Crossing the Abyss
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 NASB
Are higher than – The transcendent God is a staple of classic theology. Consider this example:
Question: “What does it mean that God is transcendent?”
Answer: To transcend means “to exist above and independent from; to rise above, surpass, succeed.” By this definition, God is the only truly transcendent Being. The “LORD God Almighty” (in Hebrew, El Shaddai) created all things on the earth, beneath the earth and in the heavens above, yet He exists above and independent from them. All things are upheld by His mighty power (Hebrews 1:3), yet He is upheld by Himself alone. The whole universe exists in Him and for Him that He may receive glory, honor and praise.
Being transcendent, God is both the unknown and unknowable, yet God continually seeks to reveal Himself to His creation, i.e., the unknown seeks to be known. Here is a paradox. Being transcendent, God is the incomprehensible Creator existing outside of space and time and thus is unknowable and unsearchable. Neither by an act of our will nor by our own reasoning can we possibly come to understand God or experience Him personally. God wants us to seek to know Him, yet how can the finite possibly know and understand the infinite when our minds and thoughts are so far beneath His (Isaiah 55:8-9)?[1]
Hopefully you noticed that Isaiah 55:8-9 is offered as proof text for the doctrine of transcendence. We’ll take a closer look at that, but first we need to recognize the implications of this view of transcendence. It’s really pretty simple: God is completely unknowable, incomprehensible, and absolutely independent of anything in His creation. In other words, you and I can’t know one damn thing about His true essence and He doesn’t care.
Now this would be perfectly acceptable if we could just go on about our business without any divine interference. If God doesn’t care, why should we? But that doesn’t seem to be the case. God seems to meddle in His creation despite the fact that He is totally independent of it. In fact, it appears that He’s made us in such a way that we want to have some kind of connection. More’s the pity. The gap between human and divine is unbridgeable—well, almost. Heschel describes how men have tried to cross the abyss:
“Ecstasy is often due to a theology of radical transcendence. Where God is thought of as wholly above the world, indifferent to man and absent from history, inaccessible to the mind and inconceivable in any way, ecstasy arises as an effort to force one’s way toward Him, as an attempt to cross the abyss. Thus, Neoplatonism, after Epicurus has disallowed the idea that the gods had any influence on earthly life, tried to attain union with the transcendent by means of ecstasy.”[2]
Is this what we learn from Isaiah? That we should all seek some sort of spiritual trance so that we can imagine a direct experience of unity with the One?
The Hebrew text uses the verb gābah. It means, “to be high, exalted,” but it’s used for all kinds of human attributions, like tall people, high mountains, the heavens we see at night, high fortresses and, metaphorically, people of wealth and respect. Of course, it’s also used of God but the point is that the word isn’t exclusively a designation of the divine. It has plenty of earthly roots.
Nevertheless, the verse by itself appears to support the idea of a transcendent God. Certainly, God is “above” human beings. Before we go too far down that road, we might want to consider Genesis 1:26 which clearly states that human beings are God’s only legitimate image on earth. So, if God is truly transcendent, then what are we?
The real problem with this passage as a proof text for transcendence is the context. Isaiah isn’t speaking about transcendence at all. The entire context is about God’s remarkable ability to forgive, something that doesn’t come very naturally to humans. In other words, all of chapter 55 is precisely why God isn’t like Man. God doesn’t hold a grudge. God invites reunion. God seeks everlasting communion. God declares mercy. All the things that we don’t usually do, God does naturally. That’s why His ways are not like our ways. It has nothing to do with a transcendent God who is inscrutable and incommensurable. This is a God who is completely and intimately involved, so much so that what He does seems utterly unimaginable from our point of view.
Heschel is right. If you want a wholly transcendent God, then shut up! He has no way to communicate with you, you puny speck of nothing, and you have no way to communicate with Him, the Holy Other, mysterium tremendum. Moses gives you the option. Choose!
Topical Index: transcendent, gābah, higher than, ecstasy, Isaiah 55:8-9
[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/God-transcendent.html
[2] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets: Two Volumes in One (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol. 2, p. 144.
