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Our Most Important Question

June 5, 2008, 5:51 pm
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In this week’s issue of the New Yorker the critic James Wood reviews Bart D. Ehrman’s God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer. Like Ehrman, Wood was once a believer. For Wood, as for Ehrman, it was what theologians call “the problem of evil” (“the hygienic phrase itself bespeaks a certain distance from extreme suffering,” Wood writes) that led him to give up his faith. One day when he was a teenager, Wood drew up a list of reasons for belief and another of reasons against it. High on the second list: the inefficacy of prayer.

Here was a demonstrable case of promises made (if you have faith, you can move a mountain) but not kept (the mountain not only stays put but suddenly erupts and consumes a few villages). During my teens, two members of my parents’ congregation died of cancer, despite all the prayers offered up on their behalf. When I looked at the congregants kneeling on cushions, their heads bent to touch the wooden pews, it seemed to me as if they were literally butting their heads against a palpable impossibility.

Wood could find no satisfactory Christian solution to this problem, or to the problem of pain more generally. In the face of suffering, his fellow believers seemed to become maddeningly vague.

Suffering is a mystery, I was told, as is God’s absence in the face of suffering. But this is what I was told when prayers failed to make their mark: the old “incomprehensibility” routine. It seemed to me that the Gospels, central to my family life, made some fairly specific promises and laid on us some fairly specific obligations; yet that specificity could simply go on holiday whenever God himself seemed to have gone on holiday. (“God moves in mysterious ways.”)

Wood examines (not always carefully, it must be said) the arguments of traditional theodicy and finds them all wanting. He does have some sympathy for those who appeal to heaven as a compensation for the sorrows of this life:

Heaven, one of the tenderest verses in the Bible has it, is where God will wipe away all tears from our faces. In her novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson adds, in a line just as tender, if a little sterner, “It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.” Robinson, herself a devout Protestant, means that the immense surge of human suffering in the world will need, and deserves, a great deal of heavenly love and repair; it is as close as her novel comes to righteous complaint. But one could also say, more skeptically, that Christianity needs the concept of Heaven simply to make sense of all the world’s suffering—that, theologically speaking, Heaven is “exactly what will be required.” In the end, Heaven, it seems, is the only tenable response to the problem of evil. It is where God’s mysterious plan will be revealed; it is where the poor and the downtrodden, the sick and the tortured, will be healed; it is where everything that we went through on earth will suddenly seem “worth it.”

Wood does not mention Pope Benedict’s encyclical Spe salvi, which makes a similar point with memorable force.

Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh. There is justice. There is an “undoing” of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgment is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favor of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfillment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ’s return and for new life become fully convincing.

Every tear will be wiped away. But also: All that is hidden will be revealed, a prospect that is both reassuring and terrifying. The alternative is yet more terrifying. If there is no Last Judgment, no settling of accounts, then we are left with a brutal pragmatism: beneath the language of right and wrong, there is only what we—as individuals or as a community—can get away with. In that case, all that is hidden does not matter. Or as Czesław Miłosz put it, “A true opium for the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”

The problem with heaven, Wood argues, is that it’s incompatible with another pillar of Christian theodicy: freedom. Free will entails the possibility of sin, and sin leads to suffering. But in heaven, of course, there will be neither sin nor suffering. So: 

Heaven must be a place where either our freedom to sin has been abolished or we have been so transfigured that we no longer want to sin: in Heaven, our will miraculously coincides with God’s will. And here the free-will defense unravels, and is unravelled by the very idea of Heaven. If Heaven obviates the great human freedom to sin, why was it ever such a momentous ideal on earth, “worth” all that pain and suffering? The difficulty can be recast in terms of the continuity of the self. If we will be so differently constituted in Heaven as to be strangers to sin, then no meaningful connection will exist between the person who suffers here and the exalted soul who will enjoy the great system of rewards and promises and tears wiped from faces: our faces there will not be the faces we have here. 

It is tempting to respond that we Christians claim to know very little about what heaven will be like, but that would no doubt sound to Wood like another shifty appeal to “mystery.” A better response has to do with the nature of freedom itself. For Christians, heaven is not the annulment of freedom but the fulfillment of it. The dignity of human beatitude depends on the drama of the life that goes before it, and the choices that shape that drama take place in time, which is freedom’s element. Outside of time, there are no more choices to be made, but only the full, immediate vision of what we have chosen.  

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  1. Joe Pettit 06/05/2008 - 6:57 pm

    So many issues in one post! I find the best answer to the problem of suffering to be found in Job’s encounter with the whirlwind. Upshot: the reality of suffering is not incompatible with the reality of God. Suffering is REAL, and yet our redeemer lives. Of course, all of this falls apart when you add the wager between God and Satan. If there was a wager, God is not worth being recognized as God. Such a god gets the finger from me, not prayer.

    The greatest religious symbol of all, the Cross, repeats this answer to the problem of suffering. Suffering is real, and yet so is God. Judaism and the Cross of Christianity turn the problem of suffering from an interrogative (Why is there suffering?) to a declarative (there is suffering).

    I am inclined to think that linking heaven and justice to an idea of balancing scales is just too Platonic. I see no reason to believe that the divine does not share in this most fundamental of realities; namely, suffering. Abraham Joshua Heschel argues that the real motive for the prophets was not human suffering or idolatry, but rather the divine suffering caused by idolatry and our failure to respond properly to human suffering. I like this idea.

    The idea of the fulfillment of freedom seems merely verbal rather than conceptual. Freedom requires moving from possibility to actuality. Freedom may be perfect, as it is in God, but not fulfilled.

    The first theology paper I ever wrote was for a Problem of God class at Georgetown. I reflected on why two children of one of the nicest guys in our parish were born with spina bifida. The paper’s only resolution was the Garden of Gesthemane. Not sure that I have changed my mind since then. I suppose that means I am a bad theologian.

    When backed into a corner on this one, I will argue that God CANNOT directly intervene to alter the course of reality beyond that grace which brings to all of creation. God cannot directly alter reality because to do so would be to deny the ability of reality to become on its own. Such intervention would destroy reality rather than simply rearrange it. When I once presented this line of thinking to my students, a bright student raised his hand and said, “So what you are saying is that God cannot strike you down where you are standing.” When I affirmed his insight by saying, “Yes, I am indeed saying that,” you could see the front row of students move their chairs away from me.

    Prayer is meaningful insofar as it enables reality to be open more fully to the grace of God. Thus, prayer changes the world’s realation to God, not God’s relation to the world. On prayer, I love the story in Daniel where the angel comes to Daniel and says that Daniel’s prayers were always heard in heaven, but it took quite some time to send a reply because Satan was blocking the way. Only after Satan is distracted is it possible for Daniel to get a reply. It makes me wonder about the many ways we might today say that Satan is blocking our ability to hear God’s voice, and it makes me wonder about the suffering that such blockage might give rise to.

  2. Lisa Fullam 06/05/2008 - 8:13 pm

    Yes, it does seem that the various “omni”;s attributed to God (omniscience omnipotence, etc.) cannot all be simultaneously true. If God is all-loving, or if God is love itself, then the reality of pointless suffering seems to demand an end to claims of divine omnipotence. For to be able to intervene to allay the pointless suffering of one you love deeply but to refuse to do so is incompatible with love.

    God;s reply to Job, a wise friend of mine told me, has little to do with all the verbiage attributed to God, but rather to the fact of God listening to Job’s righteous indictment, and showing up in person to be present to him.

    But even that risks romanticizing suffering. One aspect of the mystery of suffering, perhaps, is that some are transformed into more loving, more giving people even in the most wretched circumstances. Others. however, are destroyed in spirit, mind and body. Where is God for those who are destroyed by their suffering? I wonder if in those cases the last judgment is mutual.

  3. Bill Mazzella 06/05/2008 - 9:17 pm  subscriber

    Bart Erhman lost his faith and does have a brilliant mind which he is using to rationalize his decision. Wood appears to be still struggling. Interesting to me is the mindset of the atheist who lament what they perceive is an uncaring god and therefore God cannot be. They are really sorry that God does not exist (in their mind), yet the odds are still against them in their unbelief. Because if God is not, then this world is truly damned.

    Jesus is the answer to theodicy. God’s most beloved dies abandoned in a most shameful death by his friends and his God. Crucifixion, the penalty given to the worst criminals. Yet one of the criminals saw what Erhman and many will not; that this man reconciled humanity with God. And his mantra is and has always been mercy over sacrifice. Our entry is always: “Be merciful unto me a sinner” while we pray and proclaim:

    We Remember

    We remember how you loved us to your death,

    and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;

    and we believe that we will see you when you come

    in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

    1. Here, a million wounded souls are yearning

    just to touch you and be healed.

    Gather all your people, and hold them to your heart.

    We remember how you loved us to your death,

    and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;

    and we believe that we will see you when you come

    in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

    2. Now we recreate your love

    we bring the bread and wine to share a meal.

    Sign of grace and mercy, the presence of the Lord.

    We remember how you loved us to your death,

    and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;

    and we believe that we will see you when you come

    in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

    3. Christ, the Father’s great “Amen”

    to all the hopes and dreams of every heart.

    Peace beyond all telling, and freedom from all fear

    We remember how you loved us to your death,

    and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;

    and we believe that we will see you when you come

    in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

    4. See the face of Christ revealed

    in every person standing by your side,

    gift to one another, and temples of your love.

    We remember how you loved us to your death,

    and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;

    and we believe that we will see you when you come

    in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

    By Marty haugen

    1980 G. I. A. Publications, Inc.

  4. David Nickol 06/05/2008 - 9:39 pm  subscriber

    The dignity of human beatitude depends on the drama of the life that goes before it, and the choices that shape that drama take place in time, which is freedom’s element. Outside of time, there are no more choices to be made, but only the full, immediate vision of what we have chosen.

    As has been discussed in other threads, Archbishop Chaput tells us we will have to justify ourselves to the victims of abortion, whom he says we will surely encounter in the next life. Adding up the number of aborted babies, miscarriages, and lost embryos, it would seem that a huge number, and possibly a majority, in the next life will be those who never made a choice in this life because they never lived this life.

    I believe we were recently told by the Vatican that people really do go to hell. Since we are now presuming that infants and embryos that die without baptism go to heaven, it looks as though being born and living in this world is a disadvantage as it puts one at risk of going to hell.

  5. Jean Raber 06/06/2008 - 7:44 am  subscriber

    I find Julian of Norwich a tonic for discussions about suffering. “Many men and women believe that God is almighty and has power to do everything,” she writes, “but that he is all love and is will to do everything–there they stop.”

    How to get beyond that?

    In Revelation #9, she is very ill and talks about being given a certainty of heaven so acutely that she has no pain or suffering. And then that joy is taken away. And then the joy returns:

    “And then the sorrow was revealed to my consciousness again, and first one, then the other, several times, I suppose about twenty times. … The vision was shown to me, as I understand to teach me that it is necessary for everybody to have such experiences, sometimes to be strengthened, sometimes to falter and be left by himself. God wishes us to know that he safely protects us in both joy and sorrow, equally, and he loves us as much as in sorry as in joy.”

    And the reward in heaven? No less than God’s thanks and gratitude for our suffering. Julian says there are three “blisses” in heaven:

    “The first is the glorious gratitude of our Lord God, which [the soul] will receive when he is freed from his sufferings; the gratitude is so exalted and so glorious that it would seem to fill the soul, even if there were no greater bliss. For I thought that all the pain and trouble there were could be suffered by all living men could not have deserved the gratitude which one man shall have who willingly served God.

    “The second degree is that all the blessed beings who are in heaven will see that glorious gratitude of our Lord God, and all heaven will know about his service.

    “And the Third degree is that this pleasure will for ever seem as new and delightful as it did when it was first felt.”

    The “gratitude” and thanks, it seems to me the kind of symbiotic relationship with God that Julian presents. Everywhere in the Revelations is the notion that God needs us, a need that God himself wanted and created.

    As for sin, Julian advises us to repent and forget about it. God expects sin, she says. The more practical thing to do is to try to love as God wants us to, and then there will be less room for sin.

    Julian might have told those people praying and suffering because they loved of those dying of cancer that they were not butting their heads against a palpable impossibility as much as knocking on heaven’s door, where their Friend will be ready to admit them with gratitude for having loved.

  6. Robert Reid 06/06/2008 - 8:43 am

    I know this will be an “UnChristian” and “UnCatholic” position, but it is quite possible that there is a God who created the universe but that this God has little or nothing in common with our Biblical version of him. After all, where but in the Bible (or other sacred texts) does the afterlife have to be one where everything is revealed? Where everything is made whole again, all tears washed away, there can be no sin or suffering, etc.?

    For me, I will be satisfied to discover–as I fully expect to–that life/consciousness/sefl-awareness/etc. does not end after death but continues in some form, in some “place” (though even that “place” might be more of a spiritual existence rather than a physical setting) … I HOPE that the afterlife is not a place of sin and suffering, that things will be revealed, etc. but I do not believe that it must be such a place–it will be enough for me for it to simply “be”.

  7. francisco 06/06/2008 - 8:55 am

    Because “jesus” is the product of mankind’s “imag”ination
    so also is “heaven” the product of mankind’s “imag”ination
    for many ;-(

    There is undeniable proof that the pagan ‘jesus’ was not
    The Messiah’s GOD given birth Name! and proof exists
    in all the pagan greek manuscripts from which catholic
    and christian translators created their “bibles”!

    First, the greek word “iesous” was used by those who
    translated the greek septuagint, which was the Hebrew
    to pagan greek translation of the Old Testimonies. The
    pagan greek word “iesous” represented Joshua, son
    of Nun, so named by Moses.(Numbers 13:16)

    And so it was established that the pagan greek word
    for the Hebrew Yehowshuwa’(Joshua) was “iesous”!

    Then in the New Testament the greek word “iesous” was
    translated correctly as Joshua in Acts 7:43 and Heb 4:8
    and then for reasons of seduction, deception, perversion
    and every evil work, “iesous” was arbitrarily translated as
    the pagan ‘jesus’ in all other New Testament writings ;-(

    However, in the original kjv(aptly named as king james’
    version) the translators decided to rename Joshua and
    declared the Joshua of the Old Testimonies to be their
    pagan ‘jesus’ both in Acts 7:43 and Heb 4:8!

    Now if one wishes to take liberty and change the name
    of the Old Testament “Joshua” to the pagan ‘jesus’, well
    that is their choice, yet a sad choice indeed and Truth ;-(

    And worse yet you could accept the lie that the pagan
    greek word “iesous” represents both “Joshua” and
    the pagan catholic and christian ‘jesus’ which makes
    you a child of “the author of confusion”, he who is
    “the father of lies”, ‘d’evil spirit whose domain is this
    wicked world!

    Truth is that the pagan name of ‘jesus’ was not spoken
    for more than 1500 years after “The Only True GOD
    raised The Messiah from among the dead”! Prior to
    that time there was no letter ‘j’ in the english language.

    Sadly, “The Way of Truth is evil spoken of” because of
    the “imag”ined catholic and chrisitan pagan ‘jesus’ ;-(

    And so it is i am but sad for you ;-(

    Yet there is hope!

    For Miracles do happen!

    Hope is there would be those who would experience
    The Miracle that is receiving “a love of The Truth”!

    Truth IS, Yahshua(Joshua in modern day english) is
    The Messiah, The Son of The Living GOD!

    Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(no-peace) that is of this
    wicked world, for “the WHOLE world is under the conrtol
    of the evil one” indeed and Truth……. francisco

  8. Robert Reid 06/06/2008 - 9:54 am

    Hmmm (re: Francisco) … and I thought I was going out on a shaky limb …

  9. Bill Mazzella 06/06/2008 - 10:10 am  subscriber

    Robert,

    You are more new age than you may realize and Francisco demonstrates why we need the enlightenment.
    We are tainted by too many bishops and popes acting more like the Scribes and Pharisees. But Jesus still lives and there is even much more science in those who believe in him than anything you or Francisco have posited.

    Anyone who examines Jesus cannot leave him easily. Yes there were other cults but no one like this person, truly sent by God. This does not mean that God does not provide for and save Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, etc. Yet there is no getting around the unique person of Jesus. He talked it , he did it, he walked it. He needs no modifiers.

    From any viewpoint there is no comparison to Jesus. We have seen Erhman and Wood in a thousand varieties. Yet the Crucified One and the Resurrected One remains.

  10. Joseph A. Komonchak 06/06/2008 - 10:13 am  contributor

    It is only because the Scriptures seem to require us to believe all those “omni’s” simultaneously that there is a “problem (or mystery) of evil.” Eliminate one of them and the mystery evaporates, and there is simply evil and, perhaps, God, and the two have nothing to do with each other.

    I think we have all felt the temptation to say that on Judgment Day God is going to have a lot of ‘splainin” to do. Biblical prayers–and not just in the Book of Job–have a lot of Why’s? and How long’s?. But there’s no point to them unless we believe in the omni’s. Jesus himself uttered the Why? of the Psalmist on the Cross before surrendering himself in the “Into your hands I entrust my soul” to the One he continued to call Abba, Father.

  11. Nancy Danielson 06/06/2008 - 10:25 am

    Francisco, and that is why, we, who are Catholic, believe in the Trinitarian relationship of Sacred Tradition, (oral as well as written) Sacred Scripture, ( the canon of Scripture as determined by the early Fathers of the Church), and Magisterial Teaching.( Which includes God’s chosen leader for His Church during this period of time, Holy Pope Benedict and all the Bishops in communion with him)

    Christ knew that others would come and try to confuse us. He did not come to confuse us, He came to set us free. He is with us now in his Word, His Church, and His Gift of the Sacraments.

    We suffer because we are not in Heaven. It is Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross that brings us the Hope of Salvation, eternal Happiness with God. Follow Him, The Light, The Truth, the Way to Love. Peace.

  12. Robert Reid 06/06/2008 - 10:31 am

    Bill (or anyone else, for that matter):

    But how do we know exactly what Jesus talked, walked, and did? Isn’t the only original source for everything we know about Jesus only found in the Bible, which at best was written 50 or so years after his death? And by people whose identity we cannot even verify with anything like historical accuracy?

    I agree that Jesus as depicted in the Bible (and then redepicted through tradition) is unique, and the Christian message is unique and hard to give up (it’s why I haven’t walked away entirely, despite personal feelings that are far more New Age, agnostic, etc.) … but in all truth, I will be far more suprised to discover after death that Jesus and/or God the Father are anything like what the Biuble says than I will be to discover (as I suspect I will) that the reality of “God” is far bigger and more complex than anything found from Genesis to Revelations … and that if there is a Jesus figure soemwhere in that relaity, it also will be far more likely NOT what we expect.

    I say this because it’s what I truly believe, not to actually challenge anyone else’s views. Indeed, I greatly respect and am even envious of those who say they do believe because I know I cannot … but how do you KNOW that what you believe is true and real? (My favorite character in the Bible is Thomas, who doubted and then was given the proof he requested … I’m still waiting …)

  13. Bob Schwartz 06/06/2008 - 10:44 am  subscriber

    If we assert that God can only exist if He conforms to our extensive list of demands, then hopelessness will surely ensue. It seems to me that the first question to be asked about God is, Does He exist?. If one concludes that He does, His nature is then a logical next question. If one concludes that He doesn’t exist…

  14. David Gibson 06/06/2008 - 10:53 am  subscriber  contributor

    Thank, Matt, for this post. I’d read it the other evening, along with the many other faith (and doubt) related entries. Wood (and Ehrman) go over well-trod ground, but it’s always profoundly challenging and useful and sometimes dispiriting ground to traverse. Wood’s essay seemed like something we’ve read many times before, but I always like his refusal to let himself (and believers and non-believers, esp of the New Atheist variety) off the hook, calling their (our) easy answers for what they are. I like his attitude, which is why I like to read Wood on things religious.

  15. Bernard Dauenhauer 06/06/2008 - 1:04 pm

    Is there a God? If so, what attributes does God have? If there is a God and if God created, why did He create this world as it is? Though there are philosophical reasons that can be given for both sides of these questions that have plausibility, there are no knockdown, definitive arguments for either side of any of these questions.
    Charles Taylor has, in “A Secular Age” (see Peter Stienfels’s brilliant review of it some issues ago), made a case for people finding in human experience “intimations of transcendence,” intimations of there being something more to reality than we can empirically establish. But Taylor also sees that these intimations raise questions that challenge secularist assumptions. They do not of themselves provide conclusive rejoinders to them.
    For us believers, the faith we have received enables us to believe in the Creed and the Creed’s implications. Doing so gives us BELIEVABLE answers to these questions. We do not thereby acquire ironclad philosophical proofs.
    When we talk with non-believers, e.g., Wood or Ehrman, we ought to recognize what we have received that comes as sheer gift. They may disagree with us, but they could not possibly definitively refute our claim to have received revealed truths.
    In my view, we do not know how God will deal with the issues of rectifying injustices. We believers trust that He will do so somehow. But we cannot claim to know just what this rectification would require? We can’t know exactly what justice requires. Accordingly, it makes little sense to say what God would have to do, here or hereafter, to truly deserve our recognition as a Just God. Neither Wood nor Ehrmann can know this.
    So, we believers ought not to overstate our case for our belief. Nor should we fear pointing out to non-believers the dangers they run of overstating the case against God, etc. As believers, we have a serious responsibility to live out the implications of our belief. And one of the big implications is that we always make it clear that we are dependent upon God for our faith, for our capacity to be faithful in thought and deed to His gift to us. On the purely philosophical plane, this is question begging. In our lived experience, it gives sustenance and meaning to our lives.

  16. Robert Reid 06/06/2008 - 1:37 pm

    What about the middle ground between a Believer (in the Biblical version of God, regardless of whether you are a literalist or someone who takes a more nuanced view of the Bible but who still believes in the basics, such as the divinity of Jesus) and the Secularists? By which I mean: what about the person who believes that there is some kind of God behind the creation and perhaps ongoing operation of the Universe but who is not sure exactly which version makes the most sense? (Wasn’t there a thread about this recently–David Brooks wrote about the idea that atheists weren’t really making much headway but that in the future the believers in the Biblical version of things would need to do much more to convince people not of the existence of God per se but that THEIR version of God–i.e., the Biblical God the Father/Jesus Christ of the Old and New testaments–is the one true God …?)

    The Vatican recently noted that refusing to believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life would place limits on God that Christianity cannot accept … but isn’t it the same thing to limit God to just what the Bible (and tradition) say that he did/does/can do? Compared the vastness of the Universe, of the totality of Creation, the Biblical God can seem rather small … what, then, is the hard evidence for accepting THAT version?

  17. Joseph Gannon 06/06/2008 - 1:58 pm  subscriber

    In the universe we have–so to speak–physical evil is inevitable. It arises from from the nature of things. God could prevent physical evil only by constant intervention in natural processes. So why did God create a universe in which so much could naturally go badly? If you believe in an all-knowing etc. God, then you must admit you do not know why, but perhaps it is too much to expect that one should know why. I think lame explanations are less useful than an admission of ignorance. On the other hand I personally find the idea of our universe without any creator highly implausible. And I find the idea of a creator who is in any way limited also implausible.

  18. Nancy Danielson 06/06/2008 - 2:14 pm

    Actually, Robert, it was not the Vatican that made the comment about extraterrestrial life, it was someone working in the Vatican. That makes it simply an opinion.

    According to my Grand Aunt Mary, the Scientists have it wrong regarding the idea of a BIG BANG, since she has noted that if no one was there with the ears to hear it, how could it be a BIG BANG? More likely, it was probably, as the Bible states, a BIG LIGHT.

  19. Robert Reid 06/06/2008 - 2:41 pm

    Joseph and Nancy,

    Your comments seemed well-timed (for me, at least) in following each other. I have also wondered at times about the idea of the Big Bang (or Light!) and “what” it came from, “where” it came from, and “what” was there before it occurred (likewise, with the question of what lies “beyond” or “outside” the edge of the infinitely expanding or folding back on itself universe … if you look up these questions, many scientists or scientific texts will take an elitist position that the questions themself are foolish, that they don’t matter because there was “nothing” to come “from” or “nothing” to find “beyond”.

    But if you look long enough and hard enough you will find some more open-minded scientists who seem to concede that there was indeed “something” before the Big Bang and “something” beyond the universe but that our current scientific knowledge is not advanced enough yet to understand what exactly it is … since the known universe is essentialy what we call the natural world, it seems to me that whatever lies beyond/outside/before the natural world must then be a kind of non-natural or supernatural world–perhaps it is “heaven” and the “location” of God, though not in the Gospel sense … perhaps it is “God”

  20. Jean Raber 06/06/2008 - 3:20 pm  subscriber

    Apologies to all (and St. Julian!) for the typos in my extract. I was typing it out of my copy of the Elizabeth Spearing translation of the Julian’s first draft of the revelations (a second draft is much more fleshed out, but I prefer the first draft as being more “reportorial”), and did a poor job on the transcription.

    Here it is again, if anyone was puzzled by it:

    In Revelation #9, she is very ill and talks about being given a certainty of heaven so acutely that she has no pain or suffering. And then that joy is taken away. And then the joy returns:

    “And then the sorrow was revealed to my consciousness again, and first one, then the other, several times, I suppose about twenty times. … The vision was shown to me, as I understand, to teach me that it is necessary for everybody to have such experiences, sometimes to be strengthened, sometimes to falter and be left by himself. God wishes us to know that he safely protects us in both joy and sorrow, equally, and he loves us as much as in sorry as in joy.”

    And the reward in heaven? No less than God’s thanks and gratitude for our suffering. Julian says there are three “blisses” in heaven:

    “The first is the glorious gratitude of our Lord God, which [the soul] will receive when he is freed from his sufferings; the gratitude is so exalted and so glorious that it would seem to fill the soul, even if there were no greater bliss. For I thought that all the pain and trouble that could be suffered by all living men could not have deserved the gratitude which one man shall have who willingly served God.

    “The second degree is that all the blessed beings who are in heaven will see that glorious gratitude of our Lord God, and all heaven will know about his service.

    “And the Third degree is that this pleasure will for ever seem as new and delightful as it did when it was first felt.”

    Someone asked me offline what I meant by this: The “gratitude” and thanks, it seems to me the kind of symbiotic relationship with God that Julian presents. Everywhere in the Revelations is the notion that God needs us, a need that God himself wanted and created.

    I meant only that it seems to me that one of Julian’s underlying assumptions is that God is not (or prefers not to be) sufficient unto himself. If God is a lover, he must have something to love. We–and all creation–are what God loves.

    Julian, of course, took years to think out what her visions taught her about the nature of our relationship to God, and that words often failed to allow her to convey her ideas. Sometimes she seems to hope that dint of repetition will make things clear, as in “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

    It strikes me as fairly close to Robert Reid’s statement:

    “I HOPE that the afterlife is not a place of sin and suffering, that things will be revealed, etc. but I do not believe that it must be such a place–it will be enough for me for it to simply “be.”

  21. william collier 06/06/2008 - 3:34 pm  subscriber

    Robert–

    Thomas the Apostle has always been a favorite of mine, too. And though I’m not from Missouri, I can readily identify with its “Show Me” motto. I’m inherently skeptical about many things, but as I have gotten older, I’ve become less and less skeptical about Biblical claims, espeecially in the New Testament. That’s not to say I believe each and every word in the New Testament–there are factual contradictions among the three Synoptic Gospels, for example, that are very hard to explain away– and there are certainly stylistic forms used by each of the Evangelists, but I have little trouble agreeing with the “divinely inspired” characterization of the Bible expressed in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum. There’s a large dollop of faith supporting my belief, to be sure. That’s not something I’ve always had, however, and I fully understand the quandary one can be in when trying to sort things out by way of reason alone. The Apostle Thomas still remains in the near vicinity of my thinking.

    Here’s one thing that has helped me, and I throw it out for your consideration or rejection. I find it easier to work backwards when mulling over issues of Biblical claims. What do I mean by that? You’re correct that there weren’t any CNN crews around during the time of the Incarnation to document Jesus’ comings and goings or the testimonies of the people who had first-hand knowledge of Him. (O.K., you didn’t use those words, but you get the idea.) There have been many divine interventions in human history since the time of Christ, however. Many are no doubt unknown to us, but there have been interventions, at Lourdes and Fatima, for example, that have been documented. We don’t have video, but there are reams of written documentation about the events at both apparition sites and some photographic evidence for Fatima.

    Fatima fascinates me more than Lourdes, not on the basis of any difference in religious importance, but because the apparitions at Fatima involved three individuals rather than the one at Lourdes, and because during the 10/13/17 apparition at Fatima, the so-called “Miracle of the Sun” was witnessed by about 70,000 people, many of whom, in the strongly anti-clerical atmosphere in Portugal at the time, came to the apparition site as unbelievers, but left persuaded that a supernatural event had occurred that day. After reading as much as I’ve been able to find about Fatima, I have no doubts that the children were telling the truth that the BVM (and an angel who self-identified as the “Angel of Peace”) appeared to them on multiple occasions in 1917. Taking all the circumstances as a whole, their credibility seems unimpeachable to me.

    The BVM revealed many things to the children that corroborate Biblical accounts of the divine nature of Jesus. In addition, the BVM continued to appear to Lucia throughout Lucia’s long life (Francisco and Jacinta had both died by 1920), showing Lucia visions of the Trinity and the Holy Family, for example, that also corroborated Biblical events and pronouncements.
    You commented about whether there really is a heaven and what heaven might be like if it exists. While the children were provided visions by the BVM that left them with an overwhelming feeling about the goodness of God, I don’t think there was a specific vision that was identified by the BVM as heaven. One of the visions was specifically identified by the BVM as hell, however. Lucia recounted the vision in her memoirs. Here is an excerpt from a book by Fr. Joao de Marchi, where he is relying on the account Lucia set forth in her memoirs:

    “As she [the BVM] spoke these words, the Lady opened her hands, as she had in the preceding months, but instead of the glory and beauty of God that her opened hands had shown us before, we now were able to behold a sea of fire. Plunged in this flame were devils and souls that looked like transparent embers; others were black or bronze, and in human form; these were suspended in flames which seemed to come from the forms themselves there to remain, without weight or equilibrium, amid cries of pain and despair which horrified us so that we trembled with fear. The devils could be distinguished from the damned human souls by the terrifying forms of weird and unknown animals in which they were cast.”

    Hallucinations experienced simultaneously by the three children, or the ‘real thing’ as revealed by God through the BVM? I know which way I lean on the question, but, at a minimum, the vision as recounted by Lucia should give each of us pause.

  22. Joseph Gannon 06/06/2008 - 7:52 pm  subscriber

    William Collier

    I think the saying that there is history in the Gospels but the Gospels are not histories puts it together neatly. Inspiration is not a gurantee of historical veracity as we now understand and speak of the genre: historical literature.

  23. Bill Mazzella 06/06/2008 - 10:42 pm  subscriber

    If we want to honor Mary, it is in living her Magnificat. Especially:
    “He has put forth his strength:
    he has scattered the proud and conceited,
    torn princes from their thrones;
    but lifted up the lowly.
    He has filled the hungry with good things;
    the rich he has sent away empty.”

    And from this evening vespers: “We who are strong have a duty to put up with the qualms of the weak without thinking of ourselves. Each of us should think of his neighbours and help them to become stronger Christians. Christ did not think of himself: the words of scripture apply to him – the insults of those who insult you fall on me.” Romans 15:1-3

    This is proclamation. The history is not as crucial as the Spirit that is conveyed and the love of neighbor which is intrinsic to Christians. That is the intrinsic that should be uppermost.

  24. Nancy Danielson 06/07/2008 - 7:30 am

    Robert, “compared the vastness of the Universe, of the totality of Creation, the Biblical God can seem rather small…” That is, until we consider the fact that it is the Biblical God who is the Creator of the Universe.

    Bill, the love of neighbor is intrinsic to Christians, but the Way to Love is the Way of Christ, who is the very definition of Love itself. “Love one another as I Have Loved you.”

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