SINGULARITY: The Gospel of John & The Mind of God

SINGULARITY: The Gospel of John & The Mind of God

By Deborah (Debo) Dykes

Scientists call the initial instant of creation, Singularity.  The entire present universe that is, was contained in that singular, unimaginable, brilliant flash.  Theoretically, we can take a snap shot of the first billionth of a second when matter particles and anti-matter particles destroyed each other in a brilliant flash.

For most progressive Christians, whatever else science will teach us, John, the Evangelist, claims in his Gospel that “in the beginning” in those initial instants, wisdom was active; intelligence was at work.  The mind of God was ordering all things. 

Progressive Christians consider the John tradition to have taken great interest in what was present when the world began. The John tradition makes the startling claim that no thing was created outside of the intelligence and the wisdom of the one who formed it.

The eminent biblical scholar, Gerhard Von Rad, has said that one very good way to understand what God meant when God told Moses that God’s name was “I am that I am” can be translated as “I who cause to be” or, “I am the one who makes everything.”

Just as the Bible can be said to be the weaving together of a tapestry of revelations and traditions, progressive Christians can do some weaving of Biblical text and scientific text today, by looking at the first chapter of John’s Gospel.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” For the first century Jew, aware of Hellenistic Greek, “Word” would remind her or him of the ancient wisdom that was with God from the beginning.  There is an interesting shift here, because in Hebrew, the word “wisdom” occurs in the feminine. The Greek translation of the word, “wisdom” is “Sophia.” Perhaps, the intention of the authors of the Gospel of John was to see Jesus as this “word;” as this “wisdom.”  It is considered, for progressive Christians, the eternal side of Jesus.  It seems as if it is the author’s, or authors’, way of somehow connecting Jesus with part of the original creation story.  This does not necessarily mean that Jesus was in the mind of God from the beginning.  There is no way for us to know what was on God’s mind. 

However, some choose to accept through the writers of the Gospel of John that it is through Jesus, God became present and lived among us, as one of us, human in every way.  For some it is through Jesus that God was in ultimate relationship with humanity.  For many progressive Christians, it is through Jesus’ raising awareness among people of the 1^st century of Rome’s domination system and oppression of the people that invited God’s presence and a relationship with humanity.

‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  John 1:14. Dominic Crossan, widely regarded as a leading authority on the words and life of Jesus of Nazareth, says that if you want to see the face of God living on the planet, you might look at Jesus.  Jesus was full of everything of God.  In the first century, if you want to venerate the relationship between God and God’s people, what more lovely and graceful picture could you think of or choose than the one of “an only son.” 

Imagine for a moment, a king, a king full of grace and truth.  And imagine, just for a moment, the king’s court, where there is a lot going on.  Suddenly you see that the king is distracted; and, when you look at the source of this distraction, you see the King’s “only son,” in whom the king takes great pleasure, has entered the room.  Of course today, and for progressive Christians, one could easily substitute the King for the Queen, and her “only daughter.”

Consider, here, instead of making the area of focus, literally, that of “a father’s or mother’s only child,” you could focus on how God FEELS about the child.  Thus, the image is shifted to the RELATIONSHIP between the creator God and this human being, this child, this daughter or son, in whom we see and experience, the fullness of God’s grace and truth.  In Jesus is seen the true nature of the relationship between God the Father, God the Mother, and God the child.  And, we understand in that way, that grace follows upon grace, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  It had to come in the form of concrete knowledge – it had to become incarnate.

So how do we form a relationship with God through the incarnate being of Jesus of Nazareth?  Prayer is one method used to develop such a relationship.  Now, on a personal note, I must have been 5, or maybe 6 years old.  On Sunday mornings, during the Eucharist, I would stand on the kneeler next to my Dad as he knelt. (My mother played the organ.) I would watch him – his head bowed, his hands folded over the pew in front of him, his eyes closed.  Then I would lean towards his ear and whisper, “Is it almost over?”  Keeping his posture of eyes closed and head bowed, he would simply put his arm around me, not saying a word.  I wondered what he was doing.  Holding on to the pew in front of me, I would lean around in front of Dad, trying to see what he was doing!  Then, I would squat down and pear up from beneath where Dad’s arms and hands were folded over the pew, peering from a dimly lit space between the dark wood floors and dark pine pews, I wondered what could he possibly be doing!  Why was Dad so quiet and still?  And yet, he knew I was there, next to him, wiggling and peaking and wondering.  “Is he praying?  Is this how we pray?  And, why is Dad praying?

Within that singular instant of creation had God created human beings with the capacity for relationship with Godself?  And, is the relationship through prayer?  As a progressive Christian, I have discovered many methods of experiencing and expressing prayer in which I am deeply connected to God.  Relationship with other humans, with all of life, with Godself, is God’s gift that is part of the totality of the human experience.  God – fully present - not to be denied that which God causes - not to be denied the experience of being human – connects, restores, and renews all of life.