Water as Chaos in Scripture

Throughout Scripture, water represents chaos, disorder, darkness, and death, yet God consistently draws forth order, beauty, light, and life from it.

Recently, I had the privilege of hosting a fascinating discussion with Deacon Harrison Garlick, Chancellor and General Counsel of the Diocese of Tulsa, and my friend Sean Berube, who co-hosted the event. Deacon Garlick, also the host of the Ascend Great Books Podcast, joined us to explore a topic that has captivated his imagination: the biblical imagery of water and its profound role in salvation history.

Water as Chaos and Salvation: A Biblical Template

Deacon Garlick began by laying out a compelling thesis: throughout Scripture, water represents chaos, disorder, darkness, and death, yet God consistently draws forth order, beauty, light, and life from it. This pattern emerges in the very first verses of Genesis:

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

Unlike creation narratives that might begin with nothing, here water preexists the ordered world, a primordial chaos from which God crafts creation. This sets a template—God’s ability to transform the chaotic into the salvific—that echoes across biblical history.

Take Noah’s Ark, for instance. The floodwaters, a return of the primordial chaos, engulf the earth, yet God preserves Noah and his family in the ark, a prefigurement of the Church. Garlick noted a chilling detail often overlooked in children’s versions of the story: “It was God that shut the door.” Salvation, he emphasized, rests in God’s hands, not ours. Similarly, Moses’ life is steeped in this typology. Cast into the Nile as an infant—a death sentence turned into deliverance—he foreshadows Israel’s passage through the Red Sea, where water, a barrier to the Egyptians’ destruction, becomes a path to freedom for God’s people.

In Jonah’s tale, water again plays the villain and the savior. Fleeing God’s call, Jonah is swallowed by the sea and a great fish, only to emerge repentant, a prefigurement of Christ’s death and resurrection. Even Job, amidst his suffering, invokes the Leviathan, the sea beast, which God later tames, reminding us that what is chaos to humanity is a mere plaything to the divine.

The New Testament: Christ’s Mastery Over Water

The conversation then moved to the New Testament, where water’s typology finds its fulfillment in Christ. His baptism in the Jordan, Garlick explained, is no mere ritual. Drawing on St. Ambrose, he said Christ didn’t enter the water to be made holy but to make it holy for us, transforming a symbol of death into a vehicle of salvation. Baptism’s waters, like the primordial chaos of Genesis, birth us anew, washing away sin and making us new creatures

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Christ’s ministry amplifies this theme. His first miracle at Cana turns water into wine, prefiguring the Eucharist’s life-giving blood. On the Sea of Galilee, he calms a storm with a rebuke—exorcism-like language that Matthew juxtaposes with the healing of the demoniac, whose demons flee into swine and back to the sea. Walking on water, Christ asserts dominion over chaos, a dominion echoed in Revelation, where the sea beast rises only to be vanquished by the Lamb, and the new earth emerges with “no more sea” (Revelation 21:1)—a world free of chaos.

Fishers of Men: A Call to Chaos

For Garlick, this study of water isn’t academic—it’s personal. Recalling a moment of spiritual turmoil during a deaconate retreat, he described a flood of self-pity as he managed a crisis instead of joining his brothers in prayer. The Holy Spirit, he believes, led him back to water’s imagery, culminating in Christ’s call to the fishermen: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). If fishers draw fish from the sea, disciples must draw souls from chaos into the Church. “We’re called to be in the chaos,” Garlick asserted, not retreating from it but engaging it to save others.

Sean reflected on his own journey—quitting a stable job in Boston to move to Atlanta on a mysterious call, descending into a “stormy sea” that forged his faith. He wondered if confronting life’s chaos with God mirrors creation itself: actuality (God) meeting potentiality (chaos) to birth something good. Garlick agreed, noting that Scripture’s pedagogy invites us to this moral application: Are we clinging to the ark amid our storms, or reaching out to pull others aboard?

The Church’s Living Tradition

Water’s symbolism permeates the Church’s rites, from baptism’s exorcisms and octagonal fonts (symbolizing the eighth day of new creation) to the Easter Vigil’s plunging of the Paschal candle into the font, a procreative act birthing new Christians. Even in death, holy water blesses the grave, accompanying us from cradle to eternity. This continuity, Garlick and Deacon Richard (who joined late from Toronto) affirmed, reflects the Church’s wisdom in weaving Scripture’s lessons into our lives.

A Call to the Great Books

As we closed, Garlick invited listeners to join his Ascend Great Books Podcast, currently reading Greek plays and soon tackling Dante’s Inferno for Lent. For newcomers to the great books, he suggested starting with Plato’s First Alcibiades—a dialogue on self-knowledge—or Sophocles’ Antigone, a concise yet cosmic exploration of justice. From recent centuries, he recommended Pope Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est and John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio, writings that harmonize faith and reason for the modern seeker.

From Chaos to Beauty

This discussion wasn’t just about water—it was about God’s relentless pursuit of us through chaos, transforming death into life. As Garlick put it, “This is not a sterile academic exercise, but an invitation to beautify our souls in pursuit of God.” Whether we’re battered by waves or called to fish in them, the biblical imagery of water reminds us that holiness isn’t isolation from chaos but engagement with it, trusting in the One who calms the storm.

To hear the full conversation, visit the Catholic Frequency YouTube Channel.

Follow Deacon Garlick at @TheGreatB00ks on X for more insights into the great books and faith. Follow Sean Berube on X for great posts about faith and literature.