Paradox
casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 NASB
Cares – What is a paradox? We could rely on dictionary definitions like this one: “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true,” but what this really says is that a paradox is only an apparent problem. The definition assumes that underlying the paradox is a truly rational and logical, uniform explanation that will resolve this apparent dilemma. In other words, paradoxes are cognitive illusions.
As a result of this underlying epistemological assumption, we find authors like Brené Brown writing: “ . . . the etymology of the word ‘paradox’ cuts right to the heart of what it means to break out of our ideological bunkers, stand on our own, and brave the wilderness. In its Greek origins, paradox is the joining of two words, para (contrary to) and dokein (opinion). The Latin paradoxum means ‘seemingly absurd but really true.’”[1] The assumption: we’ve been fooled. From Brown’s perspective, we’ve been emotionally tricked. If we just unpack the real meaning behind this “apparent” difference, with enough information we’ll discover that this “absurd” situation isn’t really absurd at all. After all, no one really thinks that the universe is absurd.
It doesn’t take much thought to see that religion employs paradox to justify a number of “apparently absurd” doctrines. I’m sure you can easily come up with one or two. Since Western thought is committed to logical consistency as a paradigmatic postulate, it really can’t accept the ontological reality of paradox. In the end, everything has to make sense.
But what if the Western view isn’t right? Or perhaps, what if the Western view isn’t the only truth? What if the world, with all of its “apparent” paradoxes, really doesn’t have to make sense? What if there really is an unresolvable, ontological paradox in the world? Carl Jung offers an important concern:
“Oddly enough the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness. Hence a religion becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or waters down its paradoxes; but their multiplication enriches because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Non-ambiguity and non-contradiction are one-sided and thus unsuited to express the incomprehensible.”[2]
Did you understand Jung’s insight? Theological conformity requires the resolution (or denial) of paradox. The straitjacket of doctrine actually weakens religion because it homogenizes all differences. Life should be what the theology describes even if lived experience is quite different. The result is theological strongholds protecting sycophants rather than robust interaction with the enormous diversity of the world.
The Bible is not theology. It is lived experience with and about God. It’s full of paradoxes because it is based on one fundamental, irreducible paradox of creation: God cares! It is not only absurd to think that God actually does care, it is paradoxical—ontologically paradoxical. It’s the paradox of all paradoxes because it is paradoxically true.
The reason why we find the Bible helpful for living is not because it is a spiritual Boy Scout’s Handbook but because it deals with real people’s problems and dilemmas when it comes to God. It doesn’t give us a list of answers or even logical solutions. It invites us into fellowship with a God who has no reason to care about us but does anyway. That’s why Zornberg can write, “The Bible is familiar, life is strange.”[3] “God loves” is the paradox of all paradoxes. It just happens to be the most important paradoxical truth you will ever hear.
Topical Index: paradox, theology, care, Zornberg, 1 Peter 5:7
[1] Brené Brown Braving the Wilderness, pp. 40-41.
[2] Murray Stein (ed.), Jung on Christianity (Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 192
[3] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, p. xiii.
