Scott asked a few questions on my last post that I thought perhaps would be best addressed through a post of its own. Scott asked, "Does conflict create story? I think you're probably right, but If so, what happens in paradise/paradise regained - is there an absence of story in the sweet bye and bye? Or in our discussion of life as simply story do we lose some of the complex richness of life?"

As for the thoughts on paradise, I'm going to default on that one - I have some specific thoughts there that I want to make in a later post. But I thought the second question should probably be picked up here; it's a fair one that undergirds some of what I'm trying to think through in this series of posts. First, a point of clarification is perhaps in order - I'm not so much reflecting on life as story so much as on scripture as story, so I think in some ways the metaphor only stretches so far. On the other hand, I'm also reflecting on thinking through our own lives in the context of the grand Story, so the question is certainly a fair one. What's the overlap, and what does it mean then to think of our lives in this way?

This is something of a complex question, to be honest, because I think this is one of those metaphors that's almost blurring the lines between image and reality. There is a sense in which we live our lives in the context of stories. There is a plot that we follow, in some sense, a part that we play and parts that we assign to others to play. For example, if I interpret the plot of my story to be struggle and my part in that plot as that of the underdog, I might assign others the roles of antagonists who are trying to dominate me. My life then plays out in the story that I've constructed, and I (perhaps) leave a trail of broken relationships in my wake as I overcome the obstacles that others present. I think that's a fair statement to make without devolving into psychobabble (but, as I mentioned, it's still only a metaphor - I don't think anyone cognitively goes down this path, just that it's one way of describing how we approach life).

So the question then becomes, on some level, what is the plot, anyway? And that's where I think our story and the grand Story start to overlap. The plot, I'd argue, is that we are created beings, created by a good God and declared good at the moment of creation. We were granted a place and purpose in the order of things, in unity with God and each other. But that unity, that place and purpose, have become twisted and broken, a condition that we've taken to calling sin. The plot is defined around this condition, this conflict - the question that the rest of the Story attempts to answer is the one created by the conflict. What does a good God do about sin in His good creation? The answer, I think, is about redemption. Which leads me to the next question:

"Also, as a digression strictly into story perhaps, what comes of story without the risk of the heroes' failure? Or is that strictly a matter of perspective (present struggles v. hope of glory), or does our hope of glory overrule the possibility of 'Christian tragedy'?"

The answer to this, I'd argue, depends on how one defines "redemption". And that's where we'll turn next.