Oscillation

March 4, 2026

There are ultimate things, and penultimate things. Loving God and the people in your life is ultimate. Not loving humanity, but actually loving the people you know, that is most important, and everything else must be put in that context. This does not feel natural. It feels natural, at least in my context, to put self-actualization first. Work, therapy, exercise, or other hobbies that embed themselves as a core part of your identity. It is normal to follow work, and to let the relationships in your life be dictated by that context. It is not normal to pick your relationships and to limit work to their context.

It is tempting to make ultimate things the only things. Loving God and other people is ultimate. Everything else is a distraction. This cannot be true. There are penultimate things, and God calls them good. In Genesis we are commanded to rule over the earth, to work and keep it. We are also commanded to rest. These are penultimate. Work and rest are good gifts intended to oscillate. They complement each other; work is giving, rest is receiving.

The penultimate can serve the ultimate, or it can become the ultimate. Work becoming the ultimate morphs it from an act of generosity to one of control. Rest becoming the ultimate is indulgence. Instead of receiving reciprocally and relationally, receiving becomes the goal. When the penultimate becomes ultimate, oscillation stops. The relationship ends, and the individual accumulates.

Life oscillates. A heart beating. Day and night. Spring and fall. Population dynamics between predator and prey. Death is static. The heart beat stops. The predator wipes out the prey, sealing the same fate for themselves. And this is why ultimate things cannot be the only things. Optimization toward any single variable, even the ultimate variable, stops oscillation. In fact, the ultimate implies oscillation. If you were to purely optimize for loving God and others, there wouldn’t be room for others to love you. There must be room to receive. Otherwise the dance stops. The relationship dies. In order to experience the ultimate, you must wade through the penultimate, over and over again. And that is the point. Optimization toward a single variable is not relational; reality, and God, are.

That is a controversial statement. Christian thought is littered with Hellenistic praise for the static. God is supposed to be the unmoved mover. Impassible, immutable. The Bible describes Him as above and before all. The Bible also contains stories where he does not act impassibly. He embeds himself deeply with a people. He compromises with them, commanding “You shall not murder,” and then accompanying them as they battle and kill people in Canaan. He is relational, even when it is messy.

And he continually fights for relationship. He wrestles with Jacob, a cheat. He walks with Moses, a murderer. He calls David, also a murderer, a friend. He works with the people around him to create a system that oscillates. One that outright objects to optimizing for military strength, or money, or political power. One that sets creative mechanisms to redistribute wealth among his people. One that welcomes the alien, because Israel was an alien in Egypt.

And we see Israel fail over and over. They optimize for power, at the expense of relationship. And this is clearly the human instinct writ large. Why is optimization toward a single variable so alluring? Fear. To be in relationship means you are dependent on another. Relationships are inherently vulnerable and require trust. And people are not always trustworthy.

This is the original temptation.

“‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

We are all forced to chose: love and trust others, or optimize for control. And here’s the catch — it is actually rational to optimize for control. Many people do. And that is why the ultimate, love, is fundamental. Every act of love is an invitation to dance.