A Theology of Surplus

Source: NASA

Is the size of the universe a problem for Christianity?

It’s often posed as such. Sometimes there’s an assumption that constellations, planets, and galaxies that exist far outside human contact undermine Christian cosmology. The argument, I think, is more intuitive than logical. There is no logical reason why an infinite and personal God could not create a universe overwhelmingly vast relative to his image-bearers. Rather, the dissonance is emotional. If the point of history is Jesus Christ’s saving earth-dwellers from sin—if the crown jewel of creation and the future of the cosmos depends on a renewed human race living on a renewed earth—why would such a God stick the “main stage,” so to speak, in the corner of a massively larger arena?

But there’s a very simple answer to this. Granting that the God of Genesis is real, you also grant that he is an awesomely creative God. This creative impulse predates Adam and it stretches far beyond him. God creates, and as any creator will tell you, creating brings particular pleasures that are independent of just how precisely efficient the thing created is. Just like painters add near imperceptible touches, or sculptors chisel detail virtually no one else can see, or writers choose a word for a satisfaction only they will fully know, God created segments of our reality for his pleasure, not just for ours.

But of course, this explanation means that God takes pleasure in things that don’t immediately serve our needs or satisfy our curiosity. We are now talking, from a human perspective, about surplus.

God planted us in this particular solar system, gave us a particular reach, but what about the things beyond that reach? To us, they are surplus. We cannot harness them. We cannot mine them. In many cases we cannot even see them. Their existence de-centers us. We cannot measure them by our agenda. We can concede their existence, but nothing else. They are not for us in the way our own atmosphere is.

Now, a question: Are these galaxies and stars and planets less worthy of praise, less beautiful, less good because of this? Do they merit contempt or indifference because we can’t make them sit still for our uses? No. Anybody who believes in the Bible at all believes the Creator’s creations are marvelous and altogether wonderful. Even that which we cannot see has value because of what it is. We can, and should, wonder at it. We can and should be grateful for it. We are not meant to master it, but we are meant to sigh in wonder at it. Anything less is a failure to worship.

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The A.I. world that’s emerging in front of us is complex, but there’s one attitude inside it that’s especially worth pointing out:

Our rush to incorporate A.I. in our creative endeavors reflects a denial of this theology of surplus.

The entire point of generative A.I. is that it eliminates any second of “wasted” time. Why burn precious minutes trying to think of the right word when ChatGPT will do it for you? Why spend your day agonizing over shadows and colors when Grok can paint you something right away? Automation relieves the burden of spending time not producing. Everything in our modern culture aspires to zero seconds of nonlinear effort. Everything has to advance our agenda right away, directly, or else it’s a tragic misuse of our life.

A theology of surplus runs in the opposite direction. A theology of surplus shows us how the minutes that don’t birth the final product do something else: They decorate the process of human creativity. The quest for the right word, the right color, the right description—this itself is part of the beauty of bearing a Creator’s image. Our war against these marginal moments is the same as deciding that the images from the James Webb telescope ought not to exist, because they distract, don’t get the job done, or lower productivity. Such an insane mentality is the heartbeat of so much unthinking acceptance of automated creation. It’s a failure to worship.

Sitting in wonder at a cosmos we cannot handle is pro-God. And sitting in patience as we endure the surplus of life as finite persons is pro-human.