On Knowing and Understanding

In his new book, Footprints in the Sea (buy it here - http://www.coolriverpub.net - do it now - you can come back to my blog later - I won't be offended) Ed Chinn writes:

We just don't seem to know (Jesus) well enough to have intelligent or even interesting conversations about him. In one sense, we only have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of him. So, we just end up saying what others have said others have said others have said others have said about him.

I read these words today while munching my tequila/lemon/serrano pepper - marinated tilapia left over from yesterday's lunch. Ed's thoughts connected with something that I was chewing on this morning. Not my breakfast.

I'm not sure that contemporary America really wants to know God. I think that in our rational, technological, one-plus-one-equals-two, industrialized American mindset, our definition of "knowing" God is really "understanding" Him. We have been taught that "knowing" something is not enough - we must understand whatever it is that we are studying.

In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing. However, over time this approach to learning has blinded us to the possibility that there is anything beyond our understanding. And by His very nature, God is simply just that - beyond our understanding. To know Him is to recognize how little we truly understand Him. But we have been taught that when we apply proper analytical tools to a question, we will reach understanding.

I'm not trying to say that there is nothing we can understand about God; I'm just saying there is a limit to what we can truly grasp. We say that God is a person, and He is. But often His "person-hood" becomes, for us, a notion that misleads us into believing that He is psychologically the same as we are. That we can psychoanalyze the God of the universe to understand His motivations. That human-derived analytical tools can deliver the full truth about He Who is the Way, the Truth and the Light. They cannot.

This is not a new challenge. It is the very foundation of demonic nationalism (or denominationalism, if you prefer). It is the reason that seminaries, whose stated purpose is to train "godly servants" and "students of the Bible," really churn out marching ranks of apologist drones adept at defending denominational distinctives.

And in the final analysis, it is why, as possibly-my-best-friend-in-the-whole-world-to-whom-I-am-not-spouse-or-parent, Ed Chinn, continues, "No wonder we'd rather talk about ourselves." Because the only god we can truly understand is the one who looks an awful lot like us. And we have been carefully taught that conversation about things we don't understand is nonsense.
Sometimes it is. But when it comes to God, the only conversations that matter are the ones that verge upon, indeed that even cross into, the realm we do not and cannot understand. Some of those conversations will contain a large dose of nonsense - but when we analyze that nonsense we will find that more often it springs from lack of accurate knowledge than from lack of understanding. What we think we know is often really nothing more than a reflection of who god would be if we were he.

Why did God warn Joseph and Mary to take His Son out of harm's way by fleeing Bethlehem, but allowed every other father (and mother, for that matter) to suffer the loss of their sons? I know He did it. I know He could have saved all those children from death and spare their parents from grief, and even deliver Herod from that added measure of guilt. I know He didn't do that. I just don't understand why.

But I'm talking about more than simply finding facts that seem to go against the nature of God as we ... as we ... as we ... ummm ... understand it ... humph! I'm talking about giving up on human analytical tools to figure out Divine nature. And the analytical, skeptical, industrialized minds will surely claim that it is nonsense to talk about the sort of God Whose nature defies measurement and analysis.

But Paul had something to say about this -

Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." (I Cor. 3:18-20)

There are, of course, many who, in an attempt to achieve wisdom by appearing foolish, simply become idiots as well as fools, but that's a topic for another post. Actually, it's probably the topic of many posts, old and new. Let me just end this one with Paul's further words (verse 21), "So then, no more boasting about men!"

Oh, and one more thing...

You really need to get the book!