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The Explanation: Before (5)
1Before the universe began to be,
and all that it consists of and contains,
the Word already was. He is the Power,
the Explanation, and the Reason for
all things. He was before all things with God,
and He was God. 2Yes, He was with God when
the universe and all that is began
to be, 3and He created everything.
Apart from Him, without His will and power,
not anything that has been made was made.
- John 1.1-3
Accounting for the cosmos“Reagan, where’d you get that beautiful kitchen?” “Grandad made it!”
We have to account for the tremendous amount of power – in the form of mass and energy – which exists in the universe.
We could just shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, it’s always been there”, but that’s hardly much of an explanation. Typically, what we can’t explain, we tend to fear. So we need to provide an explanation for the cosmos and the power it represents, and not just cast a wary or foolishly trusting eye upon it.
After all, stuff falls from the cosmos at times. If we can’t explain the whys and whens of that, we could get hit by it.
We could say that all this power and stuff simply exploded into being, from a single point in space (whatever that is or was) less than the size of the head of a pin and, as the explosion expanded outward, the stuff of the cosmos gradually took the forms we see it in today.
Take a moment and think about that. We laugh when we hear that medieval theologians speculated about the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Why don’t we laugh when cosmologists and worldview thinkers insist that, in one sense, or at one time, the whole cosmos danced on such a stage?
This explanation ought at least to be questioned thoroughly before it is simply believed.
The Christian worldview looks to another explanation – the First Word.
The First Word, being with God and God, possessed the power to bring into being everything that is. It’s as if He conceived the child’s toy kitchen, made each of its parts from nothing, as well as the tools needed to make them and the packaging they came in, and caused them all to fit together according to design – instructions included – and delivered it for us to assemble and enjoy.
Except we’re not talking about toy kitchens. We’re talking about the cosmos.
What kind of power is able to do that?
The Word of God – the First Word – possesses power sufficient to bring into being everything we see, everything that ever has existed, and everything that ever will exist in the cosmos. The First Word thus possess unfathomable power – power beyond what we can ever imagine, explain, or contain – and eternal power – since He exerted His power to create the cosmos from beyond and even from before the cosmos.
The First Word has the power to create the cosmos, and, at a certain point – “in the beginning” – He willed to do so, and to do so in a manner consistent with reason, although, far beyond anything mere reason alone can fathom.
This is what Christians believe. We choose to believe this because it “makes sense” – at least, more sense than all the stuff of the cosmos dancing on the head of a pin. But we believe it also because we have been told by the First Word that it is so.
Why that should matter we will come to anon.
A worldview consistent with this kind of world
What the Christian seeks, therefore, is a worldview – a way of seeing and being in the world – which is consistent with eternal reason, in agreement with eternal will, and content to rest in eternal power.
If there is a First Word such as John describes, it only makes sense that we who exist because of His will and power, and according to His reason, should want to do our best to fit within the world in a manner consistent with His way of thinking. We can try to assemble our personal toy kitchen according to our own best ideas concerning which parts should go where and what the final product should look like. It’s our toy kitchen, after all, and we can make it any way we damn well please!
Or we can accept that this delightful gift – the gift of the cosmos and our place in it – has come from eternal and unfathomable power, will, and reason, and we can search the box which has been delivered to us to see if there are any diagrams or instructions counseling us on how to get the most enjoyment and use out of our world and our lives.
How, that is, to get within the mind of the Creator, so that we understand His reasoning and will, and get in step with the power He has built into the world.
We want a worldview which reflects the reason, will, and power of the First Word, because we believe this First Word is the First Word, and all other “first words” are cheap knock-offs or presumptuous substitutes that will end up wasting and ruining the very thing we hope to enjoy.
Let’s try this: Meditate on John 2.1-11. Jot down as many terms as you can think of to describe the process whereby the water in those jars became wine (e.g., “instantaneous,” “without being touched,” etc.). Now compare the “creation” of that wine with the explanation that the cosmos came to be out of a point in “space” (what else was in that “space”), apparently by its own efforts, and expanded over “time” (whatever that is) to become the cosmos we experience today. Which of these stories does not require an act of faith? What “first words” stand behind each of these views? Talk with a couple of your Christian friends about this exercise.
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