In Awe of God’s Transcendence and Immediacy

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 “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind… ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?’” (Job 38:1, 4-7).

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (John 15:14-15).

The above quotations paint two very different pictures of God. In the first, Job is confronted with the terrifying reality that he is speaking with an all-powerful Creator, infinitely Other and incomprehensible. In the second, Jesus (who made it clear that “He and the Father are One” in the Gospel of John) reveals His simple intimacy with His disciples, claiming that He has taught them everything that He heard from the Father.

So, which is it? Is God utterly transcendent and unknowable? Or has He revealed Himself completely to us, showing us completely what He is and still able to call us that tender title of “friends”? Hopefully Catholics (and other Christians) can give a raucous cheer of “BOTH/AND,” as we know our God to be both. Even if we know this intellectually, it is so easy to forget this reality in our daily life. 

On one hand, it is easy to forget how close God wishes to be to us. When this happens, we can fall into a kind of despair. In the midst of this "vale of tears", crying out to a distant God can seem useless. If He is simply a rule maker, a cold authority, or unapproachable in His superiority, then what would be the use of the Christian life?

On the other hand, we can fall into a false sense of the mundane and familiar in our Christian life. When we lose sight of the Otherness of God, we can fail to show God the honor that He is due in any number of ways–genuflecting without reverence, uncritically deciding that some aspect of a liturgy is “good enough,” or forgetting just how serious taking the Lord’s name is vain really is.

God’s unlikely combination of intimate and Other is especially clear in the Eucharist; coming down from heaven to be received by us is the most intimate and vulnerable act that Christ could perform. The fact that the Creator of the universe would deign to do so ought to be a source of awe for us.

So, as we are held in this tension between the intimacy and transcendence of God, what are we to do? If we fall into feelings of despair, let us focus on the promise of Christ to be close to us, and meditate on His friendship. If we fall into a sense of the ordinary, let us call to mind that the Person we seek to be in relationship with is truly the Almighty. In all things, let us be in awe of our all-powerful creator who lowers Himself so much that we may call Him our dearest Friend.

Written by Elijah McMahon


I am a created entity, not a person.

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