The epic stories of the past are masterpieces—works of art transmitting the wisdom of sages who have shaped civilisations throughout the millennia. Of these stories, none is more valuable, more insightful, or more precise in explaining why we exist and how we should live in peace than the story of the Bible.
The power of story lies in its ability to communicate deeper truths of human psychology, morality, and ethics in a way that everyone can relate to. As the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks posits: “Only the gifted few can fully understand a philosophical classic, but everyone can relate to a story.”[1] Because we, as humans, are obsessed with meaning—it’s hardwired into the fabric of our consciousness—we cannot perceive reality without ascribing meaning to it. In fact, existing without meaning would be pointless, there would be no reason for us to get out of bed. Yet, meaning is something that science, strictly material in its doctrine, cannot explain or define.
As humans, we derive meaning from the narratives of our lives, the lives of those who surround us, and the narratives that describe the world around us. This leads us to a more profound insight.
Psychologist and philosopher Dr Jordan Peterson explains that the ancient world view is different from how we have been trained to understand the world since the scientific revolution. The ancients understood reality as a drama with the constituent elements being Chaos and Order, and the mediating force between the two.[2] The theme of chaos and order was commonly used by the Biblical authors to describe God’s ordering nature and the chaotic potential of His absence.
The most amazing part of the Biblical story is that you are a part of this epic story.
Chaos is the element of the unknown. It’s unpredictable, unstructured, and wild—it’s like a storm roiling on the horizon or a raging mob, out of control. In the Bible, it first appears in the well-known verse of Genesis 1:2, where the whole earth is “without form, and void” or “tohu va-vohu”. In the Bible, Chaos takes many forms: the Noahtic flood, Israel’s exile, the destruction of the Temple.
Order is the element of the known. It’s predictable, structured, and safe—it’s like a well-kept garden or like a football match where everyone plays by the rules. In the Bible, Order is expressed in God’s creative presence and provision: He provides shelter—the Ark for Noah—in the midst of Chaos and He provides for Israel’s needs in the wilderness of the Exodus.
The purpose for the ancients explaining the world as a drama wasn’t to explain truth as science or a system but rather truth as story—the kind of story that explains the world around us and our place in it. Looking at the premise to the Biblical story—the book of Genesis—Sacks says, “philosophy is truth as a system. Genesis is truth as a story.”[3] The authors of ancient wisdom literature were more concerned with describing how human beings should act in the subjective world rather than how the objective natural world functions.
But the most amazing part of the Biblical story is that you are a part of this epic story. It is not a distant story, detached from our everyday lives—it’s a story that helps guide our choices through life. Actually, one of the fundamental philosophical questions the Bible addresses is that of human free will and autonomy. We have latitude to make choices, a distinctly human quality that generates suspense and potential, something which logical systems cannot mimic. In the Bible, as in life, the events in the story and the situations that the characters face, result in unpredictable choices and consequences. It’s from these choices placed before characters who are a lot like us, and their subsequent decisions, that we, thousands of years later, have the privilege to learn from, both when they choose the right and the wrong.
At the International Centre for World Peace, we like to explore this Biblical story and its wisdom together with you. That’s why the ICFWP brings communities together so that we as the collective body of God’s people, can better understand our part in this shared story—a story expressed in the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In coming together, we participate in this story through building relationships and shared learning experiences. That’s why we invite you into the Virtual House of God, to connect with other believers and learn about the story of God’s plan for individual and universal world peace. Then as members of God’s family and our various faith communities, we all have a part to play in carrying this story into society and putting it into practice. And in doing so, bringing a little bit of order into a chaotic world.
[1] Sacks, J., 2009. Covenant and conversation. London: Maggid Books, p.7.
[2] Peterson, J., Doidge, N. and Van Sciver, E., 2018. 12 rules for life. Allen Lane, pp.34-38.
[3] Sacks, J., 2009. Covenant and conversation. London: Maggid Books, p.6.