“Only wonder can comprehend His incomprehensible power.”
In a world where science and the scientific method reign supreme many of us are slowly losing a sense of wonder and mystery. Everything must have a purely sensible aspect to it in order to be believed. Of course, no human fully lives accordingly, for something as seemingly simple as loving another human being is not experienced purely through material manifestations like gift-giving, hugs, and kisses. There is something much deeper to love. No doubt the material manifestations are part of the practice and expression of love but we could not honestly say that they are love.
One of the ways too many of us have been duped into applying a scientific method of discovery is to bring it to bear on the question of God's existence and presence. But this cannot work for one simple reason: the Christian God is a God of revelation not a God of discovery. And science is geared toward discovery and the detailed examination of something that one already "knows" exists. It is not able, and not meant to deal with revelation, mystery, and wonder. As Abbot Tryphon has recently written in his wonderful The Morning Offering blog: "If you attempt to examine that which is of a spiritual nature using a science that is by its very nature meant to explore the material realm, you will fail."
What is necessary for us, then, is to realize that to experience God, that is to know Him, is not a matter of approaching the matter scientifically, but to approach in a spirit of mystery and wonder, as St. Maximus the Confessor states in the quote above. One's relationship with God is not an exercise in some intellectual conception of Him. As St. Gregory of Nyssa says, "every concept formed by the intellect in an attempt to comprehend and circumscribe the divine nature can succeed only in fashioning an idol, not in making God known."
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1 RSV).
In Orthodox Christianity God is encountered and known not through probing and questioning and picking apart, but in silence. God is experienced in the stillness of the heart, in the yearning of the spirit. This, indeed, requires one to put away the distractions of the world and enter into a place of calm and quiet and to begin asking oneself the weighty and sometimes difficult questions of: "Who am I?"; Who is God"; "What is the purpose of my existence?"; "What is death?"
Unfortunately, we live in a world that discourages us and distracts us from such questions. We are very often taught that there is no absolute Truth and that we ought to be skeptical of anything that is not immediately sensible to us. Yet, we all know, if we are honest enough with ourselves, that we are beings of something much greater and more majestic than the base material animals that science so very often makes us out to be. For we are made in the image and after the likeness of God. The human being is a material and spiritual being, and this means that we cannot lean to far toward one aspect of our being. That is, we cannot reduce ourselves entirely to the material, losing any sense of things unseen, the things of mystery. Nor can we lean so far toward the spiritual that we reject all material, including our very bodies, as just getting in the way of what really matters. This is why the Orhtodox Christian Church puts a strong emphasis on both the material and the spiritual and teaches that the two must be brought into harmony with one another. And the most perfect illumination of this harmony is seen in our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, who even after His resurrection is in a material body. "'See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself;'" Jesus says, "'handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.' And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them" (Luke 24:39-43 RSV).
Do not fear mystery. Rather, embrace it!