9/14 – Understanding the Trinity…but not really, because we can’t?

           

Peter:

Laurel spoke today.  I’ve never heard her speak before, which isn’t surprising considering my chapel attendance record for the last three years.  I was impressed for the most part; she had good things to say, or at least seemed to.  The others I spoke to seemed to appreciate her talk as well.  Supposedly today’s chapel was about the trinity.  Not really, perhaps peripherally so, but not directly about the trinity.  Instead she talked about… understanding, knowing, and awe-ing.
            According to an anonymous friend I asked after chapel her thesis was as follows: ‘she said lots of different things, but it was mainly about how we will not ever understand the trinity, but that we should keep trying.’  When pressed as to why we should keep trying there was no satisfactory answer given, but according to me it would be something along the lines of ‘because God is so awesome and He is interested in us.’  Anyways, to briefly run through Laurel’s outline she started out saying that this semester we’re trying to understand the trinity, that there are three components to consider when trying to know God, who happens to be a trinity (tying in the trinity as best I can here), which include understanding, knowing, and awe-ing.  She stated that understanding was being able to conceptualize something, that knowing was to have an intimate knowledge or experience of something, and that the quote unquote ‘awe-factor’ was the fact that God is awesome, more so than we can imagine, and we should be in awe of him.  None of this actually made comprehensive sense at the time, nor was it organized in such a way as to be conducive to a general understanding of what in the world she was trying to really say.  It didn’t help that she started to use interchangeably two words integral to her talk (understanding and knowing), and seeing as she made the statement that we can know but cannot understand God it became too confusing to follow all too fast.  Most people I talked to identified the main point being that we cannot, no matter how we try, understand God.  Seeing as her main points seemed to be very convoluted, and in general not helpful in studying the trinity, I’ll have to talk about something else.  There are two points she made that I found intriguing. 

First, she attempted at the conclusion-ish part of her talk to make a point, I think in response to the ‘what now’ question that inevitably arises when you say you can’t understand something but should apply yourself to its pursuit anyways.  She started to ramble on a bit, but I think I got her main succession of logic, which again, doesn’t make sense to me but it’s intriguing to consider:

1. we have to trust God,
2. that He will reveal himself to us and help us understand or know Him,
3. we should then trust what we do know, which God has revealed to us,
4. and not obsess about what we don’t know. 

What about this succession makes sense?  Trust is a tricky thing.  As one friend explained it, people trust in one of two ways: either the thing/person they trust they trust because of their belief in human nature, or the nature of the world, or they begin as skeptical and allow their trust to be earned through experience.  Now to be very honest I have a hard time trusting God.  I mean, I trust him to figure my life out, but I find it very difficult for me to trust him to help me figure him out.  Logically trust should be based upon knowledge, and Laurel seems to have reversed it.  It intrigues me, and now I’m questioning the relationship between trust and knowledge.  If God is our sole source of knowledge of God, and we can only learn about him with his revelation to us, it’s like me telling you that yes, you can trust me.  I could tell you all these wonderful things about me, but in the end do you trust me?  I could do all these wonderful things for you, but will that really show you my nature, or what I want you to think of my nature?  It’s confusing, and the more time I spend on it the more time I’m sure I know less than I did moments ago.  I will say, however, that I would agree wholeheartedly that understanding and knowledge is of God (1 Jn 5:20 read it).

            The second thing of interest she mentioned is the proverbial box, or bag, or whatever you want to call the great resources of our knowledge or the processes of our understanding.  People, especially Christian speakers have this thing about saying ‘don’t put God in a box.’  It grates on my nerves partly because every speaker who says that have gone on to describe God in their own way, using words just as limiting as any other words anybody else may have used.  I’ve heard it for forever, and I don’t understand.  Let’s assume for the sake of argument that God is helping us to understand him through not only general revelation, but also special revelation, as well as working in and through us.  Why in the world can we not put him in the box which he presents himself in?  God is love, God is good, and God is infinite.  All three of those are definitions, by definition of definition, finite concepts, some paradoxically so, but through these three ‘limiting’ descriptions, God describes himself, and I contend that to understand God in any one of these three concepts is important.  I’m sure there are other concepts which you could categorize God in, such as holy, triune, just, merciful, spirit, and I could go on.  Each of these descriptors by definition limits God, but I would say that is a good thing, mostly because these are how God describes himself through his word.  People also say that the question ‘can God build a rock so big that he cannot carry it?’ is invalid because it is a logical impossibility, and God is logical, they contend he created logic and therefore that is who He is.  I don’t understand how those Christian speakers are not putting God in a box.  I like it though.  To know and understand with the mind is a God given ability.

And this takes me to the point I guess I’ve been avoiding making all along.  I disagree with Laurel.  I believe we can understand God.  Not fully, of course, but can you understand me fully?  Really?  In the previous post I described myself with a number of labels I identify with, and while the definitions of those labels are fluid I submit that they help you understand me as much as the Bible helps me understand God.  I can know my father, my brothers, my mother, and my sisters as intimately as I can know anybody, and I would say I understand them.  Not everything about them, but that goes without saying, and so I contend that I do understand God.  I can comprehend him.  Not fully, that also goes without saying, but I know him as I know anybody who writes a whole friggin book about themselves for me to read, as much as I know anybody whose artwork I’ve seen, as much as understand anybody whose spoken to me, who I’ve spoken to.  Call me blasphemous, but God is understandable, indeed, maybe more understandable than most people or things you know and understand.  He’s revealed more about his nature than I even know about my own nature, and so I could say that I understand God better than I understand myself.  As a sociology student I try my best to understand society, but honestly I think God is easier to understand.  Do you get my point?  People say that it’s impossible to understand God, but that’s merely the paradoxical implication of the definition of ‘understand.’  People can understand God just as easily as anything else.  I don’t understand why the Minnesota Twins play certain players over others, or why they lose when they should win, how can I be expected to understand God any less?  I realize I’m beginning to ramble, but it’s because I guess I’m just fed up with people saying I can’t understand God, like after all he’s done to reveal his nature to us am I really expected to understand him less than anything else?  Laurel mentioned three things: knowledge of God, which I would agree with her, you can know God through intimate experiences with him.  Secondly, she mentioned understanding, which she said was unattainable, which I bitterly disagree with unless she concedes that in the very definition of understand is the clause that it is never complete, and thirdly, she mentioned awe.  She said that we should perceive God awestruck by his wonder; and the craziness that we, insignificant as we may seem to some, are precious to God.  The only thing is, if we cannot understand the unfathomable depths of God’s love for us, how can we hold Him in awe?  If we do not understand His awe-worthiness, what gives us the right to observe God in awe?  I contend that we must understand God before we can hold him in awe: we must understand how limitlessly awesome he truly is before we can honestly behold him unbelievably, in awe.  Do I know everything about God? No, of course not, but I can only state that through understanding my very incapability to know everything about infinity, and beyond.

Tim:

So chapel today was again about the Trinity. This makes sense because it seems to be the theme for the month or semester or year or something like that. I have to say, though, I’m not sure what today really had to do with the Trinity. But I’ll get to that when I get to it.

When we sat down, the first thing we observed was a large fabric screen hanging in front of half the stage. As it turns out, it was part of a pretty cool dance sort of thing. Three guys sang a song that reminded me of Gregorian chants, which I thought was pretty cool. It morphed into the Doxology (“Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow”) and behind the screen three people were dancing, so we could see their somewhat undefined silhouettes. It was cool. I wasn’t sure if the three people were supposed to represent the three parts of the Trinity, but I think they might have. If not, I will pretend they did, because I think it’d be a clever idea.

I think other than the style of music, which I wish we would have more of these days, my favorite part was a line about God caring for his “erring children.” This is something that is close to my heart, because I think it is so important but we tend to forget about it. We focus all our strength on trying to obey God and do everything right. When at first we don’t succeed, we just feel like miserable failures and ponder our uselessness. I think some part of us worries that we have let God down and maybe even angered him. Or maybe it’s just me. Yet, despite the fact that God is routinely referred to as our heavenly Father and we His children, we never stop to think about our relationship with him in terms of an analogy to the family. I don’t know about other people, but if my child made a big mistake, I don’t think I would strictly be disappointed or angry. I would certainly be those things for a little while. But they would be overwhelmed by my longing to see them succeed, not for my sake but for theirs. I would want to help them. I don’t need them to impress me by their abilities; I want to be a part of helping them grow. I am pretty sure it’s the same with God. It isn’t about me trying to do what he wants as much as it is about God and I learning to do what is best for both me and everyone around me. I guess all that is to say that I think we can all use a reminder that God is actually on our team, not in the stands.

After this, Laurel took the stage. I will confess I always feel a little uneasy anticipation when Laurel talks because she’s pretty charismatic and I am not really the hand-raising, hallelujah-shouting type. You will you ever find me prostrate on the stage floor or in the mosh pit for Jesus that sometimes develops in the front rows. But there was none of that. Instead, she announced she’d be talking about the Trinity.  “Ah,” I said. “More of the Trinity.” The last talk about the Trinity had some leaps in logic that I had trouble comprehending, so I hoped maybe this one would be easier to follow. Turns out other than repeating, but not explaining the things said last week, she didn’t actually talk about the Trinity at all.  The actual message for today concerned knowing God. She broke this up into what she characterized as “understanding, knowing, and the awe factor.” From that, it wasn’t too difficult to guess what she’d say, and she pretty much stuck to what I expected to hear. She explained that to understand is to know with your mind, but that the mind can only understand so much. Our finite minds will never fully wrap around God’s infinite being. This, she lamented, has caused many people to walk away from God.

Then she moved on to extol the virtues of “knowing.” Knowing does not necessarily entail understanding. Like we know certain things have happened to us (say, a scab forms when we cut ourselves), we often don’t understand how they happened. So, she said, we can still intimately know God without understanding him. Then, she discussed the “awe factor.” To do this she showed a video of someone (Francis Chan, maybe, or something like that?) talking about the massive size of the universe. He zoomed out from the earth into space, showing earth getting progressively smaller until at 100 million light years, the entire Milky Way was lost in a crowd of galaxies. She then said how the same God that created all that also holds us in his hand and knows our names and cares about us. Now, I will be perfectly honest and say that while that is certainly impressive, I have heard it enough times that it no longer really awes me, except if I’m actually outside looking up at the stars myself.

In any case, she then got to the heart of her talk which consisted of two things, I thought. The first was something of a foundation for the second. First, she noted that understanding and the awe factor were nothing without knowing God. We can understand a lot of intellectual things, but it is quite another thing to connect with and know God. How can we do this?

The second part of her message focused on this question. It is done, she said, through knowing the Bible, the work of the Holy Spirit, and through God’s natural revelation of himself. But, we have to go beyond just recognizing these things, and answer God’s call to partner with him in this thing we call life. Somehow, this was supposed to relate to the Trinity. In my mind, it related to the Trinity only in that she bookended her talk with references to the Trinity. I will confess I was a little flummoxed when, after spending 30 minutes talking (apparently) about understanding the Trinity, she concluded that we can’t understand God, we just have to know him. This was not satisfactory to me, but didn’t bother me terribly as the whole “understanding the Trinity” thing had little to do with the topic in my mind. So I pondered this “knowing” and “understanding” thing.

Several things came to mind. What exactly she means by “knowing” God or his Word? What about those, like myself, who have been blessed (or cursed) with an insatiable appetite for intellectual knowledge and understanding? Along with that, I assume she doesn’t mean that we should abandon attempts to understand, but isn’t that likely to be an implication? And isn’t there some level where understanding and knowledge contribute to one another? Is the pursuit of understanding bound to take us away from God? (I realize she did not claim it would, but I simply follow my mind where it goes).

My musings on these questions aren’t particularly profound, I don’t think. But sometimes it’s easy for us to get lost between what is said and what is meant. When she says “know God,” or really what she said in this whole talk, it feels hollow to me. Why? Partly because we’ve heard it all before and it hasn’t revolutionized our lives. Partly because we prayed the prayers and read our Bibles and we don’t see many astounding things happening all around us. We feel like we DO know God to a degree and have been trying to for years. But despite that, we still feel that the more we “understand,” the harder it is not to walk away.

Could it be that the very dichotomy between “knowing” and “understanding” is artificial and possibly dangerous? If you talk to me enough, you will hear me get on my soapbox and rant about the separation of God from science, history, and even theology. A false dichotomy has been set up over the last couple hundred years between “understanding” and God. It is as if we don’t think God can hold up under scrutiny, so we declare intellectuals to be misguided haters who ought to be ignored. Thus, academia is bound to destroy your faith. I think not. I think it’s certainly possible and happens a LOT. But what if it’s because people’s faith and “knowledge” of God is neither of those things? What if it is little more than a false sense of security provided by a “knowledge” that has been gift-wrapped and passed down from our pulpits and our flannel graphs? When that has to stand up against the mountains of “understanding” that we face in an academic setting, our “knowledge” buckles and collapses. We lose our faith. I don’t think it’s because we haven’t been touched by God and don’t “know” him in some way. Maybe we just don’t understand that we have been touched by him. We have all felt him, and we “know” those things in a very real way, unlike what we often receive from our religious leaders.

The things we DO know in the sense that I think she means are things like pain and emptiness, the urge to help a starving child, and the joy we get from our friends and our hobbies. None of these things involve understanding at their core. I would not disagree with her presupposition that knowing God is a fundamentally experiential and perhaps impossible to understand phenomenon. But, I am afraid that a message like hers can be taken to mean that we should not pursue understanding with our whole being.

That crushes someone like me. I didn’t learn empathy through my intellectual understanding of events, but that understanding certainly shaped and molded the ways I channel that empathy. I didn’t learn joy or pain from a scholar, but I did learn something about joy and pain throughout the human race. And through those things, I learned to realize the potential of my innate knowledge. In the same way, by seeking (and often failing) to understand God, we often complement our knowledge of him. She’s right in saying that we will never fully understand God in an intellectual way. But I think it’s important that we still try. Through that, we may well get to know him.

Overall, I think her message was good. I just hope that people really heard it, because I think it’s something that can easily go in one ear and out the other. And I hope people don’t get caught up in the words, but instead dig deeper than the few things she suggested for how to know God. I agree with her that we need to immerse ourselves in Scripture and seek the Holy Spirit and observe his works and ultimately agree to partner with him in order to know him.

But I think there could possibly be more. Maybe we can also get to know God by applying our innate passions to godly purposes, even if that passion is something like seeking understanding. Also, we also have to remember that we don’t already know God. And that by hearing a pastor who may “know” God, we don’t necessarily meet him. We meet him in our own lives and in the ways that he designed for us. No one else can hand us the type of “knowledge” she is getting at. I hope that I will learn to more fully understand God through my deepest longings, my innate “knowledge,” if you will. And I pray that through a deepening understanding God and my fellow man, our intimate “knowledge” of him will glorify his Name.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 – Philippians 4:7