Glory to You Who has Shown Us the Light!

I am in Charleston, South Carolina this week as I was asked to be Godfather for the son of some friends and former parishioners who several years ago moved out of Dayton.

I walked down to the beach before the dawn.   Before the dawn is the time in which the women disciples of the Lord discovered the emtpy tomb of Christ and the good news of His resurrection from the dead was announced to them according to the Gospel accounts.   A new light had dawned to the world – and like the light of Genesis 1:3, it was not sunlight which shone, enlightening the universe.

The sunrise over the Atlantic ocean was beautiful.

It was a blessing to to behold.  The words that came to my mind are from Matins: “Glory to You Who has shown us the light!”

Later in the morning was the baptism of my new Godson Sebastian Theodore.

The baptism was at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Charleston.

In the photo Fr. John, the parish priest, is handing me Sebastian after having just baptized him.  The awesome beauty of a child adopted and renewed by his Creator through baptism.   He is a beautiful child who now belongs to the new creation in Christ Jesus.

Fr. John explained that the parish iconography was almost entirely done by the famed Greek Iconographer Photios Kontoglou.  Many unique and inspired icons.

In the evening we were at the Waterfront Park overlooking Charleston Harbor.

We were treated to a stunningly gorgeous sunset.

When we encounter beauty in a child, in sunrise, or in the world, we experience God the Creator of all things beautiful.

Glory to God for All Things Ode 5 Illustrated

Akathist:  “Glory to God for all Things”   

By Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Tryphon (+1934)

See Ode 4 

ODE 5

The dark storm-clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Your fire is burning brightly.

Outside is the darkness of the whirlwind,

the terror and howling of the storm,

but in the heart, in the presence of Christ,

 there is light and peace, silence.

The heart sings: Alleluia!

IKOS 5

Pleiades Star Cluster

I see Your heavens resplendent with stars.

How glorious You are, radiant with light!

Eternity watches me by the rays of the distant stars.

I am small, insignificant,

but the Lord is at my side:

Your right arm guides me wherever I go.

Glory to You, ceaselessly watching over me.
Glory to You for the encounters You arrange for me.
Glory to You for the love of parents, for the faithfulness of friends.
Glory to You for the humbleness of animals which serve me.
Glory to You for the unforgettable moments of life.
Glory to You for the heart’s innocent joy.
Glory to You for the joy of living, moving, and being able to return Your love.

Glory to You, O God, from age to age.

See Ode 6

Glory to God for All Things Ode 3 Illustrated

Akathist:  “Glory to God for all Things”   

by Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Tryphon (+1934)

See Ode 2 

Ode 3

It is the Holy Spirit Who makes us find joy in each flower –

the exquisite scent, the delicate color —

the beauty of the Most High in the tiniest of things.

Glory and honor to the Spirit, the Giver of Life,

Who covers the fields with their carpet of flowers,

crowns the harvest with gold,

and gives to us the joy of gazing at it with our eyes.

O be joyful and sing to Him:

Alleluia!

IKOS 3

How glorious You are in the springtime, when every creature awakens to new life and joyfully sings Your praises with a thousand tongues!

You are the source of life, the destroyer of death. By the light of the moon, nightingales sing, and the valleys and hills lie like wedding-garments, white as snow.

All the earth is Your promised bride awaiting her spotless Husband.

If the grass of the field is like this,

how gloriously shall we be transfigured in the Second Coming, after the Resurrection!

How splendid our bodies, how spotless our souls!

Glory to You for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature.

Glory to You for the numberless creatures around us.
Glory to you for the depths of Your wisdom–the whole world a living sign of it.

Glory to You: On my knees, I kiss the traces of Your unseen hand.
Glory to You, enlightening us with the clarity of eternal life.

Glory to You for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality.

Glory to You, O God, from age to age.

See Ode 4

Glory to God for All Things Ode 1 Illustrated

Akathist:  “Glory to God for all Things”   

by Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Tryphon (+1934)

 

ODE 1

Everlasting King, Your will for our salvation is full of power.

Your right arm controls the whole course of human life.

We give You thanks for all Your mercies, seen and unseen:

For eternal life, for the heavenly joys of the Kingdom which is to be.

Grant mercy to us who sing Your praises, both now and in the time to come.

Glory to You, O God, from age to age.

IKOS 1

I was born a weak, defenseless child,

but Your angel spread his wings over my cradle to defend me.

From birth until now, Your love has illumined my path,

and has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity.

From birth until now the generous gifts of Your Providence have been marvelously showered upon me.

I give You thanks, with all who have come to know You, who call upon Your Name:

Helix Nebula

Glory to You for calling me into being.

Glory to You, showing me the beauty of the universe.

Glory to You, spreading out before me heaven and earth, like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom.

Glory to You for Your eternity in this fleeting world.

Glory to You for Your mercies, seen and unseen.

Glory to You, through every sigh of my sorrow.

Glory to You for every step of my life’s journey, for every moment of glory.

Glory to You, O God, from age to age.

 

See:  Ode 2

The Kenosis of Creation

In my book, QUESTIONING GOD, I offered the idea of that which is “not God.”   All created things are “not God” for that which is “not God” is exactly what God calls into existence at creation and is what distinguishes creation from the Creator in Christian theology.  I saw the quote below in Frances Young,  BROKENNESS & BLESSING: TOWARDS A BIBLICAL SPIRITUALITY which reminded me of my “not God” idea:

“Simone Weil … spoke of creation being an act of abandonment—for the infinite God had to withdraw in order to allow something other than the divine self to exist at all.   So the kenosis of the incarnation reflects the kenosis of creation, and this divine self-emptying is demonstrated on the cross, in the redemptive ‘Godforsakenness’ of Jesus Christ.”  (p 72)

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (3)

This is part 3 and the conclusion of my blog which began with Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1), and then continued in Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2).       These three blogs are all my own ruminations upon the book by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.

Peters and Hewlett examine the various responses that believers have and can take to evolution from the viewpoint of biblical creationists, to intelligent design adherents, to theistic evolutionists.   They pose Five Questions for which they feel Theistic Evolutionists must be willing to give account in order to have a believable, credible and defensible position of arguing that science and theology are compatible (pp 117-118).   Their five questions summarized are these:

1)     Can theology accept “that it has taken life 3.8 billion years to develop on a 4.5-billion-year-old planet”?

2)   “Can theology accept that contingency, randomness, and chance characterize the process of speciation”…?

3)    “Can theological anthropology incorporate the evidence that biological continuity between human life and all other forms of life exists … “?

4)    How does God act in time?

5)    Can theological affirmations of divine love and omnipotence by reconciled with the fact that animals suffer because of predators, disease and disaster, and the fact that 98 percent of all species have perished?

For believers to present a credible scientific understanding of creation they must be willing to address head on the violence in nature which so troubled Darwin: “to see violence, suffering, and death as merely natural and hence value-neutral—represents a failure of theological nerve.  … From the theological point of view, we simply cannot let science alone define what is natural or, worse, redefine violence, suffering, and death as value neutral.”  If God is all powerful and all good how can one explain the violence and suffering which is obvious in nature, and not just in sinful human beings?    If God could intervene and change the world, why doesn’t He?   Is violence natural and inherent in creation, or do we have free will which enables us to aspire to something greater than our biologically determined selves? 

There is no doubt in the Orthodox tradition at least that many saints were greatly troubled by these questions, and they wept for a creation that had been so distorted by the sinfulness of humanity.   The condition of the world at times seems so hellish that it is hard to imagine that God can see any good in it at all.  And yet He does.  Certainly Christianity sees the answer to these questions and the purpose of the world itself being found in the “bigger picture” which is beyond the limits of space and time.   There is a logic to the universe which is not a human logic and so we cannot grasp the entire purpose nor see the entire picture.  We are limited by space and time.   And through the dense shroud which suffering imposes on our ability to see, we still perceive glimpses of beauty, order and design in the universe.   We long for the entire picture to be revealed, but that requires us to move into dimensions which are not yet ours to perceive.  Peters and Hewlett write:

 

Darwinius

“Each moment God imparts openness to the future that releases the present from bondage to past causes.  God’s creative activity is never ceasing; each moment the entire physical universe is given its existence in such a way that it is open toward what comes next.  This ceaseless future-giving by God explains why the laws of nature cannot grip nature in rigid determinism.” 

 

Biology would say we live within the limits imposed upon us by genetic determinism.  We are made in the image of our ancestors whose genes determine our current behavior.  Christian theology would deny genetic pre-determinism and says, yes we bear the genetic traits passed down to us through the billions of year that life has been evolving on this planet.  However we have been endowed by our Creation with His image and likeness which means we can aspire to something greater than our biological limitations.  We have not only a past but also a future, all of which are part of God’s plan even if that is hidden from our understanding.

“Once we apprehend that God intends a future, our task is to discern as best we can the direction of divine purpose and employ that as an ethical guide.  When we invoke the apocalyptic symbol of the New Jerusalem, where ‘crying and pain will be no more,’ then this will inspire and guide the decisions we make today that will affect our progeny tomorrow.”  

Chaos theory and quantum mechanics have caused us to realize that there are relationships in the universe which we do not understand and apparently cannot ever know: not because we lack the instrumentation but because it cannot be known.  The world is far more complicated and interrelated than is commonly imagined.   There are patterns in nature  and paradigms in logic which we have not yet discovered – both micro- and macro-.  There also are interrelationships which because of the limits of space and time and of our own one-sidedness,  the tiny place we occupy in the vast universe, we can never see.  Thus the logic as to why things happen the way they do remain obscure to us in our limited knowledge and vision.

According to these modern theories even the flapping of a butterfly in the rain forest can affect the weather – there is so much that we cannot know or understand about the universe we occupy.  If it is true that the tiniest of events (the micro) can alter the macro events of the world, it means that God does not have to do spectacular interventions in world history to affect its course.   He too can gently nudge His creation by doing the smallest of things.  All He has to do is be patient and let time take its course in working out His will.  So the vastness of both space and time are not wasted, but rather are the very canvasses upon which God gently and with the greatest regard for the free will of His creatures influences the design which He is creating.

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2)

This is part two of my blog Evolution from Creation to New Creation.   It is the continuation of Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1).       The previous blog, this one and the next are all my own ruminations upon the book by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.  

Peters and Hewlett do not think evolutionary theory is inherently atheistic.  However, Darwin in his research became increasingly troubled by the claims of theistic Christianity about an omniscient and loving Creator God.  “Darwin… observed in the natural world: laws by which the predator devoured the prey and a history in which 98 percent of all species had become extinct before the modern era.  Such waste, Darwin thought, could not be reconciled with a God of purpose or design or compassion.  Without positively advocating atheism, Darwin could not ascribe the creation of this biological world to a divine designer.”     Darwin wrote: 

“There seems to me too much misery in the world.  I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae  [insects whose larvae are usually internal parasites of other insect larvae] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” 

Darwin’s doubts and troubled soul are the result of his own sensitive nature and in fact are common to any thinking believer.   There are aspects of life in this world which are incredibly harsh and very difficult to reconcile with ideas of a merciful, loving, all knowing and all powerful God.  His words are not coming from a heart that hates God, but from one that is deeply troubled by the reality he sees around himself and yet wants to reconcile with a faith in God.    He obviously could not rationalize away the ravages of death and suffering which he could observe in the natural world.   

I can say from experience, having at one point in my life considered myself an atheist, that his thoughts and doubts are very rational.    They reflect very strongly pleas and lamentations one can read in our Scriptures in the Psalms:  Where is God, why is He silent?  Why does evil prosper and the innocent suffer?     Focusing on these questions certainly causes one to doubt that God is anything like what the Church proclaims.  On the other side of the equation however – in a universe without God – there is just as much suffering, pain, violence, but without a God the suffering and sorrow of the world lacks any true purpose or meaning and there is nothing ultimate for or in which to hope.   For believers, God offers the hope that there is some greater meaning and purpose to the suffering and sorrow that we experience in our daily lives.  For the believer we each experience but one piece of the puzzle which is life in this universe and we do not yet see the whole picture:  the tapestry is still being woven, God is still telling the story which He began when He first spoke creation into existence.  In the end the universe is proven not to be purely random, irrational, meaningless and hopeless, for the final chapter in which the entire story of the universe is revealed is found in the words, or the Word, proceeding from the mouth of the Creator. 

As Peters and Hewlett describe evolution it is not in the writings of Darwin that we find an absolute embrace of atheism.   The equating of evolution with atheism has been promoted by neo-Darwinists who embrace a particular materialistic and even nihilistic ideological philosophy which they termed as a “naturalistic fallacy.”   It is this neo-Darwinian synthesis which completely emphasizes chance and denies purpose toward some goal in evolution.  However, as Peters and Hewlett note, some  evolutionary biologists in promoting ideas such as the “selfish gene” are really arguing that “Nature is nihilistic  on every matter except genetic survival.”  Peters and Hewlett argue that these scientists suddenly move away from absolute adherence to the scientific method and promote as science something which is a philosophical assumption and bias – an idea based on faith not on scientific proof.

When challenged that his theory would lead to further atheism, Darwin himself reminded his contemporaries:  “… remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, ‘as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.’”    Darwin simply pointed out what had become true in Western Europe – an increased conflict between science and religion with religionists being always quick to reject every scientific truth as a threat to religion.   True science is no threat to true religion as both seek the truth about the universe, and the bottom line is there is not a scientific truth which is not Christian, because truth is truth.

In the next blog in this series I will look at what Peters and Hewlett describe as the five questions theistic scientists must be able and willing to answer in order to show that science and religion are not necessarily in opposition to one another. 

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (3).

Beauty as a Witness to the Creator

A little over one week ago I underwent surgery on my knee to deal with torn cartilage and arthritis (and if I want to be honest with age and weight bearing down on the problem!).   Thanks to everyone’s prayers my recuperation has been going well.

This past Wednesday I began physical therapy which is helping me regain strength and flexibility in the knee.   Therapy in turn encouraged me to walk a bit more and that inspired me to take up my camera again and take some nature photos.  I cannot walk as far as I would like and I avoid hilly terrain, but I am walking and enjoying God’s beautiful creation.

I added two more slide shows to my flickr account, if you would like to see what I’ve seen.  One doesn’t have to walk very far to encounter beauty.   Also, since my surgery has both slowed me down and limited how far I can walk, I’ve paid more attention to what is close at hand.

Sugarcreek/Spring Lakes Park

Cox Arboretum

Like some of you, I am of the opinion that the beauty of nature speaks to me about the Creator.  When I look closely at flowers I see not only the great diversity in amazing colors, shapes and sizes, but I also see the abundant insect life and realize what incredible biodiversity is needed to sustain life on earth.    That creation itself has been given by God the life-giving power to regenerate itself is awesome and certainly part of God’s plan.  Beauty speaks to me about the Creator, but it also by nature if fleeting and it reminds me that change is constant in the world.  Not only are new generations born, but old generations pass away, but also species go extinct and other species come into being as God so wills.  God imbued animate creation with the creativity to renew life when He said to it, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  The created world constantly is fulfilling this commandment of God.

Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2)

This is the continuation of my blog  Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (1).    In this blog I am reflecting on Denis Alexander’s book CREATION OR EVOLUTION: DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?     The answer to the book title’s question for Alexander and for my self is “no, we don’t have to choose because the two are opposed only if one demands only a literalist reading of Genesis 1-3 or if one is an atheist.”

There is a certain difficulty for Christians in accepting a notion that Adam and Eve were created as eternal beings not subject to death, for this would imply that that Adam and Eve had some kind of existence apart from earth and were not created from real dirt/dust and that life in Paradise was not subject to the same scientific law as we are today.   For example if Adam and Eve ate fruit in Eden, were the cells and plants subject to death or not?     If they had made fig leaf garments before the fall, would they garments also have been eternal?   Were all fish, amphibians and insects completely vegan and not predators or parasites?    It would imply that Adam and Eve were angelic beings who fell to earth from some other kind of place because of sin and not because God created them with bodies.  It would imply that this world is not God’s creation but a lesser world destined for beings beneath God’s dignity.  This is Babylonian cosmology but not a Biblical one; certainly this would be an idea that the Jews and Genesis would argue against as Genesis 1 unlike the Babylonian creation stories has a good God making a good creation.   Genesis 2 admittedly is more ambivalent on the goodness of creation for there is a serpent already in Paradise and a fruit that if eaten leads to death.

Alexander however sticks with his Genesis-Jeremiah notion that the Biblical story is not meant to be read as science but rather offers a cosmological understanding of creation in which ultimately “Physical death has no place in the fulfilled kingdom of God, the new heavens and the new earth.”   Sin and death are part of this world, but this world is only a small part of the entire story which God is telling beginning with Genesis.   For Alexander the coming of Christ is inaugurating that hoped for new age in which the rules of nature (which science studies) have no final say:  the healing ministry of Jesus points not back to a pre-fallen state but looks forward to the new heaven and new earth.   The Bible’s account of creation from Genesis to Revelation is thus not intended to be science but rather God revealing His own plan which gives this world meaning which is outside of the study of science.  To try to force the Scriptures to be science is in fact to limit them and reduce them to this world rather than tying this world into the world to come.

Turning to look at some scientific concepts which are part of an evolutionary worldview, Alexander notes, “The term ‘survival of the fittest’ has sometimes been used to describe natural selection, but is not very accurate because survival is not really the main point in this process… the key point about natural selection is the successful reproduction that ensures that an individual’s genes are passed on to the next generation.”   The concept of “survival of the fittest” has been co-opted by secular social scientists and political ideologues and used for all kinds of purposes that are far removed from the original idea of natural selection.   Natural selection is a creative and life giving process not a political justification for oppressing the weak.

Alexander also notes that there are philosophical assumptions at the basis of evolution which are a matter of faith.   “Chance is simply a handy description that we humans use for our beliefs about the properties of matter.  There is no such agent as ‘metaphysical chance’, but there is the human belief held by some people that the universe has no ultimate meaning.”  In other words chance is a concept we put apply to how we perceive natural selection working.  The reality is we cannot know scientifically whether events we perceive of as chance are part of a pattern and plan that we cannot detect. 

“Evolutionary history on this planet displays overall increased complexity, genomic constraint and convergence.  …   an ‘atheism-of-the-gaps’ type of argument in which atheists seek to support their disbelief in God based on interpretations of scientific data which appear initially plausible due to lack of knowledge about the data, but appear less believable as our understanding of the process –  in this case the evolutionary process – become more complete.”

It is not only believers who have to choose faith in a God who guides the universe.  For non-believers “chance” is just as much an issue of belief because there is no way to prove that events are random rather than part of a pattern we cannot detect.

Alexander is a Christian believer, a theist and a scientist, whose writings have won him praise from evangelical Christians as well as from scientists.  He has not embraced the ideas of Intelligent Design because he feels that is an “argument from ignorance” – because we currently don’t know how complexity could emerge spontaneously does not mean that it can’t or didn’t.  It only means our ability to know is limited.  This however is the same argument he applies to atheistic scientists – we do not have the complete picture about God and His role in creation and so concluding there is no God is an assumption based in incomplete evidence. 

Next:  Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1) 

Romans 8:19-22 Creation Groaning

I had the chance to take a walk through the Twin Creek Metropark on Sunday.   It was swelteringly hot and humid.  I was moving at a decent pace, mostly because the flies were biting and tangling themselves in my hair.    As I was hurrying down the trail I came upon a box turtle going in the same direction as me. 

“What’s the hurry?”  the turtle inquired.  “Why don’t you slow down and enjoy the moment?”

I did stop and took the turtle’s picture which seemed to be much appreciated.

I complained about the biting flies which the turtle said didn’t bother him at all.  (I will confess my ignorance I didn’t know whether the turtle was male or female).  “They’re good to eat besides.”   I took his word about that but it didn’t seem he would be much of a fly killer any way,  unlike President Obama.

I shared with him the story about President Obama, but he seemed unimpressed.  I told him another story I just read about a President and turtles.  According to Doris Goodwin in TEAM OF RIVALS, Honest Abe Lincoln wrote about being very troubled by seeing other young boys take turtle and put burning coals on their shells just to watch them squirm.

I cannot deny the very thought of boys torturing animals makes me squirm.  The older I get the more it bothers me to hear such stories.  The human capacity for inflicting suffering on others is sickening.   The turtle listened to my story from Abe Lincoln and hardly moving said, “Romans 8:19-22.”  

“We are waiting to be freed from the groaning to which we have been subject because of you humans. We have suffered because of you and with you.   We hoped for so much more from your kind – we thought you were to be the bridge between earth and heaven but instead you widened it.” 

“I am sorry for the way things are,” I said sincerely.

“”Sorry’ cannot undo what is done,  but you can be changed, transfigured and healed in the new creation.   God was sorry He made the humans too, but His love for you is great that He chooses to suffer for and because of you.   Sorrow itself can’t change the world, but it can lead you to embrace God’s self-emtying and co-suffering love.”

I was still struggling with the thought of humans torturing turtles.  Why do we do such things?

Because we can.

That seems to be the answer.   We can aspire to be like God, yet we choose to torture animals for no other reason then we can.  Made by God to have dominion on earth, instead we abandon lordship in favor of inflicting pain on those animals that cannot escape our grasp.  

“Are you afraid of all humans, or just the mean ones?”  I asked, but he had disappeared from sight causing me to groan a little.  We had walked the same path on earth for a moment, but he was unimpressed. 

.

 

“What’s the buzz?” I heard some little voices say.   The effects of human sin can be felt even in a nature park.