The most splendid and
shocking paradox
The
INFINITE God became
the
INFANT son of Mary
[We call this the
“X-paradox,” because “X” is an ancient symbol for Christ. The first letter of the word for “Christ” {Cristos} in the original Greek New Testament
is “X.”]
1. This
paradox was prophesied by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, 700 years before the first
Christmas. The virgin-born child would
also be the very presence of God:
Isaiah 7:14, nlt
All right then, the Lord himself
will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give
birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
2. Prophesied
again by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, 700 years before the first Christmas: a
human baby is also called “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father.”
Isaiah 9:6, NLT For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The
government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
3. This
paradox was also described by the angel Gabriel, in an encounter with Mary.
Luke 1:26-38, NLT …
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to
be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel
appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with
you!” 29 Confused
and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t
be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have
found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son,
and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called
the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor
David. 33
And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never
end!” 34 Mary
asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” 35 The
angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be
called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has
become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she’s
now in her sixth month. 37 For
nothing is impossible with God.” 38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant.
May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
4. This
paradoxical mystery was also then affirmed by an angel to Joseph, Mary’s
fiancé:
Matthew 1:20-21, NLT As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in
a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary
as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to
name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
5. This
great paradox of Christmas was philosophically described by John, the fisherman
Apostle, a few years later…
John 1:1-14, NLT In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with
God, and the Word was God. 2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God
created everything through him, and nothing was created except through
him. 4 The
Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to
everyone….14 So
the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love
and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and
only Son.
The Christmas Paradox
frees us to recognize the Creator’s paradoxical handiwork all around us.
Essentially Paradoxical
Map
The paradoxes of Jesus—the
Infinite who became the infant, the baby who is called Mighty God (Isaiah
9:6-8), the one who is fully God and fully human, the sovereign Lord who
liberates us—are not distractions, but essential to his personal and cosmic
roles. After all, even the intellectual
pursuits are all riveted with paradoxes.
Intellectual humility
has a renewed place in the post-secular role for every science, not just
theology. Increasingly, human knowledge
and even human “reason” itself are properly humbled by a plethora of persistent paradoxes.
What do these objective paradoxes do?
o
Objective paradoxes humble some of our
intellectual pretenses—especially the prideful posturing of many highly
educated linear thinkers. [See "Gödel, Gadamer, and Moral Business Leadership,"
Paul de Vries, Business and Professional Ethics Journal, Vol. 5,
No 3 & 4.]
o
They keep us in play, in engagement, in
sciences—fascinated, focused, even fun-oriented
o
They keep our human sensory and rational
pores open to new truths and to the eternal Truth—the only resolution of these
and other persistent objective paradoxes.
o
They make us aware that the full
resolutions are beyond our logical structures.
The world hangs together in spite of the limits even of our diverse
logics. That is, Someone
else besides ourselves is the actual “cosmic glue,” holding our real world
together.
o
To be perfectly clear, these paradoxes
are not at all like the “gaps” of the former “God of the gaps” strategies.
o
These paradoxes were not discovered by
theologians—defensive or otherwise.
o
These paradoxes are absolute. There can be no intellectual resolution.
o
Far from creating “gaps,” these
paradoxes generally arise where there are legitimate
competing, overlapping theories, not unexplained territories.
o
One of God’s roles is sustaining the
world by personally embracing the whole—as the “cosmic glue.” This divine role is phenomenal on multiple
levels, including in these paradoxes where our human minds clearly perceive
apparent objective contradictions.
o
The Lord is not dwelling in any gaps,
because there are no gaps.
o
Apart from the Lord, there would be no
unity—but we experience the unity every moment because He sustains it.
How widespread are
these persistent, objective paradoxes?
There are significant paradoxes in virtually every
discipline/science. Thus, each science
can learn humility, understand its limits, and appreciate God’s objective role
in holding it all together [Col 1:17; Heb 1:3].
Some of these persistent paradoxes are recorded in the CHART below.
|
Discipline |
Description |
Some PARADOXES |
|
AROUND: Whole Godly attitude, activity, and experience |
In Him, through Him and to Him are all things. – Romans 11 |
o Humans are 100% spiritual and 100% physical—God breathed his Spirit into formed clay—so that everything we humans do is both 100% spiritual and 100% physical. o We humans are thoroughly earthly, with complex and vast earthly tastes, hopes, plans and desires—yet we are never satisfied until the Lord Himself fills the God-shaped vacuum that deeply defines each of us. |
15. Theology – including Biblical, systematic,
& philosophical theology
|
Study of God in all His relationships with Himself, humanity, nature, and the rest of the universe. |
o The Infinite became the Infant. The most elementary Christmas story is a paradox. Soren Kierkegaard [1813-1855] called this the “Absolute Paradox.” [See Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments and Unscientific Postscript.] o God is completely sovereign, and yet we humans are thoroughly free and responsible for what we do. o The Incarnate Word was both full (100%) of grace and full (100%) of truth. Gospel of John 1:14-18 |
|
14. Ethics |
Study of critical thinking about human problems |
Human behavior is defined by many determinative factors—biological, psychological, sociological, historic, economic, political—and yet it is defined by freedom and responsibility |
|
13. Aesthetics |
Study of symbol, beauty, and meaning in all modes of human and divine expression. |
o MC Escher drawings – for example, hands appear to draw each other, and steps continue to go up and yet return to the beginning point. (See the cover art for this essay.) o Some musical works of JS Bach, where subtle changes elevate the music o Some Jazz, characterized by dissonant cords, superimposed poly-rhythms, and such like |
|
12. Economics |
Study of the meaning and value of goods and services within a market |
Adam Smith Paradox: Wise self-serving individual behaviors
lead to a benevolent free-market and society. [See "Resource |
|
11. Political Science |
Study of policies and systems of human governance. |
Nothing good gets done without political collaboration, although the political structures are always deeply, predictably (and hopelessly) biased. |
|
10. Sociology and Anthropology |
Study of the full range of meaning and structures within human interaction |
People are liberated to know their social and anthropological backgrounds, yet the stereotypes of those roles are distracting and debilitating |
|
9. History |
Study of human events within their significant temporal and contextual sequence. |
People who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it; and people who are saturated in history are conditioned to replicate it—so history alone can be debilitating either way |
|
8. Literature and Communication |
The study of essay & narrative (fiction and non-fiction) within the full range of human reflection. |
o We cannot understand a communication context without understanding the communication parts; yet the parts make sense only in an understood whole context. o Titus 1:12-13 and the famous Cretan Paradox: Cretans are always lying, one of them even truthfully said so. {This is one of many examples of great humor in the Bible.} |
|
7. Logic and Linguistics |
Study of concepts and words and their multiple connections. |
o Set-theory paradox: X = “The set of all sets that are not members of themselves.” If X is a member, it is not. o Linguistic: “This statement is false,” “If the Barber of Seville shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves, who shaves the Barber?,” and more. |
|
6. Psychology |
Study of human behavior, feeling and consciousness |
We must come to know ourselves, but the self is radically elusive because it is the always the subject, not ever the actual object of one’s own search. |
|
5. Biology |
Study of organic structures and functions. |
Founder Paradox: the exact causes and contexts of future mutations and survival environments are completely unknowable, so the theory of evolution cannot be predictive |
|
4. Chemistry |
Study of the ultimate material elements, compounds, mixtures. |
Molecules moving from one level of energy to another cannot exist in any in-between energy state. Electrons must move from one orbit to another, without existing between them. |
|
3. Physics |
Study of matter and energy – from the tiniest particle or wave to the universe. |
o Heisenberg’s Principle: the more we know of either the momentum or location of a sub-atomic particle, the less we know of the other (momentum or location). Exact knowledge of one is zero knowledge of the other. o Light behaves 100% like waves and 100% like particles—and yet particles and waves are completely dissimilar. |
|
2. Geometry |
Study of 1, 2, 3, or n-dimensional space. |
Gabriel’s Horn: a geometric funnel can have finite volume but truly infinite surface area |
|
1. Mathematics |
The study of the various kinds of numbers & functions. |
Gödel’s Proof: there is no consistent, finite set of principles from which we can generate all the truths of arithmetic—even the most elementary natural-number arithmetic. |
|
AROUND: Whole Godly attitude, activity, and experience |
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good – Genesis 1:31 |
o The more we get to know other persons closely, the more wonderfully mysterious they will seem to us. o The more we get to know the Lord, the fewer questions we have, even if we have few answers. Job no longer pursued his questions after he encountered the Lord [Job 42:5,6] |
Chart Copyright © 2010, Paul de Vries, phdevries@nydivinityschool.org
What are some of the
strategic implications and helpful applications of this chart of established
paradoxes throughout knowledge-bases?
1.
Paradox
is an integral part of our lives in every aspect—not a special burden for
theology.
2.
This Chart reminds us
that, at many levels, finite logic fails us—not only in life in general, but in
each one of the disciplines in particular.
Thankfully, the Creator has endowed us with shrewd reasoning abilities
which are superior to any of our logics.
The frequent failures of finite logics to comprehend and explain
everything are not causes for despair, but are reminders of the divine origin
of the human spirit, enabling it to thrive even in a paradoxical world. [See The
Taming of the Shrewd, Paul de Vries, Tomas Nelson Publishers, 1992.]
3.
“Truth is stronger than proof” (or even
logic) = we know more than we can prove —not only in life in general, but in
each of the disciplines/sciences as well.
No science can ever fully represent reality—even the limited aspect of
reality on which it focuses. This is
true at both ends of the science spectrum, and at every point between
them. For example, God is greater than
theology; courageous moral behavior is greater than the discipline of ethics;
priceless art is greater than aesthetics … and our daily use of numbers is
greater than arithmetic. Always.
4.
We
cannot be more demanding of Scripture and theology than we are of every one of
the disciplines, all of whom can justifiably humble and baffle our logics.
5.
Intellectual
pursuits are wonderful and rewarding—and a divine calling for us humans. However, they never propel us to levels
beyond what is still finite and flawed
human thought. Only God can draw us to
Himself and to the eternal Truth.
6.
Intellectual
humility—a great characteristic of Godly sanctification—is further facilitated
by the paradoxes in every field and discipline.
7.
What
else? _______________________________________
Much more can be added.
©2010, Paul de Vries, 646-395-0008, DrPaul@nydivinityschool.org.