One of the books I have students read in Foundations of Worship is by Harold Best -
Unceasing Worship. In the chapters for tonight's class he claims the God of the Bible is not just a God of order... but a God of chaos. God is an abstract artist... creating out of nothing. No where in creation do we find a perfect circle or straight line. No where in creation do we find a complete replica of a tree or a blade of grass. Each is different... predictable yet unpredictable. Similar but not the same. The God of the Bible is a God who cannot be figured out or fully anticipated. While he is faithful... he also surprises us. While he is the "same yesterday today and forever"... we dare not box Him in. Did Elijah expect to experience God in the silence? Did orthodox Jews expect to experience God in a wandering rabbi?
Which has me thinking more and more about so called "orthodoxy". Now please don't get me wrong... I believe in truth... that God has revealed Himself. Yet... when does doctrine and right belief trump the Spirit of God that moves untamed like the wind? When does order and structure become the idolatry of the status quo? When does law become rigid and unforgiving... when does orthodoxy become judgmental and graceless?
I'm not advocating we embrace total chaos or relativity. I'm advocating a movement to the middle... a paradoxical tension that doesn't have a nice tidy resolution. While we must proclaim the truth about God as revealed in the testimony of scripture... we must also proclaim the good news of grace and forgiveness - God bursting into our lives in unpredictable ways.
2 comments:
But the most important and most fascinating part of chaos theory is that, underneath the apparent randomness, there is a governing set of laws that account for this drastic "butterfly effect". And Mr. Best makes sure to state that in the chapter as well. Apparent chaos comes from hidden order. Beautiful, really.
And perhaps this theory could speak to the idea of a seemingly chaotic world brought forth from a divine Perfection and Order that is unknowable to the limited human mind.
Also, the word "chaos" ought be used with caution. It ushers in the idea of complete disorder. For me it immediately brings to mind the nihilism of John Gardner's "Grendel" or The Joker in the latest Batman movie. And chaos in that sense is as far from God as one can be, I believe. I've often thought that Satan is a nihilist in certain respects.
I agree with both you and Kenny. What is the Incarnation if not chaos theory enacted, but with God's very ordered plan behind it all? Jesus came in a chaotic way, in a chaotic time, to do chaotic things, but God had it ordered all very well within His divine plan.
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