Warning: Ten (short) paragraphs of rambling ahead; proceed with caution
I read a near-death experience a few months ago that challenged my perception of God. I have no way of knowing what NDEs really are and whether they can be trusted, but I became aware that my view of the god was very small and provincial. I had been thinking of the creator as being very much tied to us, as if we were the center of his world. (I have heard someone say that we are “the center of his affection”.) I had put this god in some very small boxes in my mind.
Putting aside revelation for a moment, I start with the vastness of the universe. (Maybe some of you saw the photo of the universe taken by Hubble: bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19728375 .) The earth alone is just massive in comparison to our small bodies. Even our mountains are small on the crust of the earth. And then there is our solar system and our galaxy. And then there are all the galaxies that seem to stretch on infinitely. If there is a creator, what must this being be like? I have been increasingly thinking that the creator is just too vast to be understood by us. And then at school the other night our guest lecturer mentioned that Aquinas (and I think Maimonides) and other earlier theologians had a much stronger sense of god’s indescribability. That word really resonated with me.
Is the god* indescribable*? How would that vast being relate to our little world? Would he? Why would he create us in the first place (my biggest life question at the moment)? How much can our sin offend him? Are his laws given only for our sake, so that we might live together more peaceably? What would be the implications of that, if true?
It seems to me that we will understand Jesus differently if we can keep in mind the indescribability of the creator. We will see differently what Jesus gave up to become one of us. I’m not sure how we extrapolate back from Jesus, god revealed, to his original form. Someone has written a book recently which says that God is smaller than we think. I think he means that god is more approachable than we think. But is he? Jesus is the very essence of god. In what way?
Why did this creator choose one people to work through? Or did he? Is it possible that all people who believe in a creator are getting some glimpse of him? Are we like the blind men with the elephant? Each only seeing a small part of the actual whole?
How much of what we think comes from human attempts to make sense of all this? How can our little lives either please or offend him?
Even to speak in terms of gender or parental roles seems to limit what the creator must be.
He is so vast, I can hardly imagine why he might be at all concerned with us. And yet, whose is that voice that speaks to us? Why do we long for something that we know does not exist here?
Space looks so lifeless, though stunningly beautiful. We are so small and insignificant in it. But I cannot believe we are accidental. Or that the world comes into being by itself. At least, if it does, the world itself must be the self-existent being we call god. Something must be self-existing, or there could be nothing.
But so much of what we believe seems so odd in light of the vastness of this being.
Well, if you’ve gotten this far along in my ramblings, I hope you’ll also take time to post your own thoughts on this topic.
Kelli