While at seminary, a friend introduced me to the Hoberman Sphere. This “toy” helped me visualize the sections between joints as pieces in a vast theological puzzle.

Theology is how people think and talk about God.

Pieces of theology come together bit-by-bit in the course of our lives, not in a linear way, more like a sculpture, placed here and there as you and I go about constructing for ourselves a view of how the world works. 

According to its inventor, “The Hoberman sphere expands and contracts with its hubs moving in straight lines radiating from the center. Each point of intersection reinforces the structure. If you fully expand the sphere and rest it on a pentagonal face, it will hold its shape. If you turn it slightly so that it’s resting on a hub, it will quickly close.” 

Chuck Hoberman

The largest Hoberman Sphere expands to 19 feet diameter and weighs 750 pounds. The inventor, Chuck Hoberman, received a patent for the sphere in 1990. Today, the Hoberman Sphere is marketed as a toy.

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In this picture, all the pieces are tightly compacted, closed down in the center. This represents how any person might think he has all that he needs to know and believe about God. Answers to life problems can extend only within the limit of his closed sphere. 

How Theology Works

The segments of a Hoberman Sphere represent particular things people can learn and then fasten to other things previously learned––academic as well as experiences that lead us to trust God with our lives. 

A biblical worldview describes the way people see and understand God––who He is and what the Bible says about the world God created and controls.

In the course of any lifetime, no one can acquire all the theological pieces to make a complete sphere. No one can ever possess a complete understanding of God. No one can explain God, not even to himself.

“God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

― A.W. Tozer

While pieces themselves provide structure and framework for knowledge about God, the open space between the segments of knowledge represents the mystery of theology. 

The pieces of any theological construct (ideas and beliefs about God) are connected, hinged together piece by piece. Yet a person might have all of their theological certitudes sorted, carefully constructed by reason and experience, and yet fail to know and experience God personally.

Why? Because God exists in the space surrounding everything in the ether you and I cannot see.

God works in the open spaces of our lives. Biblical theology insists: Leave space for God.

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The Shelter of Biblical Truth

When circumstances shift like winds, or when tragedy strikes like lightening, or griefs fall like a relentless rain, will the theological construct I have assembled provide shelter?

Are bits and pieces of Bible knowledge enough to sustain a feeble faith? Is knowing biblical history, the stories and promises included in the Bible, and verses applied in particular situations sufficient support in times of actual need?

“When evil thoughts molest …” will I be able to shield my breast?

May Jesus Christ be Praised.

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 

Psalm 91:1

People can mistake knowing what the Bible says and misapply what the Bible means, shut down to unseen possibilities.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

C.S. Lewis

Immortal, Invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.

Truths about God as revealed in the Bible––including truths about life and death, heaven and hell––extend far beyond personal opinions, known experiences, and arenas of debate. 

The Bible teaches that God resides in the interior (heart and soul) and also in the vast exterior invisible space of life, the universe, and everything. 

Whatever today holds, may your theology leave space for God.