The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 97 - What does God look like? How Augustine Wrestled with God's Appearance

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What happens when philosophical training clashes with biblical revelation? In this profound exploration of Augustine's theological development, we unpack his fascinating struggle with the Bible's vivid descriptions of God's appearance and the heavenly throne room.

Augustine's journey begins with his immersion in Neoplatonic thought, which viewed ultimate reality as entirely non-physical, formless, and inherently unseeable. This philosophical framework created significant tension when he encountered passages from Daniel, Revelation, and Ezekiel describing God the Father seated on a throne with visible form and appearance.

We trace how Augustine initially resolved this conflict by reinterpreting biblical language through abstract philosophical categories—much like Friedrich Schleiermacher would do centuries later with the Enlightenment worldview. For the young Augustine, "seeing God" didn't mean literally perceiving a divine form but achieving intellectual comprehension of divine truth.

What makes Augustine's story particularly valuable is witnessing his evolution. As he matured in faith and engaged more deeply with Scripture, he began taking the Bible's physical descriptions more seriously. Though never fully abandoning his philosophical presuppositions, he developed a more nuanced position that acknowledged how God might adopt visible forms to facilitate human understanding.

This episode highlights a pattern that continues today—the temptation to reframe biblical language to accommodate prevailing intellectual paradigms. Whether it's 18th-century rationalists explaining away miracles or contemporary theologians recasting the gospel in psychological terms, Christians continually face the challenge of letting Scripture speak on its own terms.

The fundamental question we explore cuts to the heart of Christian theology: Is our separation from God due to an unbridgeable metaphysical gap between Creator and creature? Or is it, as Scripture suggests, primarily a consequence of sin that Christ's work overcomes? Your answer shapes not just abstract theology but your entire approach to spiritual life.

How do you picture God when you pray? Join our conversation about embracing the beauty of biblical imagery and the joy of encountering the living God as He truly is.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we're still wanting to think a little bit about Augustine. We've thought about his family, but we also want to think a bit about him and his development in theology and theological vision. With respect to this concept of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization and this big worldview, what is reality and this idea of the third heaven, the throne room of the living God, and that cascading down of authority, truth, beauty, goodness that comes, and with all the angels, all of that. Now Augustine struggles with that vision and he kind of wants to reinterpret it into the rationality, that of his culture, his world. Now, in a way, many people do that the most. The example that we in the modern west are most used to is frederick schleiermacher, who, um, he is the at the end of the 18th century into the 19th century, and there there is this totally new modern view of the world that is considered the sort of materialistic worldview that came from a particular approach to the scientific project, view that came from a particular approach to the scientific project. So the idea then in the 18th century is that the universe is, or the physical universe is, a kind of mechanistic clockwork system, a closed system, a mechanical system, and it's like a machine that's been wound up and is now running with its own internal processes, a closed system, so that there is no room for miracles. Everything that happens in the universe happens with simple materialistic cause and effect in the universe happens with simple materialistic cause and effect, and so there is a kind of crisis there for Christian belief, because if that is adopted, that view is seriously adopted, there can be no miracles, because then the whole system has been set up to work mechanically, and the idea in that worldview was that miracles would be an indication that the Lord, god, has not made the system properly, because it ought to run perfectly without the need for interventions. That was the idea.

Speaker 1:

So miracles were not just that people felt that they didn't want to believe in miracles. It wasn't just that. It was more that the idea of appealing to miracles was an embarrassment for God, because if he set up a perfect machine, why would he need to keep tinkering with it? Why intervene? That's a sign that the machine hasn't been built properly. So there was this kind of belief that either there is no God at all and there is just this mechanical system that operates on its own steam, but but there isn't really the mental, that isn't really a rational possibility at the theory of evolution and so on. But at that point there's still this belief that, oh well, you need some kind of a God to have made the machine at the very beginning and now the machine just runs mechanistically.

Speaker 1:

So if for Christian people who were faced with a very severe choice, who were faced with a very severe choice, they had to either reject that worldview and quite radically do that and there were plenty that did that and you think, well, you can think of people like John Wesley and that whole kind of experimental Christianity from the 18th century into the 19th century, and they just embrace the miraculous and the idea that the living God does show up experimentally and that that is a feature, not a problem. The universe has been designed in order for that to happen. It's not the machine or whatever of the universe is designed to bring about and enable encounter with the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit. So the Son went that way. But there was a whole nother tradition that said no, look to be, rationally credible to be.

Speaker 1:

And Schleiermacher wrote his book Lectures on Religion to her cultured despisers reasonable, rational, philosophically responsible people can't do that kind of let's just believe in miracles, let's just believe in things like that, because the idea was we've got to have a view of the universe that is rational and credible and that has got to be kind of a materialistic, scientific view of the world, and so we will re-express all the doctrines so that it all fits in in the enlightenment. For so, therefore, you know, miracles have to be interpreted in terms of natural processes, so that you know things like jesus, uh, feeding the 5000, that has to be interpreted as well. Everyone had, or many people had, brought packed lunches, and when Jesus shared out one packed lunch in a wholehearted way, it inspired everyone to share their lunches. Or that there were actually secret reserves of catering reserves hidden in a nearby cave and they were able to avail themselves of that, or whatever. There will be way all the miracles were interpreted, including the resurrection of jesus. Schleimacher even gets to the point where he talks about jesus kind of swoons on the cross and then is resuscitated by the coolness of the tomb and then is able to come back alive, kind of thing. But he hadn't really died. I mean, schleiermacher even toys with that kind of a thing because he has to, because he has to confine the whole of theology within that intellectual system.

Speaker 1:

Nowadays, not so many people do that Schleiermacher thing, though Schleiermacher, by doing that, so radically and thoroughly set the tone for certainly Protestant theology over the past 200 years that it's considered to be an option to do that and to reinterpret the language of the Bible and theology to make it compatible with the dominating philosophy or scientific worldview of the moment. And that's been a very, very common strategy over the past 200 years with respect to all kinds of philosophy and scientific theories. So nowadays people tend to do it with psychology. They'll tend to go oh well, the really important truths that we have to take seriously are to do with human psychology or human sexuality or whatever, and so the language of the gospel is changed to make it fit with dominating psychological theory. So I've sometimes heard people talk about the gospel. As you know, it's how we discover who we really are and actualize our real selves. And that's what God is offering us in the gospel putting to death false views of ourselves, being liberated from those and being able to actualize our real selves and all this kind of thing. And it's a way of saying look the dominant worldview or philosophy or psychology. We must make sure the gospel is compatible with that so that it's credible to modern people.

Speaker 1:

Ok, now we say all that to provide the context for why Augustine does some of the things that he does and thinks that some of the cosmic throne room or the divine throne room that are concluded in the Bible, that sometimes they are presented symbolically, as in the tabernacle where you have the holiest of holies in a room and that symbolizes the highest heaven, with the ark of the covenant as a as as a kind of throne, with angels surrounding it and in on the lid of the tabernacle, on the lid of the ark, and then angels embroidered into the curtains and the material, so that symbolically that inner room is you can see it's representing this heavenly throne room full of angels with the throne at the center. So sometimes that heavenly throne room is represented symbolically. But there are other times in the Bible where it appears to be described visually, and Daniel and John are the most obvious examples of being able to see that divine throne room, the third heaven, and you'll remember, in Daniel 7,. I know we often remind ourselves of this visual imagery in the Bible, but it's in Daniel 7, from verse 9. He says I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool. His throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. Thousands upon thousands ministered unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, the books were opened, and so on. And then, of course, verse 13,. I saw in these night visions one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, came to the Ancient of Days and they brought him near before him. So that scene described in that way.

Speaker 1:

And then we have the same thing in Revelation 4 and 5. Again, we often refer to it. And in Revelation 4, john is in the spirit and beholds a throne set in heaven and one sat on the throne, and he that sat was to look upon like jasper or sardine stone, and there was a rainbow round the throne in sight, like an emerald, and round about the throne four and twenty seats, and upon the seats four and twenty elders seated, clothed in white raiment and they had on their heads crowns of gold, and out of the throne proceeded lightnings, thunders, voices. Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God and Son. Before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God and Son.

Speaker 1:

Now that simple description, and Jesus boils it down even more, doesn't he? With the Lord's Prayer, our Father in heaven, and the most simple description of that, where is the Father? He's in heaven. And we're to think of that kind of think, of that kind of picture of heaven whenever we begin to pray Our Father in heaven, seated on the throne, angels surrounding, and that's the, or Hebrews just says it in terms of we, with confidence, by the blood of Jesus and with the way that's opened to us, are able to go into that holiest of holies, place, the highest heaven, where the father is. And we can do that with confidence and thing.

Speaker 1:

And and that imagery of going into a heavenly throne room and having a right to uh down through the ages that is thousand, I was going to say millions of times, possibly millions of times, but certainly thousands of times that depicted in ancient art, from the early church, we get those heavenly throne room scenes with there's the father on the throne, jesus sat at his right hand, and then the spirit is variously depicted, sometimes as a dove, sometimes as fire, sometimes even as wind and so on, but mostly probably as a dove in some form, bodily form, as a dove, and then not just in the ancient church but then through the medieval period, just hundreds, thousands of paintings and depictions of that scene, and then right into the modern age too. I remember when the children I think it was Jonathan, actually, when he was quite young and I asked him with our father in heaven and Jesus at his right hand, and he drew a picture of that and it was, in basic terms, exactly as Daniel describes and Revelation describes and, as you know, millions of Christians have depicted in different ways down through the ages. And that kind of you could call it a naive reading of the bible, just taking it at face value, because but in another sense I think it's a very sophisticated reading of the bible because it's a saying. It's saying look, I, I don't know like here are the only descriptions. I haven't looked into heaven, but here are testimonies from those who have, and this is what they say, say they see, and the different eyewitness testimonies all seem to be completely compatible and harmonious with each other. And so I dare not, I dare not doubt that or or interpret it according to my own cosmologies or my own. So I think there's an overwhelming dominance of taking that language quite literally, naively or, if you will, sophisticatedly.

Speaker 1:

And in our minds we have this then idea of the highest heaven that has this glorious appearance the father sits on the throne, jesus at his right hand, the spirit, the, also with hundreds of millions of angels, and then the saints and so on, and all this cascading reality down to us on earth. Now then, what's this got to do with Augustine? Reality down to us on earth? Now then, what's this got to do with augustine? It's got to do with augustine because when he couldn't, he found that very hard to stomach, like it was a bit like schleiermacher at the end of the 18th century saying I just can't believe in miracles, it will not fit into the scientific worldview that I think is just necessary to hold this scientific worldview. I'm really struggling with the language of the Bible to do with miracles and things.

Speaker 1:

Now, augustine was kind of like that, that when he would read the passages like that, or Ezekiel's vision, ezekiel 1, or any of that sort of depictions of the living God, the Father, and literally in a physical form, like there, with wearing robes and having an appearance, having an appearance. And Jesus many times God, the Son, throughout Scripture, has an appearance and a form and rolls up and so on. All of that language is for him. I guess the analogy would be rational. People hold in, you know, you just can't have God having form or appearance. And so Augustine even has correspondence with people about this. It troubles him, it's an intellectual difficulty to him and to others at the time, because it was other people at the time are wrestling with the same kind of secular worldview that is in opposition to the plain meaning of the Bible. So I'm going to ask PJ, can you explain to us why Augustine struggles with this and give us evidence of his struggle?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so part of it is. So it seems like he had a problem as a kid that he couldn't put his finger on. That seems to have been like, you know, just absorbing, because he does absorb lots of information, uh, so we all have absorbed a lot of that. And then when he gets sent to school and although this is something he looks back on as something monica failed at that she sent him to a school that was pagan but like well accredited, you know, just to advance his education and, and there it was a very pagan guy. We've talked about him before.

Speaker 2:

He writes this letter where he's very caring about augustine and all of that and very pious, so that he gets, but in a pagan way. He's very pious towards jupiter, um, so he he's sent into that sort of a world where there's genuine, meaningful piety towards god in you know, that sense. That's entirely pagan. Uh, he hasn't been baptized yet because there's a sort of idea in, uh, berber christianity at that time and other places where one, if you sin after you're baptized, then you'll go to hell. So then you've got to be baptized as late as possible.

Speaker 2:

So he didn't get, although Monica wanted him to get baptized, but there was a general feeling, uh, not to baptize kids at that time and it's something he's very against. So he gets very strongly on the idea you have to baptize kids later in life because he realises it's where he went astray, that he wasn't properly inducted into the church but there was so much genuinely meaningful paganism that he was going to be inducted in simply because it looked better on his CV and Monica liked that. So that was a genuine failing of hers. So all these kind of misgivings he has gets explained by these pagans who have these similar ideas as just, yeah, that's something christians get totally wrong. And they they have their explanations. And at the time there's a guy, platinus um, who was found convincing.

Speaker 1:

It's hard like if you read it now he's not convincing yeah, because I literally got his works, because people get saying oh pretend, what a powerful thinker. So I literally got the essential platinus works, read them and they were ridiculous. I actually was embarrassed for people. You know. It was literally laughably bad yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that's the Neoplatonic world viewer, as they call it now. So he basically tries to take Platonism. So Platonism was supposed to be an idea that got rid of myths and you just had thinking it's all just logic now, and that wasn't convincing. So that was even less convincing, uh, today, and you know as, because it was just there was obviously a need for religion. So plotinus then he has loads of friends that are gnostic, especially like manichae and so on, but other kinds of gnostics, and he likes that form of religion because they're all about intellect and everything, but they do it in a very religious way. So he remodels Platonism. So it's no longer just a school of thought, it's now a religion that has hierophants and it has, you know, as their equivalent of priests and so on. So that's going on. But then Augustine thinks well, I'm not going to bother with a kind of, you know, cobbled together version, I'll just go to the source, I'll become a maniche.

Speaker 2:

So that was a religion founded by a guy who claimed to have seen an angel of light. You explain to him how the cosmos works and explain to him that Jesus isn't the real deal. He's a small instance of the cosmic Christ. Who's this? Like you know, intellect exists in the form of intellect and everything. So Jesus is this one instance of this sort of thing. But then he actually liked cause. He thought Malachi and piety. He said they were obsessed with Jesus in terms of piety. In everyday life they'd always be talking about him, but as a matter of fact they had this problem where they didn't worship Jesus. They just saw Jesus as a part of this cosmic Christ sort of thing that has also manifested as Buddha. That's another idea. That's in the modern day, the cosmic Christ stuff people have taken up again. So that was.

Speaker 1:

Malichaeism. I mean, there's that. Richard Rohr isn't there. He literally teaches that very thing that there's a cosmic Christ that manifests in lots of different religious figures and Jesus is one of them and he might think the main one or something. But yeah, so there's cosmic Christ, human Jesus, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? These things come around over and over again.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so they've got this idea that. Yeah, so part of the reason they think that is because they dislike the material world. But actually, obviously, in the Bible we know every false teaching comes about because people hate Jesus. So that view of Jesus where he's actually just belittled and made just a part of the bigger picture, that's really the key of it all. So they hate the material world because they think little of Jesus as a matter of fact. But people often explain it the other way around. So I thought it's worth getting into that. But yeah, so they believe that the material world is like a prison. It's worth getting into that, but yeah, so they believe that the material world is like a prison. Everyone's meant to be immaterial light and then God wasn't able to defeat the evil, so he tricked the evil to absorbing all this light in order to defeat it from the inside. But now loads of light is trapped in it.

Speaker 2:

So you've got to kind of eat lots of apples, because there's light in apples, and then you burp and then like releases light okay, so that's the, that's the idea of madachism, and it's very ridiculous at the time, but of course that was what inspired neoplatonism, which you know. Um. And so then augustine's like I'll just go to the source, because particularly they would always have in their polemics anti-anthropomorphism. So they'd always be like that was the key. They were like you worship human forms and you think God's in human form, whereas they don't even think Jesus is in human form. So then he gets caught up in that, because that was this hobby horse of his. He just didn't get, and it wasn't explained to him well in church in a way they didn't approach him properly with it and explain the proper basis behind it that there is deep thinking to it. He came across this later, once he started taking Monica seriously because she was a Berber Christian. She obviously had these beliefs.

Speaker 1:

And then Tert tell you as well he always found it troubling that to tell you was a corporealist and he could never tell you and had no problem with the, the forms and appearance of the father and the son as in the bible, yeah, whereas he's like can't be, because real divinity has no appearance, no form, because of the Neoplatonism.

Speaker 2:

But he super respects Tertullian because he's this great Berber, north African Christian saint and a very clever thinker. So Augustine ends up sort of thinking, all right, they're not. And there's one time he does call anthropomorphites idiots. This is after he became a Christian, but he still called them idiots. And then he had to kind of apologize because this bishop wrote back that he actually really respected him. He was like well, I'm an anthropomorphite, by the way, sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

And he was in Italy, this guy. So it was all over the place. It's not just a North African thing, but we see it last longest where places have been evangelized by Jews for whatever reason. But I suppose it's partly because the Greek way of thinking was so big in the Roman Empire, anywhere that wasn't Jewish had bought into this, and even, you know, philo at times does buy into that, so even some Jews. But so North Africa, which is very kind of Jewish basis, and then, well, kind of all all around Africa, like in Egypt and Ethiopia, it was all that those were strongholds of this. And so he thought like, oh, this is just this sort of problem. He could write to Italy and just say, oh, aren't they all idiots? But actually there were loads of Italians that were like no, we're anthropomorphics.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we believe the father is just as he appears in scripture, and so is the son and all this yeah, so, yeah, so that is it.

Speaker 2:

So he sort of that makes him step back away and he has to explain it, because this was in this letter to pauline, who is this other saint, and she'd been asking about this, and so at that point, so at one point, he's like you can't even talk about any form and images, and the physical stuff doesn't. In fact, the physical stuff's harmless, uh, harmful.

Speaker 1:

So so he would say it's literally harmful to even use physical or form language with respect to the father, son and spirit yeah, yeah, definitely, and that materiality is harmful just in general.

Speaker 2:

So there's an idea in manichaeism that like that. So there's that whole idea like the light was meant to be trapped in the darkness to defeat it, but then, um, then people started basically having concupiscence and they started reproducing, and then the light gets stuck in the earth through concupiscence and augustine continues. So that's just basically like lust, but it can even include just between married couples.

Speaker 1:

So kind of investing your heart in physical things is trapping goodness in physical things, whereas what you should do is turn your heart towards non-material things and that is assisting the good things getting liberated from physicality.

Speaker 2:

So for him he's always suspicious of any any kind of attraction towards physical things, because if you, physical things are obviously not not the future kind of thing because of the neoplatonist stuff yeah, and the manichean stuff oh yeah, the man you know they, they're very strong in it, whereas the neoplatonist almost like oh, I don't care, do whatever you want with your body, sort of right, because they're you know the manichees have thought it through a bit more and they're like not an early, we've got.

Speaker 1:

You've got to be opposed to physical things right so that feeling is still there with augine, that he's got this like oh, the physical things are dodgy, yeah, and he's dealing with. So how does he deal with the language of the Bible then? Because people see God in the Bible, they see these appearances. So when he writes to Paulina, how does he?

Speaker 2:

explain that. So she'd written about this because earlier in his concerning the Trinity, he'd said they just see angels, and so you've spent most of your life trying to get rid of that Augustinian idea. He seems to be the first Christian to introduce this sort of idea.

Speaker 1:

He is yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it's very problematic. But he does that because he's just they cannot see God before the incarnation Cause, and so he says that at that point. And then she writes and brings up these sort of points, and so he then at that point says so this is later in his life, um, and again, as we thought more, he's been challenged on it a bit and he's got a lot more respect for Monica. Um, and so later in life he then starts saying all right, maybe they did like, maybe god kind of took on materiality that they could see, and so they could physically see, and maybe even it's impossible to get the intellectual knowledge of god and anything without having physical sight of god in some way.

Speaker 1:

So so because what, early on he just says I forget all the physical language, all the appearance language that is just kind of. That's not really what God's like. What you've got to do is seeing God is mentally, is a totally mental thing, because of course he's a very intellectual person. So of course he would be like, yeah, no, what it really means is thinking about god, and so initially, earlier, he's like there is no visual element whatsoever in seeing god. Seeing god means thinking about god and understanding god. Then, as you say, he develops to a point where he's like oh, hang on, though, because he's got the Bible really doesn't seem to be saying that at all.

Speaker 1:

Someone quite recently said to me I think the underlying philosophy of the Bible is Neoplatonism. So that was a modern person who was totally comfortable with that that all the languages of the Bible could be translated into Neoplatonism. But I guess later he's like oh, I'm not so sure about that. So he's like what is it? He's saying no, when the Bible describes these appearances of God, what God is doing. Although God really has no appearances or form or there's nothing visual, he adopts them temporarily, I guess, because it's impossible to mentally apprehend him without some kind of appearance. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah so there is, yeah, he comes to that view and then he says in the new creation we will continue to use material.

Speaker 1:

So then materiality will have its proper function in being representative yeah, yeah, so he doesn't see, so he never thinks that material, physical things have um value in themselves. Like he's like he first he thinks they're totally unhelpful, then he's like oh no, they're sort of helpful because they enable us to get to the, the, the stuff that's really important. There's the truly real things which is immaterial. Yeah yeah, yeah, but he never gets to a point of saying, no, material things are good in themselves. Like they the, they are the reality.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so he develops this idea of like things and signs to. That's all about that way, saying that everything is either a thing or a sign. You know something that points you to the thing that you want and that want and that, and he says, if, but then you think about materiality in that way where that only so the only thing that exists is god. Um, in that sort of view, and that so then he has, jesus only becomes a sign to the father at the incarnation, when he kind of becomes, uh, a sign sort of. He has that idea that the incarnation is the beginning of the mission and so there was no mission before that point, sort of thing. So he has this whole idea, yeah, and that, um, everything is just beginning of the mission and so there was no mission before that point, sort of thing. So he has this whole idea, yeah, and that everything is just a sign in a way, and not a thing.

Speaker 1:

So is it fair to say, like we read those passages from Daniel and Revelation and when I read them, I think that is the Bible showing us, that's what God the Father's really like. That's really the God the Father and then God the Son. That's true. There is nothing more beyond that. That is ultimate reality. Daniel 7, revelation 5, things like that, whereas for him, even later in his life, he wouldn't think that He'd say no, there's a reality of God that's beyond that, that has no appearance attached to it at all, that ultimately there's an even greater reality beyond the highest heaven, and that is God, highest heaven, and that is god, what I know he's able to go.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I can see that, that beyond the visions of daniel, ezekiel and john, and I can apprehend that ultimately, god has absolutely no appearance, no form and it's the all these things that in the bible that are like he is not seen, he is not known, sort of thing, because in hebrew I just found out or in ancient hebrew, there is no word for invisible, it's just you know, god is not seen, um, and it seems that in the early church of like much earlier, like the apostolic era, because some people would say augustine, early church, others would say medieval, but in the very early church, all of these things where it's like invisible or unknown aren't intrinsic characteristics, they're just descriptions of the state we're in. So it's like he could be seen, but he's hidden from us or he's very far away.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like in the Bible, it always seems to me that the reason we cannot see the father isn't is because we're sinful, and that we're supposed to see the father, we're supposed to see the son, we're supposed to visually see them and interact with them, but that, but we cannot because of sin. That there's a sin separates us. So in the bible, the god is not seen because we're sinful. Uh, but there will come a point where we will see god, whereas, is it fair to say that there's another tradition that emerges where they go? Oh no, it's not a problem of sin, it doesn't matter whether you're sinful or holy god is intrinsically unseeable, like inherently unseeable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so Augustine even says Any God that can be known is no God at all.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, meaning any God you can see, or known, even intellectually. Known at all. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

So he says he cannot know anything about, so he's unknowable. He's it, so he's unknowable.

Speaker 1:

He's not just unknown, he's unknowable, whereas intrinsically unknowable and intrinsically unseeable, and that's what God's really like. So when the Bible says, no, you will see him. This is what he looks like. You can know him. This is what he's like. Well, not really.

Speaker 2:

Not really. And it's like when we compare that mysterious man in Ephesus probably the apostle John, but I mean, who knows who talks to Saint Justin and when he says how God is unknowable and he says, well, it's like if you asked a Greek what a tiger is like, and he's never been to India, he's never seen pictures, and it's like, well, could you just explain what a tiger is? And he'd say, no, I don't even know there's such a thing as a tiger. He wouldn't be able to just think up well, it's probably this, he just has no point of reference, he's never encountered it. So it's just that because God has not been encountered by sinful humanity and also is dangerous to encounter, which is similar to a tiger as well, you know, because we think no one's seen God and lived, there's the idea that Nadab and Bihu perhaps did see God, and then you know, died for it.

Speaker 1:

So I think, like, let's pull it together. What we're really trying to say is we love Augustine and we see him on a trajectory that as a young man, before he's a Christian, he's really hostile to the language of the bible because he's buying into neoplatonism and neoplatonism's like oh yeah, ultimate reality is totally got nothing to do with physicality, nothing to do with form, no appearance. It's utterly abstract. And then he goes to manichaeism to get some like I was going to say, flesh on that, but it's the opposite of flesh on that, to kind of like he wants that to be worked out in a practical religious system and manichaeism is doing that. And then he moves from that and becomes a christian and now and now he's got to have a slight he's then, from then on, after becoming christian, from then on he's get, he's having to take materiality, physical things, more seriously, because god becomes flesh and the bible. So he's on this journey from really everything like ultimate reality is totally non-physical, totally mature, intrinsically unseeable and everything. And then his journey as he becomes a christian. He then starts to go oh, hang on, I've got to deal with the language of the bible, I've got to take this more seriously. And then he's wrestling with that and wrestling, and then he ends up at a place where he's saying, okay, god does take on form and materiality and seeableness to enable us to get to the like intellectual comprehension. But we kind of always hope, I suppose, that in the with the journey, if he'd been lived for another sort of 10, 20 years, he might have got to. Well, what, like his mom and and others were saying no, no, the language of the Bible, we don't need to translate it into any neoplatonic categories.

Speaker 1:

And I think the point maybe to leave people with is there's a real bad thing if we go like, because the Bible really does seem to think that the curtain that separates us, like symbolized in the tabernacle and the temple, and that is torn down from top to bottom when Jesus dies, that curtain that renders God unseeable to us, that's why we cannot see him, because there's a curtain that separates us that is not intrinsic to reality. The reason, like the problem is not that he is this infinite creator and we are finite creatures, because if that's the problem, that will never be overcome, that is not going to be overcome. That means there is no way of relating to him. But the Bible does not say that's the problem All the way through the Bible, the problem that separates us, the reason we cannot see him, the reason we do not know him and understand him. It's not an intrinsic problem. The problem is sin and uncleanness, and that's fixed, that can be remedied and therefore we don't need to have this kind of Because in Neoplatonism it's got nothing to do with sin and unholiness. It's like an intrinsic, essential problem.

Speaker 1:

God just cannot be known, cannot be seen, cannot be interacted with. The Bible says no, no, the whole purpose is to have close interaction, personal knowledge. And Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God and Jesus. There is not being some sort of Neoplatonist saying yeah, blessed are the pure in heart because they will have this intellectual meditation on the abstraction of God or something. What nonsense. That doesn't make because the Bible is filled with the language of God or something. What nonsense. That doesn't make Because the Bible is filled with the language of seeing the filled. And when we see Jesus we will be like him because we'll see him as he is. All of that's important. So that's why we'll end this.

Speaker 1:

We've made this a super long episode because we've gone deep and we're really wanting to say, look, these questions, maybe the hard questions, how do we understand these descriptions in the bible of of the heavenly reality of the father on the throne, of jesus sitting next to him?

Speaker 1:

And why does jesus, with the lord's prayer, at want to like, direct our attention to, to that vision of the Father in heaven? And Christian art and spirituality all down through the ages is filled with that. And it is a constant temptation to say, you know, to fall into, say, neoplatism or other forms of abstraction and say, nah, like I think I can see beyond this language of the Bible and I think there's a deeper reality beyond the language of the Bible. And you know, for me I guess in some ways I've been like Augustine that I can remember when I was young having that sort of view saying, oh yeah, we've got to explain away the language of the Bible, and then realising the problems with that. And then now I'm always trying to embrace it and finding the joy, the beauty, the beauty of the Lord, not just intellectual abstractions.