A Lovely Shade Of Blue: God Cannot Be Measured
"It's not difficult to understand why so many people find Christian belief hard to swallow. We live in an age where fact is king. The existence of God can't be proved. There is no way to prove that God came to us in Jesus. So sceptics feel that Christian belief is ridiculous,'' says Claire George.
The dominant tendency of our time is to believe that the unknown is simply knowledge waiting to be uncovered. So if there is something that can't be uncovered, it is believed to be fictitious.
God can not be measured. God can not be predicted. God is the One who is beyond knowledge. He came to us in Jesus so that we could get our heads around him.
This isn't mystic mumbo jumbo designed to bewilder sceptics. The reason why God is beyond knowledge is quite simple. His speech in the Book of Job gives us the clue. God made everything. We have tiny little human minds. We just aren't capable of measuring him.
The modern desire to measure and quantify everything has had a good influence on Christianity. Scholars have deepened our understanding of the Bible by finding out about the ancient Jews. They have added to our appreciation of Jesus by showing how his thoughts fitted into the Jewish culture in which he lived.
The love of knowledge and education has stopped many Christians from taking the Bible literally. So really, we can't say that love of hard facts is a bad thing.
But there comes a point when the desire to grasp hold of knowledge becomes an obstacle to our relationship with God. The more we try to define him and measure him, the more our human imaginings get in the way of who God is.
It is as if our minds become so cluttered with thoughts that we can't see God through the mess.
Many people find that meditation helps them to feel the presence of God. By sitting quietly and clearing their minds of all thoughts, they are able to sense that which the human mind can not easily sense when it is in measuring and quantifying mode.
God, quite simply, IS.
