Ietsism

Ietsism

If you ask people about their belief in God, about 40% of Western people will answer that there is ‘something’, without knowing what it is.

Their intuition tells them that reality could not simply have arisen out of nothing and that death as an absolute end makes existence very meaningless and, in many cases, very unjust. But what exactly is that mysterious 'something' hiding behind the door of the impressive universe?

The people who believe that there is 'something' have no idea what lies behind the door of the unknown. Since 1997, this unspecified belief in ‘something’ has been known as ‘IETSISM’. What this ‘something’ is supposed to be eludes the ietsists. With a variation on John 1, their creed is as follows:

'In the beginning was Something and Something was with Something and Something was Something. This was in the beginning with Something. And through Something all things came into being and without Something nothing came into being that has come into being.'

The 'ietsists' resemble the inhabitants of Athens in the first decades of our era. They had erected an altar for an unknown god, 'something' that they had overlooked. They feared that their Pantheon might not contain all the gods entitled to their worship and that they had forgotten one. Perhaps there was still 'something' to which sacrifices had to be made. Paul used the Athenian 'ietsism'—the unknown god—to preach the gospel. In Acts 17, we read his proclamation:

'What you worship without knowing it, that I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, He who is Lord of heaven and earth, is not cared for by human hands as if He needed anything, since He Himself gives life and breath and everything to all.' (Acts 17:23-25)

For the ietsists, the search for what lies behind their belief in 'something' lasts their entire lives. They find it difficult to make a choice. They are of the opinion that they can never, ever find out Who or What the 'Something' exactly is. Their 'ietsism' is a lifetime search process. And they have a point there. After a somewhat disappointing experience with the skeptical Athenians, Paul concluded in one of his letters:

‘For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to a knowledge of God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. For the Jews want signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ, the Crucified…’ (1 Corinthians 1:21,22)

You do not encounter the ‘Great Something’ in treatises on the universe. You do not come across Him in philosophical literature. You do not find Him in books about all kinds of mysticism or occultism, and not even in theology books. Nor do you discover Him through an extensive search for the truth on the internet. You find Him only in the inner chamber of your own heart. Have you ever tried to pray? Go to Him and acknowledge that you are but a small human being. The unknown ‘Something’ that lies hidden behind the universe and nature is infinitely greater than the wildest notions you could form of Him. You can encounter that unimaginably great ‘Something’ in ‘the Crucified’. Through Him, you will discover the awe-inspiring Greatness hidden within the ‘Something’ that is so unknown to many people. He wants to give you an eternity in which you can discover more and more of that ‘Grandiose Something’.

'And He made from one blood the whole human race to dwell upon the whole earth; and He determined the times allotted to them beforehand, and the boundaries of their dwelling place, so that they might seek the Lord, if perhaps they might find Him by groping, though He is not far from each of us. For in Him we live, move, and have our being...' (Acts17:27)