God Sees Only Black and White

"Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad." ~ Jer. 24:3

We live in a colorful world; and, the colors confuse us. But, God sees things black and white. Please don't mistake me: I only speak metaphorically, I speak in relation to discernment between good and evil, between the true and the false...

We now have color televisions, past color photography: and what else - beyond 16 million colors? How confused is our generation! We dally with shades and play with prisms, and stay all the while between the black and the white. How dreamy is our fascination! We can no longer tell the difference between the wrong and the right.

Faith and confidence are virtues of the barbarians, they say. To claim the truth is an offence against reason, the highest treason. Only the uncouth and uncultured see the world in black and white: but, we live in every imaginable shade, and does imagination have an end?

Let me borrow this description from T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Speaking of the Arabian tribes whom he had led during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomon Turks (1916-1918), he had written:

Semites had no half-tones in their register of vision. They were a people of primary colours, or rather of black and white, who saw the world always in contour. They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns. They did not understand our metaphysical difficulties, our introspective questionings. They knew only truth and untruth, belief and unbelief, without our hesitating retinue of finer shades.This people was black and white....

That doesn't imply that I comply with the Arab world-view: I only desire to sample the "barbarian" perspective. This example is enough. It stands in contrast to our world of flowers and butterflies. How pale is their cave of shadows compared to ours! But, God is also a caveman. He also sees the world as black and white. He warned the Laodicean Church to either be hot or cold - lukewarmness was the abhorrent mid-shade that God despised. So, they hurl at Him accusations. They say He's archaic, outdated, and narrow-minded. Who's broad-minded then? Well, the man who is confused and got no answers; because answers regarding right or wrong only narrow up things - and, we despise constrictions: we hate the black and white. We don't need answers; only, more questions -- how wise!

So be it, then, until the end. Sooner we will realize that the purgatory was a deception. We got no middle ground: either to the left or to the right -- the goats on the left, the sheep on the right. We will then have many stories, so colorful that colors will blush in shame; but, He will just have one answer: "To the left" or "To the right", 'cos God doesn't see colors, you know, He sees only black and white.

Domenic Marbaniang, Dec. 15, 2010.