With any information you have, it is impossible to disconnect it from the medium it is experienced, and from the person who is experiencing it. Using various philosophies like Kant and Heidegger, data is passed through various mediums before finally being processed as usable information. In an article by Saab and Fonseca they say that - ‘If we are to understand information we must not objectify it as an entity that exists
independently of ourselves.’
This is where God is different - God is objective. God is not just data. God is not just information. God isn’t just a story with context. But at the same time this is God’s will - he wants us to view Him as a person that affects us, that isn’t distant from us, that isn’t disconnected from us.
This is part of the dichotomy (not paradox) of God - we are to both ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’, and at the same time know that he has ‘unsearchable riches’ and he is an invisible God.
Another application is the gospel. This is information, this is a story that needs to be told in a contextualised manner. We cannot use the same story in England as we could in Arabia, or in China as we could in Brazil. Culture is a massively defining part of how we communicate the gospel. So for those people who are called to preach the gospel, we need to both understand the culture that is was from, and the culture it is going into.
And this is tricky. But thankfully, the gospel is always applicable to everyone, everywhere, at any time.
Only for the King
Jx
