We are informed that God created both heavens and earth. In other words, invisible spiritual realities and visible physical realities. This isn’t precisely the distinction being made in Genesis but it is nonetheless implied. Hence, the opening of the Nicene Creed: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
What a truly incredible first statement of the Bible! Two (hardly trivial) details are established effortlessly and economically: God exists; and, reality is comprised of the visible and the invisible. No effort is made to explain this. As though it’s obvious. If you’re a writer of faith writing for fellow believers then it may well be. But even then, it’s still worth asking the question: what’s obvious about it?
We’ve already noted a deliberate connection in John’s Gospel with the opening of Genesis. Another aspect of John’s theology is pertinent here. His whole account is built on the idea of signs. As is true in English, the word has a dual meaning. It can refer to a physical mark or token, something outwardly noticeable or eye-catching. It can also refer to something inferred, implied, far less explicit, (eg she took his lack of attention as a sign). John uses the word as a descriptor for the miracles of Jesus. It carries both meanings: who saw what; and, who grasped its significance?
For John, the Crucifixion is the super-sign. Do you see brokenness, defeat and death? Or, do you see death’s defeat, victory and the beginnings of New Life? The first sign at a wedding reception is also instructive. The servants knew it was water in the jars because they’d just poured it in, but then saw wine when Jesus told them to draw some out. There’s no unseeing what you’ve just seen, but what does it mean?
For the modern Christian storywriter, this is the question of questions…
All novelists are fundamentally seekers and describers of the real, but the realism of each novelist will depend on his view of the ultimate reaches of reality… if the writer believes that our life is and will remain essentially mysterious, if he looks upon us as beings existing in a created order to whose laws we freely respond, then what he sees on the surface will be of interest to him only as he can go through it into an experience of mystery itself… He’s looking for one image that will connect or combine or embody two points; one is a point visible in the concrete, and another is a point not visible to the naked eye, but believed in by him firmly, just as real to him, really, as the one that everybody sees.1
As a fiction writer, it strikes me as obvious that material realities are more immediately obvious than those of the spirit. Would there be any such thing as faith if God’s existence was undeniable? Yet, it’s equally obvious to me that obviousness isn’t necessarily the measure of something’s importance or its truth. We have the phrase in English more than meets the eye. This isn’t just a question of perception blindness as much as conception blindness. The writers of Genesis seem to be suggesting that openness to spiritual reality is a precondition for the possibility of experiencing it as real. If you’ve already assumed there’s no such thing as spiritual reality, it’s likely you’re missing the subtle signs of its presence.
The only small adjustment that might be made to the above statement by the great Flannery O’Connor is that spiritual reality, understood a certain way, is more real than the material. In the discovery of concrete images that join the spiritually unobvious to the materially obvious, the Christian writer is, so to speak, opening a window to heaven. Or unearthing a fulgurite. A deeper reality floods in. There’s something profoundly sacred in this that cannot be reduced to the vulgarities of proselytising.
Thus, one must describe as authentically as possible the mystery of the spiritual concealed within the material whilst at the same time describing the authentic complexity of the material which often conceals the spiritual. This represents an enormously difficult task in any age let alone our own peculiar era, but for the intrepid writer it is the great adventure into the heart of God’s wonderful creation and onwards into reality’s ultimate reaches.
Header photo: Andrik Langfield, Unsplash
Flannery O’Connor, Mystery & Manners, Faber & Faber, London, 1972, pp 40-1 & 42