(Theology in the Dark Leads To) Lighting Candles in the Daylight
That we do our theology in the dark, apophatically, without apology, should not be a surprise or some strange notion or some opposing point of view. It is actually the only vantage point from which any of us can operate.
We cannot and do not know God no matter how vast, deep, wide and extraordinary our research and development. And it is vast and effective in so many circumstances, from creating coffee machines to manufacturing vaccines that quell pandemics, the mundane and the profound. Our wisdom as well as knowledge propels us to grand heights. We soar!
Until we do not. Until gravity is what it is and does what it does, and we go from light to darkness in an instant, perpetually and eternally. We are forever in the dark. Why must we think otherwise? Why must we behave otherwise? Why must we lie and not tell the truth? Why do we not see our theology is done in the dark?
To do our thinking about God, our study of God and therefore our study of humanity, through the lens of a crucified Jesus is to do theology in the dark. How could life be found in the suffering, the acrid allowance, of God not showing up to save (“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) and the living of love that only gets you killed (“the son of man came to serve, and not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many”)? It’s just all dark there. It’s what does not happen that reveals what happens (that apophatic thing, the knowing God by what we don’t know). What happens is that nothing happens to save us, and that is what saves us, that is our salvation. That we would be no more than or less than totally responsible for what befuddles and betrays us keeps us focused on our health and wellbeing on earth and hands off on our conclusions in heaven. It allows God to be God and do the business of God – which is completely and unconditionally being Grace – while we do the only thing we were, are, capable of doing in the first place: taking care of business right here in our own back yard.
We light candles in the daylight because we do our theology in the dark.
Benjamin Dueholm, in his excellent writing on the spiritual practices of proclamation (bible/preaching), baptism, communion, confession/forgiveness, public ministry (ordained pastors ) and worship (“prayer, praise and thanksgiving”) notes that Lila, in Marilynne Robinson’s 2014 novel “working constantly to survive and wholly innocent of religion…wanders into a church and poses a pointed question ‘Why did they waste candles on daylight?’” (Sacred Signposts: Words, Water and Other Acts of Resistance, 2018). It is because we know we can know nothing of God, but only live in the grace of God and that that is the only knowing that we need, that we do something that does not makes sense – who needs a candle in the daylight? We do not. And that is why we light it. To recognize, nay, celebrate that we need nothing. We have enough, do enough, and are enough, in God. It is Christ Jesus who reveals this to us.
