The Tower We Cannot Build

Ever found yourself frustrated by your human limitations? You're not alone. Throughout history, we've been obsessed with transcending our boundaries, building towers to heaven, conquering new frontiers, and pushing against the constraints of our humanity. In this episode we ask is there anything to gain from a limited existence.

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Transcript

Tower of Babel's Warning

Speaker 1 0:00

At one time , the whole earth spoke the same language . It so happened that as they moved out of the east , they came upon a plain of land of Shinar and settled down . They said to one another Come , let's make bricks and fire them . Well , they used brick for stone and tar for mortar . Then they said Come , let's build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches heaven . Let's make ourselves famous so we won't be scattered here and there across the earth . God came down to look over the city and the tower those people have built . God took one look and said one people , one language . Why , this is only a first step . No telling what they'll come up with next . They'll stop at nothing . Come , we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other . Then God scattered them from there all over the world .

Speaker 2 1:04

Humanity is not an easy thing to live with . We often struggle with our limitations and the realities of a physical world we can't ever fully control , a human world of interactions that bring as much pain as it does joy . And yet this is the existence that God chose and embraced . He brought salvation not by removing us from our humanity , but by entering it and inviting us into a journey of transformation within it .

Speaker 1 1:33

In this six-part limited series produced by Riddle Call Cambridge , isabel Hamley and I are going to be discussing some of the unique situations , opportunities and challenges us humours are facing and try to gain unique insights and wisdom that the Bible and the Christian life can offer us . This episode , limited Pull you into the water Till you come out clean . Why do you think God created us ? Limited , or did he ? You might think he didn't ?

Speaker 2 2:23

What does limited mean ? You know ? Limited in this context of being created or did he ? You might think he didn't . What does limited mean ? You know ? Limited in this context of being created means human beings are not God . We're not everything that can be . God makes space for someone else , something else than God , to be . So , in a sense , choosing not to be everything , choosing to limit yourself , is part of being made in the image of God , this God who makes it possible for otherness to spring and to exist and to be a good thing . But as human beings , we're not good at knowing what's good for us and therefore we keep wanting to be more than what we are .

Speaker 1 3:04

So do you think I'm just thinking about ? My first step with this is thinking about and we've referenced it in one of these other episodes that we've recorded is right back in the beginning , the Garden of Eden , that there's a limitedness that's placed upon humans right from the get-go , like do all these things , have all these things , be all these things , but not that bit ? And then we overstep our limitedness . Do you think it's just part of the human condition ? Is is always striving to step outside of where we should stop .

Speaker 2 3:45

Humans are not very good at boundaries , so I think we often want more than what is ours . You know , if you look at how we've ended up in a mess of the world we are today . We're in a mess environmentally because we don't accept that we live in a world that has boundaries , that has constraints . We just want more and more and more . We're in a mess economically in terms of you know the level of economic inequality in the world because some humans don't stop and have so much and take what rightfully belongs to others . So and then other human beings look on and say I want some of what they have . Instead of thinking how can we live better together , we keep thinking how can I have more for me Was ? I think ? Accepting the fact that we're limited is about saying but because I am limited , that means there is space for you to be there , for you to grow , for you to be a person . So in order for all of us to be able to be , we need to accept that none of us can be or have everything .

Speaker 1 4:50

It's really interesting when I think about some of the most famous people in the world at the moment , the Elon Musks of this world , for example , who basically based their whole mission on this idea of pushing beyond the boundaries , pushing beyond the limitations that we've always had . We've been limited to Earth and he's going . Let's not be limited to Earth anymore more . Yeah , um , that's , that's be a universe , a universe , a spacefaring species that throws off the shackles of limitations . In that sense , in one on one hand , to me that feels incredibly well , is it feels amazing , and seems it's just ambitious and and that's that's a good thing , and and stretching and becoming more is a good thing . On the other hand , when you read a story like the Tower of Babel or the Tower of Babel , it seems there's an obvious kind of pushback from how God designed humans with that in mind , how God designed humans with that in mind . What do you think the biblical wisdom would say about these people that are really pushing ?

Speaker 2 6:12

I don't think there's anything wrong with ambition per se . The question is , what do you turn it to and what impact does it have on yourself and on everybody else ? So if you say we want more , or push boundaries , the question I would want to ask is why , what for , and who is it going to affect , and how is it going to affect those people ? So you know pushing into space exploration because we've trashed our own planets , therefore we can go and trash another . Is that really pushing boundaries or is that irresponsible ? Actually , is it right to pour unbelievable amounts of money into space exploration when there are people dying of hunger everywhere on the planet ? Do you know what I mean ? So for me , what's wrong is not necessarily just a desire to push beyond boundaries . It's also the ethics of why you do it , how you do it and what you choose to concentrate on . Are there not things that you know ? If we could push the boundaries of you know human society so that we eliminate hunger , wouldn't that be a better boundary to push ?

Speaker 1 7:24

And I know that can say in some ways it's like yeah , if you have , maybe if you come out reading the bible from an incredibly literal way , maybe that wouldn't . If you're saying we're going to try and feed everyone , that's not you pushing against kind of god-made boundaries , that's's you living inside the boundaries that God gave us .

Speaker 2 7:47

And it's also , you know , what are the real boundaries , in ourselves , in our minds , in , you know , are the most problematic boundaries or limitedness of humanity , the limitedness of our body , or is the real problem how limited our minds are , how limited our love is , how limited our compassion is , how you know , and how unboundaried our selfishness is , you know . So I think

Understanding Human Limitedness

Speaker 2 8:15

that there is something about what is it we choose to look at and why and why do we want to do this ? And you know , I do think you have to keep a balance because actually that intention to push boundaries is how a lot of new discoveries , a lot of science has worked , which has been beneficial . The problem is when you have science and pushing without conscience . So I mean there's a French kind of famous little phrase which works better in French than in English , but which says the science without conscience . So I mean there's a French kind of famous little phrase which works better in French than in English , but which says that science without conscience is the death of the soul , and I think that's quite a good thing . How do we advance knowledge and behavior in a way that is actually good for us , rather than is going to destroy us , than it's going to destroy us or it's going to be ridiculous .

Speaker 2 9:02

I mean the tower of babel story that we read . I love that because the way it's written is you've got these human beings who are like we're so good , we're so great , we're like god , so we're going to make this tower and our tower is going to be so tall , it's going to reach to heaven and god has to come , look and then come down all the way to the top of the tower , where the human beings are , because they're so small compared to God and it's like . So it's written in a way that makes you think gosh , aren't they dull ? You know they think they're so big , but actually they're not . And the Tower of Babel , I think , if you think about it at the beginning , human beings are trying to find , you know , unity among humans and significance in being all the same and united and not different from one another . So in a sense , they're trying to kind of make the human a superhuman .

Speaker 2 9:54

And what God does ? He scatters and God splits the languages . And is that really bad in the long term ? Or is it good , like if you all speak the same language , you can assume you understand one another , to know you know , whereas if you speak different languages , if you have different culture , if you're scattered , when you meet another person , you immediately are faced with the fact that this person is not you . They're not the same . You can't just assume you understand them . So , in terms of human relations , actually , the effect of Babel is to bring human beings to a place of recognizing that the other is not me . I'm having to make an effort to actually relate to one another . I don't think that's a bad thing .

Speaker 1 10:41

No , I mean , it sounds like a very good thing . It seems like with so many of these challenges that we face . These fundamental obstacles or challenges , however you want to frame them that we've covered in this series ultimately end up pointing you back to having better relationships with people , and one of the conversations that I've had a lot over my last 10 years I think mainly in part to the fact that I got married quite a lot younger than a lot of my peers did is around this idea of how do you get married young , or how did you get married young when there's all of these other women around um , and it's a sentiment which I , to most of you , find really um , I really get , because , with all of this choice that's available to you , how did you narrow down and be like and this is the one that I'm going to make out of the 50 of the 8 billion people in the world um , and how did you do it ? Kind of so early on , and my , my response over the years has been narrowed down to a sense of it's .

Speaker 1 11:54

It's because of my limited , by limiting myself to this one person . That's what gives value to the fact that I've chosen to marry this woman , jess .

Ambition vs. Ethics in Boundaries

Speaker 1 12:09

If she was the only person on the world , or I was unlimited and could just be married to every person in the world , my relationship would have no value . Um , so there's almost a sense in which our limitations are exactly the thing which add value to the way that we choose it . And and even if you look at something else , the job that you do , the the films that you watch is the fact that you are a limited being is the only reason that everything that you do is a valuable part of your life .

Speaker 2 12:44

It is what makes you unique .

Speaker 2 12:45

If none of us were limited , we would have no uniqueness either . Our limitedness kind of shapes who we are . One of my pet peeves in the world is the kind of you can be anything you want to be , kind of saying Like children in particular get told that at school often you can be anything you want to be , you just have to work hard enough . And it's like this is not true . It is patently not true . And it's not true for lots of reasons . Some of it is because we don't all have the same abilities . You know I will and I would never have been an Olympic runner , because it's just not . You know , I'm too short and I'm too lazy , let's face it .

Speaker 1 13:24

I just couldn't .

Speaker 2 13:25

But does that make me less valuable ? No , it doesn't . But I can't be . You know , just hard work , it was never going to get me there . In the same way , you can't be everything you want to be because you're born in a specific place and time , to specific parents and you have a specific life experience and the choices of other people and the sin of other people , but also the opportunities other people give you , shape what's actually possible for you . So all of us have a specific story and almost saying you can be anything you want to be or we can be unlimited would be taking ourselves outside of a story .

Speaker 2 14:07

The story of who we are , with all the different connections so I guess there's the , the .

Speaker 1 14:11

The place where that leads is is trying to define the or unpack if , if , if we had a hypothetical community of people in front of us I mean , if you're a church leader , it's not a hypothetical community of people in front of you and recognise that . How do you recognise what limitations you take on the fight with and what limitations that actually are in service of individuals ?

Speaker 2 14:41

For me , that's the really really important question , you know it's how do I work out whether you know , actually it would be good for me to go running more often and to push that limit .

Speaker 1 14:51

It would be good for me to kind of write something new that hasn't been written .

Speaker 2 14:53

Or , you know , push a boundary , write something new that hasn't been written . Or , you know , push a boundary . And what do I have to look at ? And accept the fact that , you know , I am asthmatic , I can't run very well , I'm not going to change that . So trying to transcend that isn't going to help me , it's not going to help anybody .

Speaker 2 15:19

So there's a sense of being realistic about what's possible and what's not , a sense of , you know , am I trying to push beyond something ? Because actually I'm unhappy with who I am and I'm trying to change who I am . And actually , you know , there are bits of ourselves we can change . But actually accepting who we are and finding a good , ethical , beautiful way of living with the person we are is probably more productive

Finding Value in Our Limitations

Speaker 2 15:40

than trying to change ourselves . And then , what impact does that limitation have ? So , is this a limitation that's imposed because of sin , mine or that of other people ? Is it a limitation that's actually , you know , oppressive , that needs to be changed , or you know ? So asking all those questions for me would be important , you know , oppressive , that needs to be changed , or you know ?

Speaker 1 15:59

So , asking all those questions for me would be important and I think there's obviously there's not here trying to discuss what limitations specifically people should push back upon , and there's lots of .

Speaker 1 16:13

I mean , whether it be social action or whether it be , um , just a simple conversation with someone , there's lots of means and ways of pushing back against limitations . One of the ways that I uh , if we kind of break down the conversation a bit more modular and first I want to talk about the limitations that are either kind of break down the conversation a bit more modular and first I want to talk about the limitations that are either kind of part of being human or the limitations that are imposed upon us , how do you think is a positive way of managing that ? Um , because obviously , something like , um , I don't know , maybe you could argue that our mental health crisis that we're living for at the moment is , in part , to our our ability to not have a or our lack of understanding about what it means to be limited um or have you got any ways that you feel have proved or you feel would be of benefit to engage with limitations ?

Speaker 2 17:18

so I've done some work recently on the psalms and a little word in the psalm which we can translate as happy people kind of query whether it's happiness or whether it's blessed . It's not the hebrew , hebrew or Greek word used for blessed or for joy or anything else , so happy is a good translation . And there's something really interesting about the way that happy others sayings are used in the Psalms and a lot of these are about partly about the idea that you can find happiness even when things aren't perfect . So the fact that just because other people put limitations on your life doesn't have to mean that everything is terrible . So how do you find a way of negotiating life that is realistic and truthful about the challenges but still looks at what can be positive ? And then there's quite a lot about the kind of happiness being commensurate with the size of being human . So it's about having roots , family and friends , somewhere to live , enough to eat , meaningful work , and I find that really interesting that you know happiness isn't linked to having more or doing great things or being amazing . Actually , a lot of happiness in scripture is rooted into that picture of contentment with the things that are good for human beings and that are linked to justice and to communities that enable everybody to flourish . So a lot of happy others sayings are linked to happy others who do what God does and treat people well and

Contentment Within Human Boundaries

Speaker 2 19:02

work for justice , and I find that really interesting .

Speaker 2 19:06

One of my friends , bishop Anthony Pogo , is South Sudanese . He lives through all kinds of things in South Sudan and has known being a refugee , has known war , conflict , and if you ask him what his picture of peace or reconciliation is , he would say it's me sitting outside my house under a mango tree full of mango , knowing my children are safely in school , and I just think that's a biblical picture actually , of contentment . It's I have enough , I know , you know . And that doesn't mean not pushing against bad things , because actually in his work and in his life he has pushed against injustice and the stuff that's not right , but he's able to recognise how to live well .

Speaker 1 20:00

Just instinctually . There's a level at which , then , moments like I had these two very contrasting moments a couple of weeks ago , where I'd taken my young family on holiday to St Isingall Mall and we were with a big group of Jess's family and I found it really flipping hard the whole holiday . My boys loved it , my wife loved it , my mother-in-law loved it , everyone was loving it . I found it really challenging and all of the kind of markers of what it means to be living a joyful life were there , but all of my present reality was these markers aren't , aren't working for me .

Speaker 1 20:42

Um , whereas the moment where I was laying on my mum and dad's sofa on the day after we got back , my parents had taken , um , my boys out to the park and I was laying on their sofa , their back door was open and it was raining outside . There was a moment where I was like this is the best and there's nothing , there's no magic marker about . Like this is , and in some ways it's an unbelievably limited experience . It took no money , I didn't have to go anywhere , particularly I didn't have to have a conversation , I didn't need to prove anything , I didn't need to have a good photo . What it took was being , just being in a simple moment . Um , so in some ways there is a , I guess it's . If we create it probably came out of right relationship , in a sense .

Speaker 2 21:34

like relationship was the way in which I was most contented yeah and I think you also have to come back to you , know what are the limitations which transcend and the ones we accept . You're a unique person and actually there are configurations of life that will work for you and others that just won't , and that doesn't make you a bad person . And it doesn't mean you don't engage with some stuff that feels uncomfortable , but it just means that you know for you there are some things that work better than others .

Speaker 2 22:07

I wonder whether , partly today , some of the struggles we have , like you know , with the level of polarization and kind of tribalization in society are partly because people are often unable to accept that actually you are not me and it's OK for you to be you and for you not to be me , and it's OK for you know .

Speaker 2 22:24

There are things on which it's not OK to differ if it's something that's deeply hurtful to another person or that's ethically wrong , but on a lot of things it's OK . So in the church it's not okay to defer if it's something that's deeply hurtful to another person or that's ethically wrong , but on a lot of things it's okay . So in the church it's okay that sometimes we like different style of music or that some people prefer more kind of lively services with a band and other people prefer something much quieter . You know that's not an ethical issue . That is just we are different people made differently , and the problem is not that we should transcend our limitations . The problem is that we don't accept that I'm limited and the other person is , and that's okay .

Speaker 1 23:09

So , moving slightly into a different area here , what if we're motivated

Jesus: Divine Limitedness as Example

Speaker 1 23:17

by a sense of loving the world around us ? We obviously inevitably end up in this position . Say , in the UK at the moment , we obviously have a very divisive immigration situation , particularly our illegal immigration situation , where we've got people trying to gain access to the country . One of the arguments is that we're we're limited and that that's obviously a macro situation . We , we have limited real world capacity to deal with this problem and at a certain point , wherever that line comes , at a certain point , we all have to say we can't help anymore .

Speaker 1 23:57

Um , and that goes right down to the , the micro situations in all of our lives , I've helped to the point that I can and I can no longer . I can no longer do . That , you know , is is this , ultimately ? Is the christian faith one that always leads us down the road of martyrdom ? You give everything you can right up until you can't , and then , even when you can't , just die on that cross ? Um , or is , when it comes to loving people , our world is the christian faith , one which does say , actually , there's a moment where you just have to go , I can't anymore .

Speaker 2 24:32

That's a complex question , isn't it ? Particularly around immigration , particularly because , actually , the language of illegal immigration is problematic , because refugees have the right to apply for asylum in any country in the world , and I think the fact that we've turned , you know , we've stopped , by and large , talking about refugees and started talking about illegal migrants , and I think that's not the same thing . Actually , a migrant is somebody who chooses , not necessarily , but there's an element of choice being a refugee , you're just driven out , and that's a very different thing .

Speaker 2 25:07

What interests me in the question of migration is that we mix up lots of different questions but we don't always ask actually the real macro questions . So things like is a globalized world good for us ? How do we nurture local community in a way that works ? Why is it that there are such crises in migration ? And what's our responsibility kind of historically , and what's our responsibility kind of historically ? So the way in which trading systems are organized in the world are grossly unfair and they actually benefit richer nations and are detrimental to poorer nations .

Speaker 2 25:42

So actually , if you reduce the conversation to the crisis here now , you might have one answer , but actually , if you look at the big picture across time and across space , you might want to say well , actually , how do we solve some of the questions we have today ? We can't do that on our own , but what kind of international conversations do we need to have ? What kind of limits do we need to put on money grabbing , land grabbing , destroying the environment do we put ? Because actually a lot of the crisis is fueled by economic injustice , by war and conflict and by the environmental crisis , and so , you know , are we actually trying to answer the right questions and for me , as a Christian part of you know , just just to come back to that is my role to give until martyrdom I don't really know .

Speaker 2 26:42

I mean jesus says love your neighbors yourself , not more than yourself , necessarily , um , but I think it is up to us to ask the right questions so in in one sense , the prevailing wisdom is like we're if we , we're gonna find a boundary .

Speaker 1 26:56

If we keep asking this question , we're always gonna end up in the same kind of position , whereas if we ask an alternative question , maybe we don't have to come up against the boundary at all .

Speaker 1 27:07

Maybe if we say stop asking well , how many people can we let in ? How many people , how many sacrifices do we have to make until this problem is solved ? Instead it's going well . That's taking us to a limited capacity way of addressing the problem . But if we ask this question , we're not going to find the same . We've got a much further distance to go before we reach the boundary of what we can stop at and we come back to that .

Speaker 2 27:34

You know , what I think I said at the beginning is the real limitation of finance , or is the real limitation or imagination , or heart , or love , or kindness or compassion and our level to take responsibility for the consequences of the ways in which we live as well ?

Speaker 1 27:50

I mean , that's that . That is the . I guess the big challenge in my perspective is that the limit is where . What's more important , where's the , the internal sense of limitation , or the actual , the material ? Because I guess we're so quick to jump on the material limitations , um , which is obviously important , particularly if you're talking about , um , food and poverty , and and also if you're talking about the environment , like materialistic limitations become drastically important . But you know , is there a limitation to the amount of love that you can be motivated by ? Even if there's an amount that you can express , there's maybe no amount that you can be led by , um , there's no stopping that . So I want to push one final thought into this conversation um , I had a conversation on a podcast that I was recording two years ago and the research from my book on the imagination , and it's interesting that you brought up the imagination within that , because one of the things that , or one of the faculties , let's say , that isn't limited in many ways , is our ability to imagine .

Speaker 1 29:10

That people associate that with a boundlessness in its nature , and I was having an interesting conversation with someone about the kinds of problems that we get into when we assume that any part of us is boundless , because you arrive in places rampant anxiety being an example of that where you have no guiding framework . You have no boundaries for what you can imagine . Um , and he suggested that , like our well him , in combination with a few others that I've spoken with is that our value system becomes one of the best ways we can mediate limitations deliberately within our own lives . Um , so , where we've discussed the limitations that are placed upon us , and sometimes there's call to place them upon ourselves , which I guess you could express as discipline , um , obviously the bible's full of suggested value systems and ways of articulating discipline . Is there examples in your mind , like prevalent examples throughout the Old Testament , new Testament , which we can lean in on and try and understand how people have deliberately placed upon themselves limitations that have then resulted in a more fruitful life ?

Speaker 2 30:30

Well , I mean the incarnation would be the obvious one Sure .

Speaker 2 30:36

God being completely boundless , god being everything . God is everything , and yet God is good , god is love . Therefore , god is not evil , not bad , not unkind . Do you know what I mean ? So I think there's something really interesting about thinking about

Beyond Borders: Reimagining Global Problems

Speaker 2 30:55

the nature of God , and the nature of God being to always choose the good , the right , the beautiful , the true , the love , which implies that God isn't limited . But in another way , god chooses to self-limit to those qualities that God wants , and then God in incarnation limits God to that little tiny human body , which is extraordinary . You know , the God who flung stars into space , kind of into like just a little .

Speaker 1 31:27

We need a nice sound effect for that Tiny thing of atoms that aren't even visible to the naked eye , you know .

Speaker 2 31:35

And yet God is still completely God , you know , and Jesus lived this perfect life . But there were lots of things Jesus didn't do , in lots of different ways . Jesus was a man , not a woman . He was a Jew , not a Roman . He was , you know , a certain height . He was , you know , born to this set of parents , not that set of parents . He spoke , you know , probably Aramaic , possibly Greek , but not lots of other languages . So Jesus was limited , you know , in that sense .

Speaker 2 32:04

And then Jesus chose to behave in certain ways that were full of love , where the compassion that Jesus extended was almost limitless . And yet Jesus did not heal everybody . He wasn't the kind of , you know , first century NHS that everybody came to . No , but seriously , you know , he healed people , brought some back to life , but they still died eventually . So , kind of , in Jesus , god chooses a limited existence . But of that limitedness I think you see the image of God much more clearly for human beings , because we see what kind of life God invites us to live in Jesus . By God choosing to limit and then , by God being in Jesus , we see how you can have incredible compassion and care and kindness , and yet for that to happen within the limitedness of being human and I think that I can't think of any better example of you know how limitations can actually yield an incredible fruit .