Paradoxical Faith

I found another book by Steven James called "Sailing Between the Stars." I've decided he's the best writer I've ever read. That is saying alot because I've read a wide variety of authors. Every once in awhile Steven will include a poem in his book. His poetry is incredible. His prose is so poignant that it seems like poetry. I can't read too much at once because I have to let what he says trickle in deep. Did I mention I like this guy? This book is about the mystery of God. During the modern era (that period when science & reason reigned & evolutionists proclaimed that they had figured out a way to obliterate God) we thought we knew it all. Science actually means knowledge. The truth is that science/knowledge is always changing because it is limited to what humans know. We are very limited especially in comparison to God.

Now we live in the postmodern era. Now people embrace the spiritual and mysterious. (It has been like this since the beginning of time. People believe one thing for about 50 years and then the pendulum swings to the opposite side and they believe the total opposite. I wonder when we'll catch on and try to achieve some balance?) Anyway, there are good and bad things about postmodernism. Unfortunately, it breeds a tolerance for everything at the exclusion of common sense. Let's face it: how can all roads lead to heaven when some don't even claim to go there?

But one of the good things about postmodernism is that it has brought back an appreciation for mystery. I propose that science is the rape of mystery. Sometimes you can dissect, analyze, and explain something to the point that it has lost all of its beauty and value. There are some things God refuses to explain in His Word, not because He is trying to frustrate us, but because He wouldn't really be all that interesting if we already knew everything about Him. A good story keeps you guessing and contemplating it. It isn't overexplained. The trinity, God's sovereignty and human free will, the incarnation--these are mysteries I may never grasp.

Back to Steven James--he talks about the many paradoxes in Scripture. He says, "rather than sharing the paradoxes of Christianity with our neopagan neighbors, we're busy trying to make Jesus seem reasonable, sensible, and practical. But he's not. He's radical, paradoxical, and absurd . . . How could we hang our hat on so many paradoxical doctrines at the same time? Well, because the prism of paradox is the place God has chosen to shine his light. And because of that, it can't help but glow in so many different colors at once."
If you question that the Bible is filled with paradoxes, read 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 & 2 Corinthians 6:8-10.