I am who I am. Exodus 3:14 (NLT)
Kind of Knowing – Prayer and Mystery Series – Part 1
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
Romanian-French Playwright Eugène Ionesco once said: “Over-explanation separates us from astonishment.”
It’s tempting to try and “nail God down” to a specific definition. Explain him, box him, package him up and turn him into a neat and tidy “product.” Trying to understand God in an intellectual and practical way isn’t a bad thing; it's part of the process.
It's in our nature to want to seek a mystery out to understand it fully, which would make it a mystery no longer. But here’s the thing: God is endlessly mysterious, we can never fully “know” him. Our humble forms of language will never be able to express all that he is and does.
Richard Rohr says it like this:
“We all need, forever, what Jesus described as ‘the beginner’s mind’ of a curious child. A beginner’s mind… is the best path for spiritual wisdom. Tobin Hart writes: ‘Instead of grasping for certainty, wisdom rides the question, lives the question…. When the quest for certainty and control is pushed to the background, the possibility of wonder returns. Wonder provides a gateway to wise insight.’
Incorporating negative and self-critical thinking is essential to true prophetic understanding. At the same time, we must also trust that we are held irrevocably in the mystery of God’s love, without fully understanding it.
Alongside all our knowing, accompanying every bit of our knowing, must be the humble ‘knowing that we do not know.’ That’s why the great tradition of prayer is balanced by both kataphatic knowing, through images and words, and apophatic knowing, through silence, images, and beyond words.
Apophatic knowing is the empty space around the words, allowing God to fill in all the gaps in an ‘unspeakable’ way.
Strangely enough, this unknowing is a new kind of understanding. We have a word for it: faith, a kind of knowing that doesn’t need to know and yet doesn’t dismiss knowledge either; a kind of knowing that doesn’t need to hold everything itself because, at a deeper level, it knows it is being held.”
It would seem that wisdom is also held at bay by our insatiable hunger for certainty and answers. And not just in a faith sense. Across all disciplines and areas, the moment you think you have arrived at THE truth is the moment you stop progressing.
In Exodus chapter three, Moses asked God, “When I’m asked who you are, what should I say?”
God replied with this phrase:
“Ehyeh? ašer?ehyeh.“
Which most closely means:
“I am who I am.
(and/or)
I will be what I will be.”
How do you box that into a definition?
Some theological practices say that we make an idol out of our concepts of who God is; in trying to explain and define him exclusively or concretely is in itself a form of idolatry.
You can see that there is a tension between “knowing God” and knowing that you don’t “know God.” And this tension is vital for vibrant and robust faith. (I would actually say that it IS faith.)
We need to hold both ends of it: if we hold too tightly to definition, we’ll be rigid and staunch. But if we hold only to mystery, we’ll float away from reality. We need to hold both in an open handed and hearted way.
Over the next few days, lets talk about knowing and unknowing. Our need to understand a thing, our need to understand that we can't know all things, and the joy and grace that dwells between the two. It's called Apophaticism (go ahead and google if you want).
It’s the practice of knowing things about God, but knowing that what we know isn’t the end of all that there is to know. In this practice, you speak about what God is NOT in an attempt to release our understanding of him from the confines of our limited language.
This practice opens us up to wisdom, humility, and wonder. It's the kind of “knowing that doesn’t need to hold everything itself because, at a deeper level, it knows it is being held.”
More tomorrow…
PLEASE NOTE: As always, please email your thoughts, suggestions, and questions to talktous@pktfuel.com. And remember: although we aren’t pastors, theologians or councilors, these daily blogs are our way of sharing our thoughts, prayers, and inspirations about God, faith, and life. We’re exploring and reading, engaging in community and listening to stories. We do not want you to take what we write verbatim. RATHER, we hope you engage in the conversation (whether with us or your own community) and are encouraged to seek out God in your life and the world around you. Awake, aware, alive. Head to our website pktfuel.com for more. Lizzy (and Jesse).
Your turn! Leave us your comments below.
Go to Part 2 – Be Still and Know »
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Hi Lizzy and Jesse,
This is an epic post for me. I’ve just been learning about the Apophatic tradition and it has been so helpful. I loved your statement: “the moment you think you have arrived at THE truth is the moment you stop progressing.” I think this is why my faith ultimately died. I thought I had “the truth” all figured out, thus my curiosity and sense of wonder was shelved for years. It died of starvation. I believe this is why in 2013 I went through a season of being a closet atheist. God had died to me. But I’m slowly learning that that God had to die. It was a prepackaged western, conservative, republican, Baptist, American Christian God. Rubbish! In many ways my perspectives of God have shifted so much that I literally feel “born again.” (Even though I completely shy away from using that term anymore.)
I was a media/teaching pastor for over 16 years. As I look back, my boxed up notions of God had closed me off His/Her greatness, majesty and wonder. In fact, I would have told you years ago that being a mystic was bad, or at least highly suspect. Once some friends help me release God out of the tightly wrapped evangelical box – you know the one mandatory for being in “the club” – I formed an insatiable curiosity for the Divine and for Truth. Truth available from any and every source. This kind of curiosity, as you know, is considered dangerous for those in the evangelical box. I would rarely read while a pastor, unless it was for some sermon prep. Now, I’m typically in the middle of 2 or 3 books simultaneously – not to mention blogs, podcasts and of course, Pocket Fuel! I can’t get enough.
I’m currently collaborating on a film book trailer for author Pete Enns. He recently finished a book, “The Sin of Certainty.” (You’ve probably heard of him. If not, read his stuff, you’ll love it.) We shot him being interviewed by Mike McHargue for an “Ask Science Mike” episode. (Check him out too, if you haven’t already.) We were asked to film it the night before (long story) and shoot it inside a domed observatory at Eastern University near Philadelphia. The interview went great, but I’ve wrestled with how we would integrate the “star gazing” metaphor into his interview content. But this morning as I was reading you’re the first post of your new series, the quote from Tobin Hart unlocked it for me: “When the quest for certainty and control is pushed to the background, the possibility of wonder returns. Wonder provides a gateway to wise insight.”
This will be the perfect ending. It ties it all together. Thanks so much.