PARADOXA: Solid Food’s Second Annual Print Edition

Prediction Error and the Paradox

“We have seen remarkable things today.”

~Luke 5:26

The term paradox comes from the Greek para (“contrary to,” “beyond,” or “outside of”) and doxa (“opinion”).¹ Today, the word is often used interchangeably with “contradiction,” which refers to a combination of ideas that directly oppose each other.² But the logic of a paradox, however, does in fact allow for a resolution—though it may be ambiguous, reside within tension, or even remain unsolved.³

In the Greco-Roman world, the concept was commonly associated with philosophical discourse, used to challenge conventional wisdom and provoke deeper thought.⁴ However, digging into the Greek, the word blossoms, its application widening. As a prefix, para expresses spatial and relational concepts, such as “beside,” “near,” “from,” “in the presence of,” “with,” or “by,” and fascinatingly stresses a nearness that is often lost in translation.⁵ Doxa not only conveys opinion, but also that which appears remarkable, with connotations to glory, honour, splendour, majesty.⁶ With this broader definition in mind, many events and teachings in the New Testament (and certainly Scripture at large) can therefore be considered paradoxical, especially in the context of the surprising and unexpected nature of God’s intervention in the world through Christ. It reflects not only the counter-cultural and transformative nature of his ministry and his miracles, but also its closeness, its intimacy.

The only direct use of this term in the New Testament occurs in Luke 5:26: “We have seen remarkable things today.” Luke uses paradoxos here, its adjective form. The term remarkable is defined as: “unusual or special, and therefore surprising and worth mentioning.”⁷ This chapter is full of unusual and surprising events, which bend the perception of both reality and the current culture. A boat overflows with fish in an area already deemed empty, after which Peter begs Jesus to go away from him; Jesus touches and heals a man with leprosy; a paralyzed man is lowered through a roof by extraordinary friends; our Lord eats with those considered irredeemable. Throughout, Jesus’s teachings are confusing and astounding, constantly redefining the conventional understanding of God.

However, the surprising and unusual aren’t necessarily bad, even if the Pharisees thought so. It turns out that our brains are wired for surprise. When a novel sensory experience occurs outside our prior expectations, our brains go through a process that we now call “prediction error.”⁸ This is an ongoing and intricate neural sequence our brains use to gauge the discrepancy between our expectations and what actually occurs, a process that is crucial to perception, learning, and decision-making.⁹ When we witness something surprising, this causes the brain to rapidly “update” its current preconceptions by generating a significantly higher rate of attention, which in turn makes the surprising thing more easily and accurately recalled.¹⁰ When the surprise is good, a flush of dopamine accompanies it; when it is bad, dopamine dries up—an important part in the making of habits.¹¹

Likewise, literature itself is a “grand paradox: It is a make-believe world that nonetheless reminds us of real life and clarifies it for us.”¹² This is especially true for the more fantastical narratives of fantasy or sci-fi, but also for contemporary works as well. While these pieces may reflect real life, they still technically depict an imaginary world. And yet, this make-believe invites us deeper into reality by embodying experience, conveying the significant in an affective manner. In the paradoxical aphorism of Picasso, “art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”¹³

So it’s therefore no surprise that the paradox would be used as a narrative tool in both Jesus’s teachings and our Scriptures to not only deepen thought and learning, but to also transform our praxis, because both surprise and story capture our minds in a uniquely arresting way. And of course our Creator would know that, being the intentional Artist that he is.

My hope for this print edition is that, as his subcreators, we can also tap into that. And I believe we have a well of experience to draw from. We exist as a paradoxical people who worship a paradoxical God in a paradoxical world. Jesus is both servant and King, the most intimate friend and the Name Above All Names. We as his people can worship him wholeheartedly and still sin. We can love to the point of giving up our lives for strangers, and yet we can also hate in some of the most destructive ways. We exist in a world that often feels unfairly broken, but is yet so full of unexplainable and surprising beauty.

For this edition, play with the element of surprise. Reflect on the remarkable. Or wrestle with the idea that two things can exist in tension at same time. Resolve it—or don’t! You have our attention either way. In both your work and the creative processes that form it, rest in the fact that not everything needs to make sense at first glance. There is awe in a mystery—or story—slowly unfolded. There is an acute and deeply wonderful attention in and to the anomaly.

So please, have fun with this theme! Let’s see the weird, the strange, the remarkable, the impossible. Let us feel the weight of God’s glory in surprising places.

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Submission window: June 15 - September 15, 2025

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Please review Solid Food’s general guidelines for submissions requirements and restrictions. Multiple mediums in a single submission are happily accepted.

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1

“Paradox,” New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Paradox; the term “paradoxa” (παράδοξα), the title of this collection, is the plural neuter form that functions as a noun, referring to “things that seem contrary to expectation." So it seemed fitting to use this particular term for an anthology.

2

Ibid.

3

Ibid.

4

“3861. paradoxos,” Bible Hub, https://biblehub.com/greek/3861.htm.

5

“3844. para,” Bible Hub, https://biblehub.com/greek/3844.htm.

6

“1391. doxa,” Bible Hub, https://biblehub.com/greek/1391.htm.

7

“Remarkable,” Cambridge Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/remarkable.

8

“Prediction Error in Psychology: How Our Brain Processes Unexpected Information,” NeuroLaunch, https://neurolaunch.com/prediction-error-psychology/.

9

Ibid.

10

Ibid.

11

Ibid.

12

Leland Ryken, “Thinking Christianly about Literature,” The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2002).

13

Ibid.