In the previous post we explored the benefits of getting our science and revelation story ducks clearly and properly lined up. Scientific insight greatly aids our interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts. At the very least, it helps better identify the non-literal in the texts, ie metaphor and extended imagery. As discussed, our appreciation of these literary devices can then be deepened by comparing them to contemporary mythologies, eg Gilgamesh. Understanding how the writers of Genesis draw on and uniquely refashion other narratives reveals their preoccupations. This, in turn, shines a directly contrasting light upon revealed truths. For example, there’s actually only one God not many, as it turns out. The tremendous power of these stories is, in fact, more greatly revealed and not diminished by a non-literal reading. All good.
But that is still only one side of the equation. We also noted that revelation’s rightful domain is in the communication of truths that could never be elicited from an examination of the physical evidence alone. In other words, as powerful as the scientific narrative is, Genesis tells the more important/deeper story. It’s worth acknowledging that this is a rather grand claim, particularly in our markedly science-enhanced world. It’s an important claim, though, because the compartmentalising we identified before arguably occurs far more frequently in the opposite direction. In other words, rather than dismissing science because it challenges a literal reading of the texts, this time the error is to dismiss revealed truths because they’re not scientific.
If it’s a question of reimagining how revealed truth or wisdom is still to be found in these stories despite, or perhaps because of, the advances of science, then Dr Jordan Peterson must take the prize. His Genesis series hardly needs my commendations. Suffice to say, exploring their psychological significance highlighted this bridging point perfectly. The therapeutic lens reveals ancient stories uncannily rooted in sound psychology and surprisingly underpinned by scientifically significant research. At the very least it should be cause for pause: for those attempting to use science to invalidate the wisdom found in these stories; for believers in communicating the basics of their faith to open-minded truth seekers.
We previously touched on the humour found in Hitchhiker’s. Well, it also contains more serious statements to consider:
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
Although this serves as the epigram for that large, red and unaccountably popular herring that is The God Delusion, it’s still worthy of our attention. I like it for two reasons. Firstly, it gets to the heart of the matter, and, secondly, it means I get to reflect upon Chesterton again.
On the first point, it’s a clever reworking of the invalidation argument identified above. In other words, there’s enough enchantment in nature without recourse to any fanciful supernatural stuff. It’s clever because framed as a rhetorical question which touches on a truth. It’s a fair point that certain forms of spirituality or approaches to the supernatural do falsely overshadow the natural and rob it of its rightful glow. However, it’s not quite so clever in that it’s a question which also admits the possibility of a straightforwardly honest riposte: no, it’s not enough; and I don’t have to believe, I choose. It’s based on the false mathematics that fairies subtract rather than add. It’s also a little ironic that Adams wrote sci-fi stories: you know, stuff you make up that isn’t exactly real in order to communicate deeper realities that can’t be approached head-on. But, fair enough, it is very important to consider: what are the fairies bringing to the table?
Cue Chesterton…
My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery… The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies… compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong… I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of The Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon.1
Chesterton is getting at a similar thing we’ve already explored about story. Fairy tales might not be intended as literal but they are intended as serious, because they are condensations of wisdom, hyper-realisations, psychological cyphers, survival traditions etc. They represent the right ideas about things, consensus or common sense, the various perspectives and experiences of the many gathered into a memorable tale, epic, or rhyme which is always a story echoing a journey from ignorance to enlightenment. Nonsense is often mixed in precisely as contrast.
So, do fairies exist? Highly unlikely, and, absolutely! At the very least, they’re busy discreetly ferrying about the wisdom that can’t be squeezed into test tubes. After all, the idea of the moon is much harder to quantify than the moon itself.
But, it’s Chesterton’s contention that there’s something abnormally right about religion that I want to explore further. Because, of course, not every idea we have or everything that can be imagined has physical reality or should be believed, or believed in. It’s much more reasonable to assume that fairies aren’t literal. But only up until the moment one shakes you by the hand. Then it becomes grossly unreasonable.
To Genesis. The writers are essentially saying: here’s an opening story trying to describe how God is shaking us by the hand. Chesterton’s abnormally right refers to Revelation. The creation stories quite obviously aren’t scientific accounts in the way we would now conceive that. They bear more resemblance to the wisdom traditions of fairy tales and mythologies. Which is why they’re often mistaken as such. However, fairy tales/mythologies/epic sagas represent the best of human storytelling. But, first and foremost, God is telling His own story here through inspired humans.
It’s very difficult to define the genre of Creation Story One. It’s something like a hymnal/liturgical or poetic credal reflection. As such, it presents truths figuratively. The narrative form serves to amplify not weaken the truths. So, unlike pure fables, its power isn’t merely figurative or moral and it absolutely contains truths directly relating to history and science. But its purpose is theological not scientific. Which is just as well since I suspect the average story is generally far more accessible than the average astrophysics treatise.
What, then, is the deeper vision relating to this Chestertonian abnormally right?
It should be clear that science cannot (is not designed to) lead us to the knowledge of a loving creator God and the truth that His love sustains the universe in being. That something exists rather than nothing (out of nothing, nothing comes); that order exists rather than utter chaos; that we humans appear uniquely hardwired to seek answers to religious questions - these only hint at this deeper narrative.
Creation One comes to meet these intuitions by telling a true story in stark elemental prose. It tells of the mighty El, unrivalled and kindly king, who has built a great temple palace for his cherished people. The beauty of these ordered courts is beyond breathtaking, ever raising the spirit in praise. It is a realm of safety, a domain from which chaos has been banished, and where all things flourish according to their nature. The King has marked out humanity by giving it to us as our inheritance: an immeasurable honour. All are welcome here, held equal in dignity, and even known by name. No one is disregarded or despised but rather cherished and loved. The King is, in fact, our Father and we bear the great dignity of being his children.
So, the universe is deep down lovely and good and therefore comes to us as gift. It can be experienced as something intended, nourishing, even personal. It isn’t a product of freak chance or brutal adaptation but rather of love, spoken forth in golden words. From the brightest star to the smallest blade of grass, all things are held in gently regarding hands. This can be sensed. Its vision confirmed not merely in temporal but in transcendent beauty. Even mysteriously entered into as a relationship. But not grasped or circumscribed or tightly defined in a definitive or empirical way. Because, in truth, proof has a very broad character in human affairs. How do we definitively evidence love, truth, beauty, justice, integrity, empathy, humility, courtesy, courage, resilience, reflectiveness, kindness, ambition? What final proofs are there for any of these, yet good luck living without them!
Yes, true stories can have factual inaccuracies and myths can be full of scientific errors. Yet, to dismiss them on this basis is to miss the point entirely. The point of Creation One is to engage our hearts with the most original truth of all - not, in fact, the origins of the universe and where we come from but, rather, where God is always coming from.
Photo: Greg Rakozy, Unsplash
Orthodoxy, Collected Works, Vol I, Ignatius Press, 1986, San Fran, p 252
Thanks for commenting, John. Yes, though in Ancient Hebrew it's three words, which appears to be the deliberate use of a perfect number. More about this in a forthcoming post. Peace in return.
Excellent article, thank you.
For me it simply boils down to the first 4 words of Genesis:
In the beginning God
Shalom john