The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 57 - The Divine Narrative: Mythology, Theology, and the Essence of Truth
Is truth found in numbers, or in the stories we tell? Join us as we welcome Nate Morgan Lock, the Reformed Mythologist, to our Christ-centered cosmic civilization for a captivating conversation that blends theology with the study of mythology.
Nate's unique perspective challenges us to reconsider our understanding of truth, urging us to see beyond mathematical correctness to a deeper essence of truth found in narratives.
Through his thought-provoking YouTube content, Nate explores the origins and purposes of stories, and how they shape our culture and beliefs.
Reflect with us as we examine how imagination and storytelling enrich our understanding of the world.
We discuss the limitations of reductionist approaches that strip experiences of their magic and wonder, contrasting them with narrative-driven perspectives that honor the significance of the stories we cherish. Nate helps us navigate this existential terrain, drawing on Biblical references and the insights of modern thinkers to highlight the importance of embracing the fullness of our lived experiences.
Together, we traverse Gotthold Lessing's "broad and ugly ditch," exploring the gap between scientific truths and religious faith. Using metaphors like a theater performance, we delve into the idea that truth is best understood through lived and witnessed narratives rather than cold facts.
Drawing inspiration from C.S. Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew," we underscore the value of listening and experiencing the moment to uncover deeper truths, urging listeners to embrace the stories that shape our lives and faith.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. We're deep into language, words, stories territory. Really, it's stories now more than just words in and of themselves, and we thought about poetry when we talked to Glenn. I'm still in Eastbourne and I'm at the uh speak life studio here, but I'm actually joined now by the mighty nate morgan lock who is, as we all will know, he is, the reformed mythologist. Uh, welcome, and tell us what is the reformed mythologist, what is this identity that you have?
Speaker 2:well, basically, I just took two words that terrify two different groups of people. So there's a people who are nervous about the word reformed because it sounds like the, the nasty version of christianity, because it's all about, you know, the exclusivity of christ through his death on the cross, and it's all about the bible being the only word of god and you know. So, um, it's that. And then mythologist, which terrifies all the people who are comfortable with reformed, because they're like what do you mean?
Speaker 1:myth, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:mythology. That that sounds ridiculous, but really I I the last four letters of the title of the thing that's doing it. So gist mythologist. So I'm gist guy. I'm not very good with detail, so just give me the gist on something. I can give you the gist of something. So when I use reformed, what I basically mean is like the five solas. That's kind of what I'm trying to Like reformation, yeah, the reformation and you know thinking about like what was it they were getting back to as they reformed?
Speaker 2:their theology back on the scriptures and so Solus Christus and Sola Fide, et cetera. And then the mythologist. Well, that is trying to think well, there's mythos and logos, and put those two together and get mythology and mythos. When we use the word myth, we tend to now mean a particular kind of story, probably one that isn't true. Yeah, it's used newspaper headlines. This is just a myth, it's not really happened whereas actually mythos just means story, it means kind of an account of something, and so I like studying story from a christian point of view and so thinking about the origin of stories. Why do we have them? How can you give an account for a story? What even is a story? Um, what stories are in the culture, how do you analyze them, study them and how do you tell stories, and what are the skills you need in different media to tell stories, and trying to do all of that with my starting point being that we live inside, as you've wonderfully said, the Christ-centered cosmic civilization.
Speaker 1:Wow. As that story is being kind of lived out, played out in the universe and if people want to see what and listen to you and interact with or support you how what would be the best way to go about doing?
Speaker 2:that so reformed mythologist on youtube. That's the channel where I put lots of stuff out. Obviously you've been on there a couple of times and um yeah, we've been delighted to be able to make a couple of little video edits of some segments of sessions you've done for us at Speak Live, so they're on there and there's me talking about, you know, cartoons and films and all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do, if people haven't watched these things, they're brilliant where you'll take things in popular culture, movies, ideas, things in popular culture, movies, ideas, and uh, well, we'll get, as people will understand better what this, what you do and how to think in this way, hopefully in a little while, um, if they haven't done that already. But uh, you gotta, you gotta check out what nate does. Uh, I say because it's critical for engaging with the culture generally, but I think it's just fundamentally it's a different way of thinking than I think the disastrous way that's happened for about 300 years. So let me set things up a little bit. And then where I am with things. So how do we tell truth, or rather, what is the truth? So Pilate's question is profound. He's like what is truth? He may be asking in a cynical way. He's like ah, you know, maybe he's almost like a postmodernist at the time. Whatever he's like, who can tell? He's a cynical, worn-out Roman governor, he's heard it all before.
Speaker 1:But there are, like many strategies for searching for and expressing truth. So one example is sort of what people think of as truth. Sometimes people will say to me I can't believe in all this Jesus rubbish. I want mathematical truth. They'll say so I want things like 1 plus 1 equals 2, truth, and I think Rene Descartes thought like that and he was like that's the gold standard of truth, mathematics. But I'm going to say is that true at all? Is 1 plus 1 equals 2 true at all? It? And I'm gonna say, I don't know whether it's true, it's correct one plus one equals two is correct and you get a tick for that. You have correctly done the this thing. But is it true? Like I don't think. So I think the correct way to say that's that's correct. And in a similar way, um, if we say, uh, describe and this is expanding the strategy of, say, the past 300 years to say we want to know what truth is. So what we'll do is we'll like attempt to describe in a kind of mechanistic or functional way, uh, the world. So it's like, if I describe the chemical composition of a rock or the structure of a tree, is that true or is it better to say no, that's correct, that's a correct thing, but is it true? I'm gonna say again I ain't true. It's a correct description in the way that one plus one equals two is correct. But I don't think it's true if we're able to describe the um, the way, say, the stars and the planets move, and that's been a kind of obsession.
Speaker 1:Just this last week I was at, uh, isaac newton's pad is it called wimpole house or something? It's up in it's off the um a1m. It was interesting because the national trust ran it. They kind of a little bit acknowledged his christian faith, but not much. And I'm like the guy was like crazy theological and stuff and and he, I think, is more of a mythologist than anything else. That's my view of Isaac Newton. And they hinted that he was making a philosopher's stone, very, very subtly. But of course he was totally making a philosopher's stone. That's the whole reason for mucking about with the stars and planets.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I won't get distracted on that, although we might do stars and planets anyway, don't? I won't get distracted on that. But although you, you know we might do um, but uh, to describe the way the stars and the planets move, is that again truth or is it again just correct? That's correct expression of movement. But have we yet got to truth? I'm gonna say now, we're not yet anywhere close to truth. But if we know, um, what say, like genesis one says now, then the, the stars, the sun, moon and the stars. They are there to tell us signs and sacred seasons. Now Isaac Newton, I know, would say until we can just talk about that, until we know the signs and the sacred seasons, we have not yet got to truth. Like the truth of the sun, moon and stars is the signs and sacred seasons thing. That's the truth. They have, what they, that's the truth they have. Otherwise I'm just mucking about with correct things.
Speaker 1:So again, think about how Jesus and the prophets speak about the world and humanity. Sometimes apologists seem to think it's amazing if the prophets and apostles get something correct and they'll go. This is how you should. This is why you should become a Christian, because the Bible seems to know that the earth is a sphere, or that there's, like Jeremiah seems to get, that there's a hydrologic cycle of water. You know turning to clouds, raining, coming back, you know going round a cycle. There you go.
Speaker 1:That's true, whereas I think, nah, that's good. It's good that they have some correct, what we might say correct, and maybe that's important, that they get things correct in describing the world, maybe that you know that. I think it is important that they they're correct, but I don't think that that is truth. Rather, it's what they you know. Their intention is not to give us correct descriptions of weather formations, and I'm like I may, it's good, I think it is important that they're correct about things like that, but that isn't the truth that they're after. They're after, true, they want to tell us truth. So what are the sun, moon, stars and weather, plants, animals and events? What are they? What are they saying? What are they for what? What are they for? What's the truth about them? And the truth about them is not to simply describe like this is what they're made of, this is the predictable movements or something it's like. Well, that's correct, but that doesn't. I don't. What's the truth about them? What is the? The? The story I'm going to use the biggest word.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use it what's the what's the story that they're part of? That is truth, you know, rather merely correct description of what's there. So, um, all right, let's leave it at that, because I could, we could come on to how that might apply even to the living god. But what is it what? How would you react to what I've just no, I love a load of silly things.
Speaker 2:I love it and I think it's a reminder me a few, a few things. One is uh, I always end up going back to cs lewis, um, but um, and that's because I grew up in narnia, like what, literally that's, my parents house is called Narnia, so what? Really yeah, that's what.
Speaker 1:So I grew up in Narnia, you grew up on the other side of the wardrobe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing about that is, um that often I'll be thinking a thought or I'll discover something I'll be like, oh, this is amazing, this is brand new. And then I'll find something in.
Speaker 2:Lewis and I'll be like oh yeah but what were you saying about this um concern for just a kind of mechanistic reducing it down to smaller bits, kind of label, smaller parts, yeah, kind of approach. So in the voyage of the dawn treader, when edmund and eustace and lucy meet, uh, ramandu or ramandu, and he says he's a star, yeah, and then eustace says, oh, in my world, in our world, a star is just a ball of gas. And then ramandu's like, oh, no, that's just what a star's made of. That's not what a star is, don't be ridiculous. So that kind of um approach, and then that's also. It's a very similar conversation in the lion king, when timon and pumbaa and simba are lying down and they're looking up at the stars.
Speaker 2:And then um timon's like, oh, they're just fireflies just trapped in that big old net up there. And you're like, oh, that's interesting. And then um pumbaa says, um, I think they're balls of gas burning billions of miles away. And then he's like pumbaa, do you ever? Everything is gas. And he's like, yeah, so, but what you're supposed to do is to go. Oh yeah, pumbaa's actually right, but he's kind of he's a bit bit thick. And then um simba says, oh, I think they're the, the kings of the past, looking down on us and they all just start laughing and obviously within that story, that is what that is what they are.
Speaker 1:That is what they are.
Speaker 2:Mufasa is going to be able to speak to Simba through that, and certainly, within Narnia, that is Ramund, who is one of the stars, and then we want to go. Oh, but that's only in the imaginary worlds, that's only if you go into, you know, the pride lands of Lion King, or it's only if?
Speaker 2:you go into that far out in the kind of um is in the eastern isles that they end up going to, whereas in this world stars they are just burning balls of gas like there's. That's that's just what they are and that's the truth about them, whereas you're saying, and I think rightly, yeah, that's a correct thing to say about the physical makeup of you know, matter in motion and all that sort of stuff, but as to that being any use, yeah, that's not, or even being interesting because I find it's just boring it's just like oh, that's what that is, that's just a smaller labeling of parts, and I'm like, well, that's dull.
Speaker 1:It's like that's the worst sin of all. Just don't be tedious, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, actually, that there's a story and that they are communicating something and, as you say, the seasons are communicating to us, and so the question then is what are they? What is the story? Yeah, and you know, who's more engagement with, with the world that we've been made and put into than just this kind of incredibly dull labeling of smaller and smaller bits until you get to basically nothing, right, yeah, there's nothing there the further you dig down, the less there's less there.
Speaker 1:We could think about that like the concerts are trying to get to the essence of things and that's like a kind of obsession, what we'll say. Well, we to know the truth about it, we've got to dig down to the essence of things and that's like a kind of obsession. Well, we'll say. Well, we, to know the truth about it, we've got to dig down to the essence and we think we can do that. You know, no, can we even?
Speaker 1:do that like like there's a glass there and you go, oh yeah, well, that's what it's made of, glass. Oh well, what's glass? Oh well, this is the composition of glass. Okay, but then atoms. And then okay, but what is an atom? And it's like mostly just empty space and they, oh, okay, but what is an atom?
Speaker 2:And it's like mostly just empty space.
Speaker 1:And they go oh well, yeah, but it's the subatomic particles. Okay, so those subatomic, what about them? And then you, okay, so what's under there? And then, because the concept of atom like something that can't be divided, Now we go no, no, of course there's levels below that. Subatomic.
Speaker 1:And they go oh, subatomic start to get into things like well, it's more like fields of force or vibrations or cosmic strings, and suddenly there is no bottom. You don't arrive at something that now we have got to the absolute bottom, and then you know they always all my life. It's like we're just about to get to the grand theory of everything, we're just about to put our feet on the absolute solid ground at the very bottom.
Speaker 2:And it turns out as it goes, as we go down, there's less and less to stand on, and then we're just about to put our feet on the absolute solid ground at the very bottom, and it turns out as it goes, as we go down, there's less and less to stand on, and then we're at it.
Speaker 1:There's just some kind of energies, vibrations yeah and you think well, we can't even know what that glass really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you found yourself in that hole where reality because you've defined it in this horribly like pathetic way reality is now empty. You found yourself in a hole and you're basically just shouting up like, oh, we'll just keep digging.
Speaker 1:We are going to keep digging.
Speaker 2:We're nearly at the bottom. We will like oh, next the next spade floor is going to really show us what reality is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like no.
Speaker 2:Next is gonna really show what reality is. Yeah, it's like no, because you've you're asking the wrong questions about what?
Speaker 1:reality is going to be and it's a bit like in the bible where they talk about the bottomless abyss, and it's as if sin and unbelief and alienation from god is this bottomless abyss, and the reason that's so terrifying is, once you sink into it, you do believe you're going to get to the bottom of it and like no, no, I'm going to make sense of this sinful life that I've got yeah I'm going to think my way into right, like understanding it, and then I'll, I'll find myself on.
Speaker 1:So it's like in minecraft or something where you go down and then there's a. There is a kind of absolute thank goodness yeah there is but and then there's a belief. No, no, I will get to that. You never do the bible's like there is nothing once you approach life and you're, you're digging into something that, in the wrong way, like that, you just keep going into infinity and what's that being proverbs about?
Speaker 2:there, was it? Three things that never say enough four that are never satisfied.
Speaker 1:That's right. And the ground the grave is like never, never, never satisfied.
Speaker 2:I remember you talking to me about that. Well, that was years ago back at the All Souls Clubhouse and you were sort of like, did this thing of like the graves just consuming more?
Speaker 1:and more. Ah, give me more.
Speaker 2:I'm never full. I'm never full. And that sense that, yeah, there is a kind of pointlessness to it. And then when people recognize that as pointless, when they lose hope in the project, yeah, the project. Of the Enlightenment or of modernism. You just get into this postmodernmodern, completely absurdist existential crisis.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there is no bottom. Therefore, you know, because the our strategy was correct, this is the only is there is no bottom to anything, there is no foundation, it's all illusion. Nothing holds together, therefore, life is in us and therefore I'll just invent whatever I want and then?
Speaker 2:so now, yeah, it was sisyphean, the task was sisyphean. Like you were just pushing this rock up a hill, it's going to fall down every single time. So what are you going to do? And then sarcher just goes. Oh no, sisyphus is going to find joy in in the, in the pointlessness of life. He's just going to be the absurd hero and just kind of, yeah, like imagine Sisyphus is happy. Doing it In his completely pointless, endless task, and you think or not?
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Why imagine him happy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why imagine that?
Speaker 2:If we're going to be nihilistic, you can smile about it. You can be, but you don't have to.
Speaker 1:I don't think people can, though, and there's like just amazing levels of well. It was, like Jürgen Moltmann said, like when you look at the modern world, there's like a massive sickness a massive sickness that manifests itself in all kinds of social problems, environmental problems. But just like people cannot, cannot be human in this environment yeah because it's this like a project of saying the truth is.
Speaker 1:What we want to do is like the truth is trying to describe what, what the world is, what the world is, and then sort of dismantling it into almost like static parts and forces and concepts and then wondering why this doesn't make sense of things and why we feel alienated and darkened and despair and and and the. You know all that and it. I think it might be because of this concept of truth and like I know you and I've thought a little bit because when I was talking about this guy got hold lessing from the 18th century.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, yeah, I know he felt this I did, yeah, yeah, and it's like you probably deleted it or something. But yeah, um no, he wrote nathan the wise. I mean, I've not read what he wrote, but he wrote a play and he wrote all sorts of plays, but he did write.
Speaker 1:Obviously a winner, obviously yeah, well, who?
Speaker 2:where is wisdom if not in nathan's? Got it?
Speaker 1:yeah but he is at the beginning of this enlightenment project and he gets this problem and he um is saying, okay, I get that. There are like historical scientific facts, they're just true and anyone, he and like anybody, can discover that sort of truth anywhere in the world because they're like, just true, like the mathematics things yeah mathematics that's true rational philosophical truths or the laws of physics and things like that.
Speaker 1:That's just true and anybody anywhere connects with them. But he says, like when I come at the bible, when I'm coming up against jesus, he isn't. That's not what's being offered to me. What's being offered to me is a happening.
Speaker 1:Something has happened in history that claims to be universal truth but, it happened at a particular time and place and that's supposed to be universally true, is I can't like. And he's like there's a he called it a broad and ugly ditch. He said I'm on the side of like scientific, mathematical truth and that's the only truth I can believe in. And then there's this like ditch that can't be crossed and on the other side is like Jesus and the apostles and things, and they're like no something's happened that is not discoverable by like abstract, timeless philosophy. You have to know this story and historical happenings and those things are the actual truth of the universe. And he's like I can't get to that.
Speaker 2:But I love the fact that. So we get the ditch. I look like he's got this idea of the ditch and you think, okay, so is the ditch true? And he probably just in his German accent. I won't try and do one, but he'd be like oh, it's not really true, it's just a metaphor I'm just using. You're like interesting, interesting that you want to use a metaphor to try to get at this truth that you're trying to communicate.
Speaker 1:I've never thought of that, because the ditch.
Speaker 2:Do you mean a lit, an actual ditch? No, I don't mean an actual ditch. Well, why do you use the word ditch? Then? It's like well, because at the moment that's all I can. I'm trying to explain something. It's very complicated, so I'm reaching for images and pictures and and things to to communicate that um, and so I've got this kind of spatial metaphor to try to help me understand. You know the fact that there are these real truths over here on this side, and then there's this kind of jesus-y story events and you know, first century um in the middle east happenings, and I'm here and I'm just, oh, this is terrible, because you can't have both and I. So we're doing some, some study on cognitive metaphor theory. Have you heard of?
Speaker 1:this no, go on. This sounds good.
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of guys from the 80s who wrote a book called Metaphors we Live by. So their argument was that the human brain is like, has to use metaphors all the time to help it kind of understand what it's, what the world is. So like life is a journey, or argument is war, or like, those two are probably enough, but so life is a journey. So we're going to borrow from this like story thing, journey, and then we're going to borrow from this story thing journey, and then we're going to try and understand this abstract thing called life through this metaphor. Same with argument is war, and that's going to be manifested in everyday human speech as we use idioms and language to communicate about ourselves. We're going to use these metaphors and their point was okay. So it just so happens that the human brain happens to be like this.
Speaker 2:You know it's just a bit of an accident, it's helpful, um, but, and we can't really get to the proper essence of stuff. But for the time being we'll just live in these little metaphors.
Speaker 1:Ah, so it's a provisional measure.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of provisional and it's kind of yeah, it's a fortunate, as you say, little happenstance, but the idea that we might be mythopathic, to use a CS Lewis word that we might have been created with story categories and inner story response so that we respond to story and storytelling, and that that might be an intentional part of what it means to be human, rather than just an accident of our evolutionary development or cultural development, or a strategy to deal with the fact that there is no meaning.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, we go provisionally.
Speaker 2:let's pretend this meaning so yeah, so that idea that we are going to to to reach for metaphor and and story to understand the world around us, and when you're looking at a lot of explanations for why the stories exist, like you say, loads of the evolutionary biologists and those kind of guys are just like yeah, this is just our coping mechanism and it's what separates us from the animals. But it's all an accident, social construct, it doesn't really mean anything, it's not tied to any reality.
Speaker 1:A survival strategy? Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:It's not grounded anywhere, Whereas in the Christ-centered cosmic civilization we're saying, no, this is reality and therefore this is how we are and how we behave and how we think. Because it is properly true that we live in the Christ-centered civilization. Not just that, it kind of functionally works for us between his facts and his values, or whatever it is, is itself instructive.
Speaker 1:That, um yeah, he is made in the image of god in a weird way, he's trying to like communicate a story and he's like imagining this story and there's a ditch and he's sort of imagining I wish imagine a story in which I got to the other side of the ditch or something, and that would be a great story, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:and we're like it is a great story and he's like and this is the most memorable thing, he says.
Speaker 1:And it's this thing that's like a and it's of a different kind. It is like a truth thing and I'm like now that's truth, kind of you're getting for Whereas some of the what he thought was truth.
Speaker 1:I'm like no, you're kind of like I know this is a metaphor that you and I have used before in the past, but this idea of a theatre, and it's as if he's saying I'm going to describe all the items on the stage, the structure, the composition. That's the truth. It's like no, it isn't truth, that's just the correct layout of the stage. The truth is the play that is performed on that stage that's the truth and is that?
Speaker 2:Just let it play out in front of you.
Speaker 1:Let the play happen. Listen to it. Yeah, shut up. Now's the time for.
Speaker 2:There's another great bit again to go back to Lewis in the other end of Narnia with the magician's nephew. You know the bit when Narnia is being sung into being and there's a brilliant bit where, uncle andrew, I might have talked to you, but I'm sure uncle andrew is uh, so he's like the, the, the worst kind of magician because, he's like trying to harness magic for his own power all the way through the book, and he's a rationalist scientist as well, isn't he?
Speaker 1:He's like brilliant for that.
Speaker 2:And so, whilst the Narnia is kind of forming, as Aslan sings and walks back and forth as all this stuff is happening, he's just jabbering away like oh, come on, what's going on.
Speaker 2:And then the cabbie. Do you know the cabbie? He accidentally ends up in there with his horse Strawberry and everything. So he says I love this line. He says it's a weird phrase as well, but he says stow it, governor, which just means sharp. He says watching and listening is the thing at present. Yeah, like this isn't the time for you to be just.