Let us tell tales

In Plato's Republic, Plato's characters are engaged in a dialogue that is a thinly veiled exposition of his own thoughts. He quotes the poet Aeschylus, and makes a conclusion about what poetically ought to be written about the divine.

Nor shall we admire Aeschylus when he makes Thylus say that Apollo sang at her wedding in praise of her child

Promising him long life, from sickness free
And every blessing; his triumphant praise
Rejoiced my heart. Those lips, I thought, divine,
Flowing with prophecy, must God's promise speak,
Yet he the singer, he our wedding guest,
Phoebus Apollo, prophet, slew my son.

If a poet says this sort of thing about (God) we shall be angry and and refuse to let him produce his play; nor shall we allow it to be used to educate our children - that is if our guardians are to grow up godfearing and holy, so far as that is humanly possible.


One suspects Plato would be sympathetic to some of the more iconoclastic religions of today, religious beliefs where the use of God in stories, imagery, and poetic descriptions is verboten, because of the risk it entails in misrepresenting God. But I would ask, is it not necessary to misrepresent God, at least in some degree?

For if we work from the premise that God's goodness and beauty are limitless, his wisdom without end, his mercy a bottomless well of forgiveness, then how could we use our finite language to describe anything about him and not misrepresent God?

I would even go so far as to say our scriptures misrepresent God in order to more ambitiously portray something important about God. In the Old Testament are numerous stories of God's immense power being brought to bear against sinful people - the Gilgamesh epic that the ancient Hebrews recast as the story of a vengeful God washing the Earth with the great flood, or God's plagues sent upon the Egyptians to deliver the Israelites.

In no sense do I believe God has the cruel character these stories often convince people he must have. But despite their inexactness they do tell us important things about God. In Christianity, the flood story is an epic pre-telling of our wonderful cleansing sacrament, Baptism. I sincerely believe God detests wrongdoing. Why would we have the beatitudes to tell us how to do well in life as a humble people, if God was disinterested in our behaviour? But just as God in the Genesis account of the great flood washed the Earth thoroughly of iniquity, so does the spiritual rebirth that Baptism represents for us. We would truly be lacking in theological language for the rebirth of baptism without the story of the flood. It truly needs an epic tale to tell that truth. And I can say from personal experience, it is an incredible thing to listen to the flood tale in the dark during the Easter vigil, before the candles are lit.

An author whose book, "The Quest for God", I absolutely adore, makes a good point about some writers trying to edify us about the cosmic story. He says of Milton and "Paradise Lost" that God will have difficulty judging him, "Milton, too who sought - so he said - to justify the ways of God to men and ended by writing a masterpiece whose hero was Satan."

But what Milton really does in "Paradise Lost" is give us the real story of the "fallen nature" of humanity - his "Satan" is little more than an avatar for what truly makes the human race a race in need of reconciliation with God. His Satan says, "Better to rule in hell then serve in Heaven." We have this attitude - a burning desire to be ruler of our small hills, at any cost. Our need to control, our need to dominate our world, our fellow creatures, and each other stems from this strange element of our psyche; we would rather find ways to dominate, even if it means smallness and misery, than accept a simple but joyful humility - knowing our place in the universe. Every great evil, from Nazism to Communism, is born of this "Captain of my soul" thinking that Timothy McVeigh recited from his deathbed.

But I digress. Plato is wrong to suggest that poets must not write mythologies that may not be edifying - we need our inexact stories of God, because it is only in an eloquent but flawed inexactness that we really catch a glimpse of God's perfection. Our inarticulate attempts to get near him fare all the better when we stumble in our ambition.

It all comes back to Psalm 139:

Even before a word is on my tongue,
O, Lord you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
And lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is so high that I cannot attain it.