“GOD IS A MYSTERY; BEYOND DEFINITIONS”

“No statement about God is simply, literally true. God is far more than can be measured, described, defined in ordinary language, or pinned down to any particular happening.” David Jenkins

God is explained through the opinions of every individual. They were able to explain their ideas through their own experiences, which are convincing to us. They are indeed intelligent persons. But of all the ideas and explanations, I am more convinced on the idea of Rudolph Otto. He said that for him, “God is Mysterium Tremendum”; God is a mystery. In his conclusion, “mysterium denotes merely that what is hidden and esoteric, that which is beyond conception and understanding, extraordinarily and unfamiliar… we can experience in feelings, feelings which our discussions can help to make clear to us, in so far as it arouses them actually in our hearts.”

We humans are emotional beings. We feel sad when we are affected by unhappiness, happy when we feel delighted or pleased, lonely when we are alone, angry when we are hurt, and among others. These experiences are reactions from our direct experiences of reality. However, there are feelings which we cannot really explain even if we feel that our experience can tell us. We cannot express them in our own words. There is something different that we cannot explain and we feel that God is working on us.

I agree on Otto’s idea that God is a mystery because we have feelings that God is present but we cannot define him. As to what we know, there are many ideas from different persons but their ideas are different even if they only mean one God. Their ideas are different and unique which only implies that God is a mystery and his existence is mysterious. We cannot define God because he is not bound to limitations. Only those that have limitations can be defined. The statements about God are not literally true. Our knowledge about what God is, is only analogous. We cannot even reconcile God as immutable and God as merciful, and God who has no extension and Trinity. Explaining God firmly with our own ideas implies that we are limiting God in our minds. True indeed because if we can explain fully on what God really is, then, it is not God at all and we are not different from God anymore. God is beyond definition and beyond man’s mind because he is unlimited. Thus God is really a mystery; mystery is in God and it makes him different from us who are limited. His mystery makes us feel that we are limited and that God is superior to us. If God can be defined, then, He will no longer be our concern.