21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

two mutually opposing particles ‘appear’ and then almost instantaneously annihilate each other.

A beginning, as mentioned by Catherine Keller, implies an end. The universe does not simply risk sliding back into chaos, it faces total extinction. There is an underlying association with death in the choice of viewing the creation in this way.

The acceptance of this notion of a literal nothingness from which the universe sprung also ties in with the notion that we are here by chance. However, life defies the second law of thermodynamics — it effectively makes order where chaos should rein. Therefore creation out of nothing implicitly suggests that life is an anomaly. The way things stand there is a covert interest in dead matter over an interest in life and this awkward bias is studiously ignored. If we were instead to opt for order out of chaos from the outset then life would be seen to be contiguous with the birth and development of the universe.

As Catherine Keller has indicated, form and formlessness are better terms to describe creation than something and nothing. Form is the familiar everyday world of experience. Formlessness is the mystery beyond form. Formlessness is not really nothingness. Formlessness is rather a ripe potential for new form. There is a boundary therefore between form, which can be known, and formlessness, which resides in mystery. Infinity is carried within ourselves — just as it is with all other creatures. All creation partakes of both form

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