Inside of Nothing

To say that the earth was "without form, and void" is to say that the earth did not exist.  In the beginning the earth existing was--to our understanding--the same as the earth not existing.  The waters, whether considered as a sphere-like conglomeration, or as an unaccountably-suspended stratum in some "flat-earth" conceit, was hovered over by a divine presence--this presence being an unimaginable buffer in some unimaginable way between the existence of "the earth" and the non-existence of "the earth."

"Nothing" as a concept--the "formless void"--is the default premise of the Creation narrative, and indeed nothing is more important for us to remember when we talk about the existence we experience.  The mere idea of God creating trackless expanses is, of course, an important idea, and we can entertain notions such as the idea that the universe trails off into empty quarters that, while understandable still as space existing in time, might as well be called "nothing."  Or we can imagine that our universe curls in upon itself and that such self-limiting traits define not an in-universe versus out-universe boundary, but rather the distinction between the something of the universe and plain "nothing."

In short, it is no more warranted to say that God created the universe out of nothing than it is to say that God created the universe inside of nothing.  The "out of nothing" concept is the more expansive of the two, calling forth acclamations of God's great power, we being dwarfed by the awesome edifices of Creation's dimensions and frontiers.  This is the human looking outward at the majesty of that which exists, the person looking at his or her tremorous, fumbling fingers and imagining God's mighty hand kneading and molding the granite mountains and the cavernous valleys.  It is only with a startlement--as though arrested by an invisible hand tugging at an invisible cord--that we are confronted by the gentle figure of Jesus telling us that--were we to possess an quantum of faith immeasurably small--we might ourselves toss the heights around as playthings.

This leads then to the notion of the teachings of Jesus seen in a universe created "inside of nothing."  What is most important about the "inside of nothing" conception is found in the fact that the bounded and internally-referencing vision called forth thereby is consonant with the logic of Jesus' assertions about the kingdom of God.  The true majesty of Creation is not in the sweep of its dimensions or in the grandeur of its parts, but in the ubiquity of the ministrations of its infinitely greater Master.  A universe created "inside of nothing" is a universe sustained not so much by the God who created "timeless" mountains that are not timeless, but rather by a Creator-God whose directives and whose minions serve ever to maintain the something against the ever-encroaching nothing.

In the "out of nothing" conception, a lonely planet of lonely people hurtles through an expanse that--no matter how much we say that God is "everywhere"--is an expanse evoked by imagery of longing and searching for that which must be found, and that which must be found is conceivable by us in its lack as a "something" of unsurpassed rarity.  When we think of our universe and therefore of ourselves as arising "out of nothing," then the indescribable experience of awakened consciousness is conceived by us as a prelude to a soul-life-or-death quest for something that must be found "out there"--even if that alien "out there" realm is one of internally-contemplated spirituality.  And then Jesus comes along and speaks of an all-necessary kingdom that must be found by us, though his references to an essential way to be traveled come without direction to that way, and his references to an essential gate to be entered are similarly lacking in guidance to that gate.

Yet Jesus speaks of the necessity of returning to that which must be found--and "returning" hangs on the potential that one knows the way.  Return we must to the consciousness-derivation that came upon us first as does the mystery of the source of the wind, and return we must to the first unpresumptuous awakening of the newborn.  All that was beyond our experience of our first moment was nothing, and then all beyond our first experience of touch might as well have been nothing, and then progressively did our consciousness "awaken"--and indeed what a horrid progression of our too-young-battered souls--to the world "outside."  In a newborn's moment too small to capture, too early remember, we are torn from a universe created inside of nothing--where God's all-present ministrations are without limit and press back in their effulgence upon the empty dark of non-existence--and we are cast into a universe created out of nothing--where creatures are scattered across crumbling terrains of despair in which the darkness of non-existence would be a blessing.

We are at first aware, and only then can we experience distances and differences in our world--the unfamiliar substrate upon which we first move away from this or that--and it is our lot that our movements will go always awry.  As for the prescription--there are no answers in the world created out of nothing, and there are no steps in our journey through the world created out of nothing.  Jesus invites us into a world created inside of nothing, where all coheres against the encroaching, enveloping annihilation--where as a necessity of that world's architecture, all questions asked in anticipation are answered, and all steps taken in faith are well-ordered.