The Greatest Paradox

"Since supreme omnipotence and perfect holiness are incompatible attributes, there is a note of rational absurdity in all religion, which more rational types of theologies attempt to eliminate. But they cannot succeed without sacrificing a measure of religious vitality."
- Reinhold Niebuhr

To reiterate the stale argument once more: how can a good God tolerate evil? Is he impotent, or mean? Those are the alternatives the former question allows. Most of us at some point in our lifetime play the fool and make some meager attempt to reconcile the two. To do so demands one to naively reduce either the experience of evil in our world or the horrid implications of a universe with no Ultimate Meaning.

If God is holy, then he should do something about evil. If he is omnipotent then why precisely doesn't he?

All eventually must stand in the midst of this great incongruity where Truth seems to fall apart at the seams. In former ages this was the precipice where justice stood in lurch. But perhaps now we have come to an age where this paradox merely marks the beginning of justice.

Wittgenstein was fond of pointing out that the great paradoxes of philosophy were little more than disguised nonsense: a state of being entranced by our own language. Humans have an uncanny ability to talk in elaborate circles about a topic that has no connection with reality; all the while assuming they are really getting down to the heart of things. We must begin with the realization that all our theological meanderings about God's holiness or omnipotence probably amount to little more that idiotic babbling that fails on all accounts to connect to the reality.

First we should begin with a little negative theology and admit that God is not a person, nor is he not a person. Contrarily, we are all persons, and therefore relate to everything personally. This is evident in the fact that we talk to our plants, treat animals like people, and endow everything under the sun with characteristics that are not inherent in them. And still, we project these in order to see them, so we can proceed to relate to them.

It is totally natural, and horribly problematic, that we do this with God. For millennia we have cultivated a spiritual experience that is alingual, and tried to pass it on in language. The contradiction should already be apparent, but I'll proceed.

We are totally confined by language, but God is not. This reveals a huge problem in the desire to attribute structural superlatives to God. When we speak of 'omnipotence' we are attempting to ascribe a greatness to God that is superior to all human qualities, but the structure of the term is still very human. Even for a more religious term like 'holy', we still structure the concept around a human idea of holiness. To proclaim that God is Omnipotent and Holy is one thing. I'm not saying we should abandon the terms. I'm saying the concepts which ultimately stand in conflict, rest on the idea that God is like us.

"Omnipotent and Holy!" are adulations of human persons, who can only praise personally. Yet, the descent from this doxology into speculation and conjecture on how the two can coincide is a symptom of our own idiocy. The most grandiose of words are still small, and still human.

Whether they measure as buckets or bathtubs, the ocean will not deign to be confined to either. When we feud over how he can occupy two buckets at one time we have allowed our language to mesmerize us into absurdity. Buckets vanish in the ocean all too easily. Our words are nothing.



p.s. Lately, my attitude toward the Trinity reflects what I've just said. Trinitarian language is the core of Christian praise. Yet, in regard to the theological dogma of the Trinity that proceeds into ontological syllogizing, I still reserve a deep pessimism that shows no sign of decrease.

The Appeal of Home

Wanderlust is an infectious and many splendored thing. I say infectious. There's a good chance it's genetic, though that's hard to confirm. I am mostly Irish after all. If it is viral, then I am certainly surrounded by enough friends who are ridden with it. In short, I am doomed to a life of restlessness whoever may be at fault.

It's funny that this be the case, seeing that most of my adult life has been spent confined to a starkly narrow range of geography. Sure, I've managed brief excursions into isolated world corners at church expense. Yet, these never managed to constitute the prolonged and generally aimless straying that persistently haunts the recesses of my consciousness. If God made any mistake, it was making our world so miserably small as to only award Magellan and Marco Polo the privilege of discovering it anew. I've got talent. My friends have more. Lord knows we could have discovered the world with a hell of a lot more style than the European lot that preceded us.

I tried for a while to be of the rugged sort who could live in the wilderness with a rope, a tarp, and a blanket. I failed quite miserably. I require more comforts in traveling, and comforts are generally costly. As I have managed to stay broke for the last decade, I have failed to rediscover the New World, Old World, Far East, or any other great frontier one might propose.

Necessarily, this repressed desire has found a multitude of ways to resurface. If this sounds unfounded, allow me to remind you that I am working on my third degree (one of which was in missions), I tenaciously attempt in vain to find authentic foreign experiences here in my hometown, and threaten weekly to learn another language. I've also noticed a strong tendency to value ideas that seem to wander into my world from afar. Foreign religions. European theology. Etc, etc. I'm sure the need to fulfill my desire of getting away has plenty to do with the appeal of such things. Hopefully this does not lead to indictment for cheap New Age consumerism . . . that's not what I'm getting at.



I was reading A'Kempis the other day. . like you do. . . I found the spirituality it offered to be predictable, yet perplexingly appealing. This is to say that it certainly wasn't a profound new insight that struck me, but rather a new perspective on a relic of theology:

"In the holy Scriptures, truth is to be looked for rather than fair phrases. . . In them, therefore, we should seek food for our souls rather than subtleties of speech, and we should as readily read simple and devout books as those that are lofty and profound. . . If you desire to profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faith, and have no concern to appear learned. Ask questions freely, and listen in silence to the words of the Saints. . ."

For quite some time words like these would have struck me as horribly routine. I likely would have cast them aside as irrelevant, but something in them struck me. It was a familiarity not redundant, but comforting. Something that reminded me of a home I've fled for too long. Formerly, I would have read such a passage and assumed my only options were blind ingestion of a whole ideology, or a critical dissection of it that leaves no room for life. At least this appears to me to be the shape our the divide in our world: those with faith don't question and those who question have no faith. I have long chosen the latter for disgust of the former, and for the illusion that such questioning was the defining mark of freedom.

I've questioned myself into a nomadism, and lately I've been homesick. A wandering spirit may stumble upon experiences untold, but the rest is never as good as it was at journey's start.

There's always a new perspective to be gained, and when we have gained it, we can easily look upon our past with new critique. We may always challenge the scope of what we previously knew, but we should never deny that this knowledge is what has brought us to the moment we inhabit. For much too long I have hated Scripture and the Saints for their narrowness, for their flaws, for their mundane ubiquity. I've fled them, and now i'm tired.


Don't proclaim me a prodigal; I have no desire to be typecast as such. I am merely accepting that I am a new branch, reaching for light where I find it, and reaching away from the twisted mess behind me. Such is our history: that which fixes us in place against our will, and thus holds us up to find what we seek.