Love is a kind of wisdom, a way of knowing, a way of understanding the world rightly. Love knows that God has made the world like a poem, like a riddle.
It is this same puzzle of Love that Augustine delights in:
What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? “For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is god besides our God?” Most high most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence-since even those who say most are dumb. Confessions ch. 4
This is the paradox of love. It's a poem, a puzzle. God is unchanging, yet changing all things. Old and yet always new. Hidden, yet always present. Working, yet always at rest. And yet, this is what Augustine finds rest in. This puzzle of Love is what gives him stability. There is no end to Augustine's search, and in some glorious unexplainable way, that is his peace. And in this endless search, this restlessness that is rest, Augustine becomes like his Creator; he is dumb, and yet goes on for pages, praising what he cannot fathom.
Perhaps we are choosing to only see one side of the story though. Augustine speaks, because God spoke. It is His drawing us to Himself through the Spirit that causes us to know. The two are inseparable (another paradox!). His Speech is poured out on us and we overflow with words. His Love descends down to us and we see His face. He brings light to our blindness and speech to our speechless lips. And so, Augustine's speechless speech should never end. It will never end.
As we grow in understanding, says Augustine, we think we will reach an end to our search. But the psalmist says, “Seek His face always.” David is not speaking about knowing God as we know other things, but about intimacy with God, delight in God, loving God, knowing even as one is known. As Saint Paul wrote, “If anybody thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But anyone who loves God, this person is known by Him” (gal. 4:9). “Let us then,” says Augustine, “seek as those who are going to find, and find as those who are going to go on seeking.” With an uncanny eye for just the right text Augustine quotes the book of sirach: 'When a man has finished, then it is that he is beginning' (Sir. 18:7).
...on the Confessions Augustine, addressing God,says that his desire was 'not to be more certain about you, but to be more stable in you.' The goal of human life is not to know something about God, but to know God and be known by God, to delight in the face of God. The psalmist had written, “My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy face, O Lord, will I seek,” and Augustine comments, “This is magnificent. Nothing could be spoken more sublimely. For those who truly love will understand. What does the psalmist seek? 'To gaze upon the Lord's loveliness all the days of his life.' His fear is that he should be deprived of what he loves. And what is that? What does he love? Thy face.'”
The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken
And when we do see Him face to face...that will truly be the beginning.
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