Jean Cocteau died on this date in 1963. I found this quote of his today:
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
It strikes me the same could be said of God. Various elements of various faiths drag God in to support all kinds of arguments and violence. It’s done through sincere admiration and conviction.
But how can any of us be certain of our understanding of who or what we think of as God? By its very nature, the Divine is unknowable, unfathomable.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Although I very much agree that God is bigger than anything we can ever totally comprehend, I also feel He gave us a place to learn about Him and to understand that which we are capable of understanding – that being the Holy Bible.
However – I also think it takes an equally big open mind and heart to truly understand what that book says and that it can never be understood with a simple run-through reading. Asking questions of knowledgeable people, meditating on the hows and whys, asking God to clarify what He means by what is written ALL makes a world of difference compared to someone that hurries through it and makes a quick summary of their overall impression.
If someone is looking to better understand who God is (keeping in mind we can never fully know or understand Him) that is a GREAT place to start – IMHO.
there’s the paradox again…can we know God? absolutely and in infinite ways…can we know God? unfathomable…the both/and
Thanks Jules and Lucy for your comments. Yes, Lucy, that both/and keeps cropping up!
Jules, I completely agree with you that a meditative reading and re-reading (many times) of the bible is vital to understanding the Judeo/Christian and Muslim God, and the words of the bible are precious to me.
I also think that the richness of God is bigger than that. For example I was very struck the first time I read your comment about the number of times you refer to God using the masculine pronoun. To me, that’s a limitation I’m trying to get away from (although it’s very difficult given the construction of our language).
We could surely discuss this for a long time, and I’m thinking a lot about these sort of issues at the moment. I believe that embracing the limitations of our understanding can be beautiful (and frightening).
God cannot be managed or comprehended. God can only be loved. God can never be fully “experienced,” much less named. And God, being pure spirit, is beyond our gender constructions with which we, in attempts to comprehend and wrap limited human concepts around, anthropomorphize God.
Personally, I do not refer to God as gendered at all, neither as he nor as she. God is just simply…God. Beyond. The great incomprehensible.
My two cents for whatever they are worth.
nwc, your two cents are always worth a lot.