Wrestling with the Metanarrative

Each morning approximately 7.7 billion people on planet Earth awake to another day. Some will die through natural causes, suicide, disease, murder, accidents, or war. Others will be born into poverty or privilege or middle-class conditions. Some will live in relative peace and others will endure horrific hardships. And many will go to work or school while others will work at home. This is the pedestrian existence we call life.

As far as we know, all life in the universe exists on planet Earth and the most advanced life forms are humans. Life’s daily activities seem mundane—eating, sleeping, playing, and working. All work has three basic functions—get work, do work, and keep score. All humans are born through the same birth process and have similar life spans, typically no more than one hundred years.

Notwithstanding the commonalities, there are many differences. For example, in the workplace there are organizations with different value propositions, different employees, and different jobs. There are differences in schools, homes, families, cultures, ethnic groups, languages, geographical locations, and so on. There are even specific individual differences such as facial features, fingerprints, handwriting, retinal features, and DNA. Some of these distinctions singular enough to be used for personal identification. And each person has an exclusive combination of personality, aptitudes, life experiences, opportunities, relationships, education, family of origin, date of birth, and date of death.

But, amidst the commonalities and uniqueness of life, is there a unifying reality or is life simply random?

Atheists contend for randomness and assert that a truly random universe would have no biases. For example, both matter and antimatter are believed to exist, but they cannot coexist. Furthermore, since a totally random universe cannot have biases, the universe should not exist. In whatever way the physical universe came into existence, matter and antimatter should have canceled each other out, but physical reality seems to exist. If this is true, the universe must have a bias toward either matter or antimatter, but the atheist worldview provides no explanation.

What or who is responsible for this bias in the phyisical universe? Could this be evidence for a Creator? And if so, could this Creator be the basis of a unifying reality for all of life?

The Christian worldview assumes the existence of a transcendent Creator who is the unifier of all reality. Furthermore, he is the sovereign governor of his creation and is executing a metanarrative—an overarching story of history. In this context, each human is uniquely created to fulfill a role in God’s metanarrative.

Given the Bible as the most profound revelation of the Creator, Scripture presents Christ as the central protagonist in the metanarrative. Furthermore, given a sovereign, intentional, and strategic Creator, there can never truly be anything random. For example, flipping a coin appears random to humans, but Scripture reveals that God’s view is different. To a sovereign Creator, nothing is random. Consider the words of Solomon on this point:

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. (Proverbs 16:33 ESV )

The Christian worldview maintains that the metanarrative is inclusive and comprehensive of all reality. It is sovereignly controlled and revealed. The story began with creation and will end with recreation. The reason for the recreation is the entrance of sin after creation. The metanarrative is the divine story of redemption from sin, based on Christ, as preparation for recreation.

According to some estimates, the number of people alive today is about 7 percent of the people who have ever lived.¹ The Bible specifically mentions approximately thirty-two hundred different people.² This represents an infinitesimally small number of the total who have lived up until now.³

Some make a distinction between the people explicitly mentioned in the Bible and those not mentioned. The former are part of the primary metanarrative and the latter are part of the secondary metanarrative. The primary metanarrative is the story of Christ’s redemption of fallen mankind. Those in the secondary metanarrative are the supporting cast in the great play of history.

For the 99.999997 percent of humanity that is part of the secondary metanarrative, the challenge is to recognize that the metanarrative is the unifier of all reality. The Christian worldview maintains that human beings are not free agents doing whatever they wish. Rather, each human is created by God to serve his purpose in his metanarrative.

For example, Pharaoh, the pagan king of Egypt, at the time of the exodus of the Israelites.⁴ Scripture reveals God’s sovereign purpose in Pharaoh's life:

But for this purpose I [God] have raised you [Pharaoh] up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. (Exodus 9:16 ESV)

Pharaoh was not an independent agent doing whatever he wished; he was created by God to play a role in God’s metanarrative. Furthermore, God was so sovereign over Pharaoh that God told Moses he would harden Pharaoh’s heart.⁵ Pharaoh’s ultimate role was to reveal God’s judgment against those who rebel against him.

This seems unfair to us! How could God judge a person who wasn’t free to choose? The apostle Paul addressed this point:

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (Romans 9:21 ESV)

The control of a potter to make a vessel of his choice is comparable to God’s sovereign control in creating people to serve his purpose in his metanarrative. Humans react negatively to this aspect of the nature of God; it violates our sense of fairness and our presumption of human autonomy. Paul continued his explanation by noting God’s purpose:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory. (Romans 9:22–23 ESV)

Pharaoh was created by God to be a vessel of destruction to reveal the riches of God’s glory toward the vessels of mercy. This is a very taxing text! God seems heavy-handed, even abusive. But Paul was clear that God is sovereign and humans are accountable. And the purpose of this is to glorify God.

A Christian worldview accepts this reality about the nature God. And a Christian anthropology recognizes the depravity of mankind, that is, mankind’s impotence to meet God’s righteous standards. Therefore, salvation from the penalty of sin is a gift of God. This truth about the nature of salvation should make the vessels of mercy⁶ humble and grateful for the gift of life through Christ.

Understanding and embracing God’s just, sovereign, intentional, and strategic nature is challenging. God warned us of his incomprehensibility:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8 ESV)

Humans want to assume autonomy over our lives and disdain accountability. But this is not reality. God is sovereign over each person and chooses how to engage with each of us.

Notwithstanding this truth, most of life seems disconnected from any divine interaction similar to what young Samuel experienced more than three thousand years ago. In those days, it was said that “the word of the LORD was rare.”⁷

Samuel’s experience was the same as ours today; life seemed mundane and divine engagement far off. There was little sense of a divine metanarrative and few considered their lives in the context of the metanarrative. But God spoke to Samuel and intervened in his life; so also God speaks today.

As with Samuel, we need to learn how to discern when the Lord is speaking and recognize divine intervention. And we need to realize there is a divine metanarrative that unifies all reality and each person has a role to play. Consequently, we need to submit to the sovereign Creator of the universe. To do this, we must be humble, submitted, and teachable servants of God.

When Samuel realized that God was real and engaged with his creation, he became humble, submitted, and teachable. This was evidenced by his recognition of the voice of God and his response as a servant. Note his words:

Speak, for your servant hears. (1 Samuel 3:10 ESV)

As we wrestle to see our lives in the context of the divine metanarrative, we must assume Samuel’s attitude. May the Lord give us the grace to hear his voice and the humilty to submit to our respective roles in his metanarrative.

 

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Gleanings is a publication of Strategies@Work, LLC http://StrategiesWork.com info@StrategiesWork.com