Sometimes I think we should worry less about whether or not God is real and worry about how much more real he might be than us. There’s a frightening aspect to a reality where you are vapor and mist next to a being whose solidity outstrips the very earth you stand on.

I happened across this article on salon.com that takes Oprah’s latest psecudo-spiritual schlock to task. It appears that she’s jumped on the bandwagon of people following a book called The Secret that’s cribbed from the Word of Faith movement people but put a secular slant on it.

Now I’ve never been a fan of Oprah, and this is one of the reasons why. For a person who has the power to deeply impact such a large audience, she displays an incredible lack of intellectual responsibility. It seems like time and time again these ridiculous fads crop up on her show or on her book list. It’s almost as if she’s the gatekeeper for what her watchers will accept but doesn’t actually do any rigorous gate-keeping. In fact, it appears that she’s set herself up on top of the “pyramid scheme” this time, as it were. I suggest you read the article first for more information, then come back here.

There was one quote from the book that caught my attention, and I’d like to go over it in depth in this post, if you’ll allow me. Here it is:

“Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of.”

This line of thinking seems like something that has no doubt come out of the Health-and-Wealth-gospel circles, but with it from such a fresh source I can’t help but respond. Let’s consider each of these in turn.

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More insights from The Everlasting Man:

“In Christendom hope has never been absent; rather it has been errant, extravagant, excessively fixed upon fugitive chances. Its perpetual revolution and reconstruction has at least been an evidence of people being in better spirits. Europe did very truly renew its youth like the eagles; just as the eagles of Rome rose again over the legions of Napoleon ^[1], or we have seen soaring but yesterday the silver eagle of Poland ^[2]. But in the Polish case ever revolution always went with religion. Napoleon himself sought a reconciliation with religion. Religion could never be finally separated even from the most hostile of the hopes; simply because it was the very source of the hopefulness. And the cause of this is to be found simply in the religion itself.”

We’ve all had those friends who looked beautiful no matter what they were wearing. A certain girl could don a ratty hat and overly large sweatshirt and take your breath away. Or a certain guy could toss on shorts and a tank top he inherited from a long-dead relative and look like a million bucks. Some people just look beautiful, and not necessarily in their physical appearance only, but in the way they move: graceful and confident, or the expressions that come naturally to their face.

In a certain way I think the beauty of God is similar. It’s ineffable and ubiquitous, and proceeds naturally from his character to permeate his every action. Whether manifested in the unutterable power of the almighty Creator or in the utterly human weakness of the incarnate Son, the beauty of the divine is absolutely inescapable. I don’t think God could not be beautiful and produce beauty if he wanted to. It is simply a product of the way he is; beauty itself.

So why do we find it surprising when catch glimpses of that beauty? If God is indeed all around us and invariably radiates beauty shouldn’t we be accustomed to this? Paul says in Romans 1: “…since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…” We humans clearly see God’s divine nature, which includes beauty, in his creation. So if it’s right there in front of our eyes why don’t we notice it?

There are two reasons why, I think. Firstly, we are fallen creatures. Our ability to even minutely comprehend the higher nature of God is absolutely wretched. Paul continues in the same passage, speaking of “men who supress the truth in unrighteousness: “[f]or even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” I once heard that the supression of truth carries the idea of working to press down a spring. We sinners worked to deny the basic and known fact of God’s existence and his readily discernable attributes through the unrighteous acts we engaged in.

How can this be? I suppose it’s somewhat like chasing the bottle to dull the pain of something you want to escape. Who wants to be reminded that they are a sinner and under condemnation? Does anyone like to be faced with their own ugliness? Wouldn’t they do things that will ultimately make them more ugly to escape that encounter? Allow me to answer: Yes; I did. Can anyone truly realize the existence of God, catching a glimpse of his nature, and not also realize his depravity and how infinitely far he is from the smallest part of that perfect One? And by “truly” I specifically do not mean a pseudo-spiritual new agey confession of the divine. I mean the invasive, overwhelming, wholly alien otherness of the One True God coming upon you.

Secondly, I think that even when we live with God in our glorified bodies his beauty will stop us short, in the same way that we would be caught off guard if we were to take a stroll down a familiar hallway and find it blocked by a brick wall. God’s beauty is not like the beauty of the world, not like the things that we think of as beautiful and can become deadened to. Not deadened because repeated exposure leads to familiarization, but because our sin-wracked senses are “not satisfied with seeing, nor .. filled with hearing.” (Ecc. 1:8).

Currently, those of us living as justified beings undergoing sanctification get surprised by God’s beauty. In small things and in large things we find it where we don’t expect it. I don’t expect that this nature of experiencing God’s beauty will cease to be when we enter our glorified state. If anything the pace will speed up. When joined in communion with God, Paul says “then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12) But as we are finite beings can never fully grasp an infinite God’s character (“who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” (Rom. 11:34)), momentary glimpses will occasionally fill our vision, as an impressive showers of sparks come out of a slow, steadily burning fire.

Saint Anselm said this in his Proslogium: “[f]or when heart, and mind, and soul, and all the man, are full of that joy, joy beyond measure will still remain. Hence, not all of that joy shall enter into those who rejoice; but they who rejoice shall wholly enter into that joy.” We can then, in that state, be utterly filled with an experience of the beauty of God, as we cannot now, but we can never fully experience God’s beauty, and beauty immeasurable will be left behind.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this. The beauty of God is an incredibly special thing. And do not think that being surprised by God’s beauty is going to end, ever. Get used to it.