Tom Tripp – Guest Columnist
We like to understand things. We like to be able to make sense of things. Yet God is beyond our understanding, and that makes us uncomfortable.
On the other hand, Harry Emerson Fosdick remarked, “I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.” I think we could also say, “I would rather worship a God who is full of mystery than worship a God so small that my mind could comprehend him.”
In one of his letters, Karl Rahner confessed that for him, “God is and has always been the absolute mystery. I do not understand what God is; no one can. We have intimations, inklings; we make faltering, inadequate attempts to put mystery into words. But there is no word for it, no sentence to contain it. Understanding God lies outside the usual categories of human thought.”
St. Augustine put it this way: “Since it is God we are speaking of, you do not understand it. If you could understand it, it would not be God.”
In his book Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning commented, “Small wonder that there is a deafening silence from our pulpits and publishers about the transcendent character of Almighty God. And who can blame us? Throughout the history of salvation God has revealed his presence but never his essence. Since the Holy One is ultimately unknowable, we can only stutter and stammer about an omnipotent deity who, with effortless ease, created a star 264 trillion miles away.”
Pamela Kalisuch once shared with me an analogy of twins growing in their mother’s womb that may provide some insights on the mystery of God: One of the twins asked the other, “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what will be later.”
“Nonsense,” insisted the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second replied, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first argued, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well, I think there is something, and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord any longer.”
The first replied, “Nonsense! If there is life beyond delivery, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“I don’t know,” said the second. “Certainly we will meet Mother, and she will take care of us.”
The first retorted, “Mother? You actually believe in a Mother? That’s laughable! If Mother exists, then where is She now?”
The second answered, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by Her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
“Well I don’t see her,” said the first, “so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
The second replied, “Sometimes, when you are silent and focus and really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice calling down from above.” ■
