Is God Empirically Quantifiable? Or...how not to find God by searching.

Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?

It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell: what canst thou know?

Job 11

 

 

Indeed!  Can we find God by searching?  Is God empirically quantifiable?  Or is God a subjective experience of humanity?  Is this divine immanence something that we learn within our human society and personal experience?

 

Note that, in this passage from Job, it is the knowledge of the divine itself that is as high as heaven…and deeper than hell. Thus the rhetorical question, but one very worthy of consideration: What canst thou know?

 

What can we know?  This is not a question to be dismissed in a cavalier manner.  It is not intended to be answered by quoting other biblical passages as a propositional response.  To do so is to miss the point.  God is something not directly knowable, or even searchable, in the way we think of verifiable knowledge.  The book of Job is actually better at asking some intriguing questions than at providing pat answers. And Job 11 is just one group of those questions.

 

Yes, God is in heaven and, we now know, in hell too.  But there is something else as high as heaven and actually deeper than hell.  And that is the finding out of God.  God is found in our most sublime experiences of life.  God is found in our deepest tragedies of life.  We live and move in this divine immanence.  We live and move in connection with others.  I cannot “find out God” by direct search, by empirical enquiry.  There is no essence to distill nor double blind test to devise.  By whatever name, this presence in homo sapiens is a light that we all know.  God is light.  God is love.  Biblical quotations and allusions to a deeper truth and experience.

 

Whether it is Ursala Goodenough writing The Sacred Depths of Nature or John Calvin writing his Institutes of the Christian Religion or the new Bible translation Jesus and the Presence of Mystery or even Rumi dancing in his Sufi way toward divine contemplation, we are all feeling our way to both name and to describe this indwelling sense that we often feel. Even Richard Dawkins’ affection for his bumper sticker “Atheists for Jesus” reflects this same impulse. Sunsets radiating beauty; babies cooing in our arms; or knowing peace in the midst of a very tough situation: these are all part of that searching out of our sense of what the divine-human mystery might be.

 

But when we misapprehend a figure of speech, when we literally anthropomorphize the idea of God, then we have rendered ourselves incapable of finding the real presence of that which we so loudly proclaim and so fervently believe.  The result is evident around us: the strong need of so many to control others, to conform them to the anthropomorphized entity that they have so sincerely and so misguidedly created.

Psalm 1:3,4

Psalm 1:3-4

Text

And they shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season. Its leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever they do shall prosper. The unloving are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Text Note

• Inherent in the inclusive method of translation is the use of plural pronouns when appropriate. So, in the Psalms for Meditation, "they" is often used rather than "he" as in the 1611 KJV. This common English convention is frequent throughout the K-JIV. Ironically, it is often true that the Hebrew does not use a gender specific pronoun. The same is true of the Greek NT as well.

Reflection

Though I've transitioned from conservative evangelical/anabaptist (mouthful!) to unprogrammed Friend, I feel the same rootedness in the spirit. I feel the blessing of being planted by rivers of water. I've left behind a lot of my strident doctrinal positions, but I appreciate the ongoing sense of stability that trust in Love provides. Without that Love as guide, my modern life becomes so superficial that I really am as chaff driven by wind: empty and all over the place!

Is God in Hell?

If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Psalm 139

That God inhabits heaven is not doubted.  If, like the Psalmist, I ascend into heaven, it is certain that “thou art there.”  But what of those who take up residence in hell?  If I make my bed in hell, what will I find?

At this juncture in American history, this is the critical doctrine of the Bible.  

Our culture has become permeated with a kind of Biblical naiveté that wouldn’t know a figure of speech if it were turned into a pillar of salt.  A hyper-anthropomorphism has so distorted our conception of God that we embrace simplistic views of scripture that are contrary to the very genre of the biblical passage we pretend to explain.   So Genesis Chapter 1 becomes a detailed creation manual of 24 hour time periods, without regard for its literary type.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, church membership in the colonies was less than a fifth of the population.  Today that number is almost two thirds of our citizenry.  Even taking into account those early Americans who were devout, but not church members, the two century trend line of increasing formal religious participation is clear.  We are more formally devout than we’ve ever been!

And yet the oft lamented fact of our biblical illiteracy is strikingly true.  Too often, those who profess their faith in the most determined manner, are obviously unaware of the real nature of the Bible they claim to love. 

Nowhere is this more true than in the use of figures of speech within the various biblical genres.

Because we are anthropomorphs, we speak of the divine presence in an anthropomorphic way.  Though the Bible states that God is not literally male (1 Sam 15:29), we use anthropomorphic pronouns that figuratively make “him” just that.  Of course that is fine, as long as we are aware of what we are doing.  It is only when our anthropomorphic language becomes our literal theological model and absolute frame of reference that a real problem begins.

God is spirit (or literally “wind”) as Jesus noted in John 4.  The divine presence is there in our innermost being and flows up with joy (John 7).  Humanity is connected by this immanence within each of us.  Acts 17 notes Paul, quoting the poets, as saying that it is in this presence that “we live and move and have our being.”  Truly the light is within every person coming into this world (John 1:9).  Whether we are true to this light is another question.  But we are all aware of this mystery of love within us and that joins us together.

10 Psalms for Meditation

The book 10 Psalms for Meditation has been published and is available at Amazon for $8.35.  The first ten Psalms of the Hebrew Bible are considered in 27 meditations.  As noted on the back cover, this book grew out of the experience of Quaker Meeting for Worship.  The previous post on this blog is the first meditation in the book.  Enjoy thinking through these Psalms!

Psalm 1:1,2

Text

Blessed is the one who walketh not in the counsel of the unloving, nor standeth in the way with the selfish, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But whose delight is in thy law; and in thy law doth meditate day and night.

Text Notes

• During personal meditation in the Psalms, it is helpful not to be distracted with gender, so, "man" (1611KJV) is now "one" (K-JIV) in spite of the male root of the Hebrew word.
• Where possible in this version, the Psalmist addresses the Guide directly. So,in the verses above, there is "thy" (K-JIV) rather than "his" (KJV). That is, Psalms for Meditation, K-JIV, speaks first person (to our guide) rather than third person (about the guide). This is the spirit of prayer.
• The word "unloving" illustrates another type of updating. The underlying Hebrew word is not etymologically derived from a component of "god", as in the 1611's "ungodly". The word indicates those who have strayed from the basis of right living: wickedness, waywardness, unloving. To retain the flow of the KJV, "unloving" is used here.
• Similarly, K-JIV's "selfish" rather than the 1611's "sinner" is within the semantic range for the original word.

Reflection

Blessing (or happiness), says the Psalmist, often lies in avoiding those who counsel these three traits: scorn, selfishness or unloving acts. I don't have to look too far to find this counsel: its right in my heart! And, to compound my temptation, our culture sometimes places the highest value on just these traits except we tend to call them "healthy skepticism", "taking care of yourself" and "being pragmatic". My answer? It's the second verse: day and night meditation. Meeting for Worship is wonderful, but personal meditation is possible 24X7. That's the fun and dangerous part: meditation may break out at any moment!

The Size of Hell

Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure…

Isaiah 5

Like the elastic mouth of a ravenous boa, the jaws of hell open wide in anticipation of a full meal.  The picture that Isaiah paints of an insatiable sheol is one of infinite capacity.  The size of hell is a very significant theological issue.  Its ability to expand to unlimited proportions is of critical import.  For if the realm of hades has any limit, then it cannot truly be hell.  It is of the essence of hellishness that its carrying capacity have no absolute restriction. Without this potential to grow in size ad infinitum, hell could not keep up with humanity’s rapid growth.

But there is another reason for the need of an unimaginably super-sized hell.

The denizens of hell are not restricted to fallen angels and wayward homo sapiens.  There is a larger presence than that of whoremongers and liars and liberals within the halls of hell.  For God is also in hell.

And that is the least understood doctrine of the Bible: the God who is in hell.