Randall J. Vandermey's God Talk

The prioritization of feeling over thinking in our culture today can be attributed, at least in part, to the shift in language from I think to I feel like. In many cases, I feel like has replaced I think. “I feel like penguins live on the North Pole.” “I feel like we went to Chick-Fil-A last week.” “I feel like that’s wrong.” “I feel like that lamp is too dim.” These are all statements that I could hear in a conversation with my peers this weekend. “Feeling” that something isn’t right allows you to not confront another person regarding their life choices and gives the feeler an exemption from thinking. Arrogantly, we have left thought behind for the sake of feeling good about ourselves.
Feeling is a personal thing and can be hard to describe because it involves one’s personal experience and nervous system. Signals are sent to the brain
Through His Word we can know our God and have thoughts about who He is. In a thoughtful desire to pursue truth there becomes a right and a wrong way of thinking about God, allowing us to discern heresy from sound theology. In his book God Talk, Randall J. VanderMey states that “close attention to Christian language— its possibilities as well as its poverties—can open the mind, reawaken wonder and strengthen faith” (VanderMey 16). It is important that we examine how prioritizing feelings over thoughts has affected our relationships with God. Instead of thinking thoughts about God and desiring to have knowledge about God, we prioritize feeling His presence and when we don’t feel His presence, we doubt His omnipresence. However, when we seek out truth about who God is—the thoughts about God that are written for us in Scripture— these thoughts about God become our thoughts, which in turn can produce feelings. How much more deep and rewarding is the feeling that we can attribute to