Why God transcends words

I have mentioned it before, but I never elaborated on the subject. God transcends words. Religion is an attempt to describe the indescribable with a series of metaphors. These metaphors have become so complex and so vast that many no longer recognize them as merely metaphors and have begun to view their brethren as strangers.

It is like this:

You are a child, and you wish to reach the cereal box at the top of the refrigerator. The cereal box is God. Religion is a chair. You can use the chair to reach the cereal, and, indeed, you need to when you are younger, because you are not yet tall enough to reach the top of the refrigerator on your own. However, as you grow older, you will become tall enough to reach the box of cereal without the assistance of the chair. Yet, despite that, some insist on using the chair even after they grow up. This type of thinking only serves to stunt your spiritual growth. You do not become taller, stronger, or smarter, in a spiritual sense, when you continue to use these 'crutches.'

God is a spiritual being. We are spiritual beings exiled and trapped in physical bondage (our bodies). We, right now, speak only with our physical bodies in a physical language. Because our physical bodies have never experienced God or perfection, they obviously cannot express God in physical words. Thus, God is indescribable with words...

...until we break free from physical chains and learn to speak in a spiritual language (likely not anything remotely similar to a physical language, which consists of utter grunts and syllables).

While the metaphors we use help us to understand what God is, let us not get carried away with them. We need to remember that they are, in fact, only metaphors.

-Brian West (Apeiros Sophos)