The Age of the God-shrinkers

Another reflection from J. I. Packer’s A Passion for Holiness (Crossway, 1992):

In a section titled "Awe at God’s Greatness" (pp. 68-70) Packer laments the modern indulgence of "unwarrantably great thoughts of humanity and scandalously small thoughts of God." He predicts that our time will go down as "the age of the God-shrinkers."

The results of this "God-shrinking trend" is "that belief in God’s sovereignty and omniscience, the majesty of his moral law and the terror of his judgements, the retributive consequences of the life we live here and the endlessness of eternity in which we will experience them, along with the intrinsic triunity of God and the divinity and personal return of Jesus Christ, is nowadays so eroded as to be hardly discernible. For many in our day, God is no more than a smudge."

JTR