Monday, June 4, 2007

Transcendence is Immanence


I am currently reading Phillip Yancey's newest book, Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? Yancey is one of my favorite Christian authors because he has an incredible balance of fundamental theology without being a fundamentalist. He is not afraid to ask tough questions and put them in print. One of his first books I read was Dissappointment with God. The title says it all.


This weekend the portion I read had to do with the "otherness" and magnitude of God and trying to understand it in terms of His affection for us. It has been my experience that we tend to vacilate between unhealthy extremes: God as our friend/buddy; and God as One to be Feared. Yancey explained that it is his "otherness" that allows him to be intimate. It is precisely because God is not bound by our earthly concept of time that he is able to attend to all of our prayers at once. In essence he was saying that it is His trancendence that enables Him to be immanent. That is a beautiful insight!

1 comment:

emily and kyle said...

I'm glad I found your blog!! I didn't even know you had one. Now I can read thought provoking things every once in awhile! :) It was great hanging out this weekend.