After spending pretty much all day at Church yesterday, starting about 0745 and getting home about 0200 this morning, this is not going to be as long or as detailed as originally planned. That is probably the latest I have stayed up in more than a decade, much less after all the fun of the lightning strike and other health delights. I will say I had fun, and it was interesting to take part in various liturgical forms for the same service, and I learned a good bit as well. It also served to highlight how different apostles presented the same event in very different ways. That’s a discussion for another day.
I am also glad to report that today’s post has nothing to do with Yale or Buckley (1). That said, however, I need to make a note to myself that in later discussions of the Bible that I remember to give thanks that neither engineers or academics were involved with the original New Testament. Just ignore and roll with that one for now.
If there is a greater contrast between two parties in the universe, than between God and Man, I have yet to find it. Polar opposites is a good descriptor, and highlights the challenges of God explaining things to Man, and Man understanding (more often not understanding) what God is saying and intends.
While a number of theologians concentrate on the 12-15 characteristics of God, it is in my opinion best to focus on and understand the 3 prime attributes of God. Those attributes are the basis of trying to understand God and of the characteristics we have come to associate with God. They are also why we do not have a chance of truly understanding God without assistance. And, no, that assistance does not come from pharmaceuticals as there is no amount of mind expanding or mind altering drugs we can take that will let us truly grasp even a fraction of the mind of God. Trying such is a great way to burn out your brain and waste the gifts God has given you, at least in my opinion.
God exists out of time, as in before and after time as we understand it. Let’s look at the three key areas.
First, God is omnipotent. While that does indeed mean all powerful, it also means that God has the wisdom, judgement, and other characteristics that make him infallible. God does not, therefore, make mistakes. Which leads to God being almighty, because of this and because of what comes next.
Second, God is omniscient. God knows everything since he existed before time and will exist even after time (as we understand it) is gone. God sees all of time (and the before and after) as a single instant. Scripture tells us that God knew that a third of the Heavenly Host would revolt before they did so. God knows we are going to screw up, how we are going to screw up, and loves us anyway. Which is getting a little ahead of myself, but…
Finally, God is omnipresent. “No sparrow shall fall” is because God is present in everyone and everything in the known (and unknown to us) universe(s). There is nothing that happens anywhere (or any time) of which God is unaware.
Where we see probabilities for actions, God not only saw the probabilities but knew which would become reality (in this and even in other potential dimensions) before we even started to take actions. Keep in mind that while we deal (awkwardly and often unwisely) with this reality, God deals with this reality and quite probably more. Keep in mind that whole ‘known and unknown’ thing that pops up in scripture and life from time to time. Which, when you add in free will, makes for a complex situation that puts 3-D chess right out the airlock when it comes to complexity.
So, you have God who likely knows all and sees all across what we would consider multiple dimensions (though God may not see it as such, again a rather advanced discussion for another day). Then, you have us, mankind.
We are why most aliens lock their doors and speed up when passing by our cosmic neighborhood. God is a wondrous trinity of attributes (cough, cough, pay attention) while we know little and seem determined to get as many things wrong as possible. While the latter is a bit cynical of me, the former truly isn’t our fault. To explain why, I need to borrow from the late Kurt Vonnegut.
In one of his stories, I remember him describing humans as a figure who experiences life essentially bound on some sort of open rail car, the car only able to move in one direction while we can only look in one direction (off to the side?), and do so through a long tube that limits our field of view. Let’s face it, that’s not a bad descriptor of how we experience time (and space in a relative sense).
Our viewpoint is extremely limited, we have no real ability (other than some possibly limited bits of pre-cognition and related, again, a discussion for another day) to look ahead. As for looking behind, my own take is that we far too often fail to do so even when it would do us good. Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it; and, those who seek to prevent the teaching of history are working as hard as they can to repeat it and not to the benefit of mankind.
Humanity also has an unmatched (as far as we know) ability to screw up. Much of that comes from taking the easy way on most everything. It reflects strongly in certain politics and political movements, where free and easy is the promise, along with the idea that no payment or work will ever be required to enjoy the largess. This despite rather clear evidence the world really doesn’t work that way…
While jumping ahead a bit, it is worth noting that the Old Testament can be condensed as follows. God: Do these things as I command and life will be good. Mankind: Yes, we will do that. Ooops. We didn’t, we got what we deserved. Please give us another chance. God: Okay, here’s a new covenant, do these things as I command, and life will be good. Mankind: Yes, we will do that. Ooops. We didn’t, we got what we deserved. Please give us another chance. God, possibly tempted to sigh: Okay, here’s a new covenant, do these things as I command, and life will be good. Mankind… For the record, that’s also an accurate summation of me and sin. There is the best of intentions, but the flesh (esp. my brain) is weak.
So, back on track (pun intended). We, mankind, really haven’t got a shot at understanding more than a very limited fraction of the mind of God. We simply are not wired to understand such in this form. Outside this form is an interesting discussion, but again one for another day. The fact is, however, we really don’t need to fully understand the mind of God in order to understand what God wants us to do.
Whether it is from the Burning Bush, the words of the prophets, or the parables of Jesus, the basics are there. Now, particularly in the latter, there is room for growth as it were. Keep in mind the ‘spoke and thought as a child’ bit as it applies to our understanding of God and his word.
For example, I’ve read some ‘learned’ (cough) discussion that God evolved in the Old Testament. After all, God went from a vengeful and emotional creature to the God we know today. This skips a couple of important points in my opinion.
First, in the earliest forms, Judaic belief held that God in Genesis was a first among equals (a concept that comes up again in scripture I believe, and most assuredly in Church politics). Judaism, however, went from from somewhat polytheistic to monotheistic far more rapidly and far earlier than almost any other belief system in the world.
Second, as it did so it was not God that evolved, but our understanding of God. Where we had tried to place a human face and understanding on something that is far from Human, as Mankind evolved our understanding grew as well. This mirrors our understanding of the parables of Jesus, where what we get out of some of them has indeed involved over the years (‘So that’s what it really meant!). That’s one of the beautiful things about parables, is that it is possible to see and understand more (look at this from over here!) as we learn and grow. Not only do I think God has a sense of humor, but I also think he’s efficient in such things, yet another point we may get into later.
What we do need to consider is that our understanding is limited. There are far too many out there who seek to place limits on God, which is something we have been told flat out not to do. For all that such can be amusing, it is also incredibly sad to see people proclaim that God has to do what they want because he has to operate on the basis of how they think God should operate. Such is often linked to extremely legalistic thinking on theology. My personal take is that the more legalistic you get on theology, the greater the chance you are, er, messing up by the numbers.
Indeed, today’s post brings up one of the greatest hopes for the individuals of mankind. I think I’ve been told this before, but a wise priest shared with myself and others that no good, reputable priest (or preacher) will tell you definitively where the soul of a recently departed has gone. They may have strong suspicions (I got the impression that this was particularly true to those who were not so good in life, and likely to go down as it were) but even if likely to go up one didn’t make that declaration. One reason is that for the former is that God is a being who transcends time, and we have no clue if in the final nano-seconds of a person’s life that God did not intervene to give that person a chance. After all, what is a nano-second to us can be an eternity to God. God’s love and mercy are infinite, so we do not know what God might do, especially given that our understanding is both limited and to some extent likely flawed. Just look at the number of times God has given mankind another chance in the Old Testament. Who is to say that such might not extend to an individual level? As for those going up, we may think that but we don’t know all and the only people known for sure (as far as we know) in heaven are the Saints and Martyrs.
Some food for thought as we explore the holes in my memories and I try to work some things out for decisions and more to come.
- One of the unexpected (and IMO unearned in some ways) honors in my life was to be an invited guest to WeaponsCon I many years back. WeaponsCon was the response by the late (and missed) Irv Koch to a number of science fiction conventions to banning weapons. At WeaponsCon one had to be armed at all times. It was the safest and most polite convention I think I’ve ever attended. The Guest of Honor was the late (and much, very much, missed) L. Neil Smith. My being put on a similar level to him is what I considered unearned. That said, we got along great and it was a true pleasure to meet him and get to spend some time talking on any number of subjects. To this day I love his description of William Buckley (as character Buckley Williams I think in The Probability Broach) rolling his eyes like a dying horse as both accurate and a bit of sheer comic genius. His entire take was so spot on…
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