It Takes One to Know One--May 24, 2022

It Takes One to Know One--May 24, 2022

"For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one can comprehend what is truly God's except the Spirit of God."  [1 Corinthians 2:11]

They can program a computer to play chess like a master, even to beat the best human players.  But beneath the rules of logic, lines of code, and computerized algorithms, the computer doesn't really know what it is to be human.  And while they are also quite good at making computer-generated images that look like real people, or can even simulate natural conversation, it's still all just a set of artificial responses.  There is something quintessentially different about the experience of being human and the programmed outputs of your smart speaker, your digital assistant on your phone, or the bot accounts on social media.  Corporations may want us to start to think of these products of theirs as living beings, even with giving them names like, "Alexa," or "Siri," or trying to fool us with profile pictures that look like real people, but there is something unique about being human that just can't be programmed or coded.

Plenty of ancient and medieval philosophers have taken a shot at explaining that fundamental difference about being human.  They drew up complex diagrams and concocted ontological schemes differentiating a "soul" from a "spirit," and setting apart both from the physical part of us, like they were organs you could dissect on a frog in high school biology.  I'm not so sure that it's quite that cut-and-dry, but I do think that there's something... essential... to us as creatures that makes us qualitatively different, not only from rocks and trees and clouds, but also from birds and rabbits and lions--and also from whatever unseen beings there are out there, and whatever simulations we create on a computer.  I don't know how best to express it, other than saying the "you-ness" of you is something special, distinct, and unique to you, and that maybe all of us human beings have something that makes us "us."  The peculiar mix in humanity of physicality--we eat, we sleep, we love, we labor, and we suffer--as well as our capacity to think, imagine, feel, dream, and wonder--makes us different from a chess-playing computer and a flowing river.  That particular stuff about us is what I think we have in mind when we talk about "the human spirit."

And for our purposes today looking at First Corinthians, it seems that Paul is saying there are some things that it takes another human to really understand about being human... so he can make a parallel point about how we come to understand anything about God.  There are some things that your smart speaker, "Alexa," just won't understand--it can tell you tomorrow's weather or play back to you the last ten songs you requested over the last month, but it doesn't really understand what it is like to be human.  There are times your dog can tell if you are sad or excited, but your dog doesn't really understand it if you are feeling unfulfilled in your job or having strains in a friendship.  Some things just take another human to understand.  And by the same token, there is something that seems just about universal in being human across times, eras, and cultures.  So while my dog, who is just in the other room right now, doesn't understand human heartache or complex moral questions about good and evil, I can read the thoughts of other humans from centuries in the past who lived thousands of miles away, and can share something of their common humanity as they share their insights, questions, and thoughts.  There are some things about being human that take another human being to understand, that you just can't get a rock or a tree or a dog or a computer to understand.  That's not meant to be an insult to rocks, trees, dogs, or computers--just that we are distinct in some ways. It's more just a way of saying, like the old cliche, "It takes one to know one."

So, here's the rub.  How can anybody claim to know anything true about God if God is fundamentally "other" to us?  If I can't reasonably ask my dog to help me work through my grief or identify dysfunctional patterns in my family system, because my dog isn't human, then how can I possibly think that I could understand the ways of God, when by comparison I'm a whole lot further away from being God than my dog is from being like me?  Like the old line from the book of Isaiah puts it, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord."  If I can't expect a robin outside in the tree to understand my small talk as I walk past, what makes me think that I have a chance at understanding the depths of who God is?

Paul has an answer, of sorts.  Paul says that just like there is some shared reality we might call the "human spirit" that allows me to understand the feelings, thoughts, and insights of another human being, even if we are separated by time or distance, that God's own Spirit can search the depths of God.  And this same Spirit relates to humans, reveals the heart of God, and, we could even say, inspires.  Without the Spirit making known what is deep in the heart of God, we could only be guessing about how God operates in the universe.  And we humans do get ourselves into trouble (and some pretty bad theology) when we make the mistake of assuming that God is just a "big" human, with our same human insecurities, fears, greed, shortsightedness, and limits of linear thinking.  Read the old myths of gods like Zeus and Jupiter for those kinds of deities, and you'll see they basically took us at our most capricious and imagined ornery humans with superhuman powers.  If we just take human logic and assume that God must be like us, we'll only ever recognize a god of our own construction.  That's like confusing a mirror for a window and assuming the face you see is someone else rather than your own reflection.

But God has a way of getting through to us.  God's own Spirit makes God knowable.  God's own Spirit can speak to our hearts about the heart of God.  God's own Spirit can show us the things we never would have figured out for ourselves, like the preposterous sounding news of a God who saves the world from a cross, or a Lord who reigns in serving.  God's own Spirit makes it possible for us to say, "Here's news that we never would have come up with on our own or invented with our own faculties--God has redeemed the world with suffering love that dies for us!"

So yeah, I can't expect my smart phone, my dog, or my houseplant to really understand me--and yet I can dare to believe that we can understand something deep and true about God.  That's not because I'm so smart, but because God chooses to reveal something about God's deepest self through the Spirit.  And that's good news.

Lord God, show us yourself by the gift of your Spirit today.