Understanding and Faith

A few posts ago, I spoke about reveling in the mystery of God, and how sometimes it is good for us simply to pause for a moment and appreciate how unfathomable a God we truly serve. But this week, I am going to appreciate the paradoxical nature of God, because while we serve the Ineffable, He also calls us to love him with our minds (Matthew 22:37).

This is an often used scripture, for it is powerful. It’s red-letter; comes straight from Jesus’ mouth and He calls it the greatest commandment in the Law. How can we not take notice of that? The ultimate Rabbi is giving us a lesson in the ultimate Law. It is, as most people use it, calling us to reason in our faith.

The word for “mind”, here, is the Greek word dianoia, which means: “understanding, mind, insight, or thought”. At first glance, it seems in contradiction to the unknowable nature of God. But if you think of it as loving the Lord with all our understanding, then things become much simpler. It’s not only about study or logic, but how we internalize and express our idea of “God”.

Isaiah 1:18 has the Lord calling us to reason with Him. And that is good! The Lord willingly debated with Job over all his doubts and fears. Never stop searching and testing and working out our faith, for that is what we are called to do. But at the same time understand that whatever heights of academia or spirituality we may reach, we will never fully understand the whole of God. We were not called to know everything. We were not created to know everything, thank God! I would hate to know everything. How awful would it be for there to be nothing left in the universe to learn?

Perhaps loving the Lord with our mind begins, not at a point of argument or reason, but at a point of humility. Knowing that however much I argue or study or even pray for wisdom, I will never fully know the entirety of God; however, from what little, broken shards of light that I might even remotely understand, let all that is within me praise the Lord. For that’s what it’s really about, right? Not about how much we know, or how spiritual we sound when we bust out the Greek, or even how many books or blog posts we’ve written. No, it is about taking what insights we have and directly transmuting it to praise, love, and worship for the One who does know everything. How’s that for logic?