Words and Images Fall Short

I have started reading two books, about different topics, but they raise a similar refrain as they begin. The first is Entertaining the Triune Mystery: God, Science, and the Space Between by Jeffrey C Pugh. The second is Why? By Adam Hamilton. The first is obviously going to be an exploration of science and faith. The second looks at those age-old questions about God and suffering, pain and evil.

The refrain that I “hear” in these books is that too often we fall into the trap of trying to limit God to the words and images that we use to describe God. Pugh says that “the images of God we have been struggling with for millennia can be images that can never capture the totality of the One who stands at the boundaries of thought (p. 6).” Hamilton says, “Our disappointment with God in the face of suffering or tragedy or injustice typically stems from our assumptions about how God is supposed to work in our world. When God does not meet our expectations, we are disappointed, disillusioned, and confused (location 75 on Kindle version).”

The sense that I got from both is how God is immensely beyond my scope of understanding. All I can grasp is a mere drop in the bucket, and what I can describe is even less than that drop. In this I can best sing with the writer of Psalm 8: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” The vastness of all creation that began everywhere at once (as I learned from astronomer Jennifer Wiseman) dwarfs not just me, but all humanity. And yet…and yet…as vastly beyond creation as God is, one drop I have grasped is that God is not only aware of me, but also cares deeply about me.

In this time of journeying with Jeff through the end of life, I am grateful for this drop of knowledge. I am even more grateful that God is far beyond all I can possibly imagine or dream, let alone describe. And thus I stand in awe.