Marginal Diminishing Utility and Mystery

Marginal Diminishing Utility and Mystery…

Today’s post actually came from a conversation we had with the Dugans in their car after church. Pondering a topic from Sunday school this morning, the notion of “God as mystery,” was brought to the forefront of the discussion. Lindsay, commented that “maybe the reason God has so much mystery in the Bible, is because if She didn’t we would quickly become board with Her.” Lindsay even applied the language marginal diminishing utility to the concept. I first learned the phrase in high school from my economics teacher who explained like this: “If you go to Burger King on Monday and order a Whooper, it probably will taste great. If you do the same everyday of the week, by Friday you probably won’t enjoy the Whooper very much anymore.” Hence the idea is that you appreciate something less and less each time you use or consume it.

Could this be applied to God and mystery? Lindsay continued by citing several examples. Yesterday we watched Discovery specials on both Big Foot and America’s Lochness Monster, supposedly located in Lake Champlain in New York. By the end of both programs we were convinced of their existences, though they both be enigmatic and elusive. She then pointed out a program we watched this last November on Kennedy’s assassination. The program examined the major evidence from several different angles: the open microphone on the motorcycle using acoustics, the famous photo with new photo software, the Zappuder film using new software, and lastly they recreated Oswald’s shots with some fancy Kennedy/Connelly models that tested the ballistic probability of the magic bullet. By the end of this program we were both convinced it was unfortunately, not a conspiracy.

See the difference here. Once we figured out the mystery had been solved in the Kennedy case we lost interest. Conversely the enigma of the Big Foot/Lochness cases heightened our interest. The more I think about it the more I think she may indeed be right. There is something mysterious about God that keeps us enamored with Her. It is precisely because we are unable to comprehend the deep mysteries of God that our experience with Her does not diminish marginally. She is the wellspring of life, the first and the last. She is the alpha and the omega, and She is who She is. She is She whom can’t be comprehended. She is mystery.