- Many see God as a friend. To them, God offers friendship over lordship. God becomes our close companion. True worship is friendship with God.
- According to this metaphor, God seeks an intimate relationship with each of us, a relationship based on connection, partnership and mutuality.
- Relationship, some argue, is the very essence of God.
- God, as friend, helps and supports us we ask for it while also giving us opportunity and power to help ourselves.
- Prayer is talking to God like a friend.
- Friendship is God’s greatest gift.
- What are possible criticisms of this metaphor? Some would suggest that this God is too much like us, that there is not enough distinction between what God is like and who we are. In more theological language they would argue that God is not transcendent enough or that God’s transcendence is diminished by bringing God too close. It would seem then that such familiarity would also compromise the mystery of God. God’s mystery has most often been a function of God’s transcendence and otherness. We do not feel awe and wonder in relation to what we experience as familiar.
