The Quest of God . . .

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

It is the thesis of this essay that God so loves man and is so concerned for his well-being that He persistently seeks to win man’s devotion and loyalty, and that He therefore is constantly manifesting Himself to man in one way or another in an effort to gain a response from him. This is to say that God is “the Hound of Heaven,” to use Francis Thompson’s description of Him, who pursues man through all of life’s experiences, causing man to be conscious of the presence of something greater than himself, and forcing man into a confrontation with his Maker in which he must respond in some way to God’s persistent love.

This is what we mean by the quest of God. It is God’s search of man that we speak of, not man’s search of God. It is this that makes Christianity imminently superior to any rival religion: they are all efforts on man’s part to find God, while Christianity is God’s quest of man.

Testimony of Scripture

The scriptures are themselves testimony to God’s quest of man. They reveal, to the extent that paper and ink can, the mind of God, His nature and His purposes. The Bible might be described as the record of God’s pursuit of fallen humanity. Stephen begins his summary of revelatory events with: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham,” It was God that took the initiative.

It is, however, the wonderful Person of the scriptures who best illustrates the heavenly pursuit of man. Paul describes him as: “He is the image of the invisible God . . . In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1) In 2 Cor. 4 he speaks of “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. The Messiah said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also,”

In the Messiah the Father sent the likeness of Himself into the world in hot pursuit of man. “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3) Paul explains that this was at great cost: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” (2 Cor. 5).

Paul recognizes that the apostles were instruments of God’s pursuit: “So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal (or pursuit) through us,” In the same context he says that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Cor. 5)

The scriptures do, of course, teach man that he is to seek after God, but it can hardly mean more than that man is to respond to God’s witness in his life. In Acts 17 Paul explains that God created man, giving him “life and breath and everything,” so that he should “seek God in the hope that he might feel after him and find him.” But notice that he goes on to say: “Yet he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being,”

Man’s search is, therefore, a turning to one who is already present but not yet acknowledged, not a looking for one who is at a distance. This is why Jesus could assure the disciples: “Seek and you shall find; knock and it will be opened to you.” (Matt. 7)

It is God who is in search of man, not man in search of God. A real search is one that can end in failure, and of course God’s search for fallen man can be in vain, for success depends on man’s will. Man must desire that God overtake him and find him. This is why man’s search for God can never be the same thing, for it cannot ever be futile. Since God is always willing, man can never fail to find Him. In all of history no man has ever sought after God without finding Him. But of course God finds only a few of those whom He pursues, for most men do not wish to be found.

In his poem The Hound of Heaven Francis Thompson explains why man dares not to let God find him.

I fled Him, down the night and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter . . .

(For though I knew His love Who followed,

Yet was I sore adread

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)

Man is fearful that if he yields to God’s search for him that he will have to surrender the carnal attractions of the world. In a moment of candor one man expressed well what Thompson meant in his poem when he said, “I can’t turn to God now because I like my women.”

When the philosopher Plotinus, forsaking all the religions of his third century world, said “The gods must come to me, for I can never go to them,” he was not being arrogant or irreverent. He was only saying what every yearning human heart realizes: if there is a true God he will surely come to me, and not wait for me to find him. And so Plotinus refused to attend the lavish temples, contending that God does not dwell in temples built by men, waiting for men to come to Him.

Testimony of Nature

Alexander Campbell insisted that God reveals Himself through three books rather than just one. One book is the natural world in whose pages we see the glory of God manifested in hill, dale and stream. The second is the book of human nature in which man reads of himself as created in the image of God. The third is, of course, the Bible, which is a special revelation with distinct purposes.

According to Romans 1 Paul sees much in the first book, for he observes that the heathen could have read clearly from the pages of nature the divine qualities of the Creator, thus avoiding the darkness that enveloped them. “Ever since the creation of the world,” the apostle asserts, “his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. . .”

The invisible qualities of God are clearly visible in nature, he is saying. That which cannot be seen through the senses can be discerned in the mind as one beholds the wonders of creation. “Phenomena discloses noumena,” is the way theologians put it, which is to say that the marvelous display of nature conveys the idea of God. Schonfield’s rendition is helpful: “Ever since the creation of the world those unseen qualities of his, his immaterial nature, power and divinity, could be clearly perceived, apprehended through his works.”

God’s handiwork makes manifest the perfect qualities of His nature. So clear is this revelation of God’s invisible nature in things created that men are without excuse when they worship and serve creatures rather than the Creator, Paul goes on to argue. The terms he uses are forceful: God’s eternal power and deity are clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

By “eternal power” Paul probably means that the very idea of eternity is related to God’s power, so evident in nature. He may have the Greek philosophers in mind, as MacKnight thinks, for they were preoccupied with such notions as perfect forms, eternal souls, the Unmoved Mover, and even Logos as divine reason. Actually they perceived God, but did not acknowledge Him “their senseless minds were darkened.” While Aristotle admitted that there must be a Mover who is unmoved (explaining all change in terms of movement), he could not bring himself to say that the universe is created. It is eternal, he says, and thus uncreated. So despite all Aristotle’s wisdom he found no place for a creator God, though his logic forced him to admit to an Unmoved Mover, which to him was no more than a biological principle.

So Paul stresses the fact that the very universe probed by Aristotle and the other philosophers bears witness to God as creator. Thus His eternal power is manifest in the world. The Unmoved Mover is not a principle, but One who reveals Himself to man by the things He has made.

In saying that “deity” is clearly perceived in creation, Paul must mean that the universe reveals the totality of the attributes of God, something like a mirror reflects the fulness of the one standing before it. Since the original Greek term appears nowhere else in the scriptures, it is difficult to be sure of its meaning. The King James rendition of “Godhead” makes it no clearer. It is enough to say that Paul sees in the works of nature a reflection of the essence of God.

All this cannot be made to mean that the heathen had as much, or almost as much, revelation of God in the phenomena of nature as we have in the scriptures. Paul only means that God’s manifestation in nature is adequate to elicit a response from man. The witness of nature is sufficient to show God’s supremacy and His right to be reverenced by man. It certainly is adequate to demonstrate “the glory of the immortal God” and thus turn man from the worship of “images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.”

The Hound of Heaven thus pursues man in His witness through the things He created. And the apostle asserts it has always been so: “In past generations he allowed all nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14).

It is a beautiful thought that in His search for man, God, in His mercy, whispers to us through the rain that falls and through the fields ripe for harvest. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge” (Psalms 19). It is clear enough that God speaks through the wonders of nature. If man would only listen!

The psalmist was conscious of such pursuit on God’s part when he wrote:

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there thy hand shall lead me,

and thy right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139)

Testimony of Human Nature

Of all creation it was said only of man “Let us make . . . “ Not only is man the crown of all creation, but he is the only creature made in the image of God. If indeed we are made in God’s likeness, then we have insight into His nature by a study of ourselves. A study of a text in The Psychology of Man may, therefore, reveal more about the character of God than we would have supposed.

When the poet said “The proper study of mankind is man,” he spoke an important truth, but it may be equally important to say “The proper study of God is mankind.” And we have a distinct advantage here, for when the psychology books talk about instincts, drives, motives, emotions, intelligence, and the like, the reference is to things we personally experience. This is why college students often get excited about psychology. “This stuff is about me,” they will say. Can we tell them that it is, therefore, about God also, for man is in some way the image of God? If psychology helps us to understand the nature of Mind, which of all creation is distinct in man, then it helps us to understand God, who is Eternal Mind.

By Mind we do not mean the brain, or intelligence, or rationality, or consciousness, or memory, or will; but all these together and much more too. We mean being itself, or the inner-man, or selfhood. Mind is thus personality. Only man is a person as God is a person. Only man partakes of Being, which is God. We know what it is to be.

It is deep inside himself, as well as in nature and in the Bible. that man experiences Heaven’s presence. Man’s consciousness of himself makes him aware of something like himself that is greater than himself. This psychological fact, supported by centuries of human history, supports our thesis that every man at some point in his life comes face to face with God. It may be amidst tragedy, or the birth of a child, or self-scrutiny, or in the presence of the Matterhorn; but eventually man “paints himself into a corner” in his efforts to ignore God.

One’s confrontation with God may come in the classroom. Those of us who teach philosophy may see more instances of it than other educators—and how many instances are there that the teacher never sees? The philosopher may observe it when the question of reality is being considered. What is really real? is a question, once diligently pursued, that may take one to the very presence of God.

Paul Tillich is saying something like this when he observes “But what is ‘really real’ among all the things and events that offer themselves as reality? That which resists me so that I cannot pretend its nonbeing. The really real is what limits me.”

Man is not for long awed by money, fame or position; nor by anything over which he may exercise lordship. Such things do not limit him, and so they are not really real. But there is One whose nonbeing he cannot pretend. He feels the presence of such a Being, both in himself and in other human beings. This feeling is one more aspect of God’s persistence. Maybe this is what the Bible means when it says God put eternity into the heart of man.

The scriptures certainly teach that something bad can happen to the feeling that would naturally serve as avenues for God’s entrance into our lives. Paul speaks of those “darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they have become callous (or past feeling) and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.” (Eph. 4)

Their feelings could have saved them from a life of frustration. The apostle also speaks of those whose consciences are seared (1 Tim. 4), and of those who are inhuman (or without natural affection). (2 Tim. 3:3) In Romans 1 he speaks of the heart and conscience as areas of God’s revelation: “They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.”

In the same passage Paul sees God’s kindness as a means of reaching man, even if he yet has no Bible: “Do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

By his very nature, as a being of God’s likeness, man is on God’s frequency. God will in some way speak to his heart, to his feeling, to the eternity within him. But man must not disturb the knobs on his set, and certainly he must not tear the wiring loose. God has given man feeling and freewill, and He beckons for his response. If he sears the longings of his heart with the hot iron of carnality and spurns the gift of freedom for the sake of conformity, then God’s pursuit is in vain, even when it makes its way deep within the recesses of his own soul.

Augustine should serve as an example of what it means to respond to the pursuit of the Hound of Heaven:

“And I beheld the other things below Thee, and I perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not; for they are, since they are from Thee; but are not, because they are not what Thou art.”—the Editor

Make it a rule, and pray God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, “I have made one human being, at least, a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this day.”—Charles Kingsley