This August evening I saw the sun go down. Found myself thinking about how it was the same noon-day sun that was shining down somewhere else further West. It is a large world we live in and there are many things I don’t come close to understanding. It is beautiful too. This particular August sunset was no irregularly awesome sight – but awesome nonetheless. Geese flew their southbound root while crickets took up their chorus and the big dark clouds were like flat light-framed mountains pinned against the sun-painted orange sky. Beams of light shot through the air like towers that no man’s hands could build and that my mind tries and fails to understand. It just is and I don’t fully get it.
This makes me think of God. My feeble and stupid heart does not understand but longs to apply glory and praise. I cannot to myself. It would be folly to see the sky and the glorious universe and apply its glory to my pride. And so my heart’s deepest longing and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are applied to God’s creative and powerful hand. To the glory of God – the meaning of all things. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1) And that’s the song my heart sings and finds it’s humble comfort and joy in.
Of the stars Isaiah says “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.” This God of Whom Isaiah speak knows these stars by name, these Billions of stars all held in place – not one is missing. The Bible is full of words that ascribe the glory of the universe to God. In many beautiful ways the beauty of what widely is unknown can be said.
But standing there – looking at the sun from this small planet in a small corner of the universe is really just a part of the unknowing and part of the beauty. Words cannot really describe it. But is not the Creator greater than the created? Is not a painting to the glory of the painter? Or a magnificent bridge but a taste of the brilliant mind that designed it? So I look to this non-irregular sunset like a painting, or for those science minded - a brilliant design of things happening, and ascribe this glory that I don’t really know anything about to, well, to God who I must not know very much about either (to be touched on in Part 2). I cannot fathom.
I sit now in my room and look at my bookshelf. A room says a lot about a person and so does a bookshelf. I hope that both of mine would tell you that I pursue and seek to understand Christianity. I know my bookshelf would certainly tell you that I like to read about Christianity. But it is a feeble bookshelf compared to some. There are some heavy books – the Bible being there but not the biggest by any means. In fact the longest of the books is a book that tries to understand and break down what the Bible says about God. It is only one of many. If you think there’s a lot of stars you should look up how many books are written about Christianity and the Christian God. It is because it cannot be fully done. You would have to write an endless book to describe God.
Just yesterday I tried, for fun, spurred on by a tired-of-being-lazy mindset, to come up with my own Cross-References (I called them Power Parallels) for a chapter of the Bible called Romans 1. I got through the first few verses in about 30 minutes with over 10 themes I could have drawn from and over 25 different references to the same idea or thought. The thing is that each one of those references had it’s own set of words and ideas that expanded and added to what was being said in Romans 1. And I am only scratching the surface – what I’ve done is a drop of water in the ocean. It’s a wonder to me that the man who wrote Romans endured till chapter 11 before breaking out in praise “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
I have said these things for a purpose. I draw parallels between a sunset and the knowledge of God not to say they are always the same thing. The knowledge of God or “Science of God” is something called Theology - and very few people can take Theology and experience (like watching a sunset) and mix them together. C.S. Lewis a great Christian thinker (and very popular) ran into this very same problem when trying to talk Theology to a group of R.A.F. soldiers. He described his experience of a man standing up and telling him that he’d felt God in the dessert once at night and that this “God” that Lewis was talking so plainly about (as if it was understood) was a weak and flimsy in comparison to what had been experienced. Lewis agreed with this man and I agree with them both too. So why is it necessary to have knowledge of God? What good does it do to understand something not-understandable but that one can experience so greatly. I could see a sunset and trust God that God is great could I not? Need I go on about how God created things and upholds things and does things for different reasons? Those are the people who don’t actually understand God at all aren’t they? The one’s that think they do.
Lewis says this concerning the man and his experience and hostility towards theology, “I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.”
Now I’ve gotten off track a bit here and I’d like to bring it all back together. I don’t want this letter, which started out with a glimpse of the glorious creation of God pointing to a God who is greater and than his greatest creations – by far. Like a man is greater than the statue he made. I’ve gone into how much knowledge there is about God and how, since this knowledge is of God and from God, it is only a fraction of the glorious God and all that there would be to know if one could know God – but like a baby looking at his father he doesn’t really understand. And then I went into “so why try?” When a baby looks at its father does it need to understand the father to feel love? Does saying in a book “her eyes were blue” compare to seeing a beautiful woman with blue eyes? Or looking into those eyes? So why don’t I get my head out of the Bible and books that help with understanding Christianity and just start going and doing? I provided the Lewis quote for that. It would be no good to just look at the ocean if you wanted to get to America. So one must know and do – they rely on one another.
There is a point I’m trying to make that I have not yet said. I would defeat myself if I left it at saying one must know and do without describing what Lewis calls “America”. Now Lewis is very good at always pointing out the flaws in the metaphors he uses - but he did not this time. He described God as the ocean, with it’s contours and edges that have been traced out and maps have been made. But I challenge that and say that while we have traced out much of the contours and shores of God’s character as he has revealed to us through the Bible – it is not all there. There is much more. One will never land on the shores of America by figuring everything out and conquering the sea. This sea is not a sea to be conquered – no one has traced out the shores of America yet – we don’t really know where they are or how far it is to them. Every ship has sunk in the sea before drawing out all its edges and that's the point. But they’ve sailed according to the maps that already have been made. On their way to “America” – the complete knowledge and perfection and glory of God.
“So Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven —what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth
and broader than the sea.” (Job 11:7-9)
Part 2? I would very much like to read it!
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