(a/ir)rationality

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

1 Corinthians 2:6-7


Reality London has been focusing on this chapter in the past few weeks, and God has simultaneously impressed the deeper concepts here onto my heart.

Those that know me, know me to be quite 'cerebral' for lack of a better word. I tend to analyze almost everything. From my own thoughts and motives, to relationships and communication, to religion and philosophy, I apply a strictly logical lens to everything I come across. In these past two or three weeks, I've realized that I've greatly stunted the way I view people and the way I view God. I usually treat others in the attitude that if they cannot rationally explain themselves to me, then I don't accept what they have to say. I had a long conversation the other day with Sara, a friend on project, that made me realize that I treat other people this way. It's easy to scoff at someone who holds a fear they can't explain (irrational fear), but is it right?

Paul preached that it wasn't so. In fact, in 1 Cor. 2:5, he writes that he did not want faith to rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. He's not saying that faith should be against reason, but that it should not be limited to resting on the foundations of reason. He's not aiming for irrationality (unreasonable things), but for arationality (things that expand beyond the scope of human rationality). There is a very real part of the human experience that goes beyond the limits of rational description.

What happens when we try to box this huge universe into our mental matrix? Exhaustion. Pure exhaustion. I've experienced it. Chesterton wrote in 'Orthodoxy', "To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain... The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." This principle has a decidedly spiritual dimension. Trying to fit everything in the heavens into one's head was precisely the approach that the Pharisees took. As Keller writes in "Prodigal God" this leads to 'joyless, fear-based compliance.' Sound like the 'abundant life' Jesus came to give us? I think not.

C.S. Lewis, who is the very paragon of brilliance to me, discovered the shortcomings of his rational approach to life through the tragic story of his relationship with Joy Davidman. In 1940, Lewis published 'The Problem of Pain,' a rather cerebral work on the existence of pain and suffering and how we could view in relation to our understanding of God. Twenty years later after the death of his beloved wife, Joy Davidman, Lewis filled up a journal with bitterly-toned statements against God-among them, Where is God? ...Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence.

Was Lewis wrong to theorize about pain in our world? No. Was he mistaken to think that a rational approach to pain and suffering could fully describe the human experience of it? Absolutely. Human logic is limited; it cannot define beauty or goodness or friendship or justice or loyalty. It can do its best to describe it, but even when it comes close, it is only a printed photo of the real landscape. Einstein wrote, It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure

To finish this post, let me point out that this blog is written in rational language with ideas. I'm attempting to communicate rational thoughts here. But rational thoughts (even the ones here) only try to describe reality; they can never encapsulate the immense reality of the beauty in this world, namely God's love for us. So don't read this blog as you sip your morning tea, and think, 'what a nice idea.' If what I wrote resonates with you, take the day and try to plunge into the depths of this universe. Personally, I'd start by looking at the author of it.

[I pray] that He may grant you strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.