Yet To Be Titled

CHAPTER 6 - RISKY BUSINESS

The book goes to the only place it can in my estimation. Who is God? One way to begin to understand who God is to ask how does it feel to be God. In Genesis 1 God lays out the simplest sketch of our world - sun, stars, oceans, plants, fish, beasts, man and His satisfaction with each creation.

"And God saw that it was good." Creation as God felt it. Every person who has created anything has had that same experience. A pianist who plays before a crowd which gives them a standing ovation. A child who takes popsicle sticks and some glue and creates a masterpiece for their parents. They see what they have done, and it is good. There is a sense of satisfaction that comes from things we do. There are those things that bring a smile to our face. A new parent who holds a baby, their baby, close against their flesh for the first time and knows that they were a part of this child's creation. That's how God felt as He looked over creation and pronounced it as good. In the very beginning there were no disappointments. Only smiles of joy.

Philip then goes to a place that until recently while reading a book by A W Tozer I had never considered. Every Creator, from a child with Play-Doh to Michelangelo, learns that creation involves a kind of self-limiting. You produce something that did not exist before, yes, but only by ruling out other options along the way. Pick up a pencil and start drawing and you have now limited yourself to black and white, not color. No artist escapes limitation. When Michelangelo decide to paint on plaster he limited himself. There would not be the three dimensional aspect that he had achieved in sculptures. SELAH! ( pause and think on that)

When God created, He invented the media for His creation as He created. With every creation came a limitation. He chose a world of time and space, a "medium" with limitations. God who sees future, past and present all at once selected sequential time as an artist selects a canvas, and palette. "And God said, let the water teem with living creatures." With that sentence came a thousand decisions; fish with gills and not lungs, scales not fur, fins not feet, blood not sap. Every choice eliminated the alternatives.

When God creates man He gave them the moral capacity to rebel against their creator. The sculptures could spit in the face of the sculptor. The characters could rewrite the lines. They were free. It's been said that "Man is God's risk." How does a sovereign God take risks?

I will close today with William Irwin Thompson's rendition of creation.

Imagine God in Heaven surrounded by the choirs of adoring angels singing hosannas unendingly... "If I create a perfect world, I know how it will turn out. In its absolute perfection, it will revolve like a perfect machine, never deviating from my absolute will." Since God's imagination is perfect, there is no need for Him to create such a universe; it is enough for Him to imagine it to see it in all its details. Such a universe would not be very interesting to man or God, so we can assume that the Divinity continued His meditations. "But what if I create a universe that is free, free even of Me? What if I veil My Divinity so that the creatures are free to pursue their individual lives without being overwhelmed by My overpowering Presence? Will the creature love Me? Can I be loved by whom I have not programmed to adore Me forever? Can love arise out of freedom? My angels love Me unceasingly, but they can see Me at all time. What if I create beings in My own image as a Creator, beings who are free? But if I introduce freedom into the universe, I take the risk of introducing Evil into it as well. Hmmm. But what if I continue to interact with this dynamic universe, what if I and the creation become the creators together of a great cosmic play? What if out of every occasion of evil, I respond with an unimaginable good, a good that overwhelms evil by springing out of the very attempts of evil to deny Good? Will these new creature of freedom then love Me, will they join with Me in creating Good out of Evil, novelty out of freedom? What if I join with them in the world of limitation and form, the world of suffering and evil? Ahh, in a truly free universe, even I do not know how it will turn out. Do I even dare to take that risk for love?