Creation and Chaos Talk

Charting a Way Forward

Eric M. Vail

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781608997916
  9781498257756
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630874179
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Talk about chaos is pervasive. Biblical scholars, theologians, and scientists have been using the word chaos for some time, occasionally mingling ideas across disciplines around the shared word. Quite often, discussions of chaos center on the issues of creation's origin and nature, as well as on God's creative methods and relationship to creation. Eric M. Vail investigates the current uses of the word chaos in those areas. A new way of articulating creation out of nothing is offered as both helpful and appropriate in our current milieu. He suggests where we ought to focus our use of the word chaos in Christian discourse and argues that chaos is more fitting for naming where creation has gone awry rather than for naming that state out of which creation comes to be.

1

Immersion into “Chaos” Talk

“Chaos” elicits feelings of uncertainty and confusion, being in danger or out of control. Using the term is in vogue within many academic disciplines. Scanning through a listing of recent publications will yield multiple titles from nearly every discipline with “chaos” in them. Even so, there is a great deal of divergence in what is meant by the term, whether it is used in a technical way for discipline-specific notions or in a popular sense as a synonym for confusion.

Biblical and theological studies are no exception to this growing surge of “chaos” use. The stated impetus for theologians who incorporate “chaos” language with varying accompanying notions is typically from two fronts. One front is the field of biblical studies and the use of “chaos” therein. According to the testimony of James Hutchingson, who himself has developed a theology incorporating “chaos,” “Chaos would likely not emerge as an important theological concept were it not for the prominent role it plays in the initial verses of the Bible.”1 The second front is the host of changes in Western intellectual thought in the past few centuries, particularly in the sciences, that has given rise to new cosmologies, especially ones including notions of chaos.

In the center between these fronts is the concern of theology to offer an account of the faith in the present milieu. Some theologians feel that incorporating notions of chaos, which are being proposed along these two fronts, has promise for articulating the Christian faith within the broader intellectual and cultural milieu. There have been several theologians to take up the challenge of listening to the “chaos” language being used on these fronts and incorporating these various notions in their theology.2

In looking at the first front—from biblical studies—there has been much fodder for theological talk about chaos. Much of this development can be attributed to archeological discoveries made in the last 150 years, which have been extremely helpful in reconstructing the worldviews of people in the ancient world. Of particular usefulness have been the uncovering and translation of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Canaanite religious writings. With these discoveries it was natural to compare the writings of these people with the more familiar writings of the Israelites, especially the cosmogonies of these various peoples.3 In addition, there was a desire in the nineteenth century to replace many of the ways in which the Old Testament and its theological views had been portrayed to that point. Comparative studies were embraced as a means for providing new ways of framing Israel’s writings and theology.4

Several Babylonian texts have been popular reference points in reframing biblical texts. While working as a repairer of cuneiform tablets, George Smith was the person to locate both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enuma elish in the British Museum’s collections.5 In 1876, when Smith published Enuma elish under the title The Chaldean Account of Genesis, he was the first to identify a literary form he called a “chaos myth” and to suggest that the Babylonian Enuma elish was the oldest source for this myth in the ancient Middle East. E. Schrader had already suggested in 1863 that there exists in the early chapters of Genesis the idea of a preexistent chaos.6 Smith made the additional suggestion that Israel’s own creation account, with its preexistent chaos, is dependent on the older text of its neighbor.7

Nearly twenty years after Smith, Hermann Gunkel, out of his studies of Enuma elish, was the first to claim that just as there is in Enuma elish a connection between divine combat with the chaotic sea—the sea-monster Tiamat—and the establishment of order from Tiamat’s corpse, so also in the Old Testament there are integrally related themes of “chaos–conflict–creation” (i.e., Chaoskampf).8 These claims concerning: 1) the presence of chaos in Scripture; 2) the dependence of Israel’s writings on its neighbors; and 3) the presence of Chaoskampf in both ancient Near East (ANE) and biblical texts have been often repeated since.

The field of biblical studies is not alone in presenting a chaos/creation paradigm. On the second front there have been centuries-long progressions in scientific thinking that have led to a more widespread embrace of talk about self-organizing complexities emerging out of chaos. It is important to note that most scientists mean something quite different by the term “chaos” than is typically used by biblical scholars.

In using “chaos” as a technical term, scientists largely mean unpredictability. Unpredictability comes from some admitted problems with making any accurate predictions on chaotic systems. The most famous feature of these systems is “sensitivity on initial conditions.”9 This basically means that “small causes can have enormous and unexpected consequences.”10 A small cause can unpredictably snowball into progressively bigger effects. The final result is vastly disproportionate to the smallest of influences. The smallest of influences causes problems for calculations as well. Because every computer has limitations of memory and the certain ways its software is programmed to make calculations, it will inevitably have to round off decimals at some point. This rounding off can make enormous differe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Immersion into “Chaos” Talk
• Chapter 2: Shifting Contexts
• Chapter 3: The Growing Debate around “Chaos” Language in Biblical Studies
• Chapter 4: The Growing Debate around “Chaos” Language in Biblical Studies
• Chapter 5: Catherine Keller’s Tehomic Theology
• Chapter 6: A New Creatio ex Nihilo Framework
• Chapter 7: The Place for “Chaos” in Theological Discourse
• Chapter 8: Conclusion
• Bibliography