Thoughts from Culhwch

I was reading psalm 74 this evening and was struck by the similarity of verse 10, with the opening lines of psalm 13. Both begin (I’m not looking at the Hebrew here), with the question “how long.” (a quick search points to several other reprisals of the question in the psalms, but these two came to mind). In 74:10 the psalmist asks “How long, O God, will the adversary revile, and the enemy spurn your name forever,” in psalm 13 the psalmist asks “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever.” I guess the “forever” also catches my eye. The NASB puts it at the end of the phrase in both passages.

The two passages are quite different. In 74 the psalmist asks how long the enemy will triumph, but it is not till verse 11 that we understand that the psalmist is asking God to do something about it. Psalm 13 seems more direct, as if the psalmist is about to accuse God. The difference lies in the phrasing itself. 74 asks how long a third person actor will continue. But 13 asks how long God, second person, will forget.

But enough with the differences. The commonalities between the passages are far more interesting. Both wonder whether or not God will do something. Both evoke desperation in a way that cannot be overlooked. It is the kind of despair that a person feels when he reaches the very ends of himself, or his ability to understand his world. Is God still real? Will God meet the need I have? Can God?

I think it’s way too easy for Christians to overlook this question, to feel too uncomfortable with it, or to assume that it’s wrong to ask. I submit that we need to ask it more. We need to admit when we don’t feel God, when we don’t know if we can still continue to believe what we believe. I think those are the moments of the profoundest spiritual growth.

Second, I think Christians are afraid to ask this question because they are afraid they might accidentally become atheists, that anybody who asks this will become an atheist, will suddenly have a total crisis in their ability to believe that God really is there. I submit that failing to be upfront about the times when we doubt God’s presence actually hurts other’s faith, and I suspect it hurts our own too.

I remember the first time I was confronted with the possibility that the opening verses of Genesis might not be original to Hebrew literature. That the first and second passages might come from different authors, that they were passages that had “merely” been collected together. At some point I was mortified. Somehow, I had based my faith in God, and in the Bible on them being true in some strange way that could not admit their being true if they came from disparate sources. Thinking back on it now, I don’t see how their disparateness can make them untrue. But the first night I had that doubt, it spread over me, I felt paralyzed, like I could not overcome it. If this passage is out, what about the others?

The doubt had me, and at some point, I even considered that my entire faith might be wrong. But then suddenly I understood something else. I was not in a different place in terms of faith, it was just that God had allowed me to look “down,” to see how far “up” He was holding me.

When I finally got around to taking OT, several other things had changed. I began to understand that passages collected even from modified mythologies could still be entirely true. As I think on the opening verses now, I find I have a slightly different view on them. I’ve learned to make no judgements on whether or not a passage is figurative or literal. I find myself incapable of discerning that.

But as a bit of background, for me the figurative and literal have ceased to be mutually exclusive categories.  Perhaps, I came to this place because the medievals didn’t think they were so exclusive either. I’m also not sure that the kinds of truth claims that the categories of “figurative” and “literal” would have made are the same today as when these texts were written.

Today the figurative seems to us as an untruth that metaphorizes the truth. It is one layer which is untrue, that sits atop and hides a layer which is true. But why must this be the only way we can understand the figure? Why can’t both layers be absolutely true? I think a medieval theologian would likely laugh at the supposition that the figurative would always entail an untruth.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is not so much how my understanding of scripture changed, but the fact that even before my views were able to change to catch up with the dramatic shifts in my understanding (if indeed I have any – still in doubt on that one), the point of asking the question, “Is God real?”, did not leave me in doubt, but rather led me on to a greater understanding of how powerful faith really was.  I came to realize that faith often means choosing to put our doubts aside for long enough for our understanding to catch up to our beliefs. But it does not mean choosing to ignore our doubts, or choosing not to ask the deep questions that the psalmist(s) do. It often means coming to grips with the extent of our doubts. Finally, and this is the most important, the questions we have also serve to show us where we have placed our faith. For me, it showed me that I had placed my faith in a particular interpretation just slightly more than in the God who inspired the Bible to begin with. When that interpretation began to disappear, I began to see how high faith in God was holding me above my severely limited understanding.

In psalm 13 the psalmist realizes where his trust is, and is encouraged, “But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation…” Psalm 74:12 states “Yet God is my king from of old, Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth” … Perhaps I’m thinking too much of Heidegger when I see “earth,” but I wonder if the psalmist isn’t saying something like “from a place which seems hidden God works wonders of deliverance” … but maybe instead of the hidden Heideggerian earth, we might also see “earth”  as the place where miracles are unexpected, the chaotic seas of the next verse, or the stones split open for water in the verse following that one. Whatever it is, the psalmist realizes that God can do amazing things when situations are desperate. But psalm 74 doesn’t leave us with total overwhelming answers to the question of whether or not God will or can help. Instead the psalmist continues to plead with God. Perhaps there is a lesson there too. Even when we know God’s power and might, and have re-affirmed it, we should still continue to pray.

~David