~~MTS-4207
Dark Cloud
“The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” 2 Ch. 6:1, 2
The mystery of the Lord cannot be penetrated through human understanding, yet this doesn’t keep us from continuously seeking to know the deep and dark secrets of the Almighty, for to know is to control and to bring order to disorderliness.
The Lord’s mandate was for us to name his creatures and to manage the manageable, yet we are often tempted to cross the boundary and venture into the territory where we are not supposed to be and end up getting lost in the dense cloudy maze where we cannot find an exit. Wanting to know everything is indeed a trap, causing us to lose our humanness in the passionate pursuit of becoming superhuman,
Being a superman or a superwoman is something is to be pitied, for being superhuman is an extremely lonely predicament. Geniuses are often treated as someone peculiar and out-of-the-ordinary, and they are often isolated and tend to lead a life of unhappiness.
Being ordinary is actually a good thing, and not knowing a lot of things is in fact more to be desired than knowing too much. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much we know, our knowledge is still rather meager compared to what there is to know. According to Pope, “a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing,” for human knowledge seems to do far more misleading than leading, and the more human knowledge we gain, the more we are confused by its contradictions and misdirection. Surely, the writer of Ecclesiastes was right on target when he wrote: “for with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” That’s exactly what human knowledge does to all of us. It seems to lead, yet it often misleads; appears to be enlightening, yet it often darkens and at the end we cry out as Eliot did in his poem: “O dark, dark, dark. They all go into the dark.” He then added in the same poem: “I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you, which shall be the darkness of God.”
There is a deep irony in this bold proclamation made by the young king: “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” Why bother erecting a “magnificent temple” if the Lord indeed intended to “dwell in a dark cloud”?
Don’t we all get into trouble by attempting to bring God down from the dark cloud where he dwells and expose him in broad daylight, and instead of clarifying the unknowable, what we do is only to mystify.
By no means am I anti-knowledge; I am merely saying that we should let God be God. What we need to know has been made transparent by the incarnation and any further action beyond that brings forth more confusion.