My dad, who is almost 89, has a particular response to technology. He looks at the mobile phone and asks where the film goes for the camera bit. He has a paradigm for how things work and when something doesn't fit that paradigm it becomes a block. It's not just that he doesn't understand it, he refuses to engage or use it. He can't understand it, ergo it is unusable. Even though he can see that it does what we say it does, because it doesn't fit his worldview, it can't do it and if it can't do it, there's no point learning to use it.
I'm not that extreme. Yet. But I guess I've inherited a similar determination to understand; I'm much more pragmatic, if it works, I'll use it, but I still want to know how - and still have an inbuilt belief that with a bit of effort, I could know. So that might explain my problem with mystery - and if anything that follows offends you, you can blame my genes.
I'm not that extreme. Yet. But I guess I've inherited a similar determination to understand; I'm much more pragmatic, if it works, I'll use it, but I still want to know how - and still have an inbuilt belief that with a bit of effort, I could know. So that might explain my problem with mystery - and if anything that follows offends you, you can blame my genes.
Why didn't God answer my prayers and heal my friend?
I don't know, it's a mystery, it all works out in the end.
I believe God created us for relationship. And not a master-slave, I'm the creator of the universe you are only here under sufferance you worthless ****, one false step and I'll squash you, which is what you really deserve , kind of relationship. No, I believe we are created ultimately for a husband - wife kind of open, intimate, nothing hidden, joint decision making, mutual submission, honouring kind of relationship. I'm sorry if that sounds blasphemous, but God chose to use that metaphor... I know some of you might baulk at joint decision making, mutual submission, but I'm going to hang my hat on the full context of Ephesians 5...
Anyway, my point is this. if God wants that kind of relationship, I'm pretty confident that He is able to create me with the capacity to fulfil it. I get that I can't create a universe or know all that he knows or be wherever he wants to be simultaneously. I get that He has abilities that are far above mine, that His ways are pure and holy in ways that mine just aren't. I get that there are things that I just won't understand about the nature of the universe, the complexities of situations.
Anyway, my point is this. if God wants that kind of relationship, I'm pretty confident that He is able to create me with the capacity to fulfil it. I get that I can't create a universe or know all that he knows or be wherever he wants to be simultaneously. I get that He has abilities that are far above mine, that His ways are pure and holy in ways that mine just aren't. I get that there are things that I just won't understand about the nature of the universe, the complexities of situations.
Where was God when I was getting hurt?
Right there with you
Why didn't he stop it then?
I don't know,it's a mystery, trust Him, it all works out in the end
But in terms of knowing God; His ways, His heart, knowing how my relationship with Him works, how to communicate, how to pray, what that does, how it works, why in principle, it sometimes doesn't.- these are things that I must be able to know if i am to have the kind of relationship with Him that would make all he has done worthwhile.
My God is big enough and creative enough to create mankind with the ability to know Him and know his ways without us having to resort to 'mystery' when instead of thinking it through we hold mutually exclusive concepts about God.
What would God have to be like in order for Him to create us with the capacity for reason, to go out of His way to communicate with us, to tell us that he desires this extraordinary relationship, but leave us short of the capability to understand things that really matter, that make such a relationship possible?
My God is big enough and creative enough to create mankind with the ability to know Him and know his ways without us having to resort to 'mystery' when instead of thinking it through we hold mutually exclusive concepts about God.
What would God have to be like in order for Him to create us with the capacity for reason, to go out of His way to communicate with us, to tell us that he desires this extraordinary relationship, but leave us short of the capability to understand things that really matter, that make such a relationship possible?
If God knows everything we're going to do and all the outcomes, what's the point of praying?
I don't know, it's a mystery, trust Him, it all works out in the end
When the New Testament talks about 'mystery' it is in the context of a mystery 'now revealed'. The truth is that Jesus has come to remove ambiguity, to make clear what God is like and how He works in and through us: Is God an advocate of genocide as it appears in Joshua or does He seek a peaceful transition, protecting the vulnerable, as described in the rest of the Old Testament (eg Deut 20)? The life of Jesus shines light on what was mysterious. Why isn't that boy healed when he is prayed for? Jesus shines light on it. Does God send evil spirits as the OT writers believed, or is that the work of the enemy?'Jesus shines light onto what was hidden.
If God 'elects' those who are going to be saved and predestines those who aren't, how come He judges us ?
I don't know, it's a mystery, trust Him, it all works out in the end
"Ah, but you are not called to know these things, you are called to trust God" is the answer on many lips... And I understand that. My dad should just trust that the phone works, not refuse to engage with it because he doesn't. But trust is based on knowledge, I've seen that the phone works, I understand how to use it. But I don't trust somebody with valuable things, material or emotional, until they have proved themselves worthy of that trust. God doesn't expect me to. He says 'taste and see that The lord is good'. It's what he expects. Yet in the face of the issues raised here, if all I get back is "It's a mystery, trust Him" my not unreasonable response is "why?". The risk is that in this 'mysterious' world, God can appear capricious, unreliable, disinterested, distant yet judging. He is perceived to have it all sewn up, smugly knowing everything whilst pulling our strings. The 'good' news becomes a God who has set everything up knowing the suffering it will bring and 'solves' it by having His own son murdered. In what universe such views can be described as 'love' really is a mystery.
I'm not saying that there is nothing about God that is unknowable. I'm not trying to bring God down to my size. I'm suggesting that He has graciously made us big enough to understand many of the things described as mystery.
We might need to change our paradigm, the phone doesn't need a film. An almighty God doesn't have to control. An infinitely creative God doesn't have to forsee the future in order to guarantee it. If you want to read more , click on the button below.
I believe God is knowable, through the person of Jesus, the perfect revelation of God - the mystery, hidden down the ages, now revealed.
I'm not saying that there is nothing about God that is unknowable. I'm not trying to bring God down to my size. I'm suggesting that He has graciously made us big enough to understand many of the things described as mystery.
We might need to change our paradigm, the phone doesn't need a film. An almighty God doesn't have to control. An infinitely creative God doesn't have to forsee the future in order to guarantee it. If you want to read more , click on the button below.
I believe God is knowable, through the person of Jesus, the perfect revelation of God - the mystery, hidden down the ages, now revealed.