“‘You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the things made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?'” (Isaiah 29:16)
By making laws unto themselves and doing what was right in their own eyes, Israel was turning things upside down, that is, seeking to usurp the place of God. Being the clay, they think themselves to be the potter. Being creatures—that is, created ones—they think themselves to be the creator. Such blasphemy has reared its ugly head in our day. The LGBTQIA cult think they are the potters and God the clay. They turn things upside down, saying, “God did not make me a male. He made a mistake. I think I’m female; therefore, I am,” despite outward, biological, and DNA evidence to the contrary. To meet their delusion, they drastically alter their outward appearance—even to the point of self-mutilation (gender reassignment “surgery”)—while their biology and DNA still say they are what God created them to be.
This is an extreme example, of course. All of us are guilty of trying to turn things upside down, fooling ourselves that we are the potter when we are fragile clay. While “I think I am a female/male/non-binary; therefore, I am” is a bastardisation of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum (“I think; therefore, I am”), we are all guilty of placing ourselves in the centre with the cogito ergo sum delusion. While this motto from Descartes concerned existentialism, we have taken it to make ourselves the arbiter of truth and morality. “Whatever I think is what is.” Everyone, therefore, has their own truth; what’s true for you isn’t true for me. The problem with this, of course, is that if everyone has their own truth, then we cannot be certain of anything, and therefore we don’t truly know anything because nothing is true; and we thus find ourselves back in Descartes’ shoes who struggled with the question, “How can I be certain that I know anything?”
Whenever we have doubt, uncertainty, and confusion about ourselves, God the Creator gives us confidence, certainty, and clarity. Not sure if you know anything? Confused about your identity? Take to heart what God says about you, “But now thus says the LORD, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name. You are Mine'” (Isaiah 43:1). “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14).
Above all, if you are baptised, you are a child of God. “In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:4-10).
Let us therefore not turn things upside down by deluding ourselves that we are the creator, but rather leave things in their proper place—leaving God as the Creator and therefore Arbiter of truth and morality, who has formed us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16), and who has adopted us as His children through the redemption of His only-begotten Son in the mystery of Baptism.
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