Interpreting the gaps

We look at a sliver of moon and surmise that we're seeing part of an orb, not all of a crescent. Part of an orb, not all of a crescent! The crucial difference is that we see the empty space as something hidden. Quite literally, in the case of the moon, we trace an outline, and at the point of the gap in the outline, we say that the pattern is there, but hidden. And this is what you would expect from a three-dimensional orb only one of whose sides is reflecting the light of the sun.

To see that an empty space is really a hidden portion is to give meaning to that space in light of the larger pattern. Our coherences have gaps, but the gaps, once they are embedded in the coherences, eloquently testify to the profound three-dimensionality, the coherent unity of our pattern, a center of agency that now responds to us.

... When it comes to knowing God ... I hardly consider the fact that I rarely see him. Of course I don't see him. God "lives in unapproachable light," the apostle Paul says indicating God's power and goodness. Jesus told his disciples, "I am going [to my Father's house] to prepare a place for you ... I will come back and take you to be with me." Of course I don't see him now. The hiddeness confirms his greatness.

... Why doesn't God punish evildoers immediately? ... Peter says he is being patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come, he says. A misinterpretation of this gap will be your eternal ruin.

...The focus has turned the tables on me on a cosmic scale.

(pp. 121-122, Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people)