Ultimate Mystery, Ultimate Trust: A Personal View

The Waterfall Nebula
An unexplained cosmic structure some 1,350 light years from earth.
The "waterfall" of gas spans about 10 light years.
https://go.nasa.gov/2Y5xqjw

 

The Seven Virtues
Personifications above, Representatives below
Francesco Pesellino and Workshop, Florence, ca1450
Birmingham Museum of Art
https://bit.ly/2XsLE0Q

Astronomers are revealing a universe vast beyond comprehension and vastly alien to life. Can thoughtful Christians continue to embrace the central affirmation that God the Creator is love?

Biblical language and Christian hymns are rich with poetic symbolism. Will thoughtful Christians sustain and nourish traditions of sacred metaphor amid a culture of literalism, both scientific and religious?

News coverage keeps us continually disturbed by situations of appalling human suffering. Can thoughtful Christians respond to the question "Why doesn't God intervene?"

I have found help with such questions in two spheres of reflection: the cosmos as ultimate mystery, and faith as ultimate trust.

ULTIMATE MYSTERY

Biblical scripture offers numerous declarations that God is beyond our understanding. Sometimes the declarations draw imagery from land and sea:

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
     How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
     I come to the end—I am still with you. (Psalm 139.17–18, New Revised Standard Version)

The first man did not know Wisdom fully,
     nor will the last one fathom her.
For her thoughts are more abundant than the sea,
     and her counsel deeper than the great abyss. (Ecclesiasticus 24.28–29)

Often the imagery is astronomical:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
     nor are your ways my ways,
     says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
     so are my ways higher than your ways
     and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8–9) 

God made the Bear and Orion
     the Pleiades and the chambers of the south
who does great things beyond understanding,
     and marvelous things without number. (Job 9.9–10)

These words come from an age when our world was assumed to be central to creation and the constellations were thought to be embedded in a fixed dome of sky:

"He made firm the skies above." (Proverbs 8.28)

I compare these biblical passages with reports from contemporary astronomers concerning cosmic numbers:

There are something like 300 billion stars in the Milky Way, so if 10 per cent of them have planets there are around 30 billion planets in our galaxy alone, and there are over 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, for a total of something in the order of 10 to the 21st power (that's 1 then 21 zeros) planets in the observable Universe. [University of Cambridge Institute of Astronomy https://bit.ly/2MJ7sBm ]

Job got it right: "...marvelous things without number."

Astronomers are also updating cosmic distances. Recent photographs have registered galaxies 13 billion light years away. I think about that: 13 billion is an immense number; 13 billion miles is an unimaginable distance; but these galaxies are 13 billion light years away. In miles, that's 75 followed by 27 zeros. It's instructive to write that number out.

Isaiah got it right: "...the heavens are higher than the earth."

I remind myself that in biblical times the background dome of sky must have been far darker and the stars far more brilliant than I have ever experienced. Biblical writers certainly felt wonder and awe under their sky. But they knew nothing about astronomical numbers, ages, and distances. Aware today of the incomprehensible scope of the universe, must I not admit that creation seems vastly alien to human interests?

This is in fact not a new question. Immediately following Job's "Bear and Orion" passage quoted above, the ancient text makes an unsettling tack. Job has been calling out to God from the midst of appalling personal suffering. Now he inveighs against his Creator God for being indifferent to his misery:

Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
     he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
He snatches away; who can stop him?
     Who will say to him, "What are you doing?" (Job 9.11–12)

With natural disasters such as earthquakes and tempests in mind, Job then broadens his perspective and generalizes about the Creator's indifference to human well-being:

It is all one; therefore I say
     he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
When disaster brings sudden death,
     he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. (Job 9.22–23)

We can expand Job's catalogue of natural disasters by adding tsunamis, tornadoes, E-boli viruses, lightening bolts, and the like.

Reflection on Job's accusatory words about the Creator's indifference has led me to revisit the naming of God in the Hebrew Bible:

Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3.13–14)

The Hebrew name here is YHWH. An imperfect verb, YHWH reflects God's continuous, constant character. "Thus W.F. Albright could translate YHWH as 'caused things to happen, causes things to happen, and will keep on causing things to happen.'" ["Tetragrammaton," Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, p.889.]

We might therefore speak of God as Ultimate Cause. But this suggests that God is a being among other beings, though of vastly superior power. I think it better to keep to the biblical plainness of I AM—not God as a being, but God as Being Itself.

More and more frequently I speak with thoughtful Christians who feel estranged, even repelled, by childlike images of God as a manlike being. After a disaster we often hear the anguished question "Why didn't God intervene?" But to intervene is "to enter as something extraneous" [Oxford English Dictionary]. I AM implies All-Indwelling, to which nothing is extraneous. The question of divine intervention does not apply.

I think that Christians may rightly join insurance companies in calling natural disasters "Acts of God." Yet Christ transforms the complaint about divine indifference to a lesson about divine impartiality:

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43–45, my emphasis)

In light of this teaching, instances of human enmity or atrocity should lead Christians to ask not "Why doesn't God intervene?" but "How can we intervene, impartially?"

I believe that Christians would do well to appreciate our humanlike conceptions of God as sanctified metaphor. We should minimize anthropomorphic conceptions of God in the domain of doctrine, at the same time enriching the symbolism of our hymns and prayers. These poetic expressions give voice to our deepest fears and highest aspirations, articulate our human needs and humane norms. Their metaphorical use of personal language for Divinity is instinctive and wholesome:

Cure thy children's warring madness,
     bend our pride to thy control;
shame our wanton selfish gladness,
     rich in things and poor in soul.

Save us from weak resignation
     to the evils we deplore;
let the gift of thy salvation
     be our glory evermore.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
     serving thee whom we adore.
          [Harry Emerson Fosdick, "God of Grace and God of Glory," The Hymnal 1982, #594]

I believe also that beyond even our most sublime symbolic language, Christians should acknowledge divine mystery.

A few years ago I was surprised to discover a kindred spirit in Isaac Watts (1674–1748). Watts authored some seven hundred and fifty Protestant hymn texts. I grew up singing "Joy to the World," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," and a dozen more. But I did not know that Watts was an accomplished astronomer, or that he published both a handbook of astronomy and a collection of hymns on the theme of creation's ultimate mystery.  From the Watts hymn "God's Infinity":

Thine essence is a vast abyss
     Which angels cannot sound,
An ocean of infinities
     Where all our thoughts are drowned....

In vain our haughty reason swells,
     For nothing's found in Thee
But boundless unconceivables,
     And vast eternity. [Isaac Watts, Horae lyricae, 1706]

From "Worshipping with Fear":

Created powers, how weak they be!
     How short our praises fall!
So much akin to nothing we,
     And Thou eternal All. 

Watts was able to meld his stark cosmic humility with the ardent Christian devotion he expresses in his other hymns:

Blest be the Lord, who comes to us
     with messages of grace!
Who comes, in God his Father's name,
     to save our sinful race. [The Hymnal 1982, #50]

In the end, Watts accepts the final inadequacy of our words and commends the "solemn reverence" of silence. From his hymn "God Exalted above All Praise":

Eternal Power! whose high abode
Becomes the grandeur of a God,
Infinite length beyond the bounds
Where stars revolve their little rounds....

God is in Heaven, and men below;
Be short our tunes; our words be few;
A solemn reverence checks our songs,
And praise sits silent on our tongues. [Isaac Watts, Horae lyricae]

During the late 18th century this bold hymn was found in every protestant hymnal. In hymnals published since 1980, the hymn has made only three appearances. [This information thanks to Hymnary.org. https://bit.ly/31NZzhy]

I believe that hymn collections should restore this Christian astronomer's neglected texts, and that Christian organizations should commission fresh texts and music appropriate for hymnals in our age of cosmic cartography.

ULTIMATE TRUST

I have another 18th-century soulmate in Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)—though we have our serious quarrels. [See my blog posting of 07/07/15, "The Nature of True Virtue" by Jonathan Edwards.]

With characteristic acuteness Edwards observes that while theologians undertake to describe God with countless doctrinal adjectives, such as "immutable" and "omnipresent," biblical scripture identifies God with only three nouns:

God is Reason (logos) (Jn 1.1)
God is Light (phos) (1 John 1.5)
God is Love (agape) (1 John 4.8 & 16)
          [Edwards, Treatise on Grace and other posthumously published writings, ed. Paul Helm, 1971, p.119.]

To Edward's list we may add

God is Truth (aletheia) (John 17.17)
God is Spirit (pneuma) (John 4.24)

These nouns are only suggestive, but I think of reason, light, love, and truth as a good starter list of Christian values that invite my ultimate trust.

I deliberately use "trust" here, rather than "belief" or "faith."  Biblical translators render the Greek word, pistis, variously. "Belief," I feel, is too easily identified with unexamined assent to theological propositions. "Faith," unlike pistis, has no verbal forms; I cannot say that I faith something.

In contrast, "trust," like pistis, has both nominative and verbal forms. Like pistis, "trust" is active not passive, dynamic not static, relational not private. "Trust" gives us the transitive verb "entrust." I can entrust myself to virtues such as reason, light, love, and truth. [See my blog posting of 10/31/16, Pistis: Faith as Believing, Faith as Trusting.]

Scripture's fifth identifying noun, Spirit, is not a value or virtue or norm. What does it mean to say that God is Spirit? At one point Edwards answers plainly:

The Holy Spirit is the sum of all good things. Good things and the Holy Spirit are synonymous expressions in Scripture. [Treatise on Grace, op. cit., p.124.]

I find Edwards' insight concerning divine nouns valuable for reflection and suggestive for prayer:

Eternal Light, shine within our hearts;
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil;
Eternal Truth, be our support;
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance;
Eternal Spirit, be our guide. [Derived from a prayer attributed to Alcuin of York (c.735–804)]

Godly qualities are certainly not restricted to this starter list of biblical nouns. Many traditions offer constellations of virtues and norms by which to steer a righteous life.

Hebrew scripture offers a triad of virtues:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
     and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
     and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6.8). 

Half a dozen Christian norms are embedded in the "Blessed" sayings from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, among them:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
Blessed are the merciful...
Blessed are the peacemakers... (Matthew 5.1-16)

The Apostle Paul provides us with the most extended of all biblical summaries of Christian norms. In his Letter to the Romans Paul recommends, in simple language, some two dozen moral qualities that are "good and acceptable and perfect."

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12.1–21).

Paul also reminds his readers of the Ten Commandments revealed to Moses (Romans 13.8-10).

One traditional Christian list joins the four Classical virtues with the three Christian virtues or graces:

Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance
Faith, Hope, Love [See the Pesellino art work above.]

Mahatma Gandhi kept lists of virtues. Reversing the traditional word order "God is Truth," Gandhi placed his ultimate trust in the affirmation "Truth is God." He grounds this trust in Sanskrit scripture—expressing in passing his opinion that anthropomorphic images of God, though not "fully significant," are likely to remain "generally current":

The word Satya (Truth) is derived from Sat, which means "being." Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact it is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is Truth. But as we cannot do without a ruler or a general, such names of God as 'King of kings' or 'The Almighty' are and will remain generally current. On deeper thinking, however, it will be realized, that Sat or Satya is the only correct and fully significant name for God. [M. K. Gandhi, Truth is God, ed. R. K. Prabhu, Navajivan Publishing House, 1955, p.20.]

Might Christians extend Gandhi's grammatical reversal to "Reason is God," "Light is God," "Love is God"? I think we should consider it.

The traditional "God is Love," for example, is difficult to make intelligible in a creation that is stupendously alien to life. "Love is God," in contrast, identifies love as a godly quality deserving my ultimate trust, meriting my devotion, warranting my worship.

Sorting through virtues and incorporating them into day-to-day living can be a messy struggle. Whatever listings we consider, problems arise. Virtues are sometimes at odds with each other. Are the virtues of love and mercy, for example, compatible with a soldier's fortitude in defense of justice?  Adopting virtue as an ultimate concern can easily can lead to self-righteousness—to becoming what Mark Twain has called "a good person of the worst sort." Or the converse might apply: I may find find virtue an unaccomplishable goal, and the result might be moral despair.

In this last regard, I find support and solace in my tradition. Christianity is a religion of righteousness, but not of perfectionism. A man asks Jesus:

"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." (Luke 18.18–19; also Mark 10:17-18; Matthew 19:16–17)

Christ taught his followers not a life of impossible perfection but a healing path of repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance (Luke 5.31–32).

At one point in Paul's summary of Christian norms, mentioned above, he includes a qualifying clause that I find encouraging: "If it be possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all" (Romans 12.18, my emphasis). Paul is tacitly recognizing that living "peaceably with all" is sometimes not possible.

I believe that entrusting ourselves to righteousness is the crux of Christian life. This requires courage, and I am grateful for the Psalmist's pledge and petition:

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust:
let me never be put to confusion (Psalm 71.1, King James Version).

In Edwards' extraordinary final treatise, The Nature of True Virtue (1755), he enlarges the domain of virtue beyond what we have yet considered, and the enlargement is boundless. Wasting no time, Edwards defines true virtue on page 3:

True virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to being in general [Edwards' emphasis].

Edwards uses numerous synonyms for being in general: "the universal system of existence"; "the great whole"; "the universality of things"; "the whole of universal being"; "universal existence"; "being as such"; "the whole of universal existence." (The many phrases here that involve the word "universe" reflect the likelihood that Edwards was the first resident of the Americas to read Isaac Newton.)

Edwards defines benevolence as "consent, propensity and union of heart to being in general, which is immediately exercised in a general good will." His definition suggests that a virtuous life is a trajectory of increasing good will toward "this great whole we stand related to." [The Nature of True Virtue, Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1961, pp.3, 18n.]

The opposite trajectory, Edwards says, is sin: "private interest independent of regard to the public good" [p.19]. He writes:

All sin has its source from selfishness, or from self-love not subordinate to a regard to being in general. [p. 92. See my blog posting of 10/18/13, "Evil Is Always...What?"]

For me this graceful 16th-century anthem expresses the dynamics of Christian living:

Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake,
lay not our sins to our charge,
but forgive that is past
and give us grace to amend our sinful lives;
to decline from sin and incline to virtue,
that we may walk with an upright heart,
before thee now and evermore.
     [The school of composer Christopher Tye, c.1505–c.1574]

ULTIMATE UNION

I am left with two ultimates: a cosmic sense of ultimate mystery and a religious sense of ultimate trust. Does "God" therefore become but a bipolar name for cosmic incomprehensibility and abstract virtues?

For me these two ultimates are organically united. Again the Psalmist:

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?

Yet you have made them a little lower than angels,

     and crowned them with glory and honor (Psalm 8.3–5).

The "Yet" here is profound.

We know that Being has evolved over billions of years in billions upon billions of galaxies, vastly alien to humankind.

And Yet....

In our infinitesimal domain of the universe, Being, following undeviating cosmic laws, has given rise to life, to human beings, to us, to me. And it is possible that life has arisen in our infinitesimal domain only. [See David Kipping's "Why we might be alone in the Universe" https://bit.ly/2wOIky6 ]

The light of reason has become manifest in my self- and cosmic-consciousness. I am blessed with memory and skill. Prophet and sage, Redeemer and Mahatma have taught and modeled righteousness for me. I am endowed with the capacity to discern virtues worthy of ultimate trust. I create and enjoy beauty. I love and am loved. I rejoice in the Holy Spirit as the sum of all good things.

Reason, Light, Love, Truth, Spirit: all of these are somehow, inscrutably, unfathomably incipient, ingrained, immanent, and now manifest in Universal Being, in God.

How can this be? I am silenced by a sense of mysterium tremendum et fascinans—mystery perturbing and enthralling. I am absorbed in awe, gratitude, and reverence.

*****