Many Christians believe that order is the primary purpose of God's Creation. This line of thinking posits that God's ex nihilo creativity is a little more than a grand exercise in "ordering". From nothing, God created order. Whether this nothing was actually nothing in the literal sense of the word or a gaping void or chasm in the chaos sense is debatable and largely a matter of assumptions. All the same, most Christians consider order to be the ultimate goal of Creation.
Within this conceptualization, order ranks among the highest "goods". Thus, God is order and whatever is against God is chaos and disorder. Those "with" God work to maintain order, while those who oppose God work against all semblances of order. Thus, man's role in Creation is to yield to God's "order". More specifically, to obey God and capitulate to His will, which entails man "knowing his place" and respecting and perpetuating God's order via total submission to God.
This line of thinking is not intrinsically "wrong", but I believe it can be severely limiting when misconceived and misconstrued, especially when set against the development of human consciousness. For example, what does yielding to God's "order" and submitting to God mean? Moreover, is this the end purpose of God's Creation?
If order was God's ultimate purpose for Creation, then He could have surely created perfect order, and He could have maintained it eternally. If we follow the biblical account, He did just that, but Satan and then later man under Satan's influence rebelled against God's order. Since then, God continues to sustain some sense of order while at the same time "permitting" various degrees of disorder, apparently with the hope that man will recognize "his place" and submit to the Divine Order once again, if not in mortal life, then in life everlasting. Either way, man is doomed to experience nothing but chaos and disorder unless he "bends the knee" to God's order -- in both the "structural" and the "command" sense of the term.
Or something like that.
The problem with these sorts of conceptualizations is they leave little room for deeply positive, meaningful definitions of realities like freedom, love, and creativity.
Imagine the ex nihilo from which God created as primordial chaos rather than nothing. Imagine this primordial chaos as the home of eternal beings existing in a state that could be described as "purposeless freedom".
The beings within this primordial chaos are fundamentally free but lack the "environment" and "conditions" to utilize this fundamental freedom for anything purposeful. They cannot create; they cannot form relationships with other beings; they face no challenges; encounter little in the form of stimulus. They are like people stuck in rubber dinghies in the middle of an endless ocean -- as free as can be but with little to do other than gaze up at the sky.
Through Creation, God provides the environment and the conditions for purposeful freedom. The beings God "creates" into Creation have the opportunity to "purpose" their primordial freedom. Instead of being stuck in a dinghy in the middle of an endless ocean, "created" beings within Creation exist in a complex network of connections and relationships with other beings, each capable of exercising their fundamental freedom within the boundaries of Creation.
While in Creation, beings have the opportunity to "aim" their freedom. Despite the limits of physical necessity, beings can harness their innate freedom for spiritual aims. Simply put, they can "purpose" their freedom.
The quality of these aims and goals depends on the quality of the beings. Those of lower spiritual quality aim for exclusively material aims and goals. Those of even lower spiritual quality aim to relinquish freedom altogether. Others use their freedom to intentionally oppose God. Those of higher spiritual quality will "purpose" their freedom for God.
The highest and best way to purpose freedom in Creation is not through submission to order but through creativity. God did not create Creation solely to have beings yield to its order but to present opportunities for beings to add to the order and expand it creatively.
Within this design framework, order does not take precedence over creativity; creativity takes precedence over order. God's Creation makes purposeful freedom possible but leaves the motivations behind the purposeful freedom in the hands of the beings themselves. Put another way, beings are more or less "free" to do what they like with their freedom within the parameters of the world and mortal life, but the highest "expression" of purposeful freedom remains the choice to be "free with God".
How beings choose to "purpose" their freedom comprises the bulk of spiritual learning in this world and mortal life. God ultimately desires that His "created" beings choose to be "free with Him". Expressed differently, that His "created" beings will actively align their freedom to be in harmony with His and choose Heaven where this purposeful freedom -- as creativity -- may continue unhindered by the pressures and limitations of entropy, death, and sin.
But not all beings purpose their freedom toward God. Not all want to be "free with God". Some prefer to be free without God. For most, purposeful freedom is a burden, and they unconsciously long for a return to the primordial chaos of purposeless freedom. For others, the idea of purposeful freedom is an abomination, and they long to completely "disorder" and destroy God's Creation, thereby negating the potential for purposeful freedom and creativity altogether.
The "order" in God's Creation is significant because it makes choosing purposeful freedom "with" God and creativity possible, but it is not -- in and of itself -- the end goal of Creation.
At least not as far as I understand it . . .
Within this conceptualization, order ranks among the highest "goods". Thus, God is order and whatever is against God is chaos and disorder. Those "with" God work to maintain order, while those who oppose God work against all semblances of order. Thus, man's role in Creation is to yield to God's "order". More specifically, to obey God and capitulate to His will, which entails man "knowing his place" and respecting and perpetuating God's order via total submission to God.
This line of thinking is not intrinsically "wrong", but I believe it can be severely limiting when misconceived and misconstrued, especially when set against the development of human consciousness. For example, what does yielding to God's "order" and submitting to God mean? Moreover, is this the end purpose of God's Creation?
If order was God's ultimate purpose for Creation, then He could have surely created perfect order, and He could have maintained it eternally. If we follow the biblical account, He did just that, but Satan and then later man under Satan's influence rebelled against God's order. Since then, God continues to sustain some sense of order while at the same time "permitting" various degrees of disorder, apparently with the hope that man will recognize "his place" and submit to the Divine Order once again, if not in mortal life, then in life everlasting. Either way, man is doomed to experience nothing but chaos and disorder unless he "bends the knee" to God's order -- in both the "structural" and the "command" sense of the term.
Or something like that.
The problem with these sorts of conceptualizations is they leave little room for deeply positive, meaningful definitions of realities like freedom, love, and creativity.
Imagine the ex nihilo from which God created as primordial chaos rather than nothing. Imagine this primordial chaos as the home of eternal beings existing in a state that could be described as "purposeless freedom".
The beings within this primordial chaos are fundamentally free but lack the "environment" and "conditions" to utilize this fundamental freedom for anything purposeful. They cannot create; they cannot form relationships with other beings; they face no challenges; encounter little in the form of stimulus. They are like people stuck in rubber dinghies in the middle of an endless ocean -- as free as can be but with little to do other than gaze up at the sky.
Through Creation, God provides the environment and the conditions for purposeful freedom. The beings God "creates" into Creation have the opportunity to "purpose" their primordial freedom. Instead of being stuck in a dinghy in the middle of an endless ocean, "created" beings within Creation exist in a complex network of connections and relationships with other beings, each capable of exercising their fundamental freedom within the boundaries of Creation.
While in Creation, beings have the opportunity to "aim" their freedom. Despite the limits of physical necessity, beings can harness their innate freedom for spiritual aims. Simply put, they can "purpose" their freedom.
The quality of these aims and goals depends on the quality of the beings. Those of lower spiritual quality aim for exclusively material aims and goals. Those of even lower spiritual quality aim to relinquish freedom altogether. Others use their freedom to intentionally oppose God. Those of higher spiritual quality will "purpose" their freedom for God.
The highest and best way to purpose freedom in Creation is not through submission to order but through creativity. God did not create Creation solely to have beings yield to its order but to present opportunities for beings to add to the order and expand it creatively.
Within this design framework, order does not take precedence over creativity; creativity takes precedence over order. God's Creation makes purposeful freedom possible but leaves the motivations behind the purposeful freedom in the hands of the beings themselves. Put another way, beings are more or less "free" to do what they like with their freedom within the parameters of the world and mortal life, but the highest "expression" of purposeful freedom remains the choice to be "free with God".
How beings choose to "purpose" their freedom comprises the bulk of spiritual learning in this world and mortal life. God ultimately desires that His "created" beings choose to be "free with Him". Expressed differently, that His "created" beings will actively align their freedom to be in harmony with His and choose Heaven where this purposeful freedom -- as creativity -- may continue unhindered by the pressures and limitations of entropy, death, and sin.
But not all beings purpose their freedom toward God. Not all want to be "free with God". Some prefer to be free without God. For most, purposeful freedom is a burden, and they unconsciously long for a return to the primordial chaos of purposeless freedom. For others, the idea of purposeful freedom is an abomination, and they long to completely "disorder" and destroy God's Creation, thereby negating the potential for purposeful freedom and creativity altogether.
The "order" in God's Creation is significant because it makes choosing purposeful freedom "with" God and creativity possible, but it is not -- in and of itself -- the end goal of Creation.
At least not as far as I understand it . . .
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