Written Stuff

The Clever Plan story developed from the book of Jeremiah in the Bible where God  admits not knowing something (Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:5). How is that possible? I was  raised to believe that God knows everything all the time, and knew it before it happened.

            Honest questions about paradoxes like that have entered my mind since I was a boy. The  answer to this one: “Okay, Lord, how could you, the all-knowing God, admit not knowing  something?” finally arrived in 2018. When it came (a few decades after I first asked for it), I put it into a story which grew as I thought about who would narrate.

            Jeremiah apparently wasn’t puzzled by God’s “not knowing”, and my Clever Plan story needed a puzzled narrator. So, when Job 26:7 popped up with its “hang  something on nothing” paradox, I set Job as my narrator in heaven with Jeremiah.

            Job’s gravity puzzle is simple, and I had already solved it without asking God any  questions, so let’s begin with that.

• Job 26:7 (OJB) He stretcheth out the Tzafon over the tohu, and hangeth eretz upon nothing.

There is a problem here which authorities in my youth handled in the usual human way.  The Hebrew text says, “He [God] … hangs Earth upon nothing.” This is like hanging  a picture on a wall that isn’t there. Hebrew has far fewer words than English and each one  can have several meanings that are driven by context. But it is natural for translators to  choose a translation which fits their (limited) understanding. This is because we humans don’t know what we don’t know. Hence, one translator, who does not understand Isaac Newton’s discoveries as they apply to Job 26:7, gives us, “He hangs the Earth over nothing.” This seems correct as far as it goes, but is incomplete and can be misleading,  given the physics we now know. The truth is that every object in our cosmic space hangs  on nothing. Or, to put it another way, everything hangs on everything else.

But the Clever Plan story sets Job as also being puzzled by my problem of an all-knowing  God not knowing something, and that is the main point of the story: 

• Jeremiah 7:31 (NIV) “They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.”
• Jeremiah 19:5 (NIV) “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.”

These verses are plain enough although the religious authorities of my youth explained God’s stated lack of awareness as a poetical device. 

          After a few years, I got dissatisfied with their dodge and took my question directly to God since both He and my mother said I could.  Mom had led me to Jesus when I was going on eight years old, and she also gave me the powerful advice that anytime God talked to his people in the Bible, I could now put my name there. Well! James 1:5 says that if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of  God. So, whenever this boy had a tough question, he asked it. And if anyone objected, he  could declare (with apologies to Sojourner Truth): Ain’t I a man?

“…nor did it enter my mind.”

           So, the all-knowing and all-truthful God of the Bible did not plan or even think of  human sacrifice. He found out because we showed Him. When He decided to give human beings free will, He immediately saw all things we would freely do. Clearly, many other Biblical events  happened without God wanting them to, but He allowed them as proof that we had free  will. So, why didn’t God know about human sacrifice (for example) until we showed Him? The  answer to that centers on His holiness and must come later in this essay. For now, let’s  concentrate on the “enter my mind” thing because it’s how we write stories.

           In his superb memoir, On Writing, Stephen King says that rather than deciding what he wants in a story and then writing to make it turn out that way, he puts characters in interesting and difficult situations, then writes to find out what happens. He says stories are “found things, like fossils in the ground”, and says he plots his as infrequently as possible because life is largely plotless despite all our precautions and planning: “Plotting  and the spontaneity of creation aren’t compatible. … [M]y basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of a writer is to give them a  place to grow.”

           I have come to agree with him, especially when he says that he may not like everything his characters say or do although he lets the story play while writing it down. I can’t speak for other authors, of course, but for me, that process is not free-writing where I merely take dictation. Instead, as King has hinted, it’s more like a conversation: I or a muse produce some setting, action, dialogue, or whatever. But as King and others have also said: bad character behaviors do not make an author bad, and neither do the good things make an author good.

          Having said all of that and agreed with Mr. King, please be aware that I don't necessarily trust the muses. I tell any who start feeding me stuff that "isn’t me” to shut up. This has a parallel with God because sacrificing innocent children “isn’t Him”. And that brings us to the reason why God didn’t know early-on about human sacrifice. The short answer is: Because He is holy. Unfortunately, “holy” has a vague meaning of “insufferably good” to modern ears, so the word is religious jargon now, and needs an explanation.

           There are lots of things that "aren't me" and which I'd rather not have entering my mind. But because God is holy, He never has that problem.

           We know this because if it were possible for Him to come up with child sacrifice on His own (i.e., without seeing us do it first), then —knowing everything— He would have thought of it first. But if He had thought of it first, then it had “entered His mind”. And if it had entered His mind, then the verses in Jeremiah are lies. But they are not lies. God is holy. By the definition of “holy”, it is impossible for Him to lie. It is not “too hard” for God to lie, it is impossible. Ah, but doesn’t the Bible say that with God, all things are possible? Does that mean it is possible to lie with God’s help? Certainly not. When we lie, we are not with God; we are against Him. It’s not that He chooses to not lie; it is that by His holy nature, He does recognize lies but He cannot lie or originate them. Satan is the father of lies, and heavenly beings have free will, too.

          God saw His play in rehearsal (so to speak), including the brief but necessary appearance on-stage of Jesus Christ as the sinless sacrifice for human sins. He loved all the players as little children, and still loves them all despite the surprising nasty things He saw them do. But the cosmos isn’t a clockworks machine where God wound it up and let it play. The Author stays true to His own character as He allows the players to make their own stories. And now, during show time, He watches as they reveal (again) what they truly are inside. 

          In both the rehearsal and the live show, God makes and keeps promises, answers prayers, warns of danger, and so on. All players should expect to get Author notes from time to time: happenings, words, and conversations. These will come from various sources; they usually aren’t flashy, and may be difficult to explain because God isn’t trying to show off or prove He exists. He’s trying to show us who we really are and what we've actually done.

          But isn't that what most good authors try to do?