The Two-Way Mirror: More on the CONCEPT of God
Posted: September 24th, 2005, 3:53 pmI've been pondering this idea of the CONCEPT of God quite a bit lately...
My first thought yesterday morning, as soon as I woke up, was that we ALL often take certain actions based on Concepts that we hold to be true... For example, "Retirement" is a Concept about my future about which I take action today, by saving and investing (though I don't ever plan to actually retire)... A "flat Earth" was a Concept originally held by scientists and later challenged by explorers, who took action by sailing across the ocean... "Freedom of Religion" was a Concept that the pilgrims held to be so priceless that scores of them took action and boarded ships and sailed to the "New World" (many dying along the way)...
Examples abound. So it's no great stretch to conclude that the CONCEPT of God can (and very often does) compel Humans to take certain actions and to live their lives in certain ways... Both terrorists and fundamentalist Baptists are on the extreme fringes, perhaps, but I'm wondering aloud, here, if I am not indeed beginning to be comfortable with acting out the CONCEPT that the God I say I believe in is actually real, and that this is "okay", is "normal"....
Then, of course, I must also add a principle I learned from Sheldon Vanauken (both from his books and from the man himself, through letters and a single, incredible visit to his "bird house" before he died) -- that is, that the Choice to "reject" is just as big a step of Faith as the Choice to "accept"... applied here, it means that I can leave off pursuing a "real" God because I view God as only a "Concept", or I can let that "Concept" actually guide what I do and say, even if sometimes it feels as if I'm stumbling around in the dark... Hmmmmm.....................
But here is the one HUGE, glaring difference:
In the examples above, the Concepts were fairly "neutral" things, but in this case, the "Concept" is said to be a PERSON, a real BEING, with characteristics (Omniscience, etc.) that we can barely begin to fathom. This PERSON generally does not manifest Himself directly to us (dispelling the whole idea of "Concept"), and, given the vast complexity of the Human Mind, may in fact BE merely a concept...
Picture yourself in a very luxurious interrogation room, and at one end is a large mirror... You understand immediately that the mirror is actually a 2-way mirror, and that somebody -- HIM -- is on the other side... You are certain that He hears you (microphone system in the room somewhere), but He NEVER makes Himself manifest to you, though you're sure He is watching everything you do...
Is this not about as close to our ACTUAL experience of God as it gets? We "believe" He's on the other side of the mirror, we "believe" He's more than a "Concept", but in the end, it's more like HOPE, eh? And that Hope compels us to live AS IF He is there, AS IF He hears us, and AS IF He is somehow involved in our lives (answering prayers, changing us, drawing us to Himself)...Yet we stare into the mirror and see only our own bewildered face staring back at us...
No conclusion to this, really; I'm just pondering aloud...
My first thought yesterday morning, as soon as I woke up, was that we ALL often take certain actions based on Concepts that we hold to be true... For example, "Retirement" is a Concept about my future about which I take action today, by saving and investing (though I don't ever plan to actually retire)... A "flat Earth" was a Concept originally held by scientists and later challenged by explorers, who took action by sailing across the ocean... "Freedom of Religion" was a Concept that the pilgrims held to be so priceless that scores of them took action and boarded ships and sailed to the "New World" (many dying along the way)...
Examples abound. So it's no great stretch to conclude that the CONCEPT of God can (and very often does) compel Humans to take certain actions and to live their lives in certain ways... Both terrorists and fundamentalist Baptists are on the extreme fringes, perhaps, but I'm wondering aloud, here, if I am not indeed beginning to be comfortable with acting out the CONCEPT that the God I say I believe in is actually real, and that this is "okay", is "normal"....
Then, of course, I must also add a principle I learned from Sheldon Vanauken (both from his books and from the man himself, through letters and a single, incredible visit to his "bird house" before he died) -- that is, that the Choice to "reject" is just as big a step of Faith as the Choice to "accept"... applied here, it means that I can leave off pursuing a "real" God because I view God as only a "Concept", or I can let that "Concept" actually guide what I do and say, even if sometimes it feels as if I'm stumbling around in the dark... Hmmmmm.....................
But here is the one HUGE, glaring difference:
In the examples above, the Concepts were fairly "neutral" things, but in this case, the "Concept" is said to be a PERSON, a real BEING, with characteristics (Omniscience, etc.) that we can barely begin to fathom. This PERSON generally does not manifest Himself directly to us (dispelling the whole idea of "Concept"), and, given the vast complexity of the Human Mind, may in fact BE merely a concept...
Picture yourself in a very luxurious interrogation room, and at one end is a large mirror... You understand immediately that the mirror is actually a 2-way mirror, and that somebody -- HIM -- is on the other side... You are certain that He hears you (microphone system in the room somewhere), but He NEVER makes Himself manifest to you, though you're sure He is watching everything you do...
Is this not about as close to our ACTUAL experience of God as it gets? We "believe" He's on the other side of the mirror, we "believe" He's more than a "Concept", but in the end, it's more like HOPE, eh? And that Hope compels us to live AS IF He is there, AS IF He hears us, and AS IF He is somehow involved in our lives (answering prayers, changing us, drawing us to Himself)...Yet we stare into the mirror and see only our own bewildered face staring back at us...
No conclusion to this, really; I'm just pondering aloud...