Beyond Pluto

In ancient times the word ‘planetai’, meaning wanderers, was applied to the seven heavenly bodies that moved. They couldn’t see Neptune and Pluto. Also, being pre-Galileo, it was assumed the sun was one of the seven and the earth wasn’t. The definition of planet was therefore not fixed but was to be influenced by changes in science and thinking in the years ahead.

This is not so different from the Christian history of God. Within the pages of the Bible God progresses from being a personal deity, to a tribal deity, to a deity who was pan-tribal, to one that transcended all human constructs. The location of God moved from the desert, to the Temple, to a literal realm in the sky, to the presence of the historical Jesus. Later in the early centuries of Christianity, via an intricate weaving of Greek and Hebrew thought with the experience of transformative love in Jesus, God was woven into the tapestry called Trinity. But the development of God didn’t stop there, locked in the 4th century. God as ‘process’, as ‘go-between’, as ‘liberator’, as ‘matrix of grace’… were all still to come.

The influence of science and philosophy on the definition and development of God is not to be underestimated. Indeed it is the interplay between experience, history, and science that has pushed at and shown as puny the simplistic notions of God.

God is a word that defies close definition. Language being a system of signs and codes is based around the visible and tangible. When language has to be found for the invisible and intangible then multiple metaphors are used. We say the thing we are trying to describe is something like this, but also not like that. It is also something like this, but also not like that. No one set of metaphorical clothes quite fits. In theology we surmise that such is the nature of God that no sets of clothing will ever quite fit.

The other word in theology that defies close definition is soul. Soul, or ‘heart’ as it’s sometimes called, is an attempt to talk about God in us and us in God. It blends passion, feeling, wisdom, and wholeness. A person can gain the whole universe, be as rich and successful as he or she could possibly imagine, yet without attending to their soul they gain nothing. To nurture the soul, the task of spirituality, is therefore very important. All sorts of little things help – walking in the bush, conversing with a child, smelling the coffee before you drink it, laughing often… Yet answering the question of why these things help is harder. It is as if the universe is inside us, and all the spinning, pulling, moving and amazing wonders need to be held together in some way.

When I was a teenager I spent many nights each year sleeping under the stars. There is nothing quite like falling asleep beneath an enormous canopy of twinkling lights, variously arranged, and different each evening. Being a child of modernity I knew that the blackness of the sky was not a great dome that encompassed the earth and above which a kingly God sat. I knew the blackness was all I could see of the fathomless depth beyond, where the experience we call God might or might not be. For everything that astronomy could tell us there was always more it couldn’t. Yet, like the best of theology, its purpose was to ignite wonder and imagine limitless possibility.

Should Pluto be relegated? The debate will continue for some time yet. The pragmatists will probably triumph over the purists. They usually do. Yet the former need to be cognisant that their revised definition will in time also change. Heavenly bodies are not always what they seem.