The Fourth Dimension

The classic story of Flatland and the challenges of articulating existence beyond the the three-dimensional, material realm.

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When I was a teenager, our high school had a special assembly for which we had to read a book ahead of time. It was the book “Flatland” by the Rev. Dr. Edwin Abbott. The assembly included a special guest speaker who gave a riveting lecture, using the book as a springboard, on geometry and the possibility of the fourth dimension. No small task given his audience. More than most things in high school that lecture, and its possibilities, have stayed with me over the years.

This little fable from 1884 has been used for years to instruct children about mathematical concepts. It is also an amusing satire on English Victorian society. But its true genius is its ability to help us imagine a world beyond this one as well as explain our inability to describe it using language. 

The story takes place in a world called Flatland, which has only two dimensions. It is told from the perspective of a square. Over the course of the book the square visits “Lineland,” a world of one dimension, and “Pointland,” a world of no dimensions. He discovers he cannot get the Beings in these dimensions to believe in or even conceive of the two dimensions in which he lives. Then the Square is visited himself by a sphere from “Spaceland,” and is taken out of Flatland and brought to this world of three dimensions. The Square is flabbergasted at the difference. When he returns to Flatland, he tries to explain to his fellow citizens about this new dimension, this place that is beyond their world, but bigger, with entirely new ways of being. He cannot put it into words. For instance, in trying to describe “depth,” a concept unheard of in Flatland, the best he can come up with is the phrase “Upward, not Northward.” While technically correct, it doesn’t explain the reality of three dimensions at all.

This brilliant, humorous, unassuming book challenges us to imagine worlds and dimensions beyond ours. And at only 82 pages, I highly recommend it.

For those of us who have experienced worlds beyond this one through mystical experiences, the book gives us an analogy for pointing to such realities. In fact, I suspect there are multiple dimensions beyond our own. As long as we are confined to our three-dimensional brain and reality, these other dimensions don’t make sense, but having a transcendent experience beyond the brain opens us up to the extraordinary.

This book also highlights the challenges of speaking about the transcendent using human language. For those who have had near-death or mystical experiences, or those who have been overwhelmed with an experience of the Divine in church or elsewhere, how do you put such things into words? There is no language because all language falls woefully short. Language can point to God, but it cannot capture God.

For those who have had near-death or mystical experiences, or those who have been overwhelmed with an experience of the Divine in church or elsewhere, how do you put such a thing into words? There is no language because all language falls woefully short. Language can point to God, but it cannot capture God.

In the same way, the parables of Jesus are Christ’s attempt to come as close as he can to describing the Reign of God using limited human language. The parables are not simple fables, as many believe, but instead are complex stories that are meant to be shocking and weird. This oddness allows them to be read on many different levels. God’s reality is too magnificent to be explained by mere words.

“And again [Jesus] said, ‘To what should I compare the [Realm] of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’” - Luke 13:20-21

If you take this parable literally, does it mean that the Realm of God is found whenever you bake bread? Or a woman bakes bread? And why would this be special?

Or do we understand this parable symbolically to mean that the Realm of God is like the yeast. It transforms our world into something else. And what is that something else? What does it mean?

Or do we understand this to mean that the yeast, the Realm of God, will transform we humans? Into what? If so, will everyone be transformed? Or just some? Why?

Or do we understand this parable to mean that Jesus is the yeast transforming the entire cosmos into the Realm of God? What will that look like? Does this parable mean that God is the woman who places Christ the yeast into the material world in order to transform it?

Is the Realm that which is doing the transforming, or is it that into which we are being transformed? Or are paradoxically all the above interpretations true on some level? Parables are like the poor little Square in Flatland trying to describe three-dimensional depth to a two-dimensional world by saying, “Upward, not Northward.” It’s true, but it makes no sense, and doesn’t really capture the full reality. The little Flatland fable is, in effect, like Jesus’ parables, pointing to that which is beyond itself trying to help us poor little humans begin to grasp the infinite.

Parables, stories that point to the truth of the glory of God, stories that leave space and unanswered questions for the complex reality of God to shine through, are ultimately more accurate than a simple black and white fable.

Jesus’ parables are like every single person who has had an NDE or profound STE trying to describe the experience using human language.

All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

Thanks to Charlie Stephens for inspiring today’s reflection.

The Principle & Science of Analogy