Friday, November 9, 2018

APERTURES

Thought For The Day

“The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God.”

- Rob Bell

As part of my early physics education I often investigated the properties of light using small optical apertures.  These devices allowed me to observe wavelengths of light isolated from the full electromagnetic spectrum. Different apertures isolated different parts of the spectrum, red, blue, violet, etc.  And while I gained valuable insights by observing those wavelengths, I had to be very careful not to extrapolate that knowledge to the broader spectrum. For example, would the knowledge gained by studying the properties of a wavelength in the red portion of the visible spectrum tell me anything useful about the properties of wavelengths in the invisible microwave portion of the spectrum?

Like Rob Bell, I’ve always had a problem with those who claim to know the mind of God. What little we do know about God can be found in the Bible and other sacred texts. And while we can certainly gain valuable insights about God from these sources, we need to understand that they do not capture the totality of God. Like those optical apertures from my physics classes, these texts provide distinct, isolated windows through which we glean incomplete knowledge of an infinite God. It is disingenuous, and sometimes dangerous, to extrapolate our limited views of God and proclaim complete understanding.