God the Author

By Andrew R. Duckworth

God never made sense to me until I started viewing God in the light of authorship. For many, it will make no sense at all. For many, it might make perfect sense. I’m reminded of those opening lines of Genesis, a book that many take far too literally but some take not quite literally enough.

Presuming God is indeed all powerful, God could have chosen any means by which to create. Yet, in Genesis, we see God speaking things into existence. Light doesn’t just appear, God says “Let there be light,” and so light appears. Other following acts of creation occur in this manner. It is through words that God creates.

Perhaps we can get a bit too caught up in the literal from time to time. Do I imagine that God spoke from his mouth and pushed air from his lungs? This would presume that I believe God is a being within this realm of existence, which would be a heresy. God creates this realm of existence (existence in its entirety as we understand it which is difficult to wrap one’s head around). But I do think there is a reason for God being described as speaking things into existence. I think it is entirely linked to the grand story that is about to play out from those very passages in Genesis to the final lines of the Apocalypse of John (Revelation to St. John). It is a story that we are a part of, whether we would like to be included or not.

And then I think about the manner in which we communicate- speaking. Our first arts were most likely story-telling of some kind, apart from the occasional cave painting. Through the art of story-telling, we could create ourselves, though not in the grand scope that God can.

I also often think about what directs our life. I occasionally wonder what wakes me each day, alarm clock excluded. Perhaps it is the story unfolding as God set forth in the beginning. Perhaps we all have our own section of this story, interweaving, forming some grand tapestry.

This brings me to one of the key components of story – conflict. In stories, three things are needed for the elements to function: character – the thing doing the action, setting – a space and time in which the character acts things out, and conflict without which the character has no drive to act. Some narrow this down to character and plot. The age-old question is “which is more important- character or plot?” It’s a nonsense question, by the way, but one that has little consequence in what I’m discussing.

Conflict drives the character to act, or drives the plot. Without it, everything is motionless. I’ve often heard people say things like “conflict increases character.” While I think this phrase gets used often too much in times of great hardship when simple understanding can go a long way, there’s a lot of truth to this statement. In fact, it is true. Who can say that they haven’t learned anything from conflict? I suppose an overly simplified, perhaps too simplified, way of putting it would be “who hasn’t learned from their mistakes?” But we all know that not all conflict is born of a mistake we personally have made. In fact, the worst conflicts are commonly not a mistake of any one individual, but a collective, or perhaps from nature. Who is to blame for a lightning bolt hitting a tree and beginning a wildfire?

Still yet, there is a lot to be said about conflict. It can force one to become better or draw out the worst in people. But our reaction to conflict is entirely our choice. God does not force our hand. I’ve seen the ugliest of humanity from conflict. I’ve also seen people come together in a way that might not have been possible otherwise.

So, what does this mean concerning God and God as an author of all existence? God speaks existence. This begins a story of the world leading to the story of humanity. Humanity is originally in a state of paradise. Everything is perfect… until it isn’t. Conflict comes for the first two human characters and, predictably, they don’t respond to it well. In a way, their response led to us- me writing, you reading. Granted, I typically do not read the narrative of Adam and Eve as literal, but rather a method of explaining origins. I feel that only when we understand this can we grasp this relationship of character, setting, and conflict. Perfect characters, perfect place, an injection of conflict. One can stop reading there and assume that a perfect story has just been upended by conflict, but this is far from true. The conflict doesn’t end there, it only begins.

Further along, we run into the character of Job – what many scholars would consider the oldest narrative of the Bible. Job is a character who, although has remained committed to God, comes under heavy conflict. Of course, we also have the conversation between God and Satan, the one in which God admits he will allow conflict to come upon Job. In turn, Job experiences the sort of conflict that would wreck any individual. It is usually here where one might be justified in thinking, “what sort of a monster is this God?” But this completely overlooks a key element of the narrative- the fact that God understands what will come of the suffering. Some seem to think that Job finally breaks. In some ways, I suppose he does. But Job does not break his devotion to God. Even in the darkest moments, towards the end, when Job questions everything, he is still in conversation with the God to which he is devoted. He questions God, something I think most are accustomed to doing for much less than what Job endures. Yet, in the end, Job is blessed with a return to fortune and family. He never broke his ties to his creator, even when many might suggest he would have been perfectly justified in doing so. In return, God gives back.

This overly simplistic analysis of Job is but a small demonstration of conflict in the grand story God sets into motion. There’s plenty more conflict to be found throughout the entire biblical narrative and in individual books of the Bible. For instance, could we say that the promised land would have ever existed without conflict? It seems that conflict once again is the driver, driving captives in Egypt to fight back against brutish authority, wander the desert, eventually come upon the promised land, which the main character of the particular narrative never sees.

Our lives are marked with success and tragedy. Our agency allows us to determine how we respond to tragedy. It can either break us or build us. Seeing God as an author allows me the understanding that, even in the harshest moments, God has crafted this narrative. We are the characters blessed enough with choice.

Granted, this realization does not make conflict any easier. In fact, just this realization does not fundamentally address a problem of why God could not have created a more ideal world for us – to poorly summarize the Voltaire v. Leibniz argument. But, we have at least one explanation to this problem: God’s granting of free will, which allows for choice, ensure that it could not be another way. While that reality might “suck,” for lack of a better word, it really is the best explanation. It sucks that we might be driving and someone else makes the choice to run a red light. Of course, this does not at all address character vs. nature conflict. This is when the idea of authorship comes back into play.

This is when, particularly if you are mostly in favor of a naturalistic argument of existence, I will likely lose you. God, being perfect, would understand the character’s needs. As a writer myself, I have to constantly question what my character might need to develop, whether I am dealing with a hero or a villain. Thankfully, God allows us a choice in either hero or villain. To steer a character in a particular direction, there have to be episodes of conflict, great or small. We don’t learn to walk by running. It’s, rather, episodes of trial and error.

This having all been said, to say that anyone has a full grasp of how God operates would be a grievous error. We are minds with limits. God has none. But by viewing God as an author and knowing the elements of story, we can come to some understanding of the “why” concerning conflict.

In summary, as much as we would love a conflict-free world, conflict is necessary. It may not satisfy our questions of why natural disasters take shape, or why disease plagues our world. It is only my very unique way of approaching God and reconciling the divine and conflict. We all approach spirituality, God, and scripture in our own unique way, as we are all blessed with individual minds. This is simply the way that has best made sense to me, and perhaps it might help another come to understand God and scripture and the various conflicts we go through.