Introductory notes for readers of this thesis - Theses - Flinders ...

gaze; they prefer to stay safe, risk nothing, and pretend that their temporal life andreligious beliefs are all that they need. Though human beings somewhere deep insiderecognise that they are stuck in a bleak cyclic and monotonous landscape leadingultimately to a futile death, they find launching out into an infinite unknown toooverwhelming.Whenever I think of Your Infinity, I am racked with anxiety, wondering how Youare disposed toward me…When I try to take You into account in the calculationsof my life, I can only put You down as an ‘unknown’—the riddle of Your Infinity,which Itself contains everything, throws all my calculations off, and so the endresult is still an insolvable puzzle…You are thus the eternal threat in my life,frightening me out of all sense of security 38 .The Encounters meditations expose the human dilemma. A sense of infinity helpshumans to see and frame their finite existence for what it is: barren, incomplete andultimately futile. Glimpses of infinity, however, frighten and confuse humans, and causethem to wish that they had never thought outside the familiar frames of the temporal andimmediately familiar. Stuck: trapped by temporal reality, frightened and confused byinfinite possibility, humans are left wondering ‘who or what will save us?’.Encounters with silence: experiential knowledge saves, and blossoms into loveIf God were to speak to humans in his own language about the fullness of his infinity theywould be overwhelmed and swept away; humans do not have the capacity to hear thisword.No, Lord, You must speak to me in a word that does not mean everything all atonce…Don’t tell me everything that You are; don’t tell me of Your Infinity—justsay that You love me 39 .Rahner speaks of Jesus Christ as the divine word that believers have the capacity to hearbecause he speaks God’s love in human language. His heart is a human heart—but it isalso God’s heart; through him believers can learn to believe that the frighteningimmensity of the all-in-all chooses to speak ultimately about just one thing: ‘love’.38 Ibid, 15.39 Ibid, 16.64