Chronicles of Diversity

31 May 2006; Volume 8, Issue 18

PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/unitydiversity5-31-6.pdf

Duh, Dumb! No, Duh, Double Dumb!

We today are not talking about some other person or group we are talking about myself. Sometimes we can be so blind to the obvious that one might wonder why we should ever get out of bed in the morning.

All this harping that I have been doing about the value of creation all these years, it never sunk into my brain that I had not really ever communicated the fact that the wonderful diversity and beauty of creation is really a representation of God that we can see, smell, and touch in this present world. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

An old friend of mine, who I believe is now passed had a saying, “He is so dumb, it is like the brain God gave an ant, multiplied by infinity, it would still be similar to a BB rolling around inside a basketball.”

As hopefully most of you know, Unity in Diversity is the term given to describe the Christian Trinity. From there it gets complicated, so much so that most never venture into that universe. However, if you truly are to understand the gospel and God’s magnificence, a little spading of the fallow of your mind can not hurt.

Since we have been discussing the Da Vinci Code and its premise that Christianity is really just an evolutionary process of the unenlightened, perhaps it is valuable to stop and read just what Constantine and the 1st and 2nd Ecumenical Councils really did to enrich our Christian heritage. That first Council met in Nicea in 325 and the subsequent met in Constantinople in 381. Together they gave us the Nicene Creed, the most recognized creed in Christian history.

The Nicene Creed is also my favorite, because it speaks directly to the nature of Jesus, an all too muddy doctrine of today’s evangelicalism. When asked, “Do you love Jesus?” I often respond, “Which Jesus? The Jesus in your heart? The Jesus that died two thousand years ago as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of man? The Jesus, the blood brother of Lucifer in Mormonism? The Jesus from Venezuela that throws heat in the Angels farm system?”

The Nicene Creed does an excellent job of straightening out all that confusion in only 216 words.

Now chances are excellent that virtually all of our Chronicles of Diversity readers fall into one of two camps. Camp one is that you really know nothing about the Nicene Creed at all, and chances if you ever heard it, it was when you mistakenly attended one of those old fashioned churches with a dead liturgy. It could have been Orthodox, Protestant, or Roman Catholic, God knows they are all the same in there deadness.

Camp two is that you attended or attend one of those dead liturgical churches where you recite a creed every Sunday. You recite the words, but you never really listen to what you are saying. Thankfully I suppose, it has been my experience that most Protestant churches recite the Apostles Creed every Sunday, so the Nicene Creed is a special treat, reserved for special occasions, religious holidays and the like. The Apostles Creed also shows that we are indeed different from the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Church, whoever they are.

So today you are given the opportunity to take a serious look at the Nicene Creed if you so choose. The example presented here comes from the whoever they are, the Orthodox Church. If you want some homework, determine what is different between this version and the one used in the west, and what that difference really means, if anything.

Nicene Creed

I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages.
Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
Crucified also for us under Pontious Pilante, He suffered and was buried.
And on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
And ascended into heaven, and sat at the right hand of the Father.
And He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the Prophets.
I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge One Baptism for the remissions of sins.
I await the resurrection of the dead.
And the life of the Ages to come. Amen

As concisely stated this is the God we are talking about when we say that we are Christians. But is that all there is to God?

“In the beginning God.” In this beginning of the Bible God, we find a plural form of the Hebrew word for God, Elohim stated with a singular verb. Not capitalized it is the same word is used elsewhere in the Bible to describe the vast number of other gods, which really are not gods at all. In these cases however, the plural verb is also used.

Somewhat traditionally the beginning God, is also used by Christian Biblical teachers for the first implied reference to the Trinity, as we see Him truthfully described in the Nicene. But is that all there is to this passage?

Jewish scholars look at this Elohim in a much broader spectrum. They see God in the plural of intensity and the plural of majesty. Together they form the essence of the Almighty. In the second verse in the Bible we see the “without form and void” as a description of total chaos, however this randomness is still within the total unity of the cosmos of God. As the creation account continues we see ultimate diversity becoming much more a universe or total oneness of all, or perhaps better described, the cosmos is all held together by God’s unifying plurality.

So what I was trying to get at in these references to creation all these years, is the more you learn about the diversity of creation, the more you should be able to grasp specifically the plurality of God’s majesty and His intensity.

However, if that was not complex enough, dare us try to bring this into a culture that says it believes that all this ordered diversity happened by chance. In their universe by definition there can be no rhyme or reason, not even just dumb luck. We call this human rationality for some reason. I suppose it is rational that if you desire anything but to submit your ways to God, or any god other than yourself, you must reject essentially any hope for meaning in life. But metaphysically speaking a universe of one, is no universe at all, just a manifestation of total narcissism.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; Genesis 1:26a Therefore, when you look at creation you must also look at your life as total possibility, if it embraces God as the ultimate fount of majesty. However, the Bible does not state that God exists, but rather that the universe is the legal affidavit of his existence. This is pretty much the testimony of all so called primitive peoples of the earth. When they are overwhelmed by the plurality of God’s majesty, they may desire to worship the created, because they can not grasp, or have not been taught any essence of the Creator.

What we have been talking about thus far is theology. Historically theology and its related sister, philosophy have been looked upon as the process by which the meaning in life is quantified and understood. However, throughout history man’s desire to become God has been manifest within all of humanity, at times highly exalted in specific segments of culture and natural localities.

Beginning in earnest with the 18th century Enlightenment, the age of reason, man’s rational nature began to systematically erode the power of theology and philosophy as the basis for understanding the way the world works. This process does two things. First of all it exalts man beyond his created state, which has historically been called sin. Of a secondary nature, it also greatly shifts the total pool of universal information away from God’s revelations, into a finite limited scope of human depravity, subjugating all culture to materialism and art to the limits of only self expression.

From this quagmire arose the myth and bogus science of evolutionary change. The biggest problem with human rationalism as practiced today is it denies that it is a religion. This I suppose is necessary if you are trying to develop some sort of meaning and self worth out of meaningless chaos alone. But rationalism is religion because it replaces God or gods with man and his limited intellect. The ultimate rationalist says, ”We don’t know everything yet, but we (mankind) is evolving so that one day we will.” All that does is replace true Deity, or even true reality, with a deity called “wishful thinking.”

You can trace most of the problems in America today to this wishful thinking godhead. The war in Iraq, illegal immigration, global trade, energy prices, the list is endless. Because wishful thinking has never in the long run produced anything of redeeming social value, it is indeed a rapid slide into the chaos wishful thinking so tries to avoid.

But the God of the Bible and the God of creation are one. The God with a plurality nature does not need to judge such a futile venture, for wishful thinking will and is running out of gas of its own limited information pool. Out of chaos you came and to chaos you shall return. As they say at funerals, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This saying is not part of the Bible but from the “Book of Common Prayer,” so it is more than appropriate to mark the impending death of essentially the only way of life we have ever known.

But the Bible does make it clear that dust and ashes are not the ultimate end, but a requirement for a new and better beginning. Just as temporal death can lead to eternal life, so too does life emerge from the chaos of natural destruction. The eruption of Mount St. Helens comes to mind, just 26 years ago this month. Today a new natural community is rising from nothing appearing volcanic ash. There, in that creation wise minor event, you can see great canyons formed in just a couple of days, but that is another story, for another time, that has also been chronicled by the Institute for Creation Research.

So why do I push the importance of doctrine so much, do I not believe in the joy that fills the heart of the Christian believer?

The brief answer is that I have seen personally and in others the despair and disillusionment that relying on your feelings can and does produce in any trying time. Those times if severe enough also strip away your trust in the Bible promises, you so neatly memorized for trying times. In those times you will be asked, in some truly unique way, “Who is this Jesus you call the Christ?

If your answer is something like, ”He is the living God, who died in my place at Calvary’s cross, and arose from that death to give me the hope of eternal life.” you will pass the test, whether you die at that instant and pass to glory, or whether you have to return to this life and continue the journey.

Those however, who do not have that doctrinal basis, go on to become atheists and the rational deists that now think they truly are enlightened in their passage. From that point forward they close their lives and hearts to the grandeur of the plurality of the majesty of God, and we all have to pay the price. Furthermore someday, some preacher somewhere, will have to answer in the presence of that majestic God why they taught others to settle for the worldly when they could have lived in the eternal. That by God’s grace alone, I never want to do.

Understanding the true nature of God and His grace toward His creation and His chosen human personalities, brings joy that this world does not comprehend, nor will it cease with this world. That alone is the fount beyond the joy of human understanding. Joy that can be only attributed to the unity in diversity of the plurality of God, manifest for us to see in His creation if we choose to go, see, learn, and apprehend.

Chronicles of Diversity is now available in blog form for your comments at www.diversity.wordpress.com. A somewhat related blog, Oikos (a dwelling place) is available at www.oikos.wordpress.com. This blog in time will deal with what I call conservative conservationism in contrast to what is generally called green sustainability.

It is my desire to eventually move these blogs into a new structure for both www.createleaders.org and www.wondersprings.com. God knows they both need it. If you can contribute to these changes in someway, financially or with your skills, or know of someone who could make that donation, please let us know.

In His Grip,

Jerry

Our latest Chronicles:

The Nature Deficit Divide; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/naturedeficit3-8-6.pdf

Birds & Snakes; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/birdsnsnakes3-15-6.pdf

Given Gifts; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/givengifts4-12-6.pdf

Our rights and our dusty responsibility; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/rightrespon4-19-6.pdf

Solomon's folly today; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/solomontoday4-26-6.pdf

America Amok; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/aamok5-3-6.pdf

Creation Speaks; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/creationspeaks5-10-6.pdf

It’s all about time; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/abouttime5-17-6.pdf

Rootless in the world; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/rootless5-24-6.pdf