Do you ever talk to yourself? This is a rhetorical question because I already know the answer. Everyone talks to themselves at some point. You know, the casual mumblings as you look for a lost item, or perhaps the mental continuation of an argument you just had with someone, only now you have the perfect comeback that you couldn’t think of in that moment. It is a universal activity, spanning all time and every nation on earth. As I’ve written before, anytime we find something universal in humans, we should pause a moment and take a closer look. Such things will almost certainly reveal another testimony to our God since we alone, of all His works, bear his likeness. What I would like to propose to you in this brief article is that this tendency of talking to ourselves should remind us that we were made in the image of the Tri-personal God, and are therefore designed for fellowship.
This little meditation was sparked by two books I happened to be reading at the same time -The Hobbit by Tolkien and The Atonement by a Scottish preacher from the 1800s named Hugh Martin. I had read The Hobbit to my children many years ago but felt like reading it again. The Atonement was recently sent to me by a dear friend and has been the source of much encouragement. The intersection came while reading the famous chapter in The Hobbit, Riddles in the Dark, in which we are first introduced to one of the most iconic and miserable characters of 20th-century literature – Gollum. When Gollum first speaks we realize very quickly that he adds “s’s” to almost everything he says. We also note that he talks to himself incessantly. “What iss he, my preciouss?” Whispered Gollum” and then Tolkien writes that he “always spoke to himself through never having anyone else to speak to.” Indeed, when Bilbo tries to escape later in the same chapter, it is this recognition that causes him to pity the creature and spare his life. “A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.”
At the same time I was reading that chapter, similar wording from a chapter in Hugh Martin’s book caught my attention. He was writing about the absolute necessity of our God being a Trinity and how unthinkable it would be to envision our Creator existing for endless ages if He were not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He writes, “Tell me not of a dark, blank, cold and cheerless past eternity, with one only, eternal, self-inclusive, self-contemplating person dwelling in it, however you may accumulate into your description of his being all possible perfections. The more you tell me that he is self-subsisting, self-sufficient, self-complete, and absolutely independent, so much the more do you remove him far away from every idea of blessedness …It is a dark abyss of solitude and silence, from which I shrink back in terror, and from which I cannot possibly believe that any bright and blessed creation could ever spring.” You see how what he is describing of such a god is exactly how Bilbo sees the sorry soul of Gollum – pitiful, hopeless, and alone.
Only Christianity holds to a single God who has eternally existed in three Persons. Of all the countless faiths and myths fashioned by the minds of men, even when they have multiple gods, there was still a time when only one existed, and who then became the fountain of all the others. And for most of them, it would have been better to have remained alone since they often ended up squabbling with one another and wreaking havoc in the universe they had made. Islam sought to nip that in the bud with its solitary Allah, but in so doing, created a being as tragic as Gollum, dwelling on his isolated island in the dark, talking to no one but himself for immeasurable ages till he finally made the world. Who can fathom such loneliness? What would eternal, conscious isolation be but hell? When we mutter to ourselves while we’re alone, we still know that we could pick up the phone and dial a friend at any moment. Not so with a lone deity. His detachment would be infinitely extreme. How could such a being ever be called “love,” since for countless eons he would have existed in utter solitude, with no object for his affections? He may have learned to love now that there are others, but he is not love intrinsically. It is not his very nature, as it is our God’s.
No, from the very beginning page of our Bible we have our Triune God overflowing with blessed creation. “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….” (Gen. 1:26) There is no “royal we” here. When our God talks to Himself He is still speaking to Another, He is speaking to the other Persons of the eternal Trinity. When He says “I Am that I Am” (Ex. 3:14) He speaks to Himself just as surely as when he says “You are My Son, today I have begotten You,” (Ps. 2:7) and He does so in the presence of the Holy Ghost, as He has for all eternity. His solitary existence is an eternal, blessed community. In Proverbs 8 Wisdom is described as a Person, “established from everlasting…” (v.23) and rejoicing in the fellowship of creating all there is with God. Of course, then, we would expect to find Proverbs 18:1 telling us that “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.” Wisdom knows the wealth of fellowship and that only selfish desire is sought in separation. When I talk to myself it is because “me, myself, and I” are alone. When He does so it’s because Father, Son, and Spirit are in glorious communion!
May your next solo dialogue be a fresh occasion of seeing the contrast and similarity such talking bears to the fellowship that our God enjoys and lead you to renewed communion with those who know Him too.
