“When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn’t be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play.”
-Timothy Keller, pg. 122 in The Reason For God

This was an insightful analogy. In light of the fact that God is big enough to create the universe and humanity, he is infinitely greater than us…so much greater that he’s separate from us – similar to the separation between the playwright and the characters in his play. And yet - God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. Eternally secure, he rules the world.

Most everything in the earth is beneath us. We can tame it, study and understand it, or bend it to our will. This is good – it is according to God’s plan. The psalmist said of mankind, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” However, we can begin to think that everything is able to be subjected and fully understood by us. Hence, when we come across something that we cannot wrap our minds around or prove through science – namely spiritual things - we often question its very existence. Donald Miller put it beautifully when he wrote of his atheist friend, “There are plenty of things that are true that don’t make sense. I think one of the problems Laura was having was that she wanted God to make sense. He doesn’t. He will make no more sense to me than I will make sense to an ant.”

In particular, this can be a problem with people who have a secular world view, when they approach the subject of God. C.S. Lewis’s analogy of God as the playwright illustrates well the true nature of things. God is infinitely greater and wiser than us. He’s not confined to the material world as we are. He’s not something for us to analyze and use as we would a scientific element, an aspect of nature, or a person. We really cannot learn anything about him unless he first provides a way. Likewise, the characters in a play, by themselves, could never find out anything about the playwright without the author’s help. God is not beneath us, able to be controlled or fully understood. There are mysteries about him that no human mind can decipher. Knowledge of God is a gift given from God. We can only learn about him through his revealing himself to us in whatever way he deems best. And in his infinite love and kindness, God has revealed himself through his Word – the Bible.