that God intended Jesus to die, not on a cross at Golgotha, but in the temple in Jerusalem.
It’s refreshing to read an academic approach to God, as spiritual books tend to be more emotive than intellectual. That doesn’t mean, however, that Vancelette is open-minded. His politics peek out in various places, most notably in the chapter on sexual symbolism, where he argues that intercourse is for married couples only, not “for those outside marriage to carry out their sexual fantasies or perversions.” Don’t let this blind spot, however, keep you from enjoying a remarkable and pioneering effort to do what no theologian has succeeded at yet: get inside the mind of God.
David Vancelette’s HOW GOD THINKS is a fascinating and original attempt to do what no theologian has ever accomplished: to get inside the mind of God.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader