To whom will you compare me?

A recent post at Banned by HWA, God, The Absolute, was of particular interest to this blogger because it is congruous with the theme of my own blog. The post opens with a bold and profound statement. We read: "God is absolute.  And the problem with trying to describe the absoluteness of God is that all of the vocabulary we might use is human and limited. We try to dress this human language up in an attempt to express the state of being absolute, but the result is just awkward." The author then proceeded to demonstrate the inadequacy of just one of the many adjectives which we employ to try to describe God: omnipotent. The author went on to make the point that ALL of our attempts to describe God result in inadequate analogies (comparisons to ourselves or what we know/experience of the physical realm).

In the book of Isaiah, we read that God said: "To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?" (46:5) The clear implication being that there is NO ONE with whom we can compare or equate God! To make sure that this point was not overlooked, just a few verses later, we read: "Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me." (46:9) Further underscoring the differences between God and us, a little later on in the book, we read: "'My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,' says the Lord. 'And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.'" (55:8-9)

Of course, there are also those passages which inspired the title and theme of this blog (I Kings 8:27 and II Chronicles 6:18). Realizing the utter inadequacy of any temple which he could construct for the God of Israel, Solomon is reported to have said: "But will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built!"

Indeed, there are a number of passages of Scripture which come to mind in this connection (demonstrating just how different God is from us). For instance, there are a number of passages in the book of Job which underscore God's superiority to us, but there is one in the book of Samuel that makes crystal clear that our human judgment is very different from Divine judgment. In that narrative, we read that God had sent Samuel to anoint a new king over Israel (after Saul's failure). In the course of performing that task, Samuel was particularly impressed with Jesse's son, Eliab (I Samuel 16:6). God, however, had someone else in mind. We read: "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" (Verse 7)

Hence, we see that Scripture speaks of a God who cannot be quantified or explained by humans - an entity who is completely beyond our capacity to fully comprehend! Moreover, a God who exists outside of that which limits and confines us clarifies just how deficient any attempts by us to describe or characterize God must be. This, of course, presents a real problem for Fundamentalists. After all, if our imagination and language are not equal to the task, then there isn't ANY explanation (Divine or human) which would do justice to the subject of God (persona, character, or will). In other words, even Scripture must be regarded as a feeble attempt to explain God and "his" will!

And, if the gulf that exists between us and the Divine is that great, then how could such a God interact with inferior humans? For the answer to that question, we are again forced to draw upon our own limited perspective. How do we interact with animals and humans who do not possess our intellectual capacity? If we are motivated by love (as Scripture indicates that God is), then we simplify the way that we communicate to make it easier for them to comprehend us, and we exercise a great deal of forbearance - don't we? And aren't there a great many things that we humans think and do that we wouldn't dream of sharing with a cow, horse, cat, or dog? Admittedly, it is extremely humbling to consider, but don't you think that it's extremely likely that such considerations might apply to the way that God would choose to interact with us?

Do we begin to see the absurdity of claiming that ANY book adequately explains God or "his" will to humans? We are limited - God is NOT. Moreover, our limitations extend in ALL directions! As I've mentioned before, we only see a very small slice of the light spectrum. We only hear a small slice of the frequencies floating around in our universe. We've only ever traveled to one world outside of our own (our own satellite, the moon), and that only a handful of times. The fastest speed that humans have ever achieved is just under 25,000 miles per hour (Apollo 10). The longest any human has ever lived that has been authenticated is just over 122 years (most of us consider ourselves lucky to reach 80 years on this planet). The highest intelligence quotients (IQ) ever recorded among humans are in the range of 220-240 (most of us fall within the range of 90-120). Do we begin to appreciate the extent of our limitations?

Moreover, this limitation of the human written word is also underscored in the New Testament. In the Gospel of John, we read that "Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written." (21:25) Speaking of himself and the Christians at Corinth, Paul wrote: "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." (I Corinthians 13:12) Once again, Scripture is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and instructing us in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). In short, God uses Scripture to make sure that we are equipped to do what is right in "his" sight (verse 17). The notion that Scripture could be ANYTHING more than that is absurd and probably blasphemous! Scripture gives us SOME insight into a piece of God's mind and a portion of his will and plans. It simply CANNOT do anything more than that! And we would all be a whole lot happier and on a more solid spiritual foundation if we could accept this truth!