The Living God loves mess. The Living God has created a universe that is so diverse, so vast, so thick with complexity and diversity that to the niggard it seems excessive and wasteful. At the same time, the entire universe marches to the beat of one drum--the unifying plan and purpose of God. Theologians and Christian philosophers call this the ultimacy of the One and the Many.
In Unbelieving thought the One and the Many is a "problem"--in the sense of resolving which is ultimate, and which subordinate. Classically, Plato, the idealist asserted the One was ultimate; Aristotle, the empiricist asserted the Many was ultimate. Hence Raphael's immortal painting.
The "problem" of the One and the Many cannot be resolved in Unbelieving thought. The bi-polarity remains. In fact, the one and the many are equally ultimate throughout the creation, because they are equally ultimate in God Himself. God is Triune. He is infinite and absolute Oneness. He is also infinite and absolute "Manyness". Diversity in God is as infinite and absolute as unity. The creation reflects this equal ultimacy of unity and diversity, albeit not infinitely. Now this might seem all rather abstract, but let us be clear. The Unbelieving world, unable to reconcile these to polar opposites in any meaningful way, engages in an unceasing war upon the creation itself in the attempt to assert the ultimacy of either one or the many. Confronted with law, the Unbeliever will champion diversity, individuality, individual rights, and each man to his own. Confronted with mess and chaos, the Unbeliever will extol rules and the bureaucratic plan to bring all into co-ordinated, structured order and harmony. Has it ever struck any as ironic that the first thoroughly secular culture--the post-modern West--having grounded its Unbelief upon the cosmology of evolution which champions stochasticity as the fundament of the cosmos, then turns around in the same breath trying to rule and regulate everything that moves.
God loves unending diversity, change, newness, unfolding, endless beginnings and endings so that "waste" is everywhere, at least to the ruling and regulating modern bureaucratic mind. Waste is regarded as an evil in the West. But why should it, when the creation as untouched by humanity, displays a rich super-abundant profusion of "waste"? God did not just create a few stars--but billions and billions of them so that they are beyond our experience to know, number, explore, discover and enjoy--even in eternity. When God sends a snowstorm, He sends billions upon billions of intricately patterned flakes, each exquisitely beautiful, only to have them end up next day as inchoate mush. And the next day, He will do it all over again, then again, then again. The more we think about this exuberant over-provisioning and abundance, intrinsic to the very structures of the creation itself, the more we are made to laugh and dance with abandon. We all become Tom Bombadil-like, dancing with joy before the Lord at the glories around us.
But God also loves order, structure, pattern, and plan. He commands mankind to go forth and order and manage the world. To the modern secular pagan this can only mean rules, regulations, laws, and controls in an effort to expunge diversity and impose sameness. The modern Unbeliever hates the manyness, the mess of creation. Threatened by diversity, he seeks to enforce uniformity. The Believer, however, understanding that the One and the Many are equally ultimate, rejoices both in mess and in structured order--at the same time. The "trick" is to know what to structure and what to leave unstructured, what to unify and what to leave gloriously diverse. Only God, the Creator can reveal this to us. Without reading well the revelation of God, in both Scripture and the creation, we will never be able to subdue the creation in such a way that all its diverse instruments will produce one harmonious sound.
To illustrate. A family is blessed with many children, each with diversity of gifts and aptitudes. Resources are scarce. The family can afford to provide tertiary education only to two of the children. The remaining children are given a basic education, then put to work in the family business. The modern secular Unbeliever would find this unjust. It would be unfair. The diversity is offensive. Rules, laws, schemes and institutions must be put in place through the taxations and expropriations of the state to expunge this diversity, this manyness, from society, so that all families and children have the same "rights".
The Christian reasons very differently. There is nothing immoral or sinful in the choices and decisions or rule of this family. Instead the Christian looks to see how the glories of God can shine forth in such a situation. Part of the glory may be in the loving generosity of the wider family to help and assist, or of Christians in their local congregation, or of some anonymous benefactor who wishes to help and assist. Part of the glory may be a manifestation of deep loyalty and love amongst all the children as they grow so that all--including the more advantageously provided--use what they have and have achieved to support each other. A glorious, God-glorifying harmony emerges out of the diversity-that would never have been manifest had the diversity been prevented in the first place.
The rules and regulations of the secular Unbeliever seek to drive these glorious possibilities out of existence, creating instead monochromatic drabness and a civil society which is skin deep. Troubled with pluriformity and the diversities, vagaries, and "waste" of Providence, the Unbeliever wants society to be structured and ordered according to its bureaucratic plan. The outcome is cultural poverty and starvation on a mass scale.
Far better to love God's glorious mess, and labour to bring forth His glory and honour in the mess. Then, and only then, will we be working as God's stewards, in His gloriously profligate creation.
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