3. Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time, 79, 81.
4. Thanks to Nicholas Wolterstorff for helpful comments regarding the first and third reason. See Wolterstorff, Reason within the Bounds of Religion, 107–8.
5. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
6. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 212–14.
7. Ibid., 216.
Locating Your Story Within God’s Story
“Once upon a time there was an ant. The ant walked onto the road. The ant got run over by a car. The end.”8
“Ivan Illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society. Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story.”9
I’ve been telling the same story to my kids for years. It always begins with the grand words, “Once upon a time, there were four kids”—I then point to each one—“Austin, Maddy, Travis, and Joshua. They were the Gould kids. One day . . .” And then I launch into my story. The basic structure is composed of four parts. In act 1, the kids are on some adventure—riding horses, exploring a cave, swimming under a waterfall, traveling through a spacetime hole into a parallel universe or hiking in another world (favorites include Narnia, Middle Earth and Perelandra). But then, Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys sneak up on our kids (I don’t know where or how I thought up the name of the bad guys; my apologies to the real Billy Bob Thornton) and try to capture them.
For years now, Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys have been after my kids. A chase ensues (let’s call this part of the story act 2). Then a fight. But always, the Gould kids prevail against the scoundrels. In almost all of my stories, my kids have a few super hero-like powers—they ride horses like the wind, they shoot special cables from their arms (or cable guns) or swing up among the trees like Tarzan. They are expert fighters and always smarter than their opponents. The story at this point often involves things like mud bombs, slimy maple syrup, and the eventual tying up of Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys. Call the flight and fight scenes act 3.
The final act, act 4, involves Billy Bob Thorton and the Bad Guys being dragged to the police station and put in jail. Usually there is a discovery of some great treasure (Revolutionary War guns stashed in a chest behind a waterfall, gold in another world, an ancient relic of some kind) and, on a few fortunate occasions, the parents (Ethel and I) arrive on the family jet (of course) and see the kids’ handiwork.
This is the basic structure of the story I have been telling our kids for years. They love to hear Billy Bob stories. Whenever we visit a new place or meet some new friends, I’ll work the scene or people into the story. It doesn’t matter where we are—sitting around a campfire on a beautiful summer night or snuggling in bed on a lazy Saturday morning—the kids are always up for a Billy Bob story. Our kids love stories. Even more, they love to be part of the story—the heroes, the good guys, the main actors—in a world of drama, intrigue, real violence, and real hope where the good guys always win (my kids!) and the bad guys always lose.
Have you ever wondered why we are so drawn to stories? Not just kids, but young and old alike? One reason is that stories invite participation. We are created for drama. I believe God made us to live a dramatic—a significant and storied—life. This is why we are drawn to story. Stories pull us out of ourselves and into a larger universe—stretching our imagination and awakening within us a desire for greatness.
Another reason we are drawn to stories is that they reveal. Stories help us get to know each other. They reveal something about the storyteller. Think about it: when two people go on a first date, they don’t pull out a list of facts (or CV’s) and begin to share them with each other, do they? No, they tell stories to get to know each other. Stories reveal things to us and about us in a way that nothing else can.10
Stories are important. I suggest that we think about the Bible as a story as well. The greatest story ever told. In fact, it is the story, the one true story about the world. And like any good story, it invites us to participation and it reveals. The Bible invites us to locate our lives and find meaning and purpose within its over-arching story. And the Bible reveals a loving, powerful, good God and a God-bathed world.
Act 1 in the biblical story begins with God and his creative activity. He creates a habitat and then he inhabits the habitat with creatures small and great including one being—man—created in the image of God himself. Act 2 is the fall of man. Man tries to live life apart from God and the results are truly catastrophic. In acts 3 and 4 we learn of God’s rescue mission to redeem and restore all of creation. This is the great story of God: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
But the biblical story isn’t the only story competing for your allegiance and inviting your participation. There are also the dominant stories of Western culture, what the philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls perennial naturalism and creative anti-realism.11 Perennial naturalism is the grand story of the scientific worldview. In this story, there is no non-natural reality, the fundamental problem in life is one of ignorance, and the way to “salvation,” usually understood as mastery over nature, is through progress, a progress made possible by means of technology and science.12 All of reality can be understood, and will one day be unified, through science (M-theory, according to the latest suggestion), and our lives (even though determined) need to somehow be made meaningful in a cold, purposeless universe. Creative anti-realism is just the story of postmodernism (at its most extreme). In this story, man’s fundamental problem is oppression, and “salvation” is found in self-expression. There is no one over-arching story that explains and unifies all of reality; instead there are little “stories” or “narratives” that give meaning to various individuals or groups of individuals.13
So, there is a three-way battle between Christian monotheism, naturalism, and postmodernism. Each story competes for our allegiance. Each story invites participation. Each story invites us to locate our lives and find meaning within its purview. It’s easy, if we are not careful, to confess allegiance to the biblical story all the while participating in the naturalistic or postmodern story. Faithfulness to Christ in this day and age requires wisdom, a vision for wholeness, and an understanding of the great story of God so that our lives can be integrated and find meaning within it. In this chapter we’ll explore in greater depth the biblical story and draw out some implications for Christian scholars and Christian scholarship in light of this great story of God.
Creation: The God Who Is There and Acts
Recall that the first scene in the biblical story is creation. The biblical drama begins with five important words that shape all that follows: “In the beginning God created” (Gen 1:1). The first thing God does is create a place: “the heavens and the earth.” But God didn’t stop there. Next he creates a people: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27).14 And finally, God gave his people a purpose: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase