Heavy Theology | The Hardest Concepts in Christian ThoughtSample

“Very Small Stage in a Vast Cosmic Arena”

While we’re at it, the other thing we use numbers to measure is space. One of the ways we apply math — the numbers we use for time — is music and music calls us beyond the math to the divine. One of the ways we apply geometry — the numbers we use for space — is astronomy and astronomy (and astronomy — the “music of the spheres”) calls us beyond the geometry to the divine.

Nothing can measure God by His attribute of immensity—he transcends all space. For instance, when we say that God created ex nihilo, we mean that he created out of nothing as such, nothing per se. The idea of nothing is very, very difficult for us to conceive for at some point all ideas and metaphors for nothing fall apart to the same degree that all ideas and metaphors for God fall apart — nothing and God are the only two things beyond everything and everyone that exists.

Therefore when we say that there’s nothing between planets, that’s also false. For one, there are infinitesimal particles between them, but were that inapplicable, there still exists capacity between planets and that volumetric measurement alone shows that it’s not nothing, but something.

Even those spatial measurements — empty kilometers, empty gallons, empty kilojoules from dead stars, empty kelvin from black holes — put limits on what The Neverending Story called The Nothing and therefore don’t make it nothing per se, but something.

God exists beyond that.

Making him infinitely immense. 

We often call him, “Omnipresent” — that he exists everywhere, everytime, because he predicates every where and every time. Divine immensity is divine essence.

Annie Dillard once wrote a poem entitled The Shape of the Air. My friend Professor Doug Welch said it helped him — a visual learner — understand the idea of negative space and God’s omnipresence, his immensity. The poem begins:

Some Specifics

Cut a hole through the roof of your house

leading to your bedroom closet. 

Close and caulk. 

Stand on the roof,

pour plaster down

into your shoes,

around, through your shirts, 

pants, bathrobe, hats,...

allow to dry.

Remove with hooks.

Split. Remove the clothes;

discard.

This is the shape of part of the air.

In other words, there’s not nothing in the empty space in your bedroom. There’s something: capacity. God predicates even that capacity with his immensity.