In the course of the next several weeks I want to add layer by layer ideas that flesh out the project I described in the last post, which is to lay out elements of a post-Enlightenment Christian world view. I stated then that to be taken seriously such a worldview must effectively meet the three fundamental criteria: that it not be contradicted by evidence established by the natural sciences, that it embrace the central elements bequeathed to us by the Greek/Jewish heritage we know today as the Christian faith tradition, and that it provide a narrative framework that gives humans a context for meaningful, robust moral action.
With regard to the last criterion about a narrative framework, I spoke about how the eschatological imagination of history that infuses the Judaeo-Christian worldview, and when combined with the Greek ideas about teleology and entelechy yields an interesting metaphor for understanding the underlying Logos of earth history: the earth as an organism whose full development will result in a final flowering, fruiting, and seeding. In some medieval iconography the goal of history is rendered as the Last Day in which we see the image of an angel blowing a trumpet as all the dead burst out of their graves. An alternative imagination might see the earth as a giant seed pod that bursts releasing like cottonwood seeds the billions of souls who have ever lived to fill the sky with their radiant resurrection bodies.
As we proceed we’ll see whether that metaphor has any bite, or whether it’s just a fanciful idea. A metaphor has bite to the degree that it discloses something deeply true about the nature of Being. Metaphors are disclosively true, not discursively true. I want to argue that any philosophy or theology is as good as that which it seeks to disclose–that it begins with cognitions including intuitions, and then tries to make sense of the world in the light of them. Philosophy/theology the way I understand it is hearing music, and then trying to talk about it. The talk is insignificant in comparison to the music–the music is all that really matters.
At best the music can be described metaphorically or one can try in some inadequate way to hum the tune, but all such attempts fail if they do not convey something of the quality of the music they seek to describe. The talk is not the music, but if the talk has something of the presence of the music in it, it might interest those who hear it to listen harder to hear what is being talked about. But ultimately if the existence of the music is doubted by those who hear the talk about it, then the whole philosophy/theology will be perceived as useless. The cognitions are doubted if they don’t relate at all to the experience and worldview of someone who encounters them. It could be that they are doubted for good reason because the person writing about them is delusional–and there’s a good chance that he is delusional if there are others who have not had similar cognitions. Or it could be that certain people are simply incapable of hearing a certain tune, perhaps because their ears are preoccupied with another.
And so the point obviously is that eschatology is part of the Christian song. It may not matter to those who are satisfied to live outside the Christian imagination of the meaning and purpose of the human project, but I hope they won’t begrudge us our attempt to work out among ourselves what that means for us. It may not matter to them whether or not there is an ultimate point to human existence, but it matters to us who believe there is a point. And I think that if framed in the right way an imagination of a goal can be a help in developing a narrative that gives hope, meaning, and purpose to the human project, a narrative which then should be judged according to the fruit it produces. Do people who choose to live within such a narrative have a net positive or negative impact in the world? Does such a narrative provide a trellis upon which human souls can grow and develop in ways that it would be otherwise difficult or impossible to do?
That ultimately is the test. I’m sure I’ll get an argument about it, but I think in previous cultural eras the Christian narratives for their time did in fact meet that test, but those narratives don’t work for us now–at least in any way that enables most decent Christians to distinguish themselves from any other decent human being. That there is no contemporary robust Christian narrative doesn’t doesn’t mean that Christianity is obsolete, only that particular historical-cultural subnarrative expressions of it are. And so the task that confronts people like me, who are convinced of the power and importance of the Christian message, is to think about what new subnarrative is suited the historical-cultural situation of humans transitioning out of the modern era into whatever comes next.
The underlying ongoing world-historical drama is the same; we’re just in a transition from one act to the next. The curtain has been drawn down, the lights are still dimmed, and we await now for the beginning of the next act. And when the curtain goes up we will find that we are no longer sitting in the audience but are all on stage with the instructions to improvise with the goal to bring something new into the world. A telos or goal for actors in such a situation gives them some sense of direction, which in turn helps them to improve the quality of the improvisation. It orients the actor, helps him to make choices that will give shape and dynamism to his performance. Without a goal, or if you believe the whole exercise is pointless, why not just go lie in the corner and take a nap until the curtain comes down again? By what standard could anybody evaluate such a choice as morally inferior to another actor’s choice to strive toward the goal. By what argument could a friend rouse the napper to wakefulness and action?
The task, then for us to write and improvise the next act as we go along. We don’t have a prewritten script, but it helps to have a feeling for the direction toward which a successful outcome would be achieved. I think that this sense of goal is a fundamental archetype that all humans feel to one degree or another. Christians talk about it as the Omega point, but all humans with a scintilla of spiritual life experience it like a plant tropism where the Omega point is like a light that draws
the plant toward it.
Christians have a usefulness to the larger human community only to the degree that they find ways to work with this energy and build something with it, but they are by no means the only ones who work with it. Perhaps the narrative Christians develop that attempts to articulate this understanding of history will have a usefulness to outsiders as well, maybe not. From where I stand it doesn’t matter whether people understand this
Omega point in Christian terms; it matters only that they are drawn to it, for in being drawn to it humans beings are renewed and empowered to become that which they were created to be, and gradually to renew the face of an all too disenchanted earth.
Leave a Reply