Genesis and the Nature of Reality

As I post this week about things relating to Evolution Sunday, I offer this quotation from Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. (Harper SanFrancisco, 2001, p. 75).

Central to Genesis 1 is the refrain repeated after each day of creation: "And God saw that it was good." The pronouncement covers everything that exists. To use a Latin phrase from medieval theology, Esse qua esse bonum est, or "Being as being is good." This does not mean that everything that happens is good. But whatever exists is good.

The creation story is thus strikingly world-affirming. Indeed, the Jewish tradition as a whole has consistently been world-affirming, in spite of the horrendous sufferings that Jews have experienced. The affirmation is also central to Christian theology, although popular Christianity, with its emphasis on the afterlife, has sometimes seen the world (especially "the flesh") as highly problematic, something to keep at a distance, a place to get through on the way to one's heavenly home. But against all world-denying theologies and philosophies, Genesis affirms the world as the good creation of the good God. All that is is good.

Again, may we say: Amen!

Comments

Anonymous said…
A wonderful quote! I do kinda wonder if you're saying you don't believe in the afterlife, either. After the non-interventionist God, that would be hard to swallow. I know, as Disciples we don't have to agree on things, but you keep making me gulp.
Robert Cornwall said…
Don't worry, I still believe in an afterlife, and I'm not sure I've given up on an interventionist God, but I do agree with Borg that if our emphasis is on the afterlife then our attention to matters of this life can get skewed. If the next life is to be my goal, then does that mean I don't have any responsibility for this one? Or, does another life prevent me from enjoying the life I live now, which according to Genesis should be good!
Anonymous said…
OK, both of those questions make sense. And I'm sure we're in agreement when I say that the answer to both is a resounding NO. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Anonymous said…
Oops, sorry, that was me again.
Mike L. said…
I'm not sure belief in afterlife is entirely bad and I would not be so arrogant to try and say I'm certain of it one way or the other, but for me I can testify that it stood in my way for many years.

Even if you take them literally, I think creation stories and the stories of afterlife are so powerful if we read the "more than literal" meaning.

Bob, if you are hanginf onto that belief does it in anyway cause you to look past your call to bring justice right now? I think it causes many to expect the kingdom of God to be something that God does for us rather than something Jesus calls us to take responsibility for right now. For me it kept me in the mode of "let God do it, he will do what he wants, when he wants".
Robert Cornwall said…
In terms of my belief in the afterlife, I guess I'm stuck on the need for there to be more than this. I think that this is the message of resurrection, that life triumphs over death. As for the nature of this afterlife, I think even Scripture is fairly muted. There is something in us that wants/needs to believe that we'll be reunited. Yet even the biblical texts don't focus on reunion, but on union with God.

As for whether such belief effects my view of justice, no I don't think it does. I do believe that we are called as God's people to act justly and that we're not supposed to just leave it to God to sort out in the next life. I do think that there are theologies that go in that direction, with dispensationalist theologies being especially connected to it. As a Christian I'm part of the body of Christ and therefore one of the arms or legs, feet or hands, that God uses to transform the world! Boy did I get long winded here. Time for another post.
Anonymous said…
So much of what Jesus teaches emphasizes current, local ethical behavior that it would be imprudent to embrace afterlife to the exclusion of current life. Maybe it would help us if we were to remind ourselves regularly that all biblical descriptions of the afterlife are speculative, whether they are descriptions of heaven or hell, and that all attempts to describe the indescribable are constrained by the limitations of language. I do believe in an afterlife, but I don't believe we can know exactly what it's like until we get there.

I also believe that God does, indeed, act in history, and may intervene in the natural order; the problem usually arises when human beings believe that they can summon God, or persuade God to do something that God hadn't otherwise planned to do. That smacks of good old-fashioned magic, in which people believed that by using the right rituals they could compel the gods to act in a certain way. We believe that we have free will; would it be beyond the pale to believe that God also has free will?

For the most part, I believe that God works in human hearts without coercion; not everything attributed to God is really God's behavior, but at the same time, God may act in our lives without our immediate awareness of it.
Robert Cornwall said…
Dennis,

I like what you posted, as I think it's where I'm at. I do agree that whatever we find in scripture or in theology about the afterlife is speculative. It's there, but it's not the focus.

I'm more and more convinced that God works within us by persuasion -- God acts in ways we can't explain -- but there is always freedom to choose. Thanks for posting and please return and comment!

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