New Studies

abysses
Introduction

     I was first caught by this concept, "abysses", while I was reading Leanne Payne's Restoring the Christian Soul. She wrote about the abyss of nonbeing—the root cause of all existential anxiety, that ever-feared and ever-present spectre of the possibility of the complete and utter negation of the human soul. Then I began to notice the use of the same word in the writings of other authors. From ancient days, through the middle ages to the present, counselors and sages have been using this concept: the image of the chasmic void—the infinitely deep and wide abyss to describe spiritual and psychological realities.
     Even in the beginning, or infinitely close to the beginning (the second sentence of the book of Genesis), we find that the earth was "without form and void" with "darkness over the surface of the deep". The image is one of a sort of cosmic emptiness and infinite deepness that cries out for infilling, organization, illumination. Then God responds to this great void by filling it with light, creation-wide light (some think) and then, soon after (maybe after an infinitely short epoch of time) by creating another gulf-the separation of light from darkness: another abyss. Could it be that such chasmic voids, spiritual and psychological, cosmic and relational, are inherent to the nature of creation? and could it be that, in order to infill or span such voids, it may be necessary to face still others, remedial and healing, paradoxical and confounding? I believe we find ourselves in a universe of abysses. If we look towards heaven or earth, if we ponder our relationships with other people or our own deep heart, if we face the incongruency of reality without turning away we find abysses-and miraculous abysses of infinite abysses.
 

Zechariah 12:9-11

Peter Taylor Forsyth