Creation that keeps on creating

When I think of human freedom, I tend not to think of "free will" in the sense that the future is undetermined. I think there are good reasons to contemplate whether the will is free or not in this sense, but there's another dimension I find more important. The question is really whether human beings contribute anything substantial to the universe. Is the universe a closed system with no room for genuine addition, or is human action meaningful in the sense that it changes something about our world?

Consider two disciplines and the fundamental principles driving them. In physics, the conservation of energy is a unifying principle. Matter and energy are interchangeable, so everything is energy. Everything that happens is essentially an exchange of energy. The total energy in the universe should never change. From this point of view, nothing humans do can ever "contribute," because any addition of energy must be compensated by a transfer elsewhere.

In economics, by contrast, an exchange can be a net positive. Indeed, whenever an exchange is voluntary, it typically follows that all parties have gained something through it. Or consider the work of just one person. Although work involves nothing more than a transfer of energy, it is said to produce wealth. Someone who builds a tool which allows us to more easily harvest food has added to the economy, though matter and energy have neither been created nor destroyed.

The economy is thus said to grow, not just in a fictitious sense but in a way that is apparently meaningful; whereas the total energy of the universe is said to be constant. How do we reconcile these two things?

I don't mean to give the impression that physics is all about constants. There are many physical quantities that meaningfully change. But it seems there is no physical quantity that can make sense of the concept of economic growth. If wealth has any meaning, it is not a physical meaning. More importantly, it is created by human activity, as opposed to merely increasing as a byproduct of random events (as in the case of entropy, for instance).

Most of the time we talk as if such creative action is meaningful, but do we really mean it? The ontological status of wealth seems to depend on whether we are talking about politics or about the ultimate fate of the universe. I suppose even a religious person, who believes in the afterlife, might suggest that all our wealth will ultimately amount to nothing. But certainly a scientist who believes in nothing beyond the physical universe must at some point laugh at the absurdity of trying to make "progress" as a species. Our ultimate fate is apparently either to freeze in an ever cooling universe or else to be swallowed up by a "big crunch." I don't see how either of these possibilities allow for human creativity to be anything more than an illusion. Anything that appears to be created will be compensated by some future destruction. More than that: every act of human beings is simply a transfer of energy from one place to another, and it has no special meaning or purpose. The emergence of intelligence is just one of the many possibilities when some of the innumerable planets in the universe happen to be the right distance from certain appropriately sized stars; the universe as a whole neither gains nor loses significance because of the particulars of its evolution.

That is, unless concepts like "significance" and "value" do have an ontological status similar to matter and energy, and/or they need not be conserved quantities. But to believe this requires certain theological commitments. First of all, it will not do to formulate a dualistic framework in which the significance of human life is completely unrelated to its physical fate. Even the religious believer who insists that the afterlife will be completely disconnected from this present physical existence has essentially condemned all human activity to meaninglessness. Human life is defined by creative activity. If all of it is destined for the void, there was no point in it ever existing in the first place.

To illustrate my point, there is a reason why I write these thoughts down, and why so many people keep journals, and why literature in general is so precious to our species. How can we separate ourselves from the words we choose, from the phrases we carefully construct, from the arguments we thereby assemble, and from the stories we tell? One cannot begin to express what would be destroyed if all of our writing ceased to be. And this is arguably only a small dimension of human activity.

As a Christian, my most cherished hope is that all that we do in the present is destined to mean something eternal. Not that the continuity needs to be perfectly obvious, or that every last detail needs to be taken into account. Just as the cells in my body continue to be replaced periodically, and yet somehow there is a continuity to my identity, so also I believe that somehow the universe will have one continuous identity from now to forever. Even if at some moment there is a cataclysmic event which wipes away all the influence of evil on our world (Lord, let it be soon), there will be those things which hang on, by which we will see that the creation was never aribtrary but was always good.

So now I'm finally getting to my point, which is that I think the purpose of creation is to keep on creating. The universe evolves through transfers of matter and energy, yet each transfer has the potential to contribute something new. In a real sense, the universe grows (and not merely in size, which is rather trivial). Human beings seem to have a key role in this, since we are capable of intentional creation.

Christian tradition has always made a big deal of the declaration in Genesis that we are made in God's image. The meaning of this phrase seems to me that when we speak, something comes into being. I don't know how to resolve the puzzle of free will, but I believe the human will is indeed free in the sense that it genuinely creates something that wasn't there before. A man who says to his wife at the altar, "I do," creates a new bond that did not exist before. A president who pardons a prisoner gives him freedom that he didn't have before. A scholar who writes an influential paper creates a new way of seeing the world that will in turn open new pathways to greater understanding and even prosperity. An inventor sketches a new idea, builds a prototype, and after enough tests changes the world. Most of these examples are indeed merely words, but they have a profound effect on the physical world. As the proverbs say, "From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things..."

It is possible, of course, to "zoom out" and with the mind's eye to view our tiny planet from a great distance, so that all of these supposed creative acts seem to mean nothing at all. There are many who take this view, insisting that it is only for the present life on this world that any of it matters. It is best, from that point of view, to avoid thinking about eternity, about the universe as a whole. No wonder people spend infinitely more time talking about politics than about science! It would appear that cosmology does nothing but crush human dreams of meaning something, whereas politics, despite all of the anguish and fear it causes, at least holds out to us hope of being important.

With Christian faith, it is different. Yet I have a hard time finding even Christians who seem to be able to make the connection. I mentioned earlier the religious believer who finds no connection between here and the hereafter. That is every bit as discouraging as cosmology, I suppose. Perhaps it is even a response to cosmology. If modern science confirms nothing in Christian belief, maybe the only way out for Christians is to separate this world and the next into utterly distinct realities. But this, in my view, is to deny the doctrine of creation. It is to say that everything we see now, all of this conserved matter and energy, is essentially arbitrary. The creationists, for all of their faults, at least have the right instinct on this point.

The key, it seems to me, is to embrace a higher ontological status for things beyond matter and energy. When we look at objects in the "real world," we are seeing more than just physical objects. Their properties go beyond size, shape, mass, temperature, and the like; they also include meaning, purpose, value, and beauty. After all, why should physical properties get any special privilege? We see them just as much "out there," where the earth is small, as we do here in our own little world. The earth is all the more beautiful seen from space. When we gaze out into the cosmos, does not our heart whisper to us that it all has a sublime purpose? Why should a super nova appear so wonderful? It is certainly not because it serves some evolutionary purpose.

I suppose this is nothing more than a romantic discourse without the support of any rigorous arguments, but the alternative seems to me no more rigorously defended. The only reason to believe that our universe is meaningless is out of a desire to be cautious, to resist romanticism because it feels too self-indulgent. I confess I feel a bit self-indulgent as I write these things. Maybe it's all just a fantasy to keep me going.

Or maybe, on the other hand, it actually takes quite a lot of self-discipline to take the universe seriously, as a place illumined with meaning and not just an arbitrary assemblage of matter where we can make our mark however we want. It's both inspiring and frightening to believe in God. If the universe was created for a purpose, and we are working against that purpose, we have nowhere to run from Him. That means our freedom has somewhat high stakes. It is not given to us for our mere amusement.

The justice of miracles

One could discuss without end the many difficulties of accepting the occurrence of a miracle. What evidence could possibly be convincing enough? What evidence should be admissible?

But in my opinion the most interesting question of all is what the occurrence of a miracle says about God's character. The most difficult problem with miracles is a moral one. Why should God intervene sometimes and not others? Why should the miraculous be rare? Why shouldn't it simply be a law that nothing bad can ever happen, that only justice will prevail because God will always intervene to see it done? This is the problem of evil.

On the other hand, why should God intervene at all? Why not rather leave nature as a closed system, with all creatures free to determine their own destiny insofar as they are able? To intervene is to show favoritism, which would be evidence of God's injustice.

There are various Christian answers to these questions, and what's interesting is to see how they line up on a spectrum between "grace" and "free will." Some traditions attempt to diminish the distinction between natural occurrences and miracles by asserting that everything is due to God's providence--all is grace. Others emphasize that evil exists in nature due to free will, and miracles are ways of God intervening to overcome the fall.

My goal is not to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each side, but rather to observe that each has chosen one side of a divide in our very conception of justice. At some point we have to be honest: no matter what God does or doesn't do--whether or not God does or does not exist--we will have some complaint to make against Him.

Which sort of universe would I prefer to live in? On the one hand, I could live in one in which God's providence covers absolutely everything, so that no evil could ever take place, because He would intervene to prevent it. In such a world, would my decisions be meaningful in any way? And how can I truly be a sentient being without any connection between what I decide and what then happens? In such a world, there would be nothing that could appropriately be called physical laws, because cause and effect would have to be entirely overridden by the supreme will of God who would prevent anything unjust. There would be no point in any sort of empirical science. By the same reasoning, I wouldn't see any utility in any sort of learning. What is the point of knowledge if the thing known has absolutely no connection with my ability to act in relation to it? My free will is intimately connected with my understanding of the world. It is only through conscious experience, in which I try one thing to see its causal connection with something else, that I can gain wisdom. This is so whether the experience is physical (as in a scientific experiment) or intellectual (as in a thought experiment). But if there are no consequences which cannot be overridden, neither is there any knowledge to be gained.

On the other hand, I could live in a universe, as many believe we do, which is entirely governed by laws or natural regularities and in which miracles do not happen. There is no reason why only atheists should accept this view; it is also perfectly compatible with deism. Why shouldn't it vindicate God's justice, after all, to think that nature is wholly bound by abstract laws? It is merely the classical theological principle that God shows no partiality taken to the extreme. More than the fact that all creatures are equally subject to nature's laws, we sentient beings are also thereby liberated. For if God does not intervene, then the only will that can be imposed on our surroundings is our own. By learning nature's laws, we come to master nature. By increasing our understanding, we increase our freedom. Is this not the grand aspiration of modern human beings? And if nature with all of its laws is the creation of God, should we not be thankful that He does not intervene? For if He did, then it would be our freedom against His; but if His freedom is bound by the natural order He has imposed, then our freedom is only limited by whatever is consistent with nature.

If miracles do occur in this world, perhaps it is in part to remind us that both of the views are insufficient. On the one hand, God's intervention means that our will can never be supreme. No matter how much we learn about the universe, we can never master it, for there is always a will superior to our own governing its very existence. On the other hand, the fact that such intervention is intermittent implies that we are free to a large degree, that our actions are not meaningless and that we ought to learn something about the abstract laws which create order in nature. Our science is essential, even if it is not all-encompassing.

Or perhaps the purpose of miracles is instead of draw our attention to laws whose "enforcement" is delayed for some reason. The miracle valued most highly by Christians is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which previews the resurrection and final judgment of all people. Thus God's special intervention into human history serves (from a Christian point of view) only to confirm His impartiality.

But neither of these explanations resolve the essential tension between freedom and grace. The important fact is that such tension exists within the very concept of justice. Is the ideal society one in which everyone is provided for, so that nothing bad ever happens? Or is it one in which people are free to discover and invent, to do what is admirable or perhaps what is detestable? We have never been able to resolve this tension in our political life as human beings; I think this is related to our incapacity to resolve the theological question I have asked. Even in a somehow "perfect" world, in which the interventionist state could carry out its mission flawlessly or, alternatively, the state would be utterly consistent in enforcing the law--even then it would be difficult to see whether an interventionist or a liberal state would be ideal. So it is as least as difficult to understand God's own position as ruler over nature.

Continuing in my own Florenskian mission to allow no tension a resolution, I propose that once again the best, most righteous belief is to somehow believe in both grace and freedom--a leap of faith, to be sure. We must accept this world as a gift, and everything that happens in it is the providence of God. And yet we may contribute to it with our own minds, increasing in understanding and mastering it to our benefit and the benefit of others (and of the world itself). Nature is ordered according to fixed laws, yet it is bursting with God's purpose. How we embrace both must remain a mystery to the rational mind.

But in spite of this statement of faith, I will confess my own personal bias toward freedom, more specifically toward deism. I was born with a temperament such that I would like to believe all knowledge can be mastered, giving rise to ultimate freedom. This explains perfectly, I think, my attraction to mathematics and physics. But if the universe is to be truly transparent to the rational mind, it must be a closed system; there can be no room for miracles. Combined with the fact that I, personally, have never witnessed anything that could rightly be called a miracle, this has been a recipe for theological struggle most of my life. If I believe in Jesus Christ, I cannot be a mere deist.

Then again, the deepest places of my heart certainly recognize the allure of grace. In a way, one must understand the joy of not understanding. There is a suprarational element to faith that is far better expressed by poets or artists than by me. Yet even I can appreciate it in the depths of my soul.

As for whether any particular miracle has actually occurred, I still remain skeptical in most cases, because in most cases it seems not much is at stake. The one miracle on which my Christian commitment hangs is the resurrection of Christ, and for that I am thankful that there are people who have written so extensively about it. But I would love to remain open to the many other miracles reported by faithful Christians. It is not as if God's grace should put an end to my rational investigation of the world. On the contrary, it gives it meaning and hope.

Jesus goes up to Jerusalem

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again." But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. (Luke 18:31-34)

Of course they don't understand, he thought. Has this not always been the question since the dawn of creation? Why should there be any suffering at all?

For a while he said nothing, while his disciples followed, arguing with one another what his words meant. He contemplated the great passage in Isaiah, "Who has believed what we have heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Who, indeed? Has it not always been a struggle? How much longer, Father, must I be with this crooked generation? How much longer must I put up with them?

Yet for this reason he had come into the world. For this reason, in some sense, he had created the world. In all of this suffering he revealed his glory. Why did no one seem to understand?

Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me. Yet not what I want, but what you want.

There was always that tension within him. Maybe that famous complaint of mortals was right, after all. Why bring into being a world only to subject it to its own evil? Why should I suffer for the sake of the world? Why does it exist at all? Could there not have been a better way?

"So the Lord said, 'I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.'" Jesus couldn't help thinking about these words. He prayed in his heart, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Truly, they do not know what they are doing. But had not Job spoken what is right about God, and had not his friends kindled God's anger against them? And was not the psalmist telling the truth when he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Were not all of these complaints vindicated by the Scriptures? Perhaps mortals know more than they get credit for.

Perhaps I am the one to blame for this, he thought. Is that why I am going to die? Is the sin of the world really my own, after all? I am the light of the world... But if the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. What a fine phrase for the Prince of Peace! The suffering that I bring is not only my own, but of the whole world. If I have the power to raise the dead, why should anyone die at all?

"Why do you all me good?" He had really meant it. He knew very well that mortals had many complaints in their hearts against God. If being born man had truly taught him anything, it was that time and finitude were enough to drive anyone mad, even to the point of wondering whether the Father was there at all.

Three times he had told his disciplines exactly what was about to happen. And three times they had become distressed, not understanding what he meant. Maybe they never would understand.

As he was lost in thought, he barely noticed the blind man calling out, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" He stopped. "What do you want me to do for you?" The man said, "Lord, let me see again."

It really was so obvious. Lord, let me see again. I'm blind, so let me see. The difference between this man and the crowds is that he knows exactly what he wants.

Why is he blind? Is it just so that I can heal him? Did the world come into being for my own vanity? "Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher." Even if I heal this man, will his life be any less vain?

Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has saved you." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God.

But no one understood why he was going to Jerusalem.

Creation story

In the beginning, there was One.

All was One, and One was all, One alone.

No one was with One, and One was with No one.

No One loved One, because One was alone. So No One was lonely, for All was One. Yet One was with No One, and One loved No One.

One was No One, for if All is One then there is only

1
one
1
iness.

And No One was One.

One beheld No One, as in a mirror, and No One beheld One. Their love was impossible, yet real, all at once. Because One was, One alone, One was not, that is, No One was. One begot No One.

There was One and No One, Two. And One and Two made Three.

Thus all the numbers were born.

For in the very ambiguity between existence and non-existence proceeds a relationship, that is, "two-ness" or duality. But the duality is actually a third, that is, a bond between two. Once this bond proceeds from the first two, which are really One, then all other relationships extend outward to infinity.

One and One are Two, and One and Two are Three. One and Three make Four, and then Five, Six, and Seven.

And so it goes, forever and ever.

The voice of God

My firstborn son left the safety of his mother's womb on April 26. After the initial euphoria of the birth, there is a certain let down as one realizes, this baby barely knows how to feed, much less communicate. Other than his (sometimes violent) cries, I have no way of hearing from him, no way of knowing that he needs something.

That doesn't keep me from speaking to him, of course. I have heard that babies like their parents' voices. I've seen first hand that it can be soothing. More importantly, I take it as self-evident that without hearing his parents' voice, he will never learn our language.

Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." The immediate application is of course humility, but I think there is a deeper corollary (which is not at all detached from humility).

I have often wondered why, if God truly speaks, I do not hear him. But I do hear him, all the time. If God governs all creation, then every single thing that exists is available as a symbol of communication between God and humans. It is just that I don't yet speak his language.

Life is essentially growth, a process of constantly advancing toward maturity. Unless we humble ourselves and realize that it is a long process to learn the language of God, we will never hear him.

In the meantime, what, then, are our prayers? "We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words." Our prayers are mere cries of anguish. We do not even understand what we need or what we are hungry for. "Your heavenly Father knows what you need even before you ask it." Thankfully, God is not a new father; he knows why we cry.

I realize all of this can sound very cruel, because life is very cruel. How can it be for our good that we watch the innocent die? How can it be for our good when we see oppression or are oppressed ourselves? We so often feel helpless, unable to get justice for ourselves or for others. It is as if "God is testing us to show that we are but animals." How, then, can we call God Father?

But there is no growth without suffering. Creation itself cannot exist without destruction. Existence is meaningless without non-existence.

When we hear the voice of God, we will not find that it says what our weak spirits want to hear. We wish that no harm would come to us. But what does he say to us instead? "Anyone who does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

There are many people who seem to listen for the voice of God in order to find some serenity in the midst of a world full of anxiety. But God is a refuge for the time of battle, not a retreat away from this world.

How do we go so quickly from children to soldiers? "When I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish things. ... Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." I don't think the point of becoming a child is to enter the kingdom of heaven and remain a child. It is to grow up into a citizen of that kingdom, and if there's one thing the Bible makes clear, it's that every citizen in this kingdom must be prepared for war. Not literal war--"for our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh"--but a war against "the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

In this way the Christian life is a bit like a fairy tale, if I may say so. Chesterton was fond of fairy tales, and he thought they were much better education for children than any modern rationalism could ever be. I think probably he was right.

Evil and nothingness

A good deal of Christian thought treats evil as having a lower ontological category than good. Everything God created is good, so evil can't possibly have any genuine existence. Here's St. Maximus the Confessor, for example:

"[I]ndeed, mere fantasy deceives the mind and, through passion, causes vain attachment to objects that do not exist, but provides no foundation in reality." (Ad Thalassium 64)

That's from a translation by Paul Blowers in the collection, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ from the Popular Patristics Series. There's also a footnote that says, "Cf Gregory of Nyssa's famous dictum that man 'invented' evil."

I'm not sure I agree with that exactly, but I do think evil must be in a different ontological category than good. God created light, then separated it from the darkness. He did not create the darkness.

The existence of evil is an eternal puzzle, but one way to explain it is as a perversion of something, for which I cannot find the right word, which must necessarily exist. Perhaps I'll call it "non-existence" or nothingness. Existence needs non-existence. Light needs dark. But there are good and bad ways for this nothingness to exist.

If light existed without darkness, there would be only light and nothing else. But in that case there would really be nothing. A pure unitarian existence is no existence at all, because such an existence cannot differentiate between something and nothing.

Since everything which is both important and true about God must be stated as a paradox, I would not hesitate to say that God's existence is both absolutely necessary and dramatically contingent. The threat of God's non-existence is precisely the drama that unfolds in His trinitarian union. God the Father does not want to lose God the Son, and vice versa. Whatever else love is, it means desiring the continued existence of the other, and if that is to mean anything real, there must be a genuine threat to that existence.

Indeed, that genuine threat is played out in the drama of creation and, ultimately, in the cross of Jesus Christ. God actually died. To say otherwise would be to deny the greatest mystery of the Christian faith, And a tremendous corollary: the Father actually lost the Son. In this drama, God's love is proved more real than it ever could have been otherwise. The threat of nothingness was so real that it was actually fulfilled.

This drama is played out in all of creation. Why, I asked earlier, would God risk creating a world which is capable of producing evil? Because such is the only kind of world that can genuinely exist. And in our world the threat is so real that we see its fulfillment on a daily basis. We see nothingness win over existence. We see chaos triumph over order. We see creatures separate themselves from their Creator.

The difference between us and God is that we do not use nothingness in support of existence, death in support of life. Our pain becomes suffering because we experience it in isolation. Because we make our existence entirely our own, any threat to that existence becomes a threat to our entire universe. That is what evil is.

But God does not let nothingness turn into evil. As the psalmist writes, Even darkness is not dark to you, the night is as bright as the day. When God died, when God lost God, He raised Him up from the dead. In dying He defeated death; in not existing He showed that He truly exists. As Jesus said, Those who find their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Which means we always have the chance to become like God. Instead of wanting to be free from the drama of existence, we ought to embrace it. Life is risky; everyone knows that. The source of eternal life is not the elimination of all risk, but rather than paradoxical joining of the absolute assurance and the total uncertainty of our future existence--and not just our own, but that of everything else, as well.

I don't think this "lets God off the hook," so to speak, for terrible things that happen. He could have intervened, so why didn't He? If we love God, this question will come up again and again. To stop asking it would be to deny the essential drama of life, which is that paradoxical union of God's presence and absence.

So it is not about coming to God's defense, but rather finding the way forward which concerns me most. If we have lost, let us mourn that loss. If we have gained, let us rejoice in that gain. Either way, let us always desire life all the more. Not a monotonous, stable existence which is equivalent to nothingness, but rather a dramatic, risky existence which never ceases to puzzle the imagination.

Love, creation, and the pain of separation

I often wonder why God created the universe.

The question is difficult for two reasons. One is that, if God is perfect and all-sufficient in Himself, He didn't need creation at all, and in fact it would appear that creating anything would be a step down from perfection. Wouldn't creating something other than Himself introduce imperfection where there was perfection?

Another is that, in fact, there is evil in this world. Now the presence of evil can be explained in many ways that make it appear to be not God's fault. But nevertheless the act of creating the universe at least runs the risk of introducing evil, since in fact the universe that is contains evil. Why run the risk? This is similar to the first point, but more pointed. Even if there were no evil in the universe, the first point would stand; but the fact that there is evil makes the problem even worse.

Or if the universe is uncreated, why does it exist? That is an equally haunting question. For if the universe is uncreated, it has no inherent purpose. Its only purpose is what we (beings capable of defining purposes for things) give it. The world becomes a tool for the (sufficiently) powerful to gain some utilitarian benefit. And one must admit that most of human civilization tends to operate on the assumption that this is true. Yet deep down, don't we all know this is somehow unjust? Where does our sense of justice come from if not the idea that the universe is meant for harmony? And if it is meant for harmony, how can it be uncreated?

But then the question stands: why create anything?

If I were a strict unitarian theist and not a trinitarian Christian, I don't know if I'd have anywhere to start. I suppose one could invent stories about how creation is a spontaneous act of love from the Creator, but if so, that leads to all sorts of puzzling questions, such as how the Creator could have loved anything that did not exist. And anyway, it doesn't respond very well to my first question.

Since I'm a trinitarian, I find a hint of an answer in the very nature of God. God is love. What is love?

Although love is many things, I do find, somewhat to my distress, that love necessitates pain. What is love if not the desire to be wholly united to the other, while simultaneously affirming the other's separate identity? Love is a continual movement toward the other without ever destroying the other. It is an eternally unsatisfied desire, in the sense that the more it is satisfied the more it desires. There is, in my vocabulary, a certain kind of pain involved in the continual desire of love.

God is triune. He knows this desire, always wanting to be united and yet never wanting to erase the identity of the other. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and they are wholly one, yet they maintain separate identities. They each have such a relationship to the Spirit, as well. How can I not admit that there must be a certain kind of "pain" in this relationship? Or, as the Bible says, God is a jealous God.

But I would distinguish pain from suffering. The pain experienced by those who love one another is in fact the opposite of the suffering lived by those who end a relationship. It is as if refusing to experience the pain of love leads to the suffering of love's absence. By insisting on a unitarian existence, one only experiences loneliness, whether by separating from or destroying the other.

What does this have to do with creation? All of us creatures are made to experience the pain of life. Growth always involves pain. We move from immaturity to maturity, and in the process there is always an act of self-denial. We can either embrace this change, or we can reject it and therefore suffer from it, but we cannot escape it, because time and the existence of other creatures will impose its way on us.

We are called to more than just growth and maturity. God invites us to love Him and to become more like Him. It is an eternal adventure. We will never have the end in sight. There must be a certain kind of pain in this, but God is jealous for our love. We either embrace that love or experience the suffering of separation. Either way, we are always called toward Him.

Therefore, creation actually adds to God's perfection. This is paradoxical, but essentially creation is an outpouring of the very love that already exists within the Trinity. The relationship modeled by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit expands to include an indefinite number of new living creatures, whose experience of time, growth, and eternity is a reflection of that infinite love.

I don't say this fully answers my question, but it is a sort of beginning of something I've been working out. I hope I can come back to it later.

Easter Meditation

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father to and to your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:11-18

This passage has made me cry, at least in recent years, every time I read it. As we heard this morning, it really is the most tender moment in all of the Bible: a woman restored to intimacy with the one man who gave her identity in a cruel world. In all of the gospel accounts, it is the women who see Jesus risen first. John makes this particular woman, Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the resurrection. Here is the woman who was once possessed by seven demons; Mary, who anointed Jesus' feet with costly perfume and wiped them with her hair. Gross speculation here probably causes us to shy away from the beautiful fact that Mary's love for Jesus was passionate and expressive. Here she is now at the tomb, crying alone, stooping in for another desperate look at the empty tomb. Here she is now, clutching onto Jesus so tightly that he has to say to her, "Do not hold on to me."

It seems in many ways crucial to this passage that Mary is a woman. Only a woman can have the same love for Christ which the church ought to have for him. The Lord has found his bride. Her tears are the manifestation of a fully realized faith, one which outshines the implicit rationalism of the male disciples--"for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead." The disciples returned home because they dismissed what they could not understand, leaving the hysterical woman to grieve alone. But Mary could not leave, not because she had some secret knowledge, but only because her heart burned within her. Love held her there, love which prefers the bitter agony of tears to the quiet contentment of reason. Surely she could not bring her beloved Jesus back with tears; but love needs no such justification.

Mary here represents faith; the male disciples represent skepticism. Indeed, in just a few more lines we read that Thomas will not believe "unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side." What is faith, then? Faith is a woman clinging to the man she thought she had lost forever. Faith is a vulnerable woman with no status or credibility announcing to the world of men, "I have seen the Lord." Faith is the epistemology of grace, which finds that which is worth knowing without earning it. Faith is the epistemology of love, which refuses to give up seeking the heart's desire. Skepticism, by contrast, is the approach of the powerful, the method of men who have status and credibility, the belief that righteous men have wisdom and foolish women don't. It is an epistemology which has no tears, but only resignation: we can only accept what is proven, and perhaps what is proven will never come.

Christian faith, then, is a feminine epistemology. The church is the bride of Christ. In her purest form, she has no status, no credibility, no presumption; she has only tears and a broken heart, followed by the beautiful sound of her master's voice. "Mary." That is the word which changes everything. The adulteress has been restored to her husband. Zion has been vindicated. A new creation has begun.

Christ does not denounce the skeptics; he calls them "my brothers." Christ, the Lord of the universe, calls men his brothers. Go to them, he says. Tell them what you have seen and heard. They are my brothers. It does not matter, as Matthew reports and as John elaborates in the story of Thomas, that "some doubted." They, too, are his bride, though "as yet they did not understand."

It is not for any of us to say which role we actually play in this story. Some of us are really skeptics even though we fancy ourselves faithful. Some of us are blindly faithful though we believe ourselves to be utter skeptics. Some of us look down on others for being too proud of their reason, and some of us look down on others for not having intelligence. In different relationships, the weak may become the powerful, or the powerful become the weak. We cannot identify ourselves as permanently fixed in an unchanging power structure. Perhaps, then, we can and we should identify with both the masculine and feminine, the skeptic and the faithful, in this passage. But the point is this: we all have a place in the story of Christ remaking the world, and that story is beyond human control. It is a story told first by those who were thought least deserving. I suppose that no matter how many times I hear it, I will never find it a simple matter to believe; but that is simply because I have not yet attained the wisdom of Mary's tears.

Does the good news hinge on bad news?

Is Christianity a guilt-driven religion?

The answer of what I like to call "pop-evangelicalism" is, "No man, it's all about grace."

Grace. Sure. But don't you mean grace in response to...guilt?

The narrative which the evangelical has in mind is still the narrative of Martin Luther--burdened by guilt under the wrath of an angry God, finally liberated by the good news of justification by faith alone. We don't have to keep trying to appease God under the weight of heavy burdens imposed upon us by the Catholic Church. That's good news, right?

Here's the thing: that's still a guilt-driven religion. It's just that you've proposed a different solution to that guilt. Instead of trying to pay of the debt you owe, you are driven to accept the fact that you cannot pay it, confess your guilt, and accept God's forgiveness and cleansing. This proposal would not make sense outside of some shared assumptions about God's wrath and our accountability to him.

Evangelicals often run into the problem that many people aren't starting with those assumptions. Their solution to this problem goes like this: before you tell the good news, you have to tell the bad news. This takes on a couple of forms. One is the fundamentalist bible-thumping technique, where you tell people all the things that they're doing that God hates and will send them to hell. Another is the pop-evangelical method of psychoanalyzing the world around them and convincing us that deep down we're all screwed up. (I read a couple of perfect examples of this here and here.) Whatever may differ in outward appearance, the fundamental principle is the same: make people feel their guilt, so that they may be driven by that guilt to God's forgiveness in Christ. It is the gospel of guilt.

Baptizing babies

This morning I witnessed two adorable little children get baptized. I'm guessing one was over a year old, maybe even closer to two. I'm not sure why parents wait a little while and then have their children baptized as infants, but it seems to happen quite often at my church. (Maybe it's logistical? I've noticed our church only has so many baptisms per year.)

This little girl was particularly squirmy. At first she was clinging to her father, but then she got bored and started crawling around toward the communion table. There was a particularly adorable moment when she crawled over very close to the pastor while he was carefully describing the deep theological significance of baptism. She looked up at him with a wide-eyed gaze, he looked down at her with a smile. His smile said something like, "These deep mysteries are for you, little girl, even though you don't have a clue what's going on."

I've seen both sides of the endless debate over infant baptism. Both sides can extensively quote the Bible and make one theological pronouncement after another. That's all well and good. For that reason, I don't think the issue will ever be truly settled in my mind. I figure, if God wanted to make sure we knew such things, He'd have figured out a way to make it so. Since He clearly hasn't, I can only assume He prefers we have a sense of humility (and humor) about the whole thing. We really can't take ourselves too seriously when it comes to such debates.

Convictions aside, as a matter of personal taste, I would say I prefer the practice of baptizing our children as infants. That's what I realized as I watched that adorable, squirmy little girl this morning.

It's quite simple, really. I am that squirmy little girl. I wake up every day and pray that I'll have wisdom enough to at least act like I know what I'm doing, but God knows I'm really just winging it. The more I explore intellectually and theologically, the more I realize I'm just a child. Chances are the voice of God can be heard everywhere and at all times, but I'm too easily distracted by the prospect of crawling around on the floor to understand what's going on.

It's quite lovely, I know, to see someone baptized as an adult, making a personal profession of faith and consciously deciding to join the church. But I have to be honest. Part of me suspects that the whole scene is a bit deceptive. Everything is made to look as if someone has finally found the meaning of life after years of living a life of either meaninglessness or self-deception or both. Now that he's finally figured out what it's all about, he's going to be baptized to confirm it. After this he'll really know why he's here, and what his mission in life should be. After this, even if he makes mistakes, at least he's got the road map, so he'll get where he's going eventually.

If that's the Christian life, then I've missed the boat. I don't have it figured out. If I have a road map, I don't think I can read it. I know Jesus is the answer, but what was the question? I've learned enough theology to be able to spit back the language of the kingdom, but I get the feeling like it's all baby-talk from my Father's point of view. Only I can't imagine it's so adorable. If we really ought to wait until children are old enough to understand what's happening before being baptized, then I'm probably too young to be baptized.

But then, I just seem to be one of those people who keeps asking questions after everyone else is already convinced. I'm too squirmy, I guess. Like that little girl, I suppose I have the tendency to ruin perfectly good pious reflections on Christian doctrine. I know it's irritating, but I just can't help myself.

A lot of people say it's terrible to baptize a child before she's had the chance to decide what she believes for herself. That's making the assumption that being baptized means you believe x, y, and z. What if baptism isn't so much a sign of intellectual opinions, as it is a sign of love? What if baptism is a symbol of the fact that God loves you even when you're squirmy, and don't have it figured out? I guess I would prefer to think of it that way.

And since it's my blog, I'm allowed to just leave it at that.

Politics and Sacramental Worldview

One of the blogs I follow, An Orthodox Christian is a Postmodern World, has a post that came out today on the recent oil spill in the gulf coast. It's short, and worth reading. Fascinating what he says about environmentalism in the Orthodox faith:

Environmental concern reflects the Orthodox understanding of the Creation as a Sacrament, a meeting place with God. Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky writes "grace is implied in the act of creation," and furthermore, that the "the world is created in order that it might be deified" and "creation can have no other end than deification."

I find it essential in these times to interact with Christian tradition that takes this kind of view of creation. In the West we've been far too influenced by the one-sided view of Protestant dualism that claims creation is secondary in God's plan; in fact, in many Protestant traditions, its destiny is simply to be utterly destroyed and replaced with something else. Not only do I find this one-sided, I actually tend to sympathize more with the view that creation has a more fundamental role in God's work of salvation. (See Romans 8:19-21)

This particular Orthodox Christian has tended to side with more socialized economics, as you can read here in his post on socialized medicine. I suspect many Orthodox, as well as Roman Catholics, agree with this approach to economics based on their tradition. What I appreciate about this approach to political life is that it take all things to be spiritual--that is, all things need to be approached using the power of the Spirit through the work of the Church. There is no secular sphere that gets to have its own secular rules.

Where I disagree perhaps most strongly with this approach is in the tradition itself. Both Catholics and Orthodox are more used to a "top down" approach, in which the individual responds to the directives of higher authorities. I concede that in many ways this works, and it's respectable for that fact alone. But on the other hand, this approach tends to institutionalize bad ideas as well as good--and even the good ideas lose their capacity for improvement. Incidentally, this is almost the exact critique I would give of socialist government.

Nevertheless, I think these Christians deserve to be taken seriously on economic and social issues (in fact I am with them 100% on more than one social issue, including abortion). As a Christian who happens to appreciate both Protestantism and the classical liberal tradition, I feel challenged to seek a more deeply spiritual explanation for my beliefs, one that can somehow interact with the more mystical tradition with which the Orthodox approach social issues.

I wonder if it's possible to be a Reformed Protestant libertarian mystic?

Reason and Power

For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. --1 Corinthians 4:20

So often I have read the words of Jesus in John's gospel and thought, "This guy doesn't make any sense." In fact, the most shocking conversion stories to me are the ones in which a Christian claims to have come to believe because of John.

Just what were they smoking?

Just go right to John 3, one of the most beloved passages in the whole New Testament.

Nicodemus... came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? ..." Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit."

Far from clarifying what he just said, Jesus just makes it stronger: you must be born from above. And frankly, the way he said it in the first place just came out of nowhere. What's Nicodemus to think?

Or turn over to John 6, and read

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

Once again, what are the Jews to think? Instead of clarifying, he just makes what he just said even more offensive.

In my humble opinion, the worst thing you can ever do with these passages is explain them, justify them, make them your own. I confess I get a little irritable with a person who does this, whether it's a Catholic explaining why this means transubstantiation is real or a Protestant explaining why a "born-again" experience is the only way to salvation.

Something always bothers me about John, to such an extent that I feel you have to be asleep not to be bothered by it. But it's John more than anything else that has caused me to think lately about what I call the tragedy of reason.

"Justify your answer." These words are the hallmark of reason. Justification: you have to have it to pass your final exam in mathematics, or to win the approval of your thesis committee, or to win the respect of your peers who wonder why you believe what you believe.

"Justify your answer." It might as well be "justify yourself." Reason is defense. It is a substitute for power--or a means of obtaining it.

Our entire legal system is based on a complex web of reason and logic. Why? Because reason shifts the balance of power. The weak can defend themselves against the strong by a forceful use of language. If I can prove that I have been wronged, then I can topple even the richest and most powerful corporation. Power makes an empire, but reason makes a civilization.

Just think of it: what can possibly be scarier than someone who never has to justify what he does? Someone for whom reason is an obsolete tool?

When someone utterly fails to give reasons that satisfy the rest of us, we call that person crazy. Their words don't connect logically; we fail to see an order to their behavior. Crazy people who have little power we simply medicate. Crazy people who are dangerous, we lock up. Crazy people who have power--well, we usually try to kill them.

Is this not how Jesus was received? "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" (8:48) "Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" (19:10)

Why doesn't Jesus defend himself in any logical way? Why not write out a theological treatise that makes it all clear? Why not invite the whole world to see plainly and rationally that He is God incarnate?

"Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going... You judge by human standards; I judge no one" (8:14-15) For Jesus, reason is obsolete. He need not justify Himself. He knows where He is from.

John's gospel is about power, not reason. It is about empire, not civilization. Civilization works with finite resources as efficiently as it can. Jesus has limitless resources, for He speaks new things into existence.

Human empires have no power but the power of destruction; but God's empire has the power of creation. That is why God Incarnate is bold enough to drink the cup of His own destruction down to the bottom, for He has power to lay down His life and take it up again. (10:18)

Jesus does not ask that we simply admire this power in Him. He asks that we follow Him. "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (12:25) He came not only to demonstrate power, but to empower others. Those who can drink deep the cup of their own destruction with confidence--they must truly be invincible.

And yet what is the chief commandment of this man who is mad with power? "Love one another." This is the mystery of the Christian faith.

If reason is obsolete, what, then? Will we ever understand? How can we know God if He does not explain Himself? No question can better summarize the tragedy of reason.

We humans love reason because we have broken this world apart. We love reason because we hate each other. We demand explanation! What are you doing? What do you mean? How do you know that? It is a systemic hatred, not necessarily felt by all who participate in it. It is simply the human condition.

Reason is good; creation is better. For now humans use reason to justify the way we use limited resources. John urges us to enjoy God's limitless abundance without shame.

My application of all this: creativity is more fundamental than reason. Power is seen not in destruction, nor even in reason, but in creation. Reason is an act of defense; creativity is an act of love. Life is not a zero-sum game, for life can be found in eternal abundance.

Oh, that my life were already being lived this way.