A 3D God in a 2D World

“Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
—C.S. Lewis

“What if God were one of us?” singer John Osborne asked. Her popular mid-nineties song continues the hypothetical with the lines, “Just a slob like one of us . . . just a stranger on the bus . . . Tryin’ to make his way home?”

That is an interesting line of thought. What would it look like for God to enter this world. What would he be like? Would he be a slob, like one of us? How would we know it was God? What would be some signs.

I recently shared a conversation with my oldest son on this very theme. I used the illustration of a two dimensional world as I verbally processed with him. Since God, by definition, is not of this world, but rather, the creator of the world, he must exist in a very different dimension, one not defined by time, space, matter, and energy.

If God entered into the world he made, what would that be like? What would he be like? Of course, this is the claim at the heart of Christianity. So, another way to ask the question within a Christian framework would be “What should Jesus be like if he really were God in the flesh?”.

1. Jesus would be like us. 

Let’s hold off on formal philosophical arguments and just think about this with the example I shared with my son. If we lived in a two-dimensional world, like a comic strip for example, how would we conceive of three-dimensional things like a sphere. That’s not hard to consider. If you’ve ever tried to draw a sphere you know you just make a circle with shading. The better the artist, the more representative of a sphere the circle would be. But it would still be flat.

For sake of the analogy, let’s think of God as a three-dimensional being. We can use a sphere as a reference point.  If God entered into our world, he would surely have to limit his third-dimensions qualities in some way for us to know him. The nature of our 2D world would seem to require it. A sphere entering into a flat world would seem to us like a circle with really good shading. It would appear like all the other lines in our flat world. It would seem two dimensional to us.

This metaphor has implications for theology, doesn’t it? In our 2D world, we are trying to explain 3D realities using flat lines. That means our very best and most clear explanations of a sphere are severely limited. If we were ever able to enter a 3D world and experience a real sphere (not just a circle with good shading), our knowledge would increase exponentially. I would venture to say  a single encounter with a sphere would teach us more than an entire lifetime of studying flat lines.

That’s why I think a deceased believer, though a layperson in life with a simple understanding of the Bible, now, at this very moment, has far more knowledge than the greatest of living theologians. She has passed on from the two dimensional world into the third dimension. She is no longer studying flat art. She is now beholding glory. Forgive my evolving metaphor.

2. Jesus should have access to more. 

If the 3D creator of the 2D world became flat for our sake, he would have to know way more than we do. After all, he has access to a whole other dimension! Of course, from a Christian perspective, he is the whole other dimension. To be clear, Christianity teaches that we can think of the sum of reality as existing in two categories: created things and non-created things.

For the Christian, the only non-created thing is God. Everything else is created. I love how author William Lane Craig describes it, “God is the source and sustainer of all reality that exists outside of himself.” That’s a good summary of these two categories.

In communicating with us, God would use language we can understand. In entering our 2D world, Jesus would have to explain 3D realities in lines and shapes and symbols that make sense to us. Still, there would certainly have to be something different about his teaching, even if delivered in flat terms.

Not only would his words carry a special significance, but his actions would stand out as well. He should have access to a power not of this world. But it would still appear to us in 2D. For example, when Jesus walked on water or turned water into wine those elements still had familiar 2D qualities. However, they operated in a way that showed us there was a greater reality at work, a 3D power being enacted upon the 2D world.

Wouldn’t it be funny if those miracles were mixed with Jesus turning the whole sea into wine! It would be a mixed drink! I digress. At least I amuse myself. In the words of Alf, that salient intellectual from the 1980s, “Ha! I kill me!”

If you don’t know, you don’t know.

The water Jesus walked on seemed to us to have the properties of a solid, something we 2D people know well. At the wedding miracle, the water seemed to have properties they experienced as wine, which some of us might know too well. But what the water didn’t do is take on three-dimensionality (is that even a word?).

Yet, these miracles were telltale signs of something greater, of another dimension.

3. Jesus could offer us something better. 

If the Creator entered the creation, he would be able to offer us something not available in our flat world. That reminds me of the line from Jesus from John’s gospel, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Indeed, Jesus often spoke of another world that should govern how we live in this one. That’s not to say this world doesn’t matter. On the contrary, it seems Jesus dignified this 2D world by speaking of its real qualities. In other words, Jesus was opening our eyes to realities that had prior to been unseen and in many ways unnoticed, though our poets and prophets have tried to awaken our sleeping souls throughout the centuries.

Several years ago kids were into something called Flat Stanley. It’s a character from a story they read. You make this flat drawing of a boy your travel companion and take pictures of him in different places. You carry the 2D character around the 3D world and photograph him. Of course, the pictures are 2D. It kind of goes full circle, doesn’t it?

I don’t mean to confuse the metaphor here. I’m trying to say that somehow in the life of Jesus we get these snapshots of a world to come, a 3D world, but we see them all from our 2D vantage point. These snapshots help us learn the true beauty of reality. But the very best descriptions of this world to come still get reduced to ink on paper, or pixels on a screen. They have more depth in our imagination than anywhere else. But one day, this 2D world will wake up to realize its true potential and grandeur.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1, ESV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-5, 14, ESV)

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11, ESV)