Opening Words of Wisdom
Assuredly you have heard the idiom that one should not judge a book by its cover. That piece of practical wisdom is not something I wish to debunk but I might desire to add a layer of nuance to it: One should not judge a book by its cover but one might attempt to judge it by its opening words. This elongation of the old adage certainly causes it to lose its marketable brevity and bite but my hope is that what is lost in economy might be gained in wisdom.
Great works of literature, history, philosophy, and theology are intentionally teleological. That is to say they have a particular aim, end, or purpose towards which they hope to guide the reader. Often times that aim, that goal, is hidden by the author in plain sight—lying right there in the opening words.
Shakespeare’s tragedies are a masterclass in this strategy. One might argue that each of his great dramas smuggle the central theme of the entire work in miniature in the opening words.
Take for example the incomparable Hamlet. The play starts with a seemingly innocuous exchange between two characters, really two nobodies who disappear from the play after their opening remarks, never to be heard from again. The opening words of the play are spoken by two sentinels, two guards. Barnardo issues the opening salvo asking, “Who’s there?” Francisco responds, “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.” And in that exchange lies the entire drama of the second greatest play ever written (King Lear being the greatest in this author’s humble opinion), if not the entire drama of human existence.
Hamlet centers around the young prince of Denmark and his inner turmoil. The political drama of a dead king (King Hamlet) and the exchanging of power is really just the stage upon which a psychological theatrical performance is danced. A strictly political work would not and could have gripped the imagination of the world for 400 years the way Hamlet has. Politics and statesmanship after all have a terminus; that is to say one can reach the top and the bottom of them. But the inner life of man, man made in the image of the infinite, triune God, that is a thing no one can plumb the depths of.
So year after year we continue to watch and read of the young prince as he tries to come to an understanding of himself. He tries to learn of his own motivations—why does he act the way he does, or maybe more poignantly—why does he fail to act to avenge the death of his father? Hamlet keeps asking himself the big questions about himself, about existence itself and whether or not one should choose to be or not to be, after all, as Albert Camus famously said, “Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
And maybe that particular existential question is “THE” question, but it is not the only question of the play. After all Hamlet is peering into his own soul and truly asking himself, “Who’s there?” And that starts the endless process of interior exploration as he “unfolds himself.” Shakespeare, the genius, packed up the entire cosmos, he bottled the northern lights, and he placed them in the humble garb an opening act conversation between two background characters.
Now this is not simply a one off, something that is true only of Hamlet. The same analysis might be done on King Lear and Gloucester’s opening remarks about the potentially divided kingdom. The witches of Macbeth’s Act 1, Scene 1 similarly prefigure what is to come. Nor is this nothing more than a Shakespearean trope, and if it is, it is one he borrows from an even greater author than he. God seems to employ the same tactic in a book you might be familiar with called The Bible (there are some slower parts you will have to work through but trust me it gets really good in the second half).
The Bible opens with the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Now we might view this as an important passage because it speaks of God as creator, but a closer analysis will reveal that the entire story of history’s history is contained in that opening sentence.
Genesis 1:1, when talking about heaven, is not talking about simply that which is above the earth or the skies. Later in Genesis the word heaven will be used in that way, but in Genesis 1:1 we are actually getting the account of the creation of heaven itself—the throne room of God, the place which is populated with angelic beings who worship the triune creator of all. Heaven is a created realm. It has a beginning and we read of that beginning in the opening words of the Bible.
So in the very act of creation, God created two realities and Adam, from the very begging, inhabits the lower reality. This is so important to get. Earth, this world is not the lower reality because of sin. This is the lower reality and then we, in Adam, sinned. Adam had the opportunity to advance to the higher reality had he acted with perfect, personal, exact, and entire obedience. That is what he was made for. That is what we are made for. But he failed. We failed. We were made for sabbath rest in the presence of God.
The entirety of the Bible unfolds out of that opening verse. The whole story is a love story. Just like Tim O’Brien said about any “true war story.” The Bible is the story about an infinite God, out of his sheer good pleasure, electing to bring his people from the lower reality to a higher reality—to his very presence so they might share in his love. It is all right there, right in the beginning.
Words matter. Don’t let the early ones slip past you unexamined.
Justin Chiarot serves as a humanities teacher at Chapel Field.
