Rough-Cut
“In the end God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 modified
End – Well, of course, it doesn’t read this way. Everyone knows that Genesis 1:1 is about the beginning, not the end. But maybe we need to think of it differently. God always starts what He finishes, and in this case, He has to start somewhere, so it might as well have been “in the beginning.” But that’s not the end. It just implies an end. The Bible doesn’t lay down an unchangeable divine track of immovable spiritual rails that take everything to an inevitable destiny. The Bible is a story about part of the plot, volume one perhaps of many volumes to come, as yet to be determined. Fretheim puts it like this:
What is envisaged is a world that changes in such a way as to make the creation look quite different than it did on the seventh day. God’s creation is a living, moving, dynamic reality. For the creation to stay exactly as God originally created it would be a failure of the divine design.[1]
Fretheim’s insight explains such verses as this rather infamous one: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36). Could it be that the day and hour isn’t set? Want to know when the Messiah will return? Answer: It depends.
In fact, if the day and hour are set from the beginning, then creation is not a living, moving dynamic and we are all merely pawns in a grand divine play. Our actions really make no difference because the end was fixed from the beginning. God’s plan is already finished (in His mind) and we are just walking through the paces until it ends. Like that great scene from the movie, The Adjustment Bureau. Unfortunately, several critical dogmas contribute to this “fixed” plan idea. Immutability, perfection, eternity, omniscience, transcendence; to name a few. But at least it’s comforting—I mean, to know that what you do doesn’t really affect anything. God has it all in the plan, right? Isn’t it comforting to know that all those difficult choices, all those sins, all those evil disasters, all that death and destruction—well, it was all in the plan. So, don’t worry. Be happy. Just wait for the end.
The other view is a lot more terrifying. What you do really does change the direction of the universe. Your sins hurt God. They frustrate, perhaps even change, His plans. Things are a lot more risky than you imagined. You are responsible because the end isn’t cast in stone. In fact, it isn’t cast at all. Since the beginning, the end has been in flux, shifting, developing, becoming—just as all the rest of the creation is becoming. We live in the rough-cut world. Polishing takes a very long time.
So what do you want? Emotional security in a world where you’re just a puppet on divine strings or risk so great you carry the world on your choices. Or neither. Maybe there’s another answer. We’ll see.
Topical Index: end, beginning, Genesis 1:1, Matthew 24:36
[1] Terrence Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation, p. 125.
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