Open to the Ever-Greater God
The Metanoic Mind
In matters concerning God and Jesus Christ, one never arrives at a point of complete comprehension. To believe that one has fully grasped everything is, paradoxically, to show that one has ceased moving forward in the pursuit of true understanding—that one has settled for a finite and partial view. But in this very act of settling, of halting the search, it becomes evident that one has not yet truly begun to understand.
For all the truths that Christ reveals—through his words, his life, and his union with the Father—bear the mark of the infinite. They summon us always further, always deeper. They speak to us not as closed systems but as horizons still unfolding. Only the mind and heart that remain open—continually returning, continually seeking to encounter the ever-greater truth—can respond to them in a truly Christian way.
~ Hans Urs von Balthasar
So true. It’s in our fallen nature to constantly reach to contain for the prize of certainty that is without trust. It’s the Eden lie that we can fully grasp and be like God, all knowing. Wherever certainty abounds her bedfellow idolatry is there too.
Isn’t this a bit of splitting hairs over the concepts of comprehensive vs. exhaustive? It makes sense we can’t know Jesus exhaustively, any more than we can know our spouses or ourselves exhaustively, but we have been given the comprehensive plan of Christ and it’s by following that plan that we know him more, better and best. We only “lay hold of Christ” at the end of a life that has been totally absorbed by following His plan to build His global family movement, which is communicated in the Apostles’ teaching.