Full confession here: At one time in the recent past (mostly college), I was a video gamer. Now my games are mostly puzzles and time-killers like Words with Friends or Plague, Inc. But then, I found video games to be an engaging and powerful storytelling device (I am not the only one, apparently). And so my games had to have sprawling plots and the all important element: choice. But even more than engaging plots, I needed to have a chance to stop pursuing the main plot and venture off on my own.
The gaming world calls this "open-world," or "sandbox." In open world games, the main plot is basically a way to know when you're "done." But everything up until then is a choice. The game world is yours to participate in. Long gone are the days of Mario, where your objective is to safely get from one side of the screen to the other to save a personality-less princess.
I bring up video games because I think that the debates on creation/evolution and faith/science could benefit from being a little more open world and a little less linear. Most debates break down into simple if: then mechanics. If you believe in evolution, then you must deny the Bible somehow. If you believe in a young earth, then you must ignore the swaths of scientific evidence in support of an old earth. Or, the debate spends time only in the mechanics of how we got from nothing to here. Frankly, it gets boring, and yet so interesting that it has consumed a lot of my study time.
The most compelling creation story, to me, isn't even Genesis 1 or Genesis 2. Proverbs 8:22-31 is the best creation story because it gives adds a dimension not often found in the discussion: fun. Creation is playful. Wisdom provides a sense of delight in creation. She watches God work and even gets to do some of the work too, by God's side (8:30-31). One could easily imagine that Wisdom was standing there when God said "Let us make..." (Genesis 1:26-27).
But wait, is Wisdom a person? Is she a prefiguration of Jesus? Is she like an angel? Valid questions, I suppose, but they are a lot more Mario than open world, and Wisdom literature is very open world (even while wearing an if: then, Mario-esque costume). They assume that the Bible is helping us get a pathway from one side of the screen to the other, when God really is inviting us into God's own sandbox to play alongside Wisdom and delight in the re-Creation that God is doing in Jesus Christ. To paraphrase pastors Tyler Johnson and Chris Gonzalez, Creation is not a principle which must be applied, but a rich story in which you are implied. Creation is an invitation if nothing else, to help design the world in a reflection of its loving Creator. Game on.
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