This last Sunday, I was an extra for a video promo that my friend is doing for my church. He told us to sit down in the chairs or couches that were set up and act like normal. I decided to sit on a couch and read a book. I randomly grabbed one of the books off a shelf, picked a random chapter, and started to read. I just so happened to pick this wonderful book titled The Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer. Absolutely beautiful. Here is a portion of what I read that I think is incredibly powerful:
"Infinitude is an attribute of God. And it is impossible for God to be anything and not be completely, infinitely what He is. It is possible for the sun to be bright, but not infinitely bright because it doesn't have all the light there is. It is possible for a mountain to be large but not infinitely large. It is possible for an angel to be good but not infinitely good. Only God can claim infinitude. When I say that God is good, that God has a kind heart, I mean that He has a heart infinitely kind and that there is no boundary to it. When I say that God is good-natured, good and kindly of nature, I mean that He is infinitely so."
How do we reason that God is infinite in such a way, that whatever He is, He is infinitely so?
Job 11:7-9 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above--what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below--what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea."
1 Kings 8:27 "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!"
Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
If God is so unfathomable, how can we even begin to understand Him? An unanswerable question, I think.
Like all theologians, Thomas Aquinas tries to shed some light on the enormity of God's person. In one of his proofs for the existence of God, he makes an argument from the gradation of human values. If someone or something is good, there is something greater.
"Things are said to be more and less because they approximate in different degrees to that which is greatest. A thing gets hotter and hotter as it approaches the thing which is the hottest. There is therefore something which is the truest, the best, and the noblest, and which is consequently the greatest in being." -Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
God is that which defines our human values. He IS goodness, mercy, justice, truth, and so on. How do we even dare to call ourselves sons and daughters of a God so infinitely powerful?
Our God may be a complete mystery, a fathomless ocean of magnitude and power, but he is also good and loving. If He is infinite in all his attributes, like my good friend Tozer claims, then He is infinitely merciful, infinitely gracious. This is what causes Him to give Himself to redeem us. And for that, I am forever grateful. How can I not attempt to climb the great mountain of discovering who He is when I begin to see such incredible truths as this?
This reminds me of some thoughts on faith, Some people believe God is unreal because he can't be seen or touched, because we can't understand how he works and only believe in him through "faith". Yet how could anyone understand an infinite God, He is so far beyond what any of our finite minds can comprehend. If we could draw out and diagram how God exists and created the world, we would have to ourselves be infinite. Through my finite mind I can see everything around me and to the best of my ability know 99.9% how I think God works, and that's where my faith comes in and fills in the rest. I accept that I cannot understand him, but I have seen enough to know that he's there. Then at the same time I don't know 99.9% of who he is because of his infinite nature. Gods "infinitude" really helped me understand "faith". You do not have to be blind to have faith, even a seeing person has limits.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Our knowledge can only go so far. Where knowledge falls short, faith comes into play.
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