Hello again welcome back to the Thinking
Believer! I said last week that this week
was gonna be longer. That's why last
week's was so short. But this video
actually went the way of the Hobbit
movies and got so long that we decided
to cut it in two. The second video be
coming along at some point.
Hopefully it works out better for these videos than
it did for The Hobbit movies.
[Spongebob Waa Waa Waaa sound]
I should really think of a more optimistic
analogy. Anyhow we're taking a week off
from history and diving into philosophy
and literature this week. I've been
thinking a lot about how we could
possibly comprehend a transcendent God,
and doing it through, actually, one of my
favorite analogies that I've heard for God
So here we go! On April 12th 1961
Yuri Gagarin became the first man to
orbit the Earth. A few days later Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev said Gagarin
flew into space but did not see any God
there. The idea being that, if God existed,
then when you get to the heavens you're
going to find Him. Culturally we often
think of God or depict Him in that same
kind of way: as an old man who's off
sitting on a cloud somewhere that
theoretically you could get to or see.
If you google "what does God", it autofills
"looks like". But God doesn't look like
anything. He is formless. He doesn't have
a body. He's immaterial. He's timeless and uncreated.
He isn't Zeus. You could never
go somewhere and find God there. I think
we know this on some fundamental level
but we don't spend much time reflecting
on it, at least I don't, because it's
weird and hard to comprehend. But the
more I thought about it this week, just
the more my mind was blown by it and by
its implications for us. C.S. Lewis I think
put it brilliantly when he said that
Khrushchev expecting Gagarin to find
God in space was like Hamlet expecting
to find Shakespeare in the attic of his
castle. Shakespeare created Hamlet's
world, he doesn't exist within it. The
first time I heard this I was like "oh neat!"
But in spending some time thinking
about it since then, it started to, like,
bend my brain. It is way harder to
comprehend a god that is timeless and
formless, than a god like Zeus who's
essentially just a stronger human, immortal,
lives on top of a mountain, and comes
down for dalliances with women occasionally
Just imagine Shakespeare trying to
explain his existence to Hamlet. Like, "yo
Hammy! Your existence is really only a
shadow of my existence. I made you up.
Your whole world's on a page and you are
just a character down there. Oh, and when
I say down there, there isn't really a
down at all. It's just kind of an
elsewhere from me. Except Shakespeare
would use more of "thee's" and "thou's" and
sexual innuendos. Because: Shakespeare.
Even if Hamlet believed Shakespeare as
he tries to explain to him, like hey
you're a character in a play, like, if
Hamlet tried to explain that to somebody
else, everyone think he would be crazy... oh wait.
On the other end of the spectrum
from Zeus and the anthropomorphic gods
of Mythology, is the idea of the
supernatural being who's not really a
being at all. It's just some sort of cosmic force.
"It's an energy field
created by all living things. It
surrounds us, penetrates us. It binds the
Galaxy together".
People talk about the universe or good energy
or something that can be sensed but never really known
But what I personally find really
dissatisfying about the idea of like
this "spiritual but not religious", is the
unknowableness of that higher power.
There are lots of people who will say that a
"something else" exists or will say things
like "oh the universe wants this to
happen or it will all work out for good".
But why should I believe those things?
Why should we think that this unknowable
force out there has any interest in us
at all or that if it is interested that
it wants good for us and not evil? And
how can you depend on a thing that you
can't really know? The god of
Christianity doesn't fall into that
category either. The Bible is the story
of Him trying to be known by us.
The Old Testament does it in pieces as God works
through the limitations of the people
He's dealing with. Think again of
Shakespeare trying to explain himself to
Hamlet in terms he'd understand. But
ultimately, how could Shakespeare make
himself known to Hamlet? He could write
himself into the story.
And that's exactly what the God of the
Bible did for us! The transcendent God,
who has a formless existence wrote
himself into our world as Jesus. Jesus is
God's final form! Christianity is founded
on the idea that God has come down and
entered into time and space in first
century Judea. When we look to Jesus, we
see God Himself. John 14:7 says "if you
really had known me you would know who
my Father is from now on you do know Him
and have seen Him".
So when Jesus says to love our enemies,
God is saying we should love our enemies.
When Jesus washes the feet of his
disciples and shows us a humble service
oriented approach to love, that is God
Himself showing how highly He views service.
And when Jesus not only says
turn the other cheek but models it on
the cross, we see the God of the universe,
the creator of everything, show us that
true power isn't a closed fist but an
open hand. I love the balance that we
have between the transcendent God the
Father who is timeless and formless and
the creator of everything, and the
Incarnate Jesus who is God, come as man,
so that He could be known by us.
sometimes I get lost in the abstract
details of God or I wrestle with the way
God seems in parts of the Old Testament.
But when that happens, I tried to
remember that if I want to know who the
god of Christianity is, I don't need to
look any further than Jesus Christ.
We don't have to go to the heavens to find
God, He already came down here to us.
That fact doesn't make all the questions go
away for me, but it does anchor my soul.
But what do you think? Is this is a helpful
way to think about God? Is there anything
I could have explained more clearly? I'm
still wrapping my head around this too.
I'm gonna keep thinking about it. This is
obviously a bit different than the last
couple weeks topic-wise. I'd be curious to
hear your thoughts on that as well.
As always, like and subscribe if you're
interested in more content like this.
And besides that, have a great day!
