words from wick

So here’s a debate I didn’t know much about its’ existence. Many thanks to Scott for giving me the heads up that this was an obvious tenet of the Mormon church, and frequently debated as a reason they’re heretical in some eyes.

I checked throughout the Free Methodist book of Discipline, and it seems we’re safely able to discuss this without having to land on one side or the other.

The issue? There are some Christians who believe that God did not create everything that exists “ex nihilo” (out of nothing). They say there are two Hebrew words (title of this post – “formless void” & “womblike deep”) that existed along with God “in the beginning” before all the creation activity went on.

The truth is, none of us was there. So we gotta depend on humanity’s understanding of cosmic pre-life forces, etc, etc. But in any case, I do appreciate the movement of emphasis from whether or not God created “being” (stuff, tangible-ness, metaphysical realm, etc.), to God creating “LIFE” in the midst of no life.

“Without the mythological tohu wa-bohu and the tehom, the horizon of the narratives is dramatically and disproportionately shifted away from that of beauty, goodness, and life and over to that of power and of being. They are turned into explanations of why the world is THERE, instead of proclamations that what IS there is beautiful and GOOD. The stories are not about being – being is there, given, mute, and barren – but about bringing being to life.” – Caputo

Although I would say this still Christian viewpoint differs from Mormonism in a couple ways. One, Mormonism believes that all of these things existed even in some sort of “living” state in Heaven BEFORE they were brought into physical being. Two, Mormonism stretches the creation to somehow include God creating several different worlds in which Christ played a role in.

I’m not signing up as a “Caputo-ite” anytime soon. But I do like a lot of what he says, and think there’s a lot of benefit to appreciating God as less of an omnipotent ace up our sleeve for the end times (or even now); and more of an infinitely unconditional “YES/GOOD” proclaiming, Hope indwelling, impossible new life calling/transforming, and humble lover of where “is” has become “lives”.

Whether you believe Genesis was written completely by Moses, compiled of many sources by Moses, or simply put together by a few different authors during the time of Moses; some interesting things can come from noticing the dividing lines that have been drawn.

The dividing lines of “Creation Accounts” seem to be Genesis 1:1-2:4a, and Genesis 2:4b-3:24. Skeptics have often used this accounts to try and “disprove” certain things, or point out there are discrepancies in the Bible, etc. But recently reading through Caputo’s book, he points out something much more calling.

The first creation account includes God creating something (although perhaps not ex nihilo, according to Caputo – which includes a beautiful move from metaphysical debates to a focus on God creating LIFE. Which is a good move to make I think, even if you have to stand firmly on nihilo.) each day, and ultimately making a powerful declaration. He makes his declaration firmly after each step of the process, and ultimately over all things that have been made.

It is the SECOND creation account where Adam and Eve lead all humanity down a path undesirable. But Caputo points out that this is only AFTER God has already put his stamp/proclamation of “it is Good/YES” on all things He has created. Perhaps there is a message in these two creation accounts being placed in the order they are in. There is an incredible emphasis possible here. What does this mean?

Our ability to mess things up is NOT an ability to take away from what God has already proclaimed is our design, and our future. We are, in a sense, writing our stories onto an ancient parchment onto which God has already plastered His giant and irrevocable “YES” in giant letters, although humbly allowing our letters to be seen on the page. I will end with a quote from page 91 of “Weakness of God”:

So I’m standing there at the check-out counter. I hear the woman buying something in the line next to me say she’s from Michigan, and for some reason I think anyone from Michigan might be someone I know. “I’m from Michigan too!” I say, excited. She gives me a very odd look, and walks away.

I hand the man my license without even thinking. He doesn’t realize either, and tries to swipe the card. We both recognize the mistake, and I give him the credit card instead. I can’t believe it costs over $1,000 to take some hockey lessons, and skate/shoot around a bit each morning. Ah well.

So the first class starts immediately. We have to walk down this ridiculously long hallway to get there. (which is kinda hard to do when you’ve put your skates on already, like an ambitious idiot)

Some others arrive while we’ve begun our skatin’ around time. Getting the feel for the ice. Pretending I’ve got a puck on my stick. Trying to impress the old guys. Someone dumps a few pucks on the ice, and we all begin practicing weaving between invisible players. I lose control of the puck a couple times, but for the most part I was in rare form.

Finally, we all gather as one of the oldest guys there starts to tell us stories about his old “hockey days”. We line up, and there are window panes in front of us. The warm-up? Shoot the puck. Break some glass. We watched down the line as others began their turns.

I looked up to see the person standing right next to me prepare for his shot. He looked nervous. “Poor guy”, I thought to myself. Everyone is watching him. He makes a soft putting motion like he’s on the green, a few feet from the hole. The puck glides slowly across the ice and barely taps the bottom of the window. He puts his head down, obviously feeling defeated.

I took a quick slap shot, smashing my window pane to bits before skating away towards the next exercise.

As I brushed my teeth this morning, I thought it was great that even my sub-conscious makes fun of Sidney Crosby. 🙂