Creational Theology

I’m in the process of revisiting The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. What a joy! One thing I’ve had in the back of my mind whilst reading has been the observation by Alan Jacobs (in The Narnian) that all of Lewis’s thought can be found in The Chronicles of Narnia. With this in mind, I was staggered by the power in Lewis’s view of the world expressed in this singular line about the nature of creation:

“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
[Aslan:] “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
― The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Lewis jarred me here, and stirred me from a slumber with this line. It’s the climate of our age to define things by what they are. Atheistic materialism is the default mode of how we see the world around us – a star is a huge ball of burning gas :: a huge ball of burning gas is a star. Beyond the physics of the star, there’s nothing else to it. But Lewis jarringly pulls us back to Scripture by the mouth of Aslan.

[The Lord] determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
~ Psalm 147:4

Each and every star has a name – a name the Lord himself gave it. The stars of the heavens are named by God, which means, if anything, that they are more than merely huge balls of burning gas. They are named by God. Each and every star in the heavens has a name tag on it, given to it by God himself. Those stars constantly stroll the heavens calling us to speak the glories of God back to him.

I regularly frequent NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. This is one of their latest pictures, W5: Pillars of Star Formation. Take in the wonder of this star formation – it’s not mere gas. That’s what it’s made of, but that’s not what it is. If anything, it’s named by God himself. The Lord gave this star a name, and this star has joyfully radiated the praise of the Lord of Heaven since long before we saw it, and will continue to long into the future.

Don’t succumb to the drab, weary, bland world of our age that sees a star only as a ball of burning gas. Thoughts like that poison the heart and will rot out your affections, leaving you hollow – as Lewis would say, a man without a chest.

Rather, we should see each of these gargantuan, massive, named stars hanging nimbly upon the command of Christ to exist (Hebrews 1). The Jesus who names them and owns them, is the same Jesus who tenderly cares for us. The one who names the stars more intimately cares for us. Ultimately, the stars with their beautiful names call us to look to Jesus who is “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16 ESV).