We are all the children of the Enlightenment. Even if we couldn’t begin to define “Enlightenment,” or if we know what it is and see it as an Endarkenment, we’re still shaped by it. It’s in our blood and sinews, programmed in us down to the zeros and the ones. It is, despite the current reign of postmodernism, the air we breathe and the water we swim in.
Consider our problems. When we are ailing, our assumption is that a pill will fix it. If our ailments are mental the solution is more education. When they are spiritual we look for a program to patch the malware. If output isn’t what we desire, we just change the input. We genuinely seem to believe that with the right technology, the right social structure, the right education, the right diet, we’ll find ourselves back in Eden, but better. Because we’ll have I-phones.
Or consider how we look at the universe. As Christians we affirm that God created it. Which is gloriously true. We affirm that He orders it. Again, gloriously true. Then, however, we make the fatal mistake of believing that it, the created order, is the ultimate machine, that the swirling nebulae are but the perfectly designed cogs, wheels and pulleys of a giant Swiss watch.
To riff on the inestimable GK Chesterton, we need to embrace the cosmology of elfland. The truth is that the created order is infused with all the wonder, beauty and whimsy of the Creator. The Bible tells us that serpents and donkeys can talk. It reveals that seas can split, that ax heads can float. The Bible tells us that “gods” have married women and produced giants as offspring. Stars sing, and God knows each of their names.
On more than one occasion, a Man fed thousands with just a few loaves of bread. That Man had been born to a virgin. He turned water into wine, made lame men walk and blind men see. That Man was also God in the flesh. He died, but walked out of His tomb three days later. Of course this reveals the glory of God. It reveals that God is not stuck on the outside looking in.
It also reveals, however, the very nature of the world we live in. We are closer to Middle-Earth, Narnia and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter than we are to a clockwork orange, a mere machine monstrously pretending to live. Maybe instead of objecting to books with magic we should object to books that have no magic. They lie about reality. The world we live in is magic, His magic. Our heavenly Father is in charge. His Word leaves His lips, tumbles through the nothing and pulls galaxies out of a hat.
Caterpillars become butterflies. Valleys filled with dry bones become congregations singing His praise. Two become one and bring forth still more. Rebels become princes and libertines priests. And all of this wonder, from the farthest reaches of space to the bigger on the inside dance of the quarks, is but a shadow of the real world He is taking us to. Glory, hallelujah.
Beautiful post. Thanks again
The Gospel is much the same in its magicl aspects. We are cleansed by His word. I know that I need to hear it regularly. Most days, at least daily. Often more often than that. It renews me and keeps me.
By what means, I cannot say. It just does.
His magic.