The whole creation project hangs on it. For anything to be created, there has to be the possibility of it not being created. Anything that “comes to be” must come to be in time. God is not an exception because he is automatically excluded; he doesn’t “come” to be; he just is. Even describing him as eternal, as the classic confessions do, is inadequate. Eternity has direction; it always goes forward (for everything except God), and going forward requires a sense of time. Before creation, no time, though our minds are not able to grasp it. We can’t even speak theoretically of it, without words like before, when, pre-, post-, or during barging into the conversation—try it. We have to take God’s timelessness on faith because there’s no other way to take it, and yet no other assumption is possible. His first creation was time. Then imperishable spirits, then perishable matter.
He could have stopped with angels, with countless multitudes spun from his glory, giving back his praises, alive in endless bliss.
So why didn’t he? Why does his Spirit hover at this turning called “the beginning,” brooding over darkness? Why does the word come: “Let there be light”? (Especially from one who already is light?)
How about this: He wants to tell a story.
To time he adds space: three actual dimensions to hold actual objects. The first objects are foundational: earth and sky. From there he builds up to relational and consequences and progress—things stir, grow, feed, reproduce—die? (Maybe not yet.) A fabric of cause-and-effect covers the earth like a mat. Sun meets bud—more flowers. Root meets earth—more grass. Bull meets heifer—you get the idea. What’s needed now is a willful being who will make real choices with real consequences, who will act and be acted upon, whose actions will form a coherent narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
We call that a story.
Someone told me once, God loves a good story. Don’t we all?
Some theologians speculate that Satan did not fall until after the creation of humans. He rebelled not because of a desire to usurp the throne, but because of revulsion at being expected to serve these puny beings. Humans were the prime cause of his defection, not the Almighty. I don’t know if that’s true–Isaiah 14:12 suggests there’s more to it. But it’s an interesting thought: what if Satan didn’t become part of the story until there was a story? Then he assumed an antagonist role, infiltrated earth, told the biggest whopper of all time and bound himself to the consequences. What if?
One common complaint about God—if he’s just up there somewhere, entertaining himself with our misfortunes like some Game of Thrones fan, then I want nothing to do with him. But to say he loves a good story doesn’t mean we are a mere diversion. It means that Story itself is far more significant than we ever thought, a grand sweeping narrative that is as much for us as it is for him. It shapes us, makes us, and in the next life it will amaze us forever.
And it all began with Let there be . . . Which may be another way of saying, Once upon a time . . .
Several years ago, after a flurry of news about some outrage I can’t even remember, my best friend asked in frustration, “Why do we even have to have sex?”
One obvious reason: without a drive that powerful and all-consuming, the human species would have died out a long time ago. Babies are fun and rewarding but they’re also a burden and a commitment—not just for the cute years, the learning years, the carpool years, and the teen years, but for the rest of a parent’s life. Every child, no matter how delightful, introduces a huge element of risk and worry. We don’t volunteer for complications without a powerful motivation. That’s one reason why birth rates always go down in developed countries, and it’s one answer to the “Why sex?” question.
Still, I understand my friend’s vexation. I’ve felt it myself. Loaded guns are beneficial when used for self-defense or food procurement, but they are too easily misused. Why did God make this—the equivalent of a loaded gun—the only means for procreation? And then why did he place it in the hands of beings who were bound to misuse it, to devastating effect?
It must be about more than us. everything he does also reveals something about him.
Sex must be about more than us. Everything God does also reveals something about him.
A man sees a woman—he burns for her. It may be sheer lust: a desire to possess. But somewhere in that tangle of impulse and emotion is also (I believe) a desire for surrender. Sex is an abandonment of self, if only for a second. A sadist may get a thrill out of exercising control over another human being, but for the ultimate thrill he (or she) has to let go. Even in casual hookups or manipulative relationships there’s some degree of giving, of providing what the other person wants in order to get what you want.
A sexually-healthy marriage is mutual surrender, deepening into love so rich it produces fruit. Each retains its own but in the process becomes better. Neither partner gives up individuality, but in community becomes a better individual. Even, in community, produces more individuals to grow up and figure out who they are and fall in love with a member of the opposite sex and grow the family. That’s how it’s supposed to work, at its best. Personal desire—even lust—initiating a vast web of mutual interdependence.
On a spiritual level, God is called our Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named (Eph. 3:15). Note—God is not the father of each individual, but the Father of family. Obviously not biological family, or not that alone (heavenly families, as little as we know of them, aren’t biological). But the One God, who exists in three persons, models a biological family on a spiritual level. Among those three persons is mutual (ecstatic?) surrender, taking and giving, creating within its great heart a dynamic that produces a universe.
Creation imitates its creator: atoms surrender elections to form molecules; planets submit to gravity to form solar systems. Every force is dependent on or bound to another force. There are no rugged individuals in nature.
Autonomy in sex turns pathological, leading to a form of insanity where the drive consumes the driver.
In fact, true autonomy is pathological. Everybody knows that, though we still like to pretend our souls are ours alone. That’s how sex goes awry: the essential submission and surrender are crammed into one second instead of spread out in a whole-life commitment. The rest is Me Alone. Autonomy in sex turns pathological, leading o a form of insanity where the drive consumes the driver. And creates countless victims. As with all human excess, it can’t last long. We’ll be forced back into mutual dependence somehow because there’s no thwarting nature, or the God who made it.
(Today we begin a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.)
Every story has certain elements in order to be a story. We often think of characters first–somebody has to act in the story, and there’s usually a hero, or protagonist. Usually, though not always, there’s also an adversary, or antagonist. And then, of course, something has to happen. Some kind of problem develops, or a conflict arises, that the hero has to solve or resolve. The plot develops around this conflict and resolution, working its way to a climax.
But there’s another story element that we often overlook, and that’s the setting. In some contemporary stories, the setting is not especially consequential: it could be any modern city, or Midwestern small town. But in historical fiction, or science fiction, or regional fiction, the setting leans in, shaping a plot that couldn’t take place anywhere else, or in any other time. (I wrote about the importance of setting in great westerns on my other website.)
The Bible story also starts with setting: the heavens and the earth. We often pass over it in order to get to characters and plot, but for this week, let’s linger and think about what the setting means for this particular story. What meaning is packed into the very first sentence of the world’s greatest story?
Time hurtles on. We swoop through space on our little teeming rock, already forgetting the news that was everywhere two weeks ago. Just two weeks ago . . .
Campers and vans were already clogging two-lane roads in Oregon and hysterical headlines were predicting traffic nightmares in Nashville and St. Joe MO. But when Monday arrived we were on the road by 8:30 a.m. and encountered no complications on the two-hour to the “path of totality.” After reaching the mid-size Midwestern town of our destination we found a city park, stretched out legs, watched the kids run around the playground, spread our blankets for a picnic and kept an eye on the sky.
I don’t need to describe a total eclipse of the sun: enough has been written already. To me, it was both greater and less than anticipated. I expected darkness but it was more like a bright moonlight or even a very heavy cloud cover (like before a tornado—I’ve seen that too). I expected more stars, but we only saw Venus (I think) glowing wanly as though embarrassed to be waking up so early. Totality was indeed spectacular: when the round disk of the moon slipped over the sun a gasp went around the park and a cry went up, as though we were cheering some great accomplishment. Which was true enough. The sun was suddenly, indescribably, a void—a hole in the sky surrounded by a writhing circle of subtly-colored rays, like nothing ever seen in all creation.
All the more astonishing when compared to only a few moments before. We’re so accustomed to the sun: glorying in it after a long winter, sweltering under it during a long summer; joyfully welcoming it after days of rain, desperately wishing it would hide its face after weeks of drought. But I never really appreciated the power of the sun until I watched it whittled down to almost nothing: a sliver, 5% or less of surface exposed. And still as bright as day, forbidding as death, fully capable of singeing your eyeballs. All its power present in every part or portion of it: if it could be cut in pieces, every piece would burn just as bright as the whole.
St. Francis addressed it as Brother Sun, bringing the flaming chariot of the gods down to human level. And he wasn’t wrong. Our immortal souls will outlast that ball of gas in the new heavens and new earth, where God Himself is our Light. But it doesn’t do to get too cocky. If the sun is a brother creature, he’s a big BIG brother, bending us under an elbow one minute and affectionately tousling our little heads the next, for the rest of our earthly lives.
Less than a week later, the sun hid its face from the Texas coast and thousands of people had their lives dramatically changed. Anyone I know? Not personally, but friends of relatives and relatives of friends. The stately dance of the heavens is forgotten when calamity strikes close to home—down here where wind and clouds stomp around like rowdy kids. Nobody was looking up (certainly not with NASA-approved paper glasses) except to pray desperately for the rain to stop. Disaster usually comes from the sky, where the storehouses of wind (Ps. 135:7) and precipitation (Job 38:22) occasionally bust open and let us have it. All for a reason, say the faithful. No reason at all, just blind lunacy, say the skeptics. To both sides, it’s proof of whatever they already believe.
As for me, I believe in Power. And Light. Specifically, I believe they have a Name, and that Name knows my name, and because of it I can lie down in safety.
The popular term, which began as a joke but lingered as a classic understatement, is THE BIG BANG. It all began, they tell us, from a point infinitesimally small and dense. That point experienced an unimaginable burst of energy, and here we are!
With some explaining to do.
Here’s another way to say it: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The first ten words of the Bible are infinitely small compared to the universe, but also infinitely dense, like the first instant of the Big Bang. Its meaning spirals out like the arms of a galaxy. Is it a summary statement of the rest of the chapter? Or is it one side of the “gap”?* Or does this verse establish the setting and protagonist of the story, in a manner similar to
Marshall Kane squinted as he stepped into the dusty sunshine of Dodge City’s main street.
There’s a character, an action, and a place. But the first three words of Genesis establish something else: something vital, something we take so much for granted we don’t think about it. In the beginning sets out the phenomenon of forward motion. In other words, Time steps out and makes History.
In the beginning, God created the beginning.
What happens when I try to imagine timelessness.
There was no time before this, because there was no “before” and no “this.” We can’t understand it; we must accept it, as children answer their catechism question: God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable.** Some atheists pose the question, Who made God? as though it were unanswerable. We laugh: No one! A being who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable doesn’t have to be “made.” But when we try to think through what that means, we stop laughing.
We can’t go there, to the place where God existed infinitely. We can’t let go of time. We have no way to even think about timelessness; those categories don’t exist in our imagination. Genesis 1:1 establishes that we can only go forward. We can’t go back, because there is no “back.”***
Neither science nor philosophy can say what happened before time—the words what and happened and before are meaningless outside a time matrix. If there was a great explosion of matter from energy, we are part of it, and our minds still ring, however faintly, with the echoes. Strangely enough, the human mind seems to hold within it an idea of something—actually, Someone—who is responsible for all we see. All cultures at all times have passed on their notions relating to what sort of being this might be, and how he/she/it might have existed before everything. After thousands of years of speculation, the possibilities boil down to three. Which are
God existed as that incredibly dense point, and now inhabits the universe in every particle.
God existed as an unimaginably powerful Force, which arose somehow from eternal matter with which he (she/it) shaped the universe.
God existed as a relationship of three “persons,” co-equal, co-eternal, none before the other, whose mutual love is so dynamic and powerful it must find expression. As a painter uses vision and craft to create an image, an author uses action and character to produce a story, a musician uses mood and tone to write a sonata–so God, using the relational dynamic of himself, tossed out the heavens and planted the earth.
NOTE: Since this is an investigation rather than a mystery story, I plainly state my preference for Theory 3. Not only does the Bible report it, but all creation supports it, as we shall see. Also, most intriguingly to me, it’s the theory we could not have made up. Of all religions and philosophies, only one proposes a Trinitarian deity. In only one does this odd, difficult, troublesome doctrine appear—which, once accepted, explains so much.
We still want to know a few things, such as, do “the heavens” include Heaven, or does it just mean “space”?
In the Genesis context, probably the latter. With the creation of space (the heavens), there must of necessity be something not-space, and that’s Heaven. How do we picture it? Not accurately, for these are truly things too wonderful for us. Still, for reasons yet to be explored, our minds are tirelessly forming pictures of things we can’t understand.
Suppose, rather than an ever-expanding sphere, the universe is hollow. We can never see the end of it because like a ring it does not “end.” It’s like a balloon that expands as we blow it up, with solar systems and constellations and galaxies strung along its surface, spreading apart as the universe grows. The air in the balloon is not, strictly speaking, the balloon, but it defines its shape and keeps it whole. That’s Heaven.
Or the balloon exists in an atmosphere, a negative space that hosts it without being it. That’s Heaven.
Or, as ancient sailors believed about the earth, the universe is a flat plate you’ll fall off if you sail too far. Beyond the edge is Heaven—a mystery, but also our destiny.
All we know is that it’s eternal, beyond time and space, and the angels are there. I don’t make a fetish of angels, but they are persons of interest—the only extra-terrestrials we know of, whose story touches ours at several telling points.
But more of angels later. For now, as the Bible directs us, we should turn our attention to our own homey, comfortable, mysterious, terrible, and beautiful planet. What happened on the first day of creation?
Have you ever heard the expression, “land before time”? Can time exist without space, or vice versa? Why or why not?
Do you believe in God? No, seriously: do you find yourself sometimes not believing, even though you call yourself a Christian (or other “faith tradition”?) Can belief exist alongside unbelief? Is your faith mostly intellectual, or mostly emotional, or both?
“There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. In the course of a single second, our senses of sight, of hearing, of smell, register (knowingly or not) a swarm of events and a parade of sensations and ideas passing through our head. Each instant represents a little universe, irrevocably forgotten in the next instant” (Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel, p. 25). What does “now” mean to you? Does it seem as elusive as Kundera describes? Do you find that “sad”?
Next week, we’ll think about “Let there be light.” But if God is light, where did the darkness come from?
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* The “gap” theory of biblical creationism proposes that Gen. 1:1 takes place during an indefinite, but very long, period of time, after which the earth takes shape during a series of six twenty-four hour days.
**Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 4
***Time travel is theoretically possible (though unlikely), but only if we go forward—there is no credible mechanism for traveling backwards, wormholes and time tunnels notwithstanding.
Jonathan Edwards, in his famous paper describing the behavior of spiders, noted “the exuberance of creation,” as though he wouldn’t have minded swinging on a thread of silk for a few minutes. At strawberry season I catch a scent of exuberance, especially when the plants I set in four years ago decide to go wild.
A teeming city
under their leaf canopy, little green speckled toes
The Hebrew word for “create”—Ba ra’—is reserved for God as something only he can do. It is not mere making, or rearranging elements that already exist, but bringing about something entirely new and wonderful. This is what he did “in the beginning.”
Now I am reveling new things to you, things hidden and unknown
created just now, this very moment,
of which you have heard nothing until now
so you cannot say, “Oh yes, I knew all this.”
Isaiah 48:7 (New Jerusalem Bible)
In today’s political speech, when one side makes a bold proposal or pointed accusation, the other side often dismisses it with the charge of “nothing new,” as if novelty alone drove truth or relevance. It’s a meaningless rebuttal, especially if the original point was never addressed when it was new. But the terminology reveals something about all of us; we’re always growing weary even while looking for renewal. We’ve been too many times around this track. Sin promises the new and exciting but (eventually, at least) leaves us exhausted and miserable. Sin makes us old.
In our marriages, our compromises, our expectations and disappointments—disillusion starts with sameness. When will this tired cycle stop? When will we make some real progress? The problems are so obvious—why can’t we fix them? How many times must we go around this same old track?
In the presence of all your people I shall work such wonders as have never been worked in my land or in any nation. All the people around you will see what the LORD can do, for what I shall do through you shall be awe-inspiring.
Exodus 34:10
The Old Testament tells of great revivals, massive turning points in history, when a sense of purpose and power swept through the people like a burning wind, setting off spectacular miracles like fireworks (see the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the beginnings of the monarchy and the prophetic era). The fires quickly dimmed and the winds slacked off, because that’s how we are. We get old. Sin makes us old. Revivals and mini-revivals fail to stick (see the book of Judges). By the time Malachi appears, the people are set in their ways, petty and argumentative, meeting the LORD’s passionate accusations with a shrug: “Nothing new here.”
I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead . . .
Ezekiel 36:25
Our hearts feel old and tired, even now. If you’ve seen too many revivals and Next Big Things and This Changes Everythings—where after a few years Everything slides back to where it was before—it’s easy to become disillusioned. But we must not.
In South Korea an obscure pastor is rescuing unwanted babies through the medium of a box. In central Texas a former abortion nurse is pulling souls out of that miserable industry. In the Middle East young men see visions and old men dream dreams. In Africa, souls undergoing persecution find their faith renewed, contrary to all human reason. In the well-worn tracks of human failure, bright footprints.
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And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. Luke 9:1-2
How long has it been since this all began—a year? Two? There comes a time in every ministry when its effects must be multiplied. The word and its power bubble up and spill over, or as Jesus said earlier, “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.” The twelve hit the road with a message and instructions to live off the land and its bounty. What does Jesus do during this time? He’s due for a retreat, I would think: time alone in the hills? Withdrawal to the villages? Given what he will say later on in this chapter, this might have been a time for coming to terms will his full mission. I hope he got some rest. I hope his body was restored and his spirit refreshed, because the time is coming closer and the days are short . . .
The mission of the twelve was apparently successful, however long it took. On their return the apostle told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him . . .
This is a huge bunch of people—at least 10,000 if we assume about as many women and children as there are men. Where did they come from, these 5000 men? How far have they traveled? The average “town” of that day is what we would call a village, of no more than a couple hundred people. So they’re not all from Bethsaida. They may have been drawn by the apostles who visited their towns and have come to see for themselves, or else they’re just part of the “crowd” that always collects around him, a breathing body that expands and contracts. They have to take time off work to follow him this far—most of them must be at least a day’s journey from their homes. What are they thinking? They can’t merely be driven by what he can do, but who he is—his very person draws them, not just his healing power. It’s a spontaneous event, like a little Woodstock, when the numbers swell far beyond anyone’s expectations. But look: He welcomed them, spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and cured those who needed healing.
It takes a long time, and the day is wearing away. Man does not live by bread alone—but he doesn’t live without bread, either. They’re hungry. Jesus is hungry too. Didn’t anyone have the forethought to bring some food? I’m guessing a lot of them did, but the few loaves of bread scattered among random robes and bags won’t be near enough. Looking around him, does Jesus remember the devil’s taunt about commanding stones to be bread? If so, he rejects it now, as he did then. Stones are stones. Bread is bread. In his fruitful hands, lifted up for blessing to his Father, it becomes lots of bread—good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.
He doesn’t do magic, he does creation. It’s a throwback to In the beginning: Let the earth produce, let the waters swarm, let the simple necessities of bread and fish be revealed for the marvels they are, and feed this multitude.
Texas a former abortion nurse is pulling souls out of that miserable industry. In the Middle East young men see visions and old men dream dreams. In Africa, souls undergoing persecution find their faith renewed, contrary to all human reason. In the well-worn tracks of human failure, bright footprints.