Sometimes we are faced with situations or thoughts about our faith that are seemingly contradictory.  How we approach these situations or thoughts can often be a fork in the road of our faith lives that can have a significant impact.  I want to share an example of one of these, and how we can turn a seemingly contradictory situation into a situation in which we grow in greater love with our Lord.

Throughout scriptures we are told of stories in which human beings have argued with God and changed God’s mind.  In the Gospels we hear of the woman who argues with Jesus about scraps and dogs and seemingly changes his mind.  In the Old Testament we hear about Abraham pleading with God to relent of his anger and spare the people of Sodom, even for the sake of one righteous man, which God does.

But we juxtapose these with the idea that God is unchangeable.  God cannot be swayed or changed, or he is not God.  As St. Thomas Aquinas explained, God is the unmoved mover.  Anything that moves, or changes, cannot be the cause of its own movement.  There must be an unmoved, or unchanged, being or force that causes all other things to be in motion or change.  Thus God cannot be moved, or swayed, or change his demeanor or he is, by definition, not God- the unmoved mover.

How do we, as people of faith, approach these two ideas which seemingly cannot both be true?  We must approach this situation, and others like it, with the eyes of faith.  We have to remember that anything we say about God can only be said via analogy, and anything we say about God is more incorrect than it is correct.  Our limited language cannot begin to say anything about the limitless God.  We cannot try to confine God to our understanding of reality or our understanding of reason.  We have to allow God to be God. 

This awareness of the awesomeness of God is the beginning of what is known as the Fear of God.  Not fear as in being afraid, but fear as in being drawn into the mystery, being so in awe of this limitless God that chooses to love us despite our sinfulness.  The mystery of God is not a mystery to be solved, but rather a mystery to be lived.  A mystery that acts as an invitation into relationship; a relationship that can always grow, always be deepened, because it is a relationship with an eternal, limitless God.  A God that can love us through our confusion at seeming contradictions, and a God that invites us to love him despite the limits of our own sense of reason.