What
Stage Do You Play?
September, 1996
My
third-grade granddaughter has a dramatic side.
She lives in the real world more nowadays, but when she was small she
always had a play going, usually playing the starring role herself. Her stage was wherever she happened to
be. Grandma would say, "I don't
want to play now, Honey, I have to do my school work."
"That's
all right, Grandma," she would say.
"You can just be the Grandma working at her table."
It would
infuriate her smaller brother.
"I'm not playing!" he would insist. It never fazed her. She
would go on with her play, calling him, "Husband," or whatever,
depending on the role in which she had cast him. If he changed what he was doing, she would simply recast him and
continue with her play. She was very
good at it. Sometimes her usually
gentle brother would fly into a rage.
The play would often end with a quarrel and tears.
Such things
are usual and expected in small children, though perhaps not to that
extreme. If it continues until
adulthood, such people may need institutions.
There was
nothing wrong with her play. It was
well thought out and provided her immense satisfaction. The trouble was the stage. It didn't fit the play, and required nimble
work on her part.
To quote a
former U.S. President, "Facts are stubborn things." My granddaughter was living in a dream world
and her brother (the Fact) resented being misinterpreted to fit the dream, and
refused to conform. He had his own life
to live, his own story to tell, and refused to be twisted into hers.
Does this
little tale of children say anything about theology? I think it does.
The Bible
says that the world was created by God.
The very heavens declare His glory, and even the ants and the birds of
the air teach wisdom. The world is the
stage, and it was created by God for His own Drama. God's Drama is about redemption, faith, and glory. It stars Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and
is the only drama that fits the stage.
The problem
is ours. We try to make the reality fit
our own play. We refuse to accept the
truth that the stage belongs to God, for the Earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof (Ps. 24:1; 1Cor. 10:26).
Theology is very often guilty here.
When theology loses touch with the stage (the world of God's creation),
it loses touch with reality and become irrelevant. [The word "Dunce" is derived from the Schoolman,
philosopher/theolgian Duns Scotus.]
Good
philosophy--and good theology--does not try to twist the facts or ignore the
facts. When either does, it loses touch
with reality and becomes irrelevant.
Communism refused to accept the fact that men are selfish and seek their
own way. "Every way of man is
right in his own eyes," is the way the wise man put it (Prov. 21:2). They ignored this stubborn fact, and their
play came crashing down on their imaginary stage. If you do not play on God's stage, then your play will end in tears
and tragedy.
"Look
at my hands," Jesus told Thomas.
"Believe the miracles," He told the Pharisees. "Christ is risen!" the Apostles
told the world: "Deal with
it. Adjust your philosophy about the
evil of matter and the Otherness of God to deal with the fact of the
Resurrection." "They have
received the Holy Spirit even as we
have," Peter told the Jews, forcing them to deal with the fact of the
Gentiles being brought into the church.
Neither Christ nor the Apostles would have dreamed of ignoring
Scripture, but they lived in the real world of factuality.
Cornelius
Van Til said it clearly. "A brute
fact is a mute fact," but there
are no brute facts because the facts speak clearly, according to Romans 1. Facts are no more silent than my grandson
was when his sister tried to put him in her play.
The reality
is clear to those whose eyes can see:
there are no brute facts, no facts that have no story to tell. This does not mean that every fact,
independently, tells the story of creation and redemption, but every fact has
its part to play in the drama. To be
known, facts have to be seen in the context of other facts, and the context as
well as the facts are created by God to tell His story.
For modern
science to ignore the basic facts of history--the ancient Biblical records of
creation, the fall, the flood, Abraham, Sinai, and the life and miracles of
Jesus Christ--is to fly in the face of reason and to become more and more
irrelevant. As science becomes more and
more irrelevant it will waste more and more precious resources on such things
as the search for the origin of the universe, beings from outer space, proving
that men and women are the same, and legitimatizing the wickedness of things
like abortion, incest, and sodomy. The
line between science and sorcery will become rubbed out. Science will have lost common sense.
God's facts
are much more stubborn than even a little boy who does not wish to be in his
sister's play.
-------------
Pastor C. W. Powell
Trinity Covenant RCUS
Colorado Springs, CO.