“The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up.” Rob Bell
I recently encountered an interesting question in Brent Cunningham’s blog: “Does God really ‘forget’ when He forgives?”
For me, Brent’s article prompts another question: “Do you think you understand God?”
My answer would be an unqualified, “No.” But then I’d need to immediately qualify my unqualified answer.
If I’ve learned anything from the story of Relentless Grace, it’s that God is bigger than anything I can wrap my limited brain around. Every time I think I have Him cornered and categorized, He drops into my heart in a way that explodes my feeble attempt to confine Him. As a slow learner, I’ve finally understood that I’ll never really understand.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t understand, and that surely seems paradoxical. How is it possible to know without really knowing?
Some would maintain that we cannot really know anything about an invisible, infinite God, and that any definite claim about Him or His nature places Him in a human-created box. This view denies Scripture, in which God reveals many truths about Himself. I trust what the Bible says about God.
But I don’t think the Bible tells me EVERYTHING about Him. Infinity and eternity are beyond my comprehension; I can approximate them, I can certainly visualize some aspects of them, but any claim of total insight into infinity represents human arrogance.
Some aspects of God’s nature remain a mystery to us, and that’s okay with me. Mystery doesn’t mean I know nothing; it simply means I don’t know everything. I must accept responsibility for learning all that I can learn without demanding a theology that completely, totally, and finally captures God’s nature.
I once heard someone say, “The Bible contains many paradoxes but no contradictions.”
That makes sense to me. Apparent contradictions require further study and understanding. Paradoxes are those aspects of God’s nature that He’s chosen not to reveal yet. I pray for the wisdom to understand the difference.
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12)
How can God “forget” and “know everything” at the same time? Doesn’t it have to be one or the other?
For humans, it does. But for God, all things are possible. He can do what I cannot.
I’m glad.
What aspect of God remains paradoxical to you?
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