The Otherness of God

by: Lou Lotz

I remember reading somewhere that ancient Hebrew scribes were so awed by the holiness of Jehovah that they would wash their hands before they wrote his name on a scroll. Imagine that.

We’ve come a long way. Now we put God’s name on pencils, Frisbees, refrigerator magnets. We write books and articles about God, explaining who he is and what he does. We have lost our appreciation for what theologians call the otherness of God. We are like the Pharisee in the parable, who is so taken with his own knowledge and piety that he forgets how holy God is. But the tax collector stands in the back of church, head bowed, beating his breast. He is unable even to lift up his eyes. He understands something of the otherness of God.

When I was a small boy my father took me to work with him one day, and I realized, for the first time, that he had an existence of his own which was beyond my experience; that there was a part of his world with which I had no contact, and didn’t even know existed. Is it so hard to believe that this is also true of God, that there is an otherness to him? That he is not small and simple, as we like to think, but high and exalted, holy and pure, timeless and eternal? God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. No wonder the tax collector won’t lift up his eyes. Who can stare at the sun?