transcript of The virtual conference video:

Anthony Connelly

The bulk of Western Christianity believes while God can be affirmed in many things, these affirmations cannot contain an unknowable God.

Here’s an encapsulating illustration:

God created everything, like this glowing ball of light. Now the ball of light affirms God; I can point to it and say, “God created that. Wow. He created it, me, you…everything. What a miracle!”

But none of it is God. Nothing I see, feel, taste, hear or touch can embody God. God is inexpressible. Nothing my perceptions allow is capable of being an expression of God. The ball of light is not God.

However, not even when you stare at this light and then close your eyes and later reopen them with the ball of light magically gone, does this in any way represent God. There’s a ghost seared into the back of your vision, but it’s not holy; the ghost is not the ball of light, nor is the absence of what was once present capable of being an expression of God.

Neither the presence of the ball of the light in the first place, nor secondly the space that is left in its absence can be an expression of God.