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June 4, 2023: God is God, and We are Not
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It’s a good thing God gave us humans something we cannot figure out. It seems quite often that we believers and non-believers have everything figured out about God and the world. We know when he wakes up in the morning; we’re aware of which news station God watches; we know God never sleeps; we know where the Lord of Creation likes to hang out for a long weekend; we know who God's friends are (St. Teresa of Avila once wrote about God that if this is how he treats his friends, it’s no wonder he has so few of them); we pretend to know the definition of God’s love (nowadays, this would be whatever it is that suits our personal lifestyles, from the most simple to the most serious parts of life. Many times, the truth is missed, sometimes badly); we like to think we know God’s favorite nationality (certainly, the Irish believe they have a hold on this one); we think we know when and when not God should call down fire from heaven upon some group, structure, etc.; and, we like to pretend that we know how God created the universe, when quite honestly, at 13.7 billion years of age, it would take a thousand million billion years to reach 1% of such knowledge. And there’s much more.
Knowledge is a sacred gift. There’s no question some folks are blessed with more knowledge of certain parts of life than others. I have no chance at explaining things of the universe as well as that of an astronomer. I have a friend who used to quote Karl Sagan in his early years. Karl Sagan (may he rest in the peace of the God he didn’t believe in) was a genius as far as existence of the universe goes. A brilliant man to listen to with fascination. But if Karl ever had the chance to talk golf, baseball, or the American Civil War with yours truly, he would have been in my back pocket on those issues.
It’s funny how things work with knowledge; a person can excel far beyond their peers, say, in the world of medical care. For example, there are a few heart surgeons in the world who simply rise above all other heart surgeons in their field. The work they perform over a career is, well, godly. How many lives do they extend for the good of family members and friends? As much as any doctor out there, heart surgeons also understand the great gift that life is. Otherwise, they would let their patients die on the table. Too much of that and they won’t have any customers. Rather, they care; they work the longest hours to perform one surgery; they have wonderful families; and to them, the heart is more than a part of the human anatomy that pumps blood, or whatever it does. The same could be said of a brain surgeon, I suppose.
This is just one or two examples from thousands of possibilities of what we would consider to be important segments of human knowledge. I think about Ted Williams and baseball, and the knowledge he was blessed to acquire over a career, and put into to practice, regarding that of a baseball swing. Imagine that! A simple baseball swing! Anyone with two hands can swing a baseball bat and hit a tennis ball sitting on a rubber tee. But on the professional level, trying to hit a small object coming at you at 95 miles per hour from 60 feet, 6 inches away with a skinny baseball bat with less than one second to decide if you’re going to swing or not, or sometimes at 83 MPH spinning like crazy, dancing like a Tim Wakefield knuckleball, and trying to hit it square! Seriously, the knowledge it takes to do this successfully only 30% of the time will result in a baseball player being elected to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Ted Williams knew the intricacies of the baseball swing as well as any human being who ever played the game that Abner Doubleday did not invent. His knowledge on this important subject to baseball fans around the globe was as good as it gets. Yet, Ted Williams, that great American who stopped playing baseball for a few years to serve his country during World War II, if he had to explain the theory of relativity, or maybe give directions to someone in Boston who’s looking for the Boston Gahhhden, the poor guy would be no better than yours truly at doing so. The streets of Boston, which have zero organization to them, certainly does not help the cause of providing accurate knowledge to someone who needs directions to the North End.
Whenever I hear it said about a person, “I can’t believe how smart they are. I can’t get over how brilliant that person really is. Boy, I wouldn’t want to get into a discussion with them on any topic.” Every time I hear this said, which seems often enough, I cannot help but think, “This is only one area of knowledge this person possesses that does not make the smallest blip on the screen of all present universal knowledge. God bless them for being so gifted where they are. Really. But overall, even though they thankfully excel in their field of labor, or any field for that matter, the rest of the large field of knowledge is wide open for their learning.” Yea, they may know some things about other topics. But, they tend to be knowledgeable in only one or two areas of life, whereas God is all-knowing in every part of life, except for sin. Except, God always knows when sin occurs. He just doesn’t commit sin like we do, but is all-knowledgeable in our committing of sins and his forgiving our sins.
There are brilliant, gifted, smart people everywhere. I’ve met or heard about so many of them, I’ve lost count of the high number. Not that I was actually counting, because I wasn’t. I admit I do get a kick out of some people who are impressed by brilliant people. If a person happens to be a Rhodes Scholar, and another person comes to find out about it, their reaction tends to be, “Wow! I can’t believe they’re really that smart! They must have been born like that!” Personally, I’m not overly impressed any longer by a brilliant person, maybe because there are so many of them. If there were only one or two in the world, I’d be more impressed. But generally speaking, I’m no longer taken aback. I am impressed by the life of a Saint much more than I am by the life of a smart person. You know why? Because I’ve heard some brilliant people say some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Once they get outside of their field of expertise, guess what? The brilliance is gone. It goes up like a puff of smoke. I’ve heard this one firsthand. But Saints? They impress me all the time in their humility and devotion to God.
But still, I greatly admire and respect the brilliance of certain gifted people, such as the Doctor who performed my recent kidney stone surgery a few weeks back. He’s the “expert” in his field in this geographic location. His reputation is flawless; his demeanor is that of a really nice person; one can see how much he cares about what he does, and how well he performs it; his humility is apparent, for he said to me twice now (my first kidney Stone surgery was about 8 years ago), “I’m hoping I can break this up with the laser because of the size of the stone.” A little concerning, I admit, but humbly honest, nonetheless. When he came by to speak with me prior to the surgery, he spoke of what he was going to do, to which, of course, I listened to the expert. Then the conversation switched to the Celtics in the playoffs for a moment, and it was like speaking with someone on my own level. He was no longer the lone expert.
At the end of the day, it’s a good thing God gave us something we cannot figure out. To what do I refer? The Holy Trinity. The mystery of all mysteries, even more that the Eucharist I would say, although the Body & Blood of Jesus is quite mysterious as to how Jesus literally feeds us his flesh and blood in the gifts of bread and wine. The Holy Trinity, however, is the first of all mysteries in our faith as to how the one God is Three Persons in union as one. Try wrapping your mind around this greatest of truths. The truth is, we all fall short. Well short. There are a few “smart” people out there who falsely believe they know everything there is to know about the essence of God in Trinity. Such persons should be wearing a sign that says, “I’m not as all-knowing as I think I am.” But if one takes time to pray, and reflect on the essence of God, which I’ve attempted more than once, at some point the human brain throws in the towel on this Divine proposition. We just cannot wrap our minds around the full essence of God as Three Persons. We know certain things about God in each person of the Trinity; God the Father as Creator of heaven and earth; God the Son as Redeemer; God the Spirit as the loving breath between Father and Son who fills the world with the knowledge of God. But, as we read in Isaiah, “Who can know the mind of God? Who has been his counselor?” The answer? No one. But we can and do know certain truths about God, such as what St. John writes in his first epistle that “God is love,” and “God is life.” Amen to that!
There was a philosopher a handful of centuries ago who thought he could gain all knowledge of all things. This is better known as the curse of brilliance. No question, the philosopher was a brilliant man. He wasn’t close to any of the Saints in brilliance, but he was brilliant in his own right. His greatest flaw was believing he could be God, all-knowing of all things all at once. Sadly, in his thinking such thoughts about life and about himself, he actually lost his mind. He reached a point in his head where he could no longer think normal thoughts. He dug his own intellectual grave. Very sad indeed.
Yes, we are to know God, at least with the capacity each of us holds. Such capacity is greater for some than others. But knowledge of God, in my humble opinion, plays second fiddle to possessing wisdom about God. The humble wisdom to know that God is God, and we are not. That we are dependent upon the Lord for all good things in our lives. Most notably, the good thing of eternal life, the first promise offered to us through the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.