We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
We began with Cheryl’s letter and ended with the crab shell of worldview. As we grow spiritually, we move out of one worldview so we might move into another, one that encompasses more of God. This is what Cheryl did. A paradoxical question stimulated her imagination and became a good problem for her. Despite the advice of her friends to let go of her problem, exploring it for Cheryl generated a “strange sort of comfort” in discovering a far larger (and yet more mysterious) God. Our imagination often prods us toward such growth; one of the tools it uses is paradox.
Paradox stimulates our imagination to see faith in fresh ways, not as certainty but as an ever-expanding synthesis of knowledge and trust. Like the twin tines of a tuning fork, knowledge and trust remain in harmonic tension, vibrating in unison, constantly correcting each other. Insisting on certainty is the shell some of us need to vacate; then our faith can begin growing again.
Paradox stimulates our imagination to see faith and reason as dance partners, each taking turns leading or following as faith seeks understanding. Freezing faith and reason in a static relationship is the shell some of us need to leave behind; then we can allow our faith and reason to freely complement one another in more nuanced ways.
Paradox stimulates our imagination by bringing the complexities of life and faith front and center so we cannot ignore them. This serves us well in two ways: first, we are more realistic and can refuse to settle for a simplicity that does not acknowledge complexity; second, as we journey into the complexity, we hope to arrive at a more profound simplicity on the other side. Being satisfied with easy answers and simple formulas is the shell some of us need to move beyond; then we can discover a deeper and richer Christian hope.
Paradox stimulates our imagination to explore the mystery of God as a realm we inhabit. We have built homesteads and cultivated small corners of this wild landscape, but the mystery of God is still all around us! Exploring paradox gets us asking questions and moving deeper into the mystery, but eventually we reach a point where we rest in God’s mystery without needing to figure it out. As Cheryl finally concluded, “there is a God and I am not he.” Expecting to have all our questions answered is the shell some of us need to put behind us; then we can rest in the mystery of God.
As paradox stimulates our imagination in these and other ways, we may experience the second-order change we met with the seriously playful paradoxes of Jesus: “Second-order solutions are often viewed from within the system as unpredictable, amazing, and surprising, since they are not necessarily based on the rules and assumptions of that system.”1 One of paradox’s most valuable gifts is injecting new thoughts and opportunities for growth into what can become closed systems (or worldviews).
Keith Webb describes driving on backcountry roads through beautiful French countryside; frequently stuck behind farm tractors on narrow, winding roads, he traveled slowly. His GPS told him he was still three hours away from his destination and thus late for an appointment. Rather than responding in a typical American way (a tighter grip on the steering wheel, straining to press ahead), he stopped for coffee and a croissant. When he started his car again, the GPS automatically reset itself and he immediately noticed it was set to avoid toll roads. A simple reprogramming of the GPS to include toll roads instantly offered a new route that was two hours faster.2 Second-order change intervenes from outside our systems.
Our worldview is an internal GPS system guiding us through life. From inside our worldview, we easily assume our only options are making small adjustments or trying harder. Outside intervention resets our worldview to incorporate more of reality (toll roads) that we would otherwise miss—such is the second-order change that biblical paradox stimulates through our imagination. Expanding our worldview is often a wonderful gift.
As I write these words, I gaze across study tables in the thirteenth-century Duke Humfrey Library, the oldest section of Oxford University’s Bodleian Library. Mahogany-paneled walls and bookshelves surround me, illuminated to a burnished glow by leaded-glass windows set in stone traceries. Stained-glass crests within the windows sparkle in the morning sun. Thirty feet above me, brightly painted heraldic shields of forgotten nobles add color between the dark oak rafters of the hammer-beam ceiling. Portraits of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century clerics on the whitewashed walls stare impassively down at me.
To reach my desk, I walk past readers poring over medieval manuscripts by the soft light of reading lamps. Dusty, leather-bound volumes are stacked helter-skelter on groaning wooden shelves above their heads. Some readers sit hunched over huge parchments written in Greek and Latin, while others inspect pocket-size books with magnifying glasses, and still others clack away on laptops, translating as they read.
I ponder their intense concentration. Why do they spend their days closeted here, when they could be basking in the English sunshine? What secrets do these ancient books hold for them? Are they simply completing a thesis on some arcane topic so they can get on with the rest of their lives? Or is there some deeper attraction?
Even though my work requires no ancient manuscripts, I keep returning to this magical place. I love the smell of learning, the sensation of being surrounded by the wisdom of the ages. If I close my eyes, I feel as if I might easily open them again to find medieval monks copying ancient texts for posterity. Little has changed from the days when only clerics populated this repository of human knowledge.
Then it hits me: one day this place will disappear. It may not be the fire that consumed the library of the ancients at Alexandria, nor perhaps human negligence or some natural disaster. Will these books that have been tenderly shepherded for centuries disappear in a flash of brilliance at the final consummation (Mark 13:31)? The humanist in me pales at the prospect. The creation to which we Christians look forward is a new heaven and earth, but still a material one with rivers and trees, cities and thrones. Who is to say how much human culture will carry over into it?
The whine of electric saws interrupts my reverie. Workmen hammer away, shoring up portions of the sacred shelves where termites as well as scholars have been at work. It is just wood, I remind myself. I glance at the book title at eye level next to me: Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, Middlesex County Record, Wills at Chester 1545 to 1620. Well, perhaps not all the books are priceless classics! Could much of this library, I ruefully wonder, simply be the dusty attic of Great Britain?
These whiffs of disillusionment remind me of the glaring contrast on my first day in this august environment. Frequent cries of “All quiet!” echoed up through the open lead-paned windows. The demands for silence were not from intense scholars but from the movie set of Gulliver’s Travels, which was being filmed one floor beneath me. Such is paradox.
Paradox is the Duke Humfrey Library. When this place has served its purpose, we might little mourn its passing in the joy of finally knowing as we have been known. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12 KJV).
For now, paradox is part of our human struggle to see more clearly and know more deeply. When we encounter God face-to-face, will the biblical paradoxes that offer glimpses into the mystery of God disappear? Will the great ontological divide that separates us from God disappear with them? Perhaps paradox will have served its purpose. Or perhaps some of these paradoxes will remain, or new ones take their place. God’s mystery may still be beyond our comprehension. All this remains to be seen. In the meantime, paradox is waiting to guide us as we dimly peer through the glass.