Juxtapositions

There are certain contradictions, tensions and paradoxes in this world that really stand at the heart of the religious quest. We experience them, but we cannot understand them. Art and religion can speak to those experiences, and help us explore them, but they can never claim to really explain them in some simple formula. In that sense religion speaks to a human condition that ultimately stands beyond rational consistency.

The Biblical contradictions can be understood from this point of view. Each story, each pronouncement, each law, speaks to one or the other side of the paradox, to the tension, to the contradiction. The Bible as a whole holds onto both stories, to both horns of the bull if you will, because it speaks to an experience beyond simple rational explication.

God is spoken of as omnipotent and omniscient, as the supreme sovereign of the universe. But He is also presented as within the temporal process, experiencing things He hasn't before, and being wrestled to a standstill by a lowly human being. The truth is that we experience God in both ways. We know of a universe where struggle as at it's heart, but also a universe grounded in love, and righteousness. We know of a call to purpose, and a frustration of that purpose. We experience a moral order that is supreme, and a physical world that exhibits it very little. The Bible speaks to both experiences. It is up to us to decide what to do with it. It may be necessary to maintain the tension, or perhaps one or the other horn must be emphasized at the expense of the other. Or maybe there are other more creative ways to create pictures that include both insights. These decisions are personal. We must make them, however, one way or the other, for we must needs know how we should live, and what to do with all of this Revelation is directly relevant to that quest.

There are countless other examples. I see certain recurring ideas that really seem to be the center of the whole storm. These are a few of the tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions that seem to be the music of the spheres:

The tension between grace and responsibility
The contradictory idea that God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful
The tension between vulnerability and control as two different types of power
Relatedly, the paradox of Jesus' vulnerability being the ultimate power.
The tension between light and dark
The paradox that we are both the victim of sin and responsible for it

Any more you can think of?