Light Unapproachable (eBook)

Men of good sense who focus their minds’ eyes sharply on the attributes of the ineffable Godhead, see it as existing beyond every created thing, transcending all acuity of intellect, being wholly outside bodily appearance and, as all-wise Paul says, “dwelling in light unapproachable.”

THEOLOGY FROM THE CLEFT

“Please show me your glory.” These five words make up one of the more audacious requests in the unfolding drama of Scripture. Recorded in Exodus 33, Moses converses with God in hopes to intercede on behalf of Israel following their construction of the golden calf. As a prophet who has “found favor” in the Lord’s sight, he turns to make his bold request of God—show me your glory.

The audacity of Moses’ request is not only matched but raised by the majesty of the Lord’s reply. The Lord responded to Moses’ request, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim my name ‘the LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I show mercy.” The Lord concludes his proclamation with a mysterious claim, “But, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:19-20, emphasis added).

As the narrative progresses, instead of leaving Moses ensnared by his limitation of faculties, God provides a remedy to the problem of Moses’ inability to physically gaze at the Lord without perishing. The Lord accommodates Moses’ weakness through shelter: “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen” (Ex 33:18-23, emphasis added). From the safety of the cleft in the rock, the fullness of God’s goodness passes before Moses until he can safely emerge from his shelter to catch a glimpse of the back of the Lord.

There are several theological threads woven into this scene; indeed, from the act upon Sinai one could find the impetus for variegated biblical and theological themes and lanes of worthy exploration. Of these variegated theological lanes, the one most pertinent for our purpose is what seems to be the demonstration of an incomprehensible God. The God of Exodus 33 is goodness and majesty of essence such that he will not even be seen by his creatures, let alone comprehended by them. While the doctrine of incomprehensibility is not the primary exegetical focus of Exodus 33, this passage does demonstrate that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is out of the intellectual jurisdiction of humankind.

What will become clear from both biblical reasoning on passages like Exodus 33 and from theological reasoning given what we see in the biblical data is that from the waters of God’s incomprehensibility flows the double stream of blessing and curse in Christian theology. There is the curse of the task’s difficulty; as we seek to name God in Christian theology, the theologian’s entire enterprise will be frustrated by how this God seems to be always just out of theological and linguistic reach. On the other hand, there is a profound blessing flowing from incomprehensibility as well since the otherness of this God means the glorious well of Christian theology will never run dry; contemplating God’s beauty will never be exhausted. Those glorious realities that cause us creatures to marvel at our God are incomprehensibly endless. The theological enterprise of knowing and naming God will not come to full fruition until the church lays hold of her glorious gift of eschatological sight and beholds God with the new vision of the blessed. But until that great day when we move from knowing in part to knowing fully (1 Cor 13:12), the incomprehensibility of God will always be something of an exasperation and thrill for the Christian theologian.

The frustration of knowing and naming the incomprehensible God comes even more into focus as we define the task of Christian theology. If the theological task is the study of God and all things in relation to God, then God’s incomprehensibility will bring about a myriad of consequences.1 Putting the pieces together, it may seem a reason to despair for the student of theology who seeks to know and name the triune God if he is as incomprehensible and altogether different as Exodus 33 depicts him to be. We can hear this despair in the prayer of Anselm as he begins Proslogion:

While at first glance, the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility may seem like reason for the student of theology to despair, when all things are considered, it is instead an invitation to partake in the grace of God. For, as God did for Moses, the Lord has provided shelter for the pilgriming theologian. Like God graciously led Moses to the cleft in the rock as an accommodation for his physical inability to take in an eye-full of God’s glory, he has a remedy for our plight as well.

Therefore, like Moses, we will take to the accommodating cleft. From God’s providential and gracious accommodation, we will conduct the task of Christian theology from the cleft. Like the prophet Moses, from the theological safety of God’s accommodation, we will aim to still catch a glimpse of his glory. In the end, instead of an impetus for despair, God’s incomprehensibility will be a wellspring of wonder and majesty of which we will never reach the bottom in this life.3

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF
DIVINE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY

For any project to succeed, two items are important—defining terms carefully and a clear thesis statement that drives the work. In this section, we will try to arrive at both.

An implication of the Creator-creature distinction is that God is not merely bigger than his creation but altogether different. Consequently, God is incomprehensible in terms of theological knowledge and ineffable in terms of theological language. However, as the Lord wants to be known, God has provided ways for finite creatures to meaningfully know and name him by virtue of divine accommodation. Therefore, as we contemplate God and all things in relation to God, we do theology as receivers of accommodated glory and not creators of intellectual reality. Contemplating God’s accommodated glory will impact how we speak and think about the divine nature. We therefore pursue a posture of necessary theological humility and reverence throughout the entirety of the theological task knowing that the possibility of pursuing theological contemplation and application rests upon the grace of the Creator to make himself known to limited creatures.

This book will consequently discuss ideas related to how we know and name the incomprehensible God. We will explore theological method in which the finite creature attempts to contemplate God and all things in relation to God. The limitedness of the creature, combined with the limitlessness of the Creator, will manifest—at least—in ontological, linguistic, epistemological, and temperamental consequences within the theological task. It is these methodological consequences this book explores.

Now that we have the thesis and aim of the book stated, we now move toward a careful definition of terms—most important, defining the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility and one of its corollary doctrines, ineffability. Before arriving at a solid definition, I’d like to establish a few nuances to make sure my claims are clear or not overly rigid or overstated. For the rest of this first chapter, then, we will explore a few nuances and points of clarity that will be helpful as we work toward defining God’s incomprehensibility and ineffability. To be specific, we will consider: (1) the tension found in biblical indicatives and imperatives as it relates to knowing God, (2) possible misperceptions about the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility, and (3) two ditches students of theology must avoid while affirming the doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility. Considering these three previous points; we will (4) offer a working definition of both incomprehensibility and ineffability.

Tension between indicatives and imperatives. One way to demonstrate the tension found in the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility is to contrast some of the biblical data’s indicatives with a few of its...