Truth and a Song

"...great is the mystery..." I Timothy 3:16

The idea of "mystery" has gone foul for many and has been foully used by others, thanks mainly to the permeation and pontification of post-modern pundits. Many today take "mystery" (and similar terms, like "incomprehensible") to mean that which is irrational or unknowable or (what is more likely) both. Such a definition is an infection from our own corrupt culture, a culture fearful of and in denial of absolutes, categories, and certainties. It is an infection that we must strive long and hard to cure.

The old idea of "mystery" (an idea that is still the right and proper one) is the idea of "a hidden truth". Shouldn't such a thing be obvious, though? When we read a book or watch a film subscribed under the genre of "mystery," we never think that the solution to the initial conundrum is going to be irrational or unknowable. Both would destroy the very purpose that defines mystery: to discover, know, and comprehend an answer that is currently obscured. To steal the discovery, knowledge, and comprehension away from us is to make the story no longer a mystery but rather a comedy (which delights in the absurd).

A "mystery" is not irrational and/or unknowable; it has an answer that is rational and knowable and currently obscure. As Chesterton put it, one day we will see "the other side of the tapestry," and current mysteries will be solved, and perhaps new and exciting ones revealed; for mystery gives two things to the universe, two things that the human soul cannot live without. The first is joy, for we feel that we are in a great and exciting game of hide and seek, of search and discovery. Einstein said that it is as if we are small children stepping into a great library, vaguely sensing some sort of structure and order in the arrangement of all the books as well as a great wealth of substance within their pages. To make that substance irrational and/or unknowable is to kill the joy.

The second thing that is gives us is beauty. We sense great and momentous truths behind the veil of things, truths that the artist and the philosopher have sought (and occasionally found) words for, that the common man often lacks words for. Whatever these truths, these realities, are, we sense their numinous glow behind (and often through) the veil of things, though we often fail to articulate it adequately. However, those who assume that our failure of articulation necessarily means that such things are absurdities or non-entities are childish; their thoughts are cop-outs and naivete. The truth is far more exciting: we cannot speak the right words because we do not yet know the language, the language of real things. It to is a mystery, i.e., it too is rational and knowable and waiting to be discovered. We catch fragments of it now; one day we will be encompassed by the whole. Thus, the joy and beauty of the universe, caused by mystery, can be summed up in this: we find by our longings and searchings, whether in whole or in part, that all things are touched by truth and a song.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

God and Evil (or, A Rose Out of the Mud)

"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness; souls that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron.
"Because they rebelled against the words of God, and despised the counsel of the Most High, therefore He brought down their heart with labor; they fell down, and there was none to help.
"Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bands in pieces. Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men." Ps. 107:8-15

This passage's series of events is a fascinating spectacle. It starts by exclaiming that only the goodness of God can satisfy the longing and hungry soul, souls that sit in darkness without the goodness of God. To ask how they got into such darkness is to ask how they lost God's goodness (for apparently the two cannot coexist: you have either one or the other, never both). They lost the goodness by their rebellion against God's "word" and "counsel," i.e., His authority as God. In response, God let the consequences of their rebellion fall: a horror of great darkness fell upon them, and when all had abandoned them ("there was none to help"), then and only then did they look to God for satisfaction.
That last part is the most interesting part. Here is revealed a deeper application of Joseph's oft used (to ad nauseum) phrase that God works evil for good (Gen. 50:20). Rebellion against God (in any sense) is the proper understanding of Sin, and the natural consequence of Sin is Death (Rom. 5:12; 6:23). Now, it seems that the Psalm is explicitly saying that God's immediate response to Sin is to not shield people from its consequences. He actually lets the death and darkness fall, the disease and destruction wreak and rage, the evil and the wicked pollute and corrupt. The honest man asking sincerely (and the skeptic asking sneeringly) will ask, "Why?"
The answer is startling: "Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble" (emphasis added). It seems that God actually lets us go astray so that we will learn (1) what the right way is and (2) to stay on it when we get there. Think of it like this: God alone is the satisfaction of the soul. Thus, every time we head to something else other than Him, He will let us go and starve on its hollowness until we finally (like the prodigal son) "come to our sense" and cry out for what is truly satisfying, which is only found in God.
Only a moral coward would call such a set-up "cruel". Many today whine for God to shield us from every possible ill, but such a recommendation (however sincere) is intolerable for two very good reasons: (1) The issue of free-will. True free-will is contingent upon the possibility of true evil. Thus, to actually "shield" us from all ill would mean doing away with free-will, reducing us to mere machines, beasts, or other subhuman and inhuman entities. Therefore, to ask for Him to shield us is to not know what we are asking; we have requested that God spare us from one cruelty by inflicting us with another, i.e., the loss of our humanity. (2) The necessity of "the hard way." It is just plain old practical truth that sometimes the most merciful course of action is to allow one to learn things the "hard" way. If a truly free-will agent utterly refuses to heed your sound and truthful warnings and advice, then sometimes their refusal and subsequent disastrous consequences are the only way that they will finally heed. Such a fact is common sense, and to deny it is to accept blatant ignorance for the sake of argument.
This is not to say that God never shields us. Indeed, there is much that He shields us from (e.g., Ps. 105), and much more that we will probably never know. The point here is that God's modus operandi with people is not mere shielding anymore than it is mere allowance of the consequences. The point is that if your stubborn rebellion (whether you are an unbeliever or one of His children) leads you into the deathly consequences of Sin, their is a gracious miracle at work: the very consequences that seem so horrid are the very things that will lead you back to God. The sovereign will of God has decreed that out of every evil work, redemption will bud like rose out of the mud.

-Jon Vowell

God-Seeker

"...let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore." Ps. 105:3b-4

The rest of the Psalm gives the grounds for "why" we should seek Him. Like Ps. 78, we are given a mini-history of Israel. Its purpose is stated at the beginning: "Remember the the marvelous works that He hath done." Know this God: see His activities, that they are good; know His character, that He is holy; and then seek Him out, for it is who He is that drives us to Him. The heart of the God-seeker rejoices because this God is worthy to be sought, the only thing worth seeking. He has proven Himself to be the one and only hope, the one and only God, the highest and the greatest, the beginning and the end, the First Cause and the Ultimate Purpose. Taste and see that the Lord is good, and you will desire Him like wine for the soul.
It must be stated, however, that God is to be sought for Himself and not for the mere sake of seeking. Many people (through time and esp. today) are seekers for seeking's sake, and many others additionally believe that they can somehow properly seek God without any established concepts of Him. They stress subjective experience above objective truth(s).
God is a person, and therefore is to be known in an experiential subjective dynamic. However, God is not a person like we are a person. He is holy, i.e., absolutely perfect and complete, and thus has no changes. Therefore, there are definite and certain things about God, things that without knowledge of we will never truly seek Him: we will fall into every ditch and lurch into every side eddy imaginable. God is a person about which there are definite and certain things, things that He has graciously revealed to us through His word, things that He is to be sought for. The true God-seeker understands this: their subjective experience(s) must necessarily be bound to an objective reality or else it will wander aimlessly in the dark.

-Jon Vowell

Desiring God: Something Real

"O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. I have looked for Thee in the sanctuary to see Thy power and Thy glory. [...] My soul followeth hard after Thee...." Ps. 63:1-2, 8a

The whole of Christianity these days (esp. in the Western world) comes off as either dusty and fragile or fluid and messy rather than solid and real. We could help it come off as solid and real more if we, as Christians, took seriously this concept of thirsting after God, of desiring Him above all things. Some of us desire head knowledge, with good theology and proper exegesis. Others of us prefer respectable religion, with practical advice and moralisms. Many other desire various things. Very few desire God. All other things are not bad per se. They become bad when they take the place of God, as they often do in our lives. To paraphrase Charles Williams, we say "This is Thou," but never get to "This is not Thou." To paraphrase Lewis, we mistake the inns for home.
Perhaps Christianity and its current Christians would be taken more seriously as something solid and real (i.e., as truth) if we (1) unapologetically told people that there is a God, that He can be known, and that to be known by Him is the soul's deepest desire; and (2) unapologetcially live like it, because it is the truth. If people gazed into a common sanctuary and saw souls thirsting after and satisfied by God, His power and glory and all that He is, rather than dusty scholars and amiable moralists, then perhaps they would begin to see why the Gospel is the only good news out there, for it tells us how to satisfy our deepest longings by taking us back to God through the Cross of Christ.

-Jon Vowell

Soul-thirst

"As the deer longeth after the water brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" Ps. 42:1, 2

"O send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacle." Ps. 43:3

This is truly the cry of every soul, though only those touched by the grace of God can properly identify the object of their longing. Fallen man, separated from God by Sin, has an infinitely deep abyss in their soul that only the infinite can fill. Until they hear the gospel preached and have faith spark in their hearts, they will constantly chase every other thing under the sun. We often view some men's extravagance and folly as an occasion for scorn. It ought to be an occasion for pity: they are desperately trying to fill what only God can fill.
The child of God must not forget this desire; yet we are always in danger of leaving our first love. We are always in the hand of God, but how often we forget that hand! Can we say that the sentiment of the Psalmist is truly our sentiment? Is our life filled with creeds and service and playing church with utter apathy towards the living God, or are all things mere occasions to be drawn towards Him and away from all other things including yourself? Push it even further: do we let His "light" and "truth" lead us unto Him, or do we substitute Him for those things? Let God be our one desire, and let all else be that which transports us to Him and Him alone.

-Jon Vowell

"Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Create soul-thirst for Thee;
And hungering for the Bread of Life
O may our spirits be."
-Albert Midlane ("Revive Thy Work, O Lord")