Those unfortunates who deal with politics have doubtless encountered the phrase ‘wrong side of history’ before, the idea that history has an arc and it bends towards, well, annihilation of Christianity. To oversimplify a few libraries worth of history books, mankind is evolving, and as he evolves, he discards delusions and falsehoods. Eventually, as he reaches our current state of sophistication, he realizes that history is narrative, and he recognizes that by changing the perceived narrative, he changes reality. He realizes too that because there is no standard, his only obligation is to destroy any absolute standard, specifically God’s standard (for he hates God). The arc of history, therefore, turns towards the destruction of standards by any means necessary in order to allow man the full freedom to dictate reality. Like all compelling lies, the falsehood has a truth at its core. History does have an arc; history is a story. History is a story of God’s making, however, not of man’s. History is the story God has told; one man cannot overwrite. Further, all our stories, fiction and non-fiction, are components of the singular grand story of history. We should seek, therefore, a basic understanding of this story as a story, for edification and use.

The analysis of history-as-story, of course, is so mammoth a topic as to be on this earth inexhaustible. In this series, therefore, I’m limiting my investigation to looking at the central arc of history in terms of a common story schema, as well as one of its subordinate threads and two important nuances (we’ll get to these in order). The schema I’ll be using is a version of Freytag’s Pyramid, consisting of inciting incident, rising action, climax, denouement, and conclusion. Don’t worry if my terminology is unfamiliar; I’ll be explaining these as I go.

The inciting incident of contingent reality (philosophy words, go!¹) is Creation; the inciting incident of its story is the Fall. The basis of both of these is the Decree of God. That said, I should define ‘inciting incident.’ The inciting incident of a story is what kicks it all off. In The Lord of the Rings, it’s Bilbo’s Party- though the finding of the Ring in The Hobbit could also qualify in a more remote sense. In The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, it’s the children’s exile into the country, as well as Lucy’s first trip through the Wardrobe. This term, more than most parts of this structure, is fuzzy. Essentially, the ‘inciting incident’ is the story-event which introduces the story’s central conflict into the status quo.

The Creation of the world, in context of His sovereign decree of all which would be, was the first change in the status quo, and it set up the arrival of conflict itself. The Biblical narrative presents this final inciting element in Genesis 3. Man falls into sin, Eve counselling Adam and Adam bringing sin upon all man’s generations, and the central conflict of the world is set up: death versus life, sin versus righteousness, the fallen creature versus the Creator Judge. The question has been asked, and it is, “How will the righteous God fulfil His promise of redemption to the world?” That reality begins this way, incidentally,² is a (to me) sufficient proof that the central story of creation is the story of redemption, though far from the only proof.

The next element of the story is the ‘rising action.’ Rising action is, for most stories, the meat of the affair. It’s the journey from Hobbiton to Rivendell to Mordor. It’s the work of investigating Harriet Vane’s situation.³ It’s the build-and-collapse of London’s borough-states in The Napoleon of Notting Hill.⁴  The effects of the inciting incident snowball, the status quo is not just chipped but shattered, and the gravity of the situation becomes unavoidable. In this segment too, though, the seeds of the resolution are being set up. In a tragedy, these seeds are part of the destruction; in a comedy, they are signs of the destruction’s doom.

History’s rising action is the Old Testament period after Genesis 3. It begins, to be precise, with the judgement of man and the prophecy of Christ in Genesis 3:14-21. Then, in a period we have quite little insight into, the world discovers exactly how bad sin actually is. As Canaan would in years later (Deut. 9:4-5), antediluvian humanity descends into unutterable abomination, likely encompassing the grossest excesses of tyranny, murder, torture, sexual perversity, and blasphemy as a standard feature of society. In all this, a single lineage is faithful, though given the ages of those involved, we can justly assume that for every man whose name is in the genealogy of Noah, they had siblings, cousins, and children who they lost, either to the world’s cruelty or, much worse, to apostasy. At any rate, when Noah has finally finished the arc, he and his sons alone, with their wives, persist in the faith; this is a truly dark hour, for even the council of his grandfather is now lost to him.

Here we see how rising action works. Tension rises in waves. A local question appears. Here it is the question of man’s near-universal evil. The tension rises, and we see no remedy. Then that question is resolved, but because this is a sub-plot, not quite resolved. So the Flood comes, deserving its capital letter, and wipes clean the evils of that mankind, but the evil of man’s heart is not removed entirely. Indeed, in Ham, Nimrod, and Babel we see the reinstantiation of those same evils. So the rising action continues, laying out the conflict. We learn more and more of the true extent of the problem, and evil seems preeminent. To put it in another story’s terms, the forces of Sauron are marshalling; Gondor is in decay; the Shire is oblivious, already infiltrated by the servants of the Enemy (and his cut-rate lackey).

We’ve covered the Flood and touched on Babel; next comes Abraham, possibly a spectator to Babel’s glory, and here we see the other half of rising action. While the White Witch moves to exterminate the last of the Narnians, while she uses Edmund to gain Aslan’s surrender, she is not the only actor. Peter is training; the Narnians are gathering; Aslan has come again. Of course, there’s a convergence here; Aslan’s coming and Aslan’s surrender are part of the same narrative.

To understand this, let’s look a little farther in history, past the patriarchs, to the days of Moses. Here, God’s people are oppressed and likely considering apostasy (given their Golden Calf escapade later). The bad guys are winning, to appearance, but it is in this victory of evil that God brings triumph, for out of the evil of Egypt comes the Exodus. If we fast-forward a bit, we can see an even clearer example of this, looking past Joshua and the Judges and Saul to the days of David. In committing adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11), David sins terribly. Yet out of this sin God brings forth Solomon; out of this sin God establishes the foundation of His own Son’s birth.

Thus the rising action is a story of conflict. The antagonist seems ever triumphant, and even when the protagonist triumphs, it is only for a moment. The heroes traverse Moria, but Boromir dies on the shores of the Anduin. They escape Tashban, but the desert still lies before them. These two threads clash, and the protagonist seems ever on the edge of defeat, and all common sense says the day, nay, the world itself is lost. This is history in a nutshell, the splitting of the Davidic kingdom, the exile of Judah, and the growing apostasy even of the re-established Israel in Malachi. Yet history is a comedy in the structural sense. History ends with righteousness triumphant, as it could not help; more, it ends with redemption triumphant, as so often seemed impossible.

The end of the rising action and the beginning of the end is the climax of the story. For history, that climax is the story of Christ, as told in the four Gospels; particularly, it is His death, resurrection, and ascension. Make no mistake; this climax is not the end of the story. No, the climax is the point of decision, the moment when the end is openly determined. Christ by His death and resurrection accomplished His victory; He accomplished redemption. This redemption was not yet fully applied, of course, but the story was decided at that point. The rising action’s central promise was fulfilled. All that remained was to work out that fulfillment’s fullness. If the inciting incident was the seed of the antagonist’s preeminence, the climax, as this is a comedy, was the seed of the protagonist’s preeminence.

Of course, in calling Christ’s time on this earth the ‘climax’ I’m fudging things a bit, as I already acknowledged. The Incarnation of Christ which we celebrate at Christmas is technically a part of the rising action. More, it’s in the rising action of the sub-plot of Christ’s life, to which Gabriel’s announcement was the inciting incident. The story of Christ, though, while itself possessed of inciting incident, rising action, etc., forms the climax of the total story of Scripture. Its climax, the death and resurrection, is together with its conclusion, the ascension, the climax of history as a whole. On this story the story of creation pivots.

Next week, we’ll finish this central narrative and look at some sub-components of it. For now, though….

God bless. (And Part Two!)

Footnotes

1 – I have to use my education somehow.

2 – Pun accidental but retroactively intended.

3 – Referencing Strong Poison, an absolutely excellent murder mystery. Read it and its sequels, please.

4 – Another excellent book, 8.5/10. For reference, I give 9/10 to my favorites (outside of one 10/10 and one 11/10, The Lord of the Rings and the Bible respectively). It’s a logarithmic scale.