My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

by Christian Wiman

Contingency. Meaning subject to chance, not absolute. Meaning uncertain, as reality, right down to the molecular level, is uncertain. As all of human life is uncertain. I suppose that to think of God in these terms might seem for some people deeply troubling (not to mention heretical), but I find it a comfort. It is akin to the notion of God entering and understanding—or understanding that there could be no understanding (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?)—human suffering. If Christianity is going to mean anything at all for us now, then the humanity of God cannot be a half measure. He can’t float over the chaos of pain and particles in which we’re mired, and we can’t think of him gliding among our ancestors like some shiny, sinless superhero. (The miracles, whatever one thinks of their veracity, didn’t set Jesus off from his contemporaries as much as they seem to now; there were many healers, prophets, and the like wandering around the Middle East in the first century. And anyway, the miracles have a pro forma or applied quality even in the telling; often Jesus himself seeks to mute their effects, wants the people around him to place their faith in more common occurrences. And indeed, what is most moving and durable about Jesus are the moments of pure—at times even helpless: My God, my God—humanity.) No, God is given over to matter, the ultimate Uncertainty Principle. There’s no release from reality, no “outside” or “beyond” from which some transforming touch mig...