On Seeking and Being Sought

https://youtube.com/shorts/gSwt3vvG0zE?si=RjS-Bw81Qw8s1zoi

I base my flow of thought on this YouTube short I saw on the 22th of September. To point out things Dr. Cox said about the question of God's existence:

"We are overstepping the mark"

"We are stepping into something we do not need to be."

And I agree with these points. God is something we cannot comprehend. The idea that we can come up with the idea of God and are interested in seeking an "infinite" is fascinating and somewhat mysterious. This conversation regarding the quest to answer this question on God, i.e., whether He exists, brings me to my main starting point: that we "seek" an answer to this question of "Does God exist?".

Humans have, if not all, a tendency to seek something or someone. This thing is not always graspable. In fact, a lot of people seem to have the desire (and sometimes life-time conviction) to seek certain things. For instance, a man seeking to fulfill his dreams or need (in his eyes it's a need) of being an actor, or a mother seeking to take care of her children during war-stricken times, or seeking to solve and prove String Theory. Regardless of how else we may rephrase it, ultimately, humans all seek. This implies we like to seek answers to questions as well, i.e. we seek understanding of things that confuse us or raise questions.

From this premise, we also can conclude that not all things we seek we can fully get or understand. Meaning, not everything we seek will be something we will get with 100% certainty. I may not get the job I want, or the scientists who cannot figure out dark energy. Eventually we may get it, but may not also get it. Sometimes we seek things we shouldn't as well, examples like drugs, harming others for something to gain, etc.

So in the realm of science, scientists always seek, particularly answers. The Big "Why", or "How". And from the general sense of our nature of seeking, a lot of the times we do not have answers to scientific questions such as "How did the universe begin?". But does it stop us from asking questions? Absolutely not. So why can we not ask the question if there is a God? Are we really over-stepping the mark? If so, is not questioning everything about the future over-stepping the mark as well? And yes, we can say "I don't know" based on the understanding that we will not fully grasp such a being and hence the answer to that question.

But let me put it this way. Since the realm of answering this question ("Does God exist?") is incomprehensible, or that there is an answer, which can only be a yes, no, or an "I don't know", and secondly, that there can be many paths of achieving all 3 answers at once, it ends up that the seeker would have to make a choice rather than actually coming to a comprehensible conclusion (because the conclusion is not "seek-able" in the first place!). Or at most, seek to the point that you have to see which answer weighs more on you.

Now you many ask why the only other option to finding the object to what we seek to be making a choice, let me give you an example. I seek food because I'm hungry. But there are many places to get food from in the city, a food court, a 7-11, etc. In the end, you have to make a choice to where you want to get food in order to satisfy my need for hunger. In the realm of the question-answer pair, the answer to a question can have many ways that make sense. So make a choice. This question will be argued on for millennia. Make a choice.

If we cannot make a choice, or do not want to make a choice, and just go about with your life, perhaps it is true that our manner of seeking in the case of answering this question becomes a vain task. At this juncture, perhaps it is possible to shift our point of view. Instead of us seeking, have we considered that we ourselves are sought after?

For instance, children seek after their mother for love and security, i.e. their mother is sought by her children for love and security. In short, humans seek, but it means they are sought after as well for whatever purpose or value. So back to the question, "Does God exist?" implies that we are seeking this ungraspable essence of God already. As J.I Packer put it once, rephrased from his book Concise Theology, atheism is just an opposition to argumentation of God's existence.

Now, looking at history, there is evidence of a God who is in fact seeking you to know Him. More importantly, it is also recorded that He came down as man and died for you, but has not even met you in the flesh. It is also written that he knows you by name, and that he knows everything that is in Man. Does that not pique your interest that even though, we cannot grasp to solve whether God exists, yet there is already a narrative that this God not only exists but seeks you? And in this context, more importantly, we are not sought after because of any value. After all, in the hypothetical that God exists and that he seeks us, he does not "need" anything from us, because he is God. We are definitely not sought after because God "needs" us. In the context of history and what is written in history, God seeks us because he seeks us in itself. More importantly, he seeks us who in His eyes says that we are essentially filth. We don't practice what we preach 24/7. Even one bad night of sleep ruins a week of mood. We are worms in the eyes of the universe, let alone God. Nothing redeemable. And yet, He still seeks us.

So in the end, I would say we are not overstepping the mark at all. Overstepping the mark implies a chasm that is between (A) our understanding of things and (B) the absence or being of God. Instead of seeing it from (A) to (B), it is rather (B) to (A). Through the perspective of a Christian, God is actually overstepping the mark. I think it is only valid therefore, before agree or disagreeing, before going out there to forcefully convert people, to find out further on your own why this idea is even a thing at all. Seek the one who is seeking you. Overstep the mark, because God Himself did.

PS: Thanks to one of my best friends for helping me out with feedback on the drafts of this article.