Interlude 2
Analogies
Ah ha! I’m beginning to see the problem, for I was just rereading the Jonah text or story. The second the Author enters the narrative, he becomes the “author,” in effect. “God” in the book of Jonah Is in truth neither Yahweh (YHWH) nor the Author; he is the real, unknown author, long dead now, pretending to be all the characters in the story, the way any writer of story does, and thus in truth really none of them. All and none. That must be true as I apprehend it from this narrative perspective.
If the analogy with the theological perspective on God the Father holds up [sooner or later, I understand that all analogies break down, but “analogy” is a helpful way of thinking about truth], then our understanding of the Christian dogma concerning God the Father would be that He is the source of being for all of reality, the entire cosmos and everything in it; He is in some sense Being itself [Exodus 3:13: “I am who I am”]; everything in the universe that is simply has being, as “gift,” one might say.
I vaguely remember Dorothy Sayers writing in her excellent book, The Mind of the Maker, that she wasn’t arguing for the existence of God, only exploring the connection between what happens when a writer creates a story and how Christian dogma defines the Trinity. I should reread that book, since I don’t quite remember what she actually says.
In any case, in Christian theology God the Father becomes a character in his own universe, at a specific time in the history of that universe, our universe, and in a specific place. As God the Father, creator of the entire cosmos, he would know the right time, the right place. A prophet inspired by the creator and sustainer God could predict the advent of such a one, the looked-for Messiah, without understanding at all the specific nature of such a character. That Messiah certainly would not be one to die on a cross; he would more likely be a military leader after the fashion of King David. He would defeat the occupying Romans and set up on Earth a divine kingdom. Surely.
That, however, as we know, is not how the story goes, nor how the theology unfolds, for the central creaturely problem is the relationship between the creator’s creatures and himself. He made them Good; he gave them Free Will; they abused his trust and rebelled against him, as the story in the Garden goes. After that all Hell breaks loose, literally and figuratively. Human history is frequently the story of one bit of nastiness after another. Yada, yada, yada. I think about God the Father’s Anger in the story as his attitude (even as metaphor, where necessary) toward all the nastiness, the Evil, that has been, is, and will be, perpetrated by his creatures who were meant to be good and loving in a beautiful and magnificent universe. Again, like the Anger, the Garden would count as an image to point to that greater reality of a vast and magnificent universe.
[Digression: Astronomy’s Picture of the Day today, October 16, 2022, is that of a beautiful spiral galaxy, NGC 1300, lovely and magnificent. Galileo never got to see what is really out there. We are blessed to have Hubble and now the James Webb Space Telescope!]
Okay. So God the Son is born into the historical context: 6 AD+ or -; Bethlehem of Judea. That’s why the Nicene Creed makes such a point of getting the detail right: “For us men and for our salvation/he came down from heaven,/and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate/of the Virgin Mary,/and became man./For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,/he suffered death and was buried,/and rose again on the third day/in accordance with the Scriptures.”
In other words, the first part of the Creed nails the nature of the Son precisely: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,/the Only Begotten Son of God,/born of the Father before all ages./God from God, Light from Light,/true God from true God,/begotten, not made/consubstancial with the Father;/through him all things were made.” God the Son is God the Father (I.e. the Author) incarnate in his own story.
When I think of putting myself into this story, I could not do it really with any degree of plausibility; it would be silly and superficial, along with various other things. Ahem. However, the Idea is worth thinking about. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is God the Father’s Idea of Himself, so to speak. Christians believe God is perfect; as perfect, God would have a perfect Idea of himself, and would have it from Eternity to Eternity. Essentially that’s what the Creed says about the Son.
I begin to see the problem with analogies. No way in thinking about myself in relation to this story could I even accomplish that. The gap between the creed and my ability to imagine such a thing is immense. “Hello, Philip. I’m the Idea of the character who made you the talking bird that you are!” No character in reality would believe that! Certainly I have an Idea of myself; I am certain we all have such a thing. I was Nick Bottom the weaver in the ninth grade, donkey’s head and all. That image sort of stuck with me. I quit drama class in the tenth grade, I said, in high dudgeon, because I always had to be the Fool, not that that wasn’t appropriate; the real reason I quit was that I was terrified of the stage. So I became a teacher! Go figure. I was always terrified there too, but as an adult, I more or less dealt with the terror of walking in to a classroom. I was almost always well prepared, and I loved to teach. Enough of that. Sorry.
The theological clues in the Creed though are “the only begotten Son” and “begotten not made”; the distinction is crucial, I think. I was “begotten” by my father (and mother), but I was created, “made” by God; all human creatures are made by God; only the Son is begotten. The images that follow in the Creed clarify that distinction for me, especially the “light from light” image. Think of the Sun! There is that burning ball of hydrogen 93 million miles from us and there are the rays that shine out from it, taking eight minutes to get here. Or think of a flashlight: there is the bulb, and there is the beam of light that streams from it. “Light from light”; two things in unity, but one precedes the other. God from God. Analogies! Useful for thinking, if used carefully.
How does the Holy Spirit fit in? I see one interesting possibility, and I may be remembering that from Sayers. The Holy Spirit could be analogous to the “meaning” of the story. We all know stories can be powerful [well, sorry about that in this story; I am trying!]; I think of Dante’s Divine Comedy, for example, or The Scarlet Letter, or King Lear, or The Brothers Karamazov, etc. The story affects the readers powerfully, moves them, changes them. Now as far as analogies go, you will probably be relieved to know that that is as far as I intend to go. Talk about stories changing the reader, I reread the Jonah story and wrote this chapter for it made me think about the author in relation to the story. Henry James does that to me too. Think of the Governess in The Turn of the Screw or the literary critic in The Figure in the Carpet, or the painter in the Real Thing. Well, I did not know when I began chapter 6 today that this essay of sorts would unfold and become another “Interlude.”
I saw instead Godric climbing down the rocky hillside beneath the Dragon Lady’s cave, and with Philip in the air above him, getting back on the narrow road to Ardor and the possibility of the princess. The Idea or Image of the Princess that he carries in his mind is what moves him. I suppose I ought to call this chapter “Interlude 2.” You know, I think I shall. That way readers can skip it should they rather get on with the adventure, for what’s coming next is large and green, but it is not the She-Hulk or her male counterpart, the Incredible Hulk.
Remember, the “Interlude” is the Author talking to the Reader; thus he quickly becomes the author as narrator, though I get as confused about this aspect of story as I was at the beginning of this Interlude. I shall reread this section (well I would anyway) to see if I actually said anything that made sense! So, until we are on the road again, farewell. [When, of course, I shall return as the narrator, or not return at all, in case I die between now and then. If I do happen to die between now and then, please rest assured that Godric wins the Princess, Philip will soon become a real human being, and all the characters will live happily ever after. That’s one possibility anyway. Of course, since I am not God and not far-sighted I am not certain how the story will really turn out. But you are right, it is a Fairytale!]
Well, I reread it carefully and clarified the prose where I saw that it needed clarification. Obviously, I am no theologian (actually, just a very old man interested in thinking about these matters). My thought always goes back to the fundamental philosophical question: why is there something rather than nothing? It behoves us to think about that question, for being itself is a mystery of time and place and identity.
If you would like to see a very good poet dealing with those things, read T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Image: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300 [Just breath-takingly beautiful!]
Image Credit: NASA ESA, Hubble Heritage
Explanation: Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar. And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral. And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole. This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. How the giant bar formed, how it remains, and how it affects star formation remains an active topic of research.
