Meeting God in a Grey World

Speak to most philosophers today about the search for truth and you might as well have said you were on a quest for unicorns. Tell them you believe in absolute moral truth and they will probably walk away, considering you uneducated, pitiable, and unworthy of their time in a debate.

Maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but from my experience as a student, it is not far from the truth (whoops, said it again).

Amazingly, truth is a hot-button word in our society. A conversation on the nature of truth, especially moral or religious truths, tends to go the same way as conversations about abortion or gay marriage: state beliefs, agree that what each other said was true (!) for them, and either leave or move on to other, most likely, less-threatening topics.

Less-threatening to what? To their security blanket of relativism.

But how secure is relativism? Agreeing that what someone else said was true for them simultaneously implies that it is false for you. But no one says, “what’s true for you is false for me!” Instead, they say, “what’s true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me!” Not only is that inanely redundant, it is an exercise in denial: denial of contrast.

Note how hard we avoid pointing out differences. Instead, we focus on more “positive” similarities. There is old cliché that what makes you different makes you beautiful, but that seems to stay within its safe range of self-esteem issues and continues to make ugly ducklings feel better about themselves.

Differences are celebrated unless they divide. If what makes you different makes you beautiful, we’re all beautiful. Oh goody.

Being separate is defining. Being different is defining. Definition is a source of truth. Definition gets you to the basics, the core, the roots.

Black and white.

R.C. Sproul quipped, “To meet God is a powerful study in contrasts.”

To meet God is to come into direct contact with what we are not, to recognize the defining separateness of God—the complete and utter inequality between Him and us.

Why is this so hard?

The world we live in is grey.

Not grey in the metaphorical sense of rain clouds and sad times—grey in the distinct lack of black and white, the distinct lack of contrast.

Our world is diverse, at least in people and cultures. Clearly, there is contrast there. Yet this is downplayed by relativism. Relativism seeks to hide ideological monotony under the guise of tolerant diversity.

Without black and white truth, the world has become grey.

But as Sproul stated so well, to meet God is to study contrasts—to have our true nature thrown in our face as we are thrown to our knees with our face to the floor, knowing we do not deserve His presence.

I’ve been contemplating lately why it is so hard for me to dwell on/in God’s holiness.

It’s hard to see the black and white of God’s holiness and our sinfulness when we’re so used to seeing grey.

Our eyes need to adjust to different lighting—a brighter light that reveals absolute truth, absolute separateness, and absolute definitions.

As hard as it is, I force my eyes open. I face the light. I see the contrast. I press on in the pursuit of truth, the pursuit knowing God—despite this utterly grey world.