Ballpark
Audio version:
One of the
recurring themes in the various Star Trek manifestations has been situations
where the crew come in contact with a
more primitive civilisation.. In such a
scenario it is imperative that the crew do nothing that will distort the
existing paradigm and interfere with the natural process of development (or otherwise
) of the culture. The view of the world
that they have is based on their experience and does not take into account
technology and worlds that they do not know exist. Back to the infamous, ‘they don’t know what
they don’t know’. The sudden imposition
of overwhelming technology, knowledge, information of other species on other
planets etc could be a violation of their view of reality and hence their social
fabric. The have developed rules,
intricate social games, stories, language and values that both construct and
operate within the ballpark they think they are playing in.
That there
is a much larger, and to them unknown, ballpark has no direct bearing on the
ongoing dramas of their own planet and so they should be left alone if at all
possible to evolve according to the ballpark they are in. It is not an accident that sometimes, when
unfortunately this Prime Directive has been broken, that the crew of the
Enterprise are given semi divine status by the planet’s inhabitants. It’s the only way to explain something so
different and overwhelmingly other. I
find echoes of this in church at times and the way we talk about God. And yet in church and religion generally
that otherness gets explained in our terms, the larger ballpark squeezed to fit
into ours.
Every
culture knows what it doesn’t know and tries to get a handle on it, even in the
most speculative of ways. This can range
from Oden’s helmet covering the earth each night to the theory of dark
matter. Religions are a prime example of
this, fulfilling one of their two main functions, the other is encoding the
values and ethics of a culture. The
genius of the Christian faith is how it combines the two in the story of the
incarnation. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He
was with God in the beginning. 3 Through
him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In
him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. (John 1:1-4) This explains what we know we don’t know
about the universe and our place in it, whether there is a God and if he is
positively disposed towards us. And it
also contains the seeds of the new ethic of Jesus, the golden rule to do unto
others what you would have them do unto you.
So
far, so good ( and mind-blowingly wonderful actually). Over 20 centuries this truly amazing invasion
of our ballpark that broke the Prime Directive in the most gracious and costly
of ways has been subsumed into our narrative so now we think we own it, it’s ours. What is lost is that sense there is a bigger
ballpark, things we don’t know we don’t know.
We are frightened and unsettled by this.
Our ballpark is a little bigger than before the coming of Christ, but it
is still our ballpark and it is enough for us.
When we talk about God therefore we do so in terms that we think
accurately describe Him and his ways.
And, in truth, I believe that much of the bible has been inspired by God
and in Christ he has showed us his living word.
And yet…once we lose the sense of the utter otherness of God, his being over
and against us, who he is in himself without relation whatsoever to us and our
affairs, we weaken our capacity to worship and wonder. A God who is just part of our ballpark is a
very boring (and sometimes very dangerous) a God who exists on our terms. Just because he gave up everything and became
one of us doesn’t give us propriety rights.
Humility and wonder should set the tone for any language about God and a
profound sense of gratitude that he meets us where we are with divine
courtesy. This in no way diminishes the
fact that he operates in a whole different ballpark than we do.
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