OPEN BOOK, Views & Reviews, No. 34
Copyright (c) 1997 Biblical Horizons
August, 1997
In his The Construction of Social Reality, Berkeley philosopher John Searle puzzles over the ontology of the products of human construction. Certain things – granite, platypi, weeping willows – occur naturally; while other realities – stone walls, zoos and parks, Chase Manhattan Bank – exist only as products of human construction or organization. Members of the latter, admittedly enormous and diverse, category, are clearly not natural things; so then what are they?
Searle begins with a distinction between features of objects that are intrinsic and those features that are relative to the observer. Given the fundamental ontology of modern thought, derived from physics and biology – that "we live in a world made up entirely of physical particles in _elds of force. Some of these are organized into systems. Some of these systems are living systems and some of these living systems have evolved consciousness" – those features are intrinsic which depend on the physics or biology of the material components of the object in question. It is a statement of an intrinsic feature to say, "That object is a stone."
When we say "That object is a paperweight," we are referring to an observer-relative feature, since we perceive a stone object as a paperweight only because we are members of a culture in which paper is used and in which there is a need to protect paper from the ravages of wind and weather. To the ancient scribe for whom the stone was his paper, the suggestion that he should invent something to prevent his work from _uttering away on a strong breeze would have been nonsensical.
Searle’s puzzle is to discover just how, philosophically speaking, the paperweight di_ers from the lump of stone from which it is made. Chemically and physically there is no di_erence; so moderns, with a scienti_cally formed mindset, may have a nagging sense that it is purely subjective, purely imaginary, to claim that the paperweight is in any important way di_erent from the rock. Nothing is more irritating, on the other hand, than the pseudo-philosophical crank who insists on asking "Yes, but what is it really?" when informed that it is a paperweight.
In presenting his carefully argued answers to these issues, Searle comments, "From a God’s-eye view, from outside the world, all the features of the world would be intrinsic, including intrinsic relational features such as the feature that people in our culture regard such and such objects as screwdrivers. God could not see screwdrivers, cars, bathtubs, etc., because intrinsically speaking there are no such things. Rather, God would see us treating certain objects as screwdrivers, cars, bathtubs, etc." From a Searle-eye view, God knows, and apparently "can" know, only the intrinsic – that is, the physical and/or biological – features of an object: He does not know paperweights as paperweights, only as complexes of particles and systems in various kinds of relationships.
Though Searle’s comment on divine knowledge of human products is made very much in passing, it gets to the heart of the problems that he is addressing, and, for reasons I hope will become clear, must be fundamentally challenged. Surely his characterization of divine knowledge cannot satisfy a Christian. Aside from the question of why God must kowtow to the latest theories in physics and biology, there is the massive evidence of the Bible, in which God speaks of cities as cities, of chariots as chariots, of tools as tools. Searle’s "God" would not, could not, have instructed Moses to write, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house," but rather: "Thy brain shall not release chemicals causing sensations of desire toward the clay or stone or wooden structure in which the conscious living system most proximate to thee dwells." Or something like that.
Yet, Searle is obviously correct that God did not assign the label "paperweight" to that lump of rock on the desk. The label was a human invention. If God now knows paperweights as paperweights, it is because He accepts the human label, and if He knows Simon as Simon and Bethlehem as Bethlehem, it is because He honors parents’ right to name their children and founders’ right to name their cities. Adam named the animals, and whatever he called a living creature, that was its name – also, to judge from the biblical talk of sheep, goats and oxen, for God Himself.
Putting things this way seems to risk subordinating Creator to creature, as if God stands by eagerly waiting to _nd out what name to give to Microsoft’s latest software innovation. To be sure, we must insist that God foreknew and decreed the human naming, so the Creator’s knowledge is not in an ultimate sense dependent upon the creature.
At this point, it is important to note that what is at issue here is not merely the heavenly status, as it were, of human language. Since language is one of the "tools" by which humans act in and shape the world, Searle’s comments about God’s relation to human language raise the broader question of God’s relation to human invention and creative action. Seen in this wider perspective, the idea that God accepts human labels for human products seems risky only if one accepts the essentially modern notion that creativity is a zero-sum game, as it was for secular theorists of the early modern period. If man is a creator, they reasoned, God is proportionately less so. Widening the space of human naming, creativity, and control would on this view necessarily push God deistically to the margins. Once this assumption is accepted, Christians can defend God’s creative sovereignty only by treating human construction and creativity as an embarrassment that must be spoken of as little as possible and then only in a cryptic code like the one parents use to talk of sex around their children. Either that, or capitulate to the secularists and leave the realm of human construction to sociologists.
Or, the zero-sum theory can simply be rejected as fundamentally unChristian, leaving Christians free to a_rm human creativity with all the vigor of secularists, and more. One of the chief architects of a Christian theology of human creativity was the late medieval theologian Nicolas of Cusa, whose work was foundational to that of Vico and other "counter-modern" theologians and thinkers. According to John Milbank’s account, Cusa rooted human creativity in the fact that man is made in the image of the Creator, and divine creativity in the fact that the Father is eternally and essentially "creative" in generating His image, His logos, the Son; and, with the Son, eternally and essentially breathing forth the Spirit. While the creation is not eternal, the Triune God is eternally Creator. Creativity is hence of the essence of beings made in the image of the God who eternally begets His image.
Since human creativity is a re_ection of the creativity of God who makes from nothing, moreover, it is not merely a matter of producing new individual specimens of existing classes of things (generating new individual members of the human race or planting new trees, for example), nor is human creation merely a matter of reshaping material that already exists, retooling the accidents that cling to an underlying and unchanging substance. Rather, humans bring entirely new classes of things into existence in such a way that one is nearly tempted to speak of a kind of creaturely creation ex nihilo. Before Edison successfully made the light bulb, such things simply did not exist; now they really do. And the light bulb is not just a collection of glass, metal, wire; it is a light bulb. For Cusa, this would not have been a philosophical or theological embarrassment, but precisely the kind of thing that Christianity leads us to expect images of the Creator to do.
All this might be an exercise in theological abstraction but for the fact that the zero-sum account of creation is one of the foundation stones of modern secularism. Secularism assumes that what is humanly made is humanly controlled, forming an autonomous sphere where self-interest and the application of an amoral instrumental reason rightly dominate. Since, according to contract theories, society and the state are products of human choice and construction, they are by de_nition outside of God’s concern, control, and even (if we take Searle’s line) the possibility of His attention.
From the Cusan point of view, however, there is an inherently religious element in cultural, social, and political action, in all human construction of things or ideas or institutions. The realm of what Milbank calls "the made" cannot be a secular realm, since all cultural goods are simultaneously human achievements and divine gifts. So God knows and values paperweights, and knows them by their human name, as products of the creative human participation in the ongoing creative activity of the inexhaustibly creative God.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 98
Copyright 1997 Biblical Horizons
August, 1997
The Righteousness of Shem and Japheth
As noted above, the action of Shem and Japheth was purely symbolic. They did not need to cover Noah with a garment, for he was already covered by the tent. Their action was a symbolic affirmation of Noah’s authority, a symbolic rejection of Ham’s temptation.
We read that they took "the garment." This might mean any garment, or it might imply that they took the garment Noah had laid aside (which means it must have lain far enough away from him that the sons did not have to disturb him to get it). Since weaving cloth and making garments were laborious and time-consuming before the modern world, it is not likely that Noah had many changes of clothing, so it is entirely possible that Shem and Japheth recovered Noah with the same garment he had earlier removed. Even if it was a different garment, it is symbolically equivalent.
Not only was Shem’s and Japheth’s action unnecessary, it was also carried out in a highly symbolic fashion. Each son took a corner of the garment and held it on his shoulder, and then the two of them walked backward and covered Noah. In part, this was so that they would not look at Noah’s nakedness, but they might have held the garment at their hips or somewhere else for this purpose. Again, the text would make perfect sense if the detail about the shoulders were left out: They took the garment and walked backward. Thus, the shoulder is important.
The word for shoulder is shechem, a word also used for persons and a town. In Genesis 33:18, Jacob arrived at Shechem. The king of the place was Hamor, and his son was named Shechem (Genesis 34). The town of Shechem was located in the col (saddle-shaped depression) between Mounts Ebal and Gezirim. As mountain peaks are "heads" in the Bible (Genesis 8:5; Revelation 17:9), this area was a shoulder leading up to these heads. Similarly, the son Shechem was a shoulder and support of his father, Hamor, the head of the town.
Shechem is not just the shoulder but the upper back and neck. A more precise term, kateph, refers to the shoulders as such. These two terms are regularly used for the idea of supporting something or holding something up, especially holding up the house of God (His general throne), or the Ark (His specific throne). Note the following in particular:
"The government will be upon His shoulders" (Isaiah 9:6). "I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder" (Isaiah 22:22). "The holy objects they carried on the shoulder (Numbers 7:9). "Ark of God on their shoulders" (1 Chronicles 15:15).
From all this it should be clear that by carrying Noah’s garment on their shoulders, the two righteous sons were upholding his rule, position, and authority.
Nakedness and Holiness
Two sons as two pillars holding up a screen before the ruler is replicated in the architecture of the Tabernacle and Temple, where pillars hold up screens before Yahweh’s private chambers (Holy Place) and throne room (Holy of Holies). Invasion of Yahweh’s chambers by pulling back the screens without permission is equivalent to spying out the nakedness, the "sabbath rest weakness," of Noah or of any ruler (see 2 Chronicles 26:16-21; Esther 4:11; and James B. Jordan, The Death Penalty in the Mosaic Law, chapter 3: "The Death Penalty for Encroachment.")
The parallel between Noah’s nakedness and the veiled Ark of the Covenant has another aspect. According to Numbers 4:5, when the Tabernacle was taken down the priests were to remove the inner veil and cover the Ark with it. Since they were not to look at the Ark, the veil must have hung on the inside of the posts on which it was hung (Exodus 26:31-34). The priests would take it down from its pillar-shoulders and walk backward, draping the veil over the Ark.
Does this means that a person’s private parts are "holy" in some sense? To my knowledge the Bible never directly speaks this way, but it is a fact that sinful exposures of nakedness are denotated in Leviticus 18 & 20 by a series of terms, most of which are also used in religious contexts (marked with *). These words are not used for such sins as murder and theft:
zimmah, lewdness, 18:17; 20:14
*tame’, defile, 18:20, 24, 27, 28, 30
*to`ebhah, abomination, 18:22, 26, 27, 29, 30; 20:13
tebel, perversion, 18:23; 20:12
chesed, disgrace, 20:17
*niddah, impurity, 20:21
We may also note that circumcision is performed on this central part of the body, signifying the sacrifice of the whole person.
We can draw these considerations together by saying that the private parts are a place of symbolic holiness and life, but that because of Adam’s sin, they become a place of symbolic defilement and death (Leviticus 15). Either way, they are not to be exposed to view except within the closed circle of a proper marriage.
(The notion that every part of the human body is the same, and thus all of it may be exposed equally, is a piece of rationalism not supported by the Bible. If the Greeks played their Olympic games completely naked, this does not justify the practice of having communal showers for men in Christian schools, college, and armies.)
C. The Parousia of Noah
24And Noah awoke from his wine,
And he knew what his youngest son had done to him.
Noah’s awakening from his wine parallels Yahweh’s return to the garden in Genesis 3. It indicates that the time of rest is over, and the work of the enthroned king as judge must recommence.
According to this statement, Ham was Noah’s youngest son. According to Genesis 10:21, Japheth was the eldest.
Why is Ham called the youngest son at this point? This would seem to be a point better made in the course of a genealogy. The reason for its mention here is this:
B’ Judgments on the Brothers
A. 25And he said, "Cursed is Canaan.
B. A slave of slaves he will be to his brothers.
C. 26And he said, "Blessed is Yahweh, God of Shem.
D. And may Canaan be his slave.
C’ 27And may God enlarge Japheth,
B’ And may he live in the tents of Shem,
A’ And may Canaan be his slave."
Noah now pronounces curses and blessings, as God did in Genesis 3. As God began with the serpent and a direct curse, so Noah begins with Ham (through Canaan) and a direct curse. Yahweh followed the curse on the serpent with judgments against the woman and the man, but Noah is in the happier circumstance of being able to pronounce blessings on his two older sons.
If we take the occurrences of Canaan and his curse as our guide, the paragraph appears to have a roughly chiastic form, as noted.
Recalling that the sin of Ham is like the sin of the serpent, we can note that the curse on Canaan is like the curse on the serpent. The latter was cursed to crawl along the ground, under the feet of humanity. He was brought low. Similarly, Canaan will be under the feet of his brothers.
As with a number of negative predictions in the Bible, the curse on Canaan may have a double aspect. On the one hand, "slave of slaves" may mean "lowest of slaves." On the other hand, it might imply "best of slaves." Which it is going to be will depend on how Canaan responds to God’s Word. In fact, the Canaanite Gibeonites became excellent slaves of the Tabernacle and Temple. Moreover, salvation is offered to Canaan in that he will serve the righteous, and be under their influence.
The other sons of Ham are not mentioned. Perhaps they did not show the marks of their father’s rebelliousness. Those who want to take this passage as some kind of prediction of the future course of all of human history must come to grips with the fact that the other three groups of Hamites are not mentioned.
Noah does not directly bless his other sons. Rather he blesses Yahweh, and links Him with Shem explicitly. This bestows the priesthood on Shem, and the later genealogies in Genesis carry this forward, specifying to Eber, and then to Abram, and then to Isaac, and then to Jacob. Why Shem rather than Japheth was given this honor we are not told, but possibly it is because Japheth was the eldest, and throughout Genesis the firstborn son is set aside in favor of a younger son – pointing to the need for a second Adam.
Japheth’s name comes from the word meaning "enlarge," and Noah’s prayer for Japheth is thus a significant pun. It seems to mean that while Shem will carry the sabbatical duties of humanity, Japheth will major in the cultural tasks.
While it is true that Noah’s curse and prayer are not set forth as a prophecy, they do initiate history. As such we do find that the Canaanites were reduced to slavery under the rule of Shemites, Japhethites, and other Hamites. This is part of what Genesis 14 is about. Any attempt to transfer the statements about Canaan to other Hamites, as Arthur Custance has done in his writings, is illegitimate.
Historically, we see Israel interacting with other Shemites and Hamites throughout the Former Days, up to the exile. After the exile, in the Latter Days, Israel interacts with Japhethite nations primarily. This history, however, comes to an end with the end of Israel and the Oikumene in ad 70 (Matthew 23:35; Revelation 1-22), and it is completely illegitimate to try and characterize post-Biblical Shemites and Japhethites as "specialists in religion" and "specialists in culture" respective, as again Custance has done.
A’ Noah’s Life and Death:
28And Noah lived after the flood three hundred years and fifty years.
29And all the days of Noah were nine hundred years and fifty years.
And he died.
The first statement indicates that Noah lived in the new creation 350 years. But then we are linked with the old creation by saying that he a total of 950 years. The new creation was not a complete break, but a development of the old. The full new creation has not come.
And Noah died. He was a type of the Messiah to come, but was not the Messiah. His rule in history came to an end.
Conclusion
The principles revealed in this story are permanent and abiding. A few years ago, I witnessed them in action. A woman manager who had built up a business over several years came into a time of crisis in her life. She was depressed a good deal of the time and almost had a nervous breakdown. She had to depend on her assistant. The assistant decided that she was incompetent, and in fact had chafed under her authority for some time. He was convinced that he could do a better job. The assistant went to the owner of the business and told stories about the woman’s depression, arguing that she could not handle things any longer. The woman was demoted and the assistant was promoted. Within a couple of years, the newly promoted manager had wrecked the business through incompetence, and his life has gone downhill from there. I’ve seen this story more than once, and if you’ve lived for very long, you probably have as well.
Noah did nothing wrong. Ham had to search out Noah’s life (tent) and then make an issue out of something that was not really a problem: a couple of glasses of wine and an afternoon nap. But let us suppose that Noah was becoming a real drunkard, as some have imagined. What then? Even so, it was not Ham’s place to magnify this problem into an excuse for mounting a revolution.
Ham was the "youngest" son. Why is this stressed? Partly because it is the temptation of youth to think that they know better. Ham may not have said "Don’t trust anyone over 30," but he was saying "Don’t trust anyone over 600."
Ham had other options. He might have moved away with Noah’s blessing and started up his own culture, just as the assistant in the story above might have started his own operation, or moved into a genuinely open managerial position elsewhere.
Or, Ham might have waited with his brothers until Noah was ready to retire, or died.
But he didn’t.
Those who are impatient for authority will become slaves.
Biblical Chronology, Vol. 9, No. 8
Copyright James B. Jordan 1997
August, 1997
In the journal Presbyterion 20 (1994):109-130, published by Covenant Theological Seminary, Dr. C. John Collins sets forth a revision of the Day Age approach in his essay, "How Old Is the Earth? Anthropomorphic Days in Genesis 1:1–2:3." Dr. Collins’s essay has been widely accepted in evangelical Presbyterian circles as an attractive alternative to the traditional view on the one hand, and the Framework Hypothesis on the other. Our purpose now must be to examine Dr. Collins’s arguments to see if in fact they provide sound reasons to reject the historic Christian interpretation of this passage. Inescapably this will entail our covering some of the same ground we have already ploughed, simply because some of the same arguments are presented.
Dr. Collins begins his essay with general remarks about the history of interpretation and the role of science in challenging our traditions. We shall address these matters next month. For now, we turn to Dr. Collins’s interpretation of Genesis 1, and of the Biblical material in general.
Section 4 of Dr. Collins’s essay, as well as an appendix to it, is devoted to an exploration of Church history to show that earlier theologians and exegetes did not always hold with a literal Six Day view of Genesis 1. It is true that a few pre-modern commentators did not, but not many, as Collins points out.
A fuller historical treatment is an essay by David W. Hall, "Holding Fast the Great Concession of Faith: Science, Apologetics, and Orthodoxy," which is found in the on-line magazine "Premise" vol. 4, no. 1 (at www.capo.org), and which will be published in Hall’s forthcoming book "The Arrogance of the Modern." Hall points out that Augustine’s mentor, Ambrose of Milan, held to a literal Six Day view. Augustine held the idea that the six days were actually instantaneous. While Augustine is often held up as someone who did not take the six days literally, no one can possibly use him to justify the notion that God took eons to make the universe, a notion he expressly rejected.
Collins moves on to express general agreement with E. R. Thiele’s "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings," published originally in 1965, which attempts to shorten the chronology of the book of Kings to make it fit data from the Assyrian King Lists. We have shown in previous issues of this letter that this reconstruction is both bizarre and insupportable. (This material is included in our forthcoming book, "The Date of Creation: An Introduction to Biblical Chronology.") Collins then cites W. H. Green’s famous (or infamous) essay that argues for "gaps" in the chronologies of Genesis 5 & 11, which we have also already dealt with in these essays, and which will be included in the aforementioned book. Finally, on p. 117, Dr. Collins arrives at Genesis 1.
He begins, "It is simplest to take Gen 1:1-2 as a heading, as the NIV does: God called all things into being `formless and empty,’ and the rest of the chapter is six `days’ of structuring and filling" (p. 117). Actually, the world was also dark, and the six days deal with three areas, not just two.
Then Collins writes, "The simplest explanation for these six days is that they are anthropomorphisms: that is, they are `God’s days’" (p. 117). Right away we have to object: Man (the image of God) is a theomorph; therefore, man’s days are copies of God’s, not vice versa. By itself, the notion that the days are "anthropomorphic" actually points to their being six normal literal days. In our discussion of Meredith Kline’s position, we saw that there is no such thing as "sacred time" that is different from ordinary creation time. The only kind of "days" that exist are "days" in the creation.
Collins says that when God formed man of dust this presents God as a potter. Well, not quite. Potters use clay, which has water in it, and the text is states that Adam was made of dry dust. He also says that when God breathed into Adam, this is an anthropomorphism. Is it? It means God imparted the Spirit (breath) of life into man. I submit that Collins is using "anthropomorphism" very loosely and not very carefully here.
Then he submits that when the seventh day says that God was "refreshed" (in Exodus 31:17), this is an anthropomorphism, because God does not get tired and does not need to be refreshed (p. 118). Quite true, but this verb does not occur in Genesis 2, where God rested after the seven days. There is no such anthropomorphism in the actual text of the Seven Days. Thus, Collins’s point is irrelevant to the text of Genesis 1.
Then Collins argues that the phrase "there was evening and there was morning, the n-th day" fits into the analogy of God as a human worker, resting and sleeping during the night. There are two problems with this. First, Collins has failed to demonstrate that Genesis 1 is building on some analogy of God as a human worker with human "weaknesses." Second, even if this be so, it stands to reason that the evening and morning is a real evening and morning, and the only kind of day that has such phenomena is a regular, normal, literal day.
The question is this: Does Genesis 1 present God’s "accommodation" to a human week as something that He actually did, or merely as a literary device? Collins is assuming the latter, but nothing he writes would lead us to agree with his assumption. If God chose to rest during the night, how does this fact argue against literal days?
We also need to ask when the evening and morning occurred. Does it happen after the day of work, or is it a summary of the day of work? That is, when does the new day begin? If the evening and morning happen after the day of work, then the new day begins in the morning. Against this notion, however, are two facts. First, the first day begins in darkness and moves to light. Second, it is clear from the scriptures that the Old Creation day moves from evening to evening (Exodus 12:6; Leviticus 23:2; Daniel 8:14; etc.; note also that the month begins with the dark of the moon and moves to its fullness, and that the solar year begins in the autumn). For these reasons, the statement "there was evening and there was morning, n-th day," should be taken as a summary of what has just preceded. Accordingly, the idea that God is resting or sleeping during the night is not present in Genesis 1 at all.
Then Collins states that the sixth day is pretty full, and that it is hard to believe that Adam watched God plant the Garden, named the animals, and had an afternoon wife-making nap, all on the same day. But this is merely subjective. Let’s assume Adam watched God make the Garden for one hour, and named animals for three hours, and slept for one hour. No problem here. We don’t know how many animals were brought to Adam, and there is no reason to believe that the great diversity of animals and birds that we see in the world today was present already at this time. God created various "kinds," and these diversified later on; or, if they were already diverse, Adam need only have named the "kinds."
Finally, Collins points out that the seventh day does not seem to end, and therefore is not a model for human days. Well, this is only a problem if we want it to be. Certainly, God has rested from His creative work ever since the seventh day, and in that sense it continues. God does do other things, of course, so in another sense He continues to be active. Moreover, Genesis 1 is not merely a record of creation, but also a typology of history, and the final sabbath will be endless. These facts do not in the least hint that the days are any other than ordinary days.
Collins concludes with this: "The seven `days’ of the creation week are an anthropomorphism to describe God’s activity. If we wish to specify their relationship to time as we know it, perhaps we may view them as successive periods of undefined length (with perhaps some overlap)" (p. 120). Several observations:
First, if these "days" are simply an exercise in anthropomorphism designed to point to something ineffable, then they need have no relationship to "time as we know it" at all. They are nothing more than a literary figure. I don’t understand why Collins wants to retain the idea of a sequence of such "days" as eons or anything else.
Second, "time as we know it" is the only "time" there is, because God is eternal. Genesis 1 describes God’s actions in time, and does so in the plainest language imaginable. Collins has provided no basis for thinking that some other kind of "time" is in view here.
Third, how can these "days" be of undefined length, when the fourth day and those after it are measured by the sun? It is clear from Genesis 1 that these days are normal solar days. And, since the sun was made to fit the day rather than the other way around, it is also clear that the preceding days were of the same length.
Fourth, what does it mean for God to take an eon to set up a firmament between heaven and earth, or for plants to grow on the earth for two eons without insects to fertilize them? This suggestion creates far more problems than it solves. Short days make sense, while long days make no sense at all.
Conclusion
Let us grant what Dr. Collins wishes: that there are lots of anthropomorphisms in Genesis 1. Indeed, let us grant that the entire passage is anthropomorphic, and that God is presented as working in the same way as a human being works. The question remains: So what?
The passage clearly presents God as working over the course of a week of seven days, days that have regular evenings and mornings. Either this is just a poem, a literary figure, or else it is a description of what God actually did. Collins seems to want to have it both ways, but his position is completely arbitrary. Either Genesis 1 is a merely literary accommodation, or it is a Divine accommodation. If it is the latter, then we need to take it at face value: God made the world in seven days, as a model for His images, human beings. Nothing hints that these days were anything other than days of ordinary length, and the attention called to evenings and mornings proves that they were of ordinary length.
(to be continued)
OPEN BOOK, Views & Reviews, No. 34
Copyright (c) 1997 Biblical Horizons
August, 1997
As we move toward a consideration of Dynamic Cosmic Revelation, there is a further aspect of revelation through action that should be discussed here, and that is this: God is particularly revealed to us in times of crisis and distress. When things are going well, we forget God. When distress comes, we cry out to Him. We see His hand in the distress. All human beings do this, because all human beings know (a) that they are guilty, and (b) that God is behind everything that happens.
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy has pointed out, in class lectures on "Comparative Religion," that if we look at the heathen and their gods, we can see the kinds of things that overwhelm men and that are accordingly considered divine. Let us brie_y discuss a few of these.
War and oppression overwhelm human beings. They are "gods" in a very general sense, for they are radically "over" man. Thus, the heathen identi_ed war as a god. The Greeks called him Ares; the Romans called him Mars. Such personi_cations are long gone, but the psychology remains. In the foxholes, men believe that they will not die until their number comes up, until a bullet with their name on it is _red. War pressures men into superstition or faith, or some combination thereof. War thus reveals God as a fearful threat who operates through other men. The fearfulness of war as a revelation of God is, I suggest, particularly related to the Son, the Judge, the "Man of War."
Love overwhelms human beings. We discussed sex above, as a special kind of covenantal action. Love impels people to marry. A man or woman in love can think of little else. Jealousy and unrequited love are intensely powerful emotions. Thus, every heathen society has a god and/or a goddess of love: Aphrodite, Cupid, Venus, etc. The power of love reveals to us that intensity with which the members of the Trinity love each other, and the intensity with which the Son loves His bride.
Enthusiasm overwhelms human beings. When a person is very excited, he is "beside himself." Thus, there are gods of dance and movement and enthusiasm, like Mercury. Enthusiasm makes people dance. Enthusiasm as a revelation of God is particularly to be associated with the Spirit.
Mobs overwhelm human beings. I suspect that "mob psychology" is related to the kinds of "morphic resonance" that Sheldrake discusses. In any event, a person will be "swept along" with a mob, and in the process may do things he or she would never ordinarily do. Positively, the music and liturgy in worship can form a bond among people and make them better than they usually are. Being in_uenced by a group is, I suggest, a revelation of the unity of the triune God.
D3. Dynamic Cosmic Revelation. The "thereness and thatness" of the world and its contents reveals God to us, and that fact is widely recognized by those who write on "general revelation" or "natural revelation." What is not generally recognized or discussed is that we are usually blind to such revelation because it does not come to us in a crisis, in such a way as to force our attention.
It is actually when nature becomes catastrophic that God is pointedly revealed. God is seen in the storm, in the whirlwind, in the volcano, in the earthquake. Such events as these cause man to realize his weakness and smallness before the God behind these events. Thus, the gods of the untaught always include gods of storm and fury, the powers that overwhelm man. The Roman god of catastrophe was Saturn. As a revelation of the true God, catastrophe reveals God’s power.
Of course, we should perceive God in the ordinary activities and events in the cosmos. We should perceive Him and learn about Him from the processes of change and development and transformation in the day-to-day cosmos. But as sinners we _nd it easy to tune all that out. A meteoric strike from outer space is harder to ignore. A _ood is harder to ignore.
Another aspect of the creation that overwhelms human being, and thus is godlike, is wine; and so every people has a god of wine, such as Bacchus or Dionysus. For the Christian, the overwhelming nature of wine reveals the sabbath of God, His eternal peaceful rest, which He shares with us.
The more ordinary activities in the creation are also revelatory. Angels used created things to train human beings, by means of their angelically-stimulated activities. Animals multiplied in the world _rst, and discovered which plants are good to eat, formed trails to watering places, and generally prepared the way for humanity. Some animals serve man, while others punish him for his sin. The same is true of plants, with their thorns, and of the sun, with its burning rays, etc. Thus, the actions of created objects reveal much about God, about man, and about the relationship of man and God.
Conclusion
There will be a test over all this material next week, so go back and re-read this essay until you have it down pat!
