2 The Lonely God

The Lonely God

And God stepped out on space

And he looked around and said

“I’m lonely, I’ll make me a world.”

It is a simple, almost elegant cosmology. The poet, James Weldon Johnson, not only sees God as creator of everything, he imagines a motive for the act of creation. It is a thought that emerges as something of a surprise, but God didn’t create all this on a whim. He had something in mind and if we are to know him at all, we have to start with God as Creator.

It may seem strange to think of God as lonely. But if we believe that God created all things and was uncreated himself, then we must believe that there was a time when God was alone and was not content to stay that way. The Bible tells us that God is eternal. He has always existed and always will. So the 14 billion year age of this universe is nothing at all in God’s time. This universe is merely a project. And before this universe, Johnson imagined that God was alone.

Yes, I know there were angels. But angels are created beings. Before the Angels, God was alone. It seems unthinkable. God, through eons of time, sitting alone, the only light in the darkness. This is surely not true, but we will never be able to penetrate the darkness between us and the time before time. Whatever went on in that time, God was pursuing more than a hobby when he started the project that included us. At some level, Johnson was right. He continued:

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!

Science now tells us that the physical universe is 13.7 billion years old, plus or minus a bit. Thanks to a space probe, they also can tell us that the universe will always expand and never collapse. So according to the latest science, 14 billion years ago there was nothing but darkness. The poet said God smiled. The Bible says that he spoke. The result was the same. One minute there was nothing; the next minute there was light. Some call the first split second of that minute “The Big Bang.” Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so at the end of the first minute, light had penetrated over 11 million miles into the darkness.

Both poet and Bible draw an absolute distinction between light and darkness and this is important. God called the darkness night and the light day. The poet says that darkness and light stand opposite. They are not the same thing. The darkness is not light and the light is not darkness. This is called “antithesis.” It is important to know this from the outset, because in some forms of convoluted reasoning, men have a way of confusing light and light darkness. God is not amused:

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21).

Thanks to that space probe, they now say that the universe is “flat,” that is, it is expanding at a steady rate and will continue to expand forever. There will be no “big crunch,” with the universe collapsing in on itself. The implications are awesome. The universe is not permanent. Nor is it part of an eternal cycle of collapse and expansion. Fourteen Billion years ago there was nothing. And at some time billions of years into the future, the universe will use up all its fuel and burn out. It is a temporary phenomenon. It arose in darkness and it is rushing outward into darkness.

Further, there is no way to explain the origin of light. No way, that is, except the way of the Bible and the poet. God said “Let there be light,” and there was light, driving darkness away to stand on the other side.

I suppose Stephen Hawking is right when he says it is useless to try to imagine the time before time. He called the big bang a “singularity” where both time and space began, and said that it was impossible to look beyond the singularity. Since both space and time began at the singularity (assuming I understand what Hawking is saying), then there is no “before” that we can see.

That said, there had to be a “before” and while nothing of the time before time is revealed or discoverable, we can draw some inferences about that time from what happened on this side of the singularity and from what is revealed to us by God.

For example, we know from the Bible that God made a decision to create man. “Let us make man in our image,” said God. It never occurred to me that God was alone when he said this, and the Hebrew tends to confirm it by using a plural form for God: Elohim. Yes, I know that most consider Elohim a “divine we” and that it actually means God in the singular. But as a kid I still wondered who God was talking to when he made this declaration. Yes, he could have been talking to himself as I might, standing by my wheelbarrow, shovel in hand muttering, “Let’s plant these roses, now.” Nevertheless, we have to remain open to the possibility that God was talking to another participant in the creation process.

Whatever the case, there was a prime decision: “Let’s make man.” That decision required other decisions concerning the nature of man and the nature of an environment fit for man. The process of making those decisions created a plan. And while we imagine that God exists outside of time, any statement that God does one thing before another suggests that, while God may exist outside of our time, he creates his own time.

Surely the first decision of the Lonely God was the nature of man, because everything else flowed from that. The creation of light made it possible for man to see. The creation of air made it possible for him to breathe. The creation of food made it possible for man to eat. Angelic beings would have required none of that.

In the process of creating man, God said something quite revealing. Having said that everything he had made was very good, he said concerning man, "It is not good for the man to be alone." And in saying this, God may have revealed something about himself. Man was created in the image of God. And if it was not good for man to be alone, then perhaps it was not good for God to be alone either.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:27-28).

Man was created male and female and in the image of God. Maybe this suggests a feminine side to God. Or maybe it says something else about God. Since man was made to reproduce himself, God was also able to reproduce himself and was doing so in man. The means whereby God reproduces himself is the act of creation followed by human reproduction. There will be many hitches along the way, but the motive of God is revealed right there on the pages of Genesis. He was starting a family, the essential cure to loneliness.

The very idea of God being lonely is unthinkable because it seems impossible that an infinite God should find himself wanting anything. But unless we can think along these lines, we are left with a God who created from no need, no want, no desire. Even saying that God had a purpose in his creation is to say that his purpose would have been left unfulfilled without the creation. God would have lacked something that he desired.

It was space that moved Johnson to postulate a lonely God, and it was space that moved the Psalmist to think about God’s motive in creating man:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (Psalms 8:4).

Then the author of Hebrews comes up against the same question. He has been examining the relationship of the Son of God to the heavenly beings whom he calls “angels.” Man could have been made an angel, but he was not. Why then, Paul wondered, were the angels created?

But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? ( Hebrews 1:13-14).

Like the servants on a great plantation, the angels are not the heirs. They are servants to the heirs. And in what is almost an aside, Paul reveals that God has heirs. Failing to grasp this simple truth, or denying it, closes much of the Bible to our understanding, because we miss the purpose in it all. We human beings, struggling along like grubworms here below, are destined to become family with God.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).

Now I hasten to add that I do not believe God was alone from eternity. But, as most of us have learned, one can still be lonely in a crowd. If God was not alone, then there are some other questions we have to explore.