Introduction: Journey into the Invisible
Regardless of whether or not the people around you know about Christianity, you’re bound to come across an implied reference to revelation. I see the following article as a precedent for that fact. Let’s see.
Proving Google’s monopolistic behavior would be incredibly difficult. First of all, Google’s business model is simple, but its practice is incredibly complex. Ad rates per keyword are constantly fluctuating. Its systems are managed by the largest computer centers in the world, and its programs are developed by the most brilliant programmers in the world. Who would dare to decipher it?
Newsweek
Here’s what the article is about. It’s part of an article about the U.S. government trying to find out if Google, the search market leader, has done anything illegal.
But in the article, the reporter says it won’t be easy for the U.S. government to uncover Google’s monopolistic behavior.
He says it won’t be as easy as it seems because Google’s business structure looks simple on the surface, but behind the scenes, it’s designed by genius programmers with state-of-the-art systems.
The point here is that humans can crack systems designed by humans. In a way, the article’s cynical tone suggests that if you’re going to delve into the secrets of Minos’s labyrinth, you might as well have a tether so you don’t get lost in it.
The Seed of Faith
Did you find any particular theological concepts in the article, or, to put it another way, something akin to what John Calvin called “the Seeds of Faith” I guess that the journalist was cynically spouting biblical values. Maybe it’s just me, but I read one biblical truth in this article, and that is Hebrews 11:3.
For by faith, we see that the worlds were created by the word of God so that the things that are made are seen so that they are not made out of visible things.
God not only created the world, but He holds it together by His providence. But the idea that everyone has, even those without faith, is the truth that is revealed in the Word.
The things that are seen are not made of things that are made.
This is the keyword of my Christian worldview, and it’s a theme I’ve been trying to bring to your attention throughout this book. I’d love to tell you how I came to this conclusion, but I’ll skip it here and save it for the next page.
Let’s repeat the theme. “The things that are seen are not because of the things that are seen.” Let’s recall the article again.
The system of Google appears simple on the outside, but when you get inside, it’s like a labyrinth that changes shape from time to time, and if you enter it without holding on to a thread, you’ll never find your way out, and you’ll either starve to death in it or wander around until you’re old.
This is the same lesson that the Bible teaches us. If God doesn’t judge by appearances, neither should we, because that’s what the Bible says.
Life Is Full of Problems
If that sounds like something that’s so far removed from your life because it’s from the Bible that you can ignore it, I hope the following story will change your mind.
The American psychiatrist Scott Peck teaches us that life is a sea of suffering, that life is full of problems, and that life is a series of problem-solving.
He sternly warns us that if we, as human beings, avoid the questions that arise from time to time, we will find ourselves in the following situation.
Instead of confronting problems head-on, we try to run away from them by circling them. But it’s this attitude of avoiding problems and pain that leads to poor mental health.
Most of us have this tendency, which is why few people are completely mentally healthy and everyone has problems to some extent.
Some people try to find an easy way out of their problems and pain, and end up straying very far from a healthy, sentient path. Some people escape reality by settling for a fantasy of their own making.
Think about it, people. Consider this: there are essentials and non-essentials in life: who am I, where did I come from, and where am I going?
The Path of a Seeker
The essentials of life are things like who I am, where I come from, and where I am going. The non-essentials of life are things like what am I going to do and who am I going to live with?
Of course, we can’t say that the essential and the non-essential are isolated because they are interrelated. To put it another way, the former is the invisible and the latter is the visible.
Of course, the important problem here is the problem of the invisible, because it is the essential problem of being human. It is this problem that led Siddhartha to take up the path of a seeker.
Even now, from time to time, we come across articles about people who have graduated from the most prestigious universities abroad and have taken up the path of a seeker.
Matthieu Ricard is one such person. They are, in a word, people who, after living in the visible, abandoned the visible in search of the invisible.
So one question we might ask here is,
Do we have to throw away all the visible, non-essential things to get to the invisible, the essential answers?
I would say that we don’t have to, but we can certainly say this one word: we have to. It’s important to keep in mind another lesson from Scott Peck, which is that half-hearted learning will only solve part of the problem, and only wholehearted learning will solve all the problems.
Face Your Problems For Your Growth
Spiritual and mental growth is only possible by facing problems. When we try to avoid the pain we need to face, we get neurotic, and in the end, it’s more painful than the pain we’re trying to avoid.
Problems don’t just go away, so if you don’t face them and solve them, they stay with you, forever hindering your mental growth and development.
This is a common lesson for all people, believers and non-believers alike. The problem is that believers and non-believers alike overlook this lesson.
Simply put, unbelievers recognize that God is alive and stern, but they take it upon themselves to evade and suppress that recognition, such as in Romans 1:19 et seq.
Believers are to attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, until we all attain the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, as Ephesians 4:13 says.
Yet we are stuck and regressing in anti-intellectualism and mysticism. Especially regarding the latter, Deuteronomy 29:29 says
For the hidden things belong to the LORD our God: but the manifest things belong to us and to our children forever: to do according to all the words of this law.
God has left the manifested things to us; that is also true of knowledge. All knowledge comes from God, but He has also entrusted some of that knowledge to us.
By comparison, the anti-intellectualism that is manifesting itself in the modern church is us answering a modified version of Satan’s question like Eve.
“And the woman said unto the serpent, The things which are hidden belong unto the LORD our God: but the knowledge thereof which is made manifest, it is written in the word of God, Ye shall not eat thereof, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Conclusion
However, God has called us to be stewards of the things that are revealed, except for the things that belong to Him that are hidden.
As Psalm 147:5 says, “Great is the power of our Lord, and the depths of his wisdom.”
God’s system, on the other hand, will not be solved by the genius programmers and state-of-the-art systems at Google.
How can we humans ever hope to decipher this world created by God, who is incomparably wiser than they are?
This thought seems to discourage us from trying to know God. These are the human excuses we hear today, and the excuses of believers who have given up on the pursuit of knowledge of God.
But God still wants and urges us to seek Him. He has left man reason along with faith to reveal His existence to us every day.
The teachings of many theologians, including Calvin, testify that God’s inscrutability can never be an excuse for neglecting to pursue the knowledge of God.
