Psalm 98

"Let the rivers clap their hands"

Last week, with Psalm 97, I described the pagan vision of the natural world, all of creation animated by spiritual powers and potencies. The poetry of the Psalms echoes this vision with its anthropomorphized descriptions of the natural world. For example, in Psalm 98 the rivers clap and the mountains shout.

These images could be mere metaphor. The material world, in such a view, is inert and dead. Rivers do not clap and mountains do not shout. Any such descriptions, therefore, are romantic indulgences and poetic pretending. We import a subjectivity where it doesn't exist.

And yet, borrowing from David Bentley Hart's recent book, the pagan vision of creation, where "all things are full of gods," may be more faithful to the Biblical imagination than scientific materialism. And yet, this appreciation and rehabilitation of the pagan worldview will be worrisome to many Christians. As I mentioned last week, viewing the world as full of spiritual powers and potencies raises concerns about idolatry and the demonic. Two very legitimate concerns. But the presence of temptations here doesn't mean the cosmology isn't true. In fact, these worries admit the validity of the pagan perspective. We would't be concerned about such things if none of it was real.

There is also goodness in this vision of the world as well. As I described last week, the imagery of the Psalms opens up the possibility of a baptized paganism, viewing the powers of nature, visible and invisible, as subject to the lordship of Christ. I described how C.S. Lewis presents a vision of baptized paganism in The Chronicles of Narnia. A lovely illustration of this comes from The Magician's Nephew where the children bear witness to Aslan creating the world:

The Lion opened his mouth, but no sound came from it; he was breathing out, a long, warm breath; it seemed to sway all the beasts as the wind sways a line of trees. Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children’s bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."

It was of course the Lion's voice. The children had long felt sure that he could speak: yet it was a lovely and terrible shock when he did. Out of the trees wild people stepped forth, gods Fauns and Satyrs and Dwarfs. Out of the river rose the river god with his Naiad daughters. And all these and all the beasts and birds in their different voices, low or high or thick or clear, replied:

“Hail, Aslan. We hear and obey. We are awake. We love. We think. We speak. We know.”

Lewis blends nature mysticism with Christianity. Creation is awake.

As Psalm 98 says, the mountains shout and the rivers clap.