In the third chapter of 'The Dignity of Difference' Sacks writes 'Yet that is the case I will make: that we need nothing less than a paradigm shift in our understanding of our commonalities and differences' (page 48). Later on page 52, he summarises his new paradigm:
'It (Babel) is a supreme act of hubris, committed time and again in history - from the Sumerian city-states, to Plato's Republic, to empires, ancient and modern, to the Soviet Union. It is the attempt to impose an artificial unity on divinely created diversity. That is what is wrong with universalism.' (Author's emphases)
'The Dignity of Difference' was published in 2002, soon after the destruction of the twin towers on 11 September 2001. But its context is equally the Holocaust and centuries of persecution of Jews. In future posts this context will become more important.
What interests me about Sacks' paradigm is how far it mirrors my own experience. There is an assumption common amongst Christians and others that God is perfect and so is his creation. Creation is messy, any biologist will be aware of the waste, the magnificent and unnecessary diversity of life left to its own devices. Astronomers are equally aware of the mess of 100s of billions of galaxies. In all natural systems there are regularities but in detail there is mess; sometimes because we cannot see the regularities and sometimes because it is just mess.
I'm sure the thing that shocks Christians about evolution is the idea that chance might have a part to play in it. But this is only shocking if you already know how God creates. A theme I will return to many times is that order emerges from chance actions, and understanding the relationship between order and chaos allows us to grasp something of God's action in the universe.
My single point for now is that Sacks paradigm has implications beyond issues relating to unity and diversity. The urge to impose order is a human urge, not God's.
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