Getting back to another set of Kierkegaard’s discourses.
…For in eternity thou shalt not be asked how great are the possessions thou art leaving behind thee–this question is for those who survive thee to ask! – or how many battles thou hast won, how wise thou wast, how powerful thine influence–this will be thy fame in time to come! Nay, eternity shall not ask about what of the world remains behind thee in the world. But it shall ask what treasure thou hast stored up in heaven; how often thou hast overcome thine own soul, what self-mastery thou hast achieved, or whether thou hast been in bondage; how often thou hast in self-denial been thine own master, or if thou hast never been so; how often thou hast in self-denial been willing to make an offering to a good cause, or if thou hast never been so willing; how often thou hast in self-denial forgiven thine enemy, whether seven times or seventy times seven; how often thou hast in self denial borne patiently humiliations; and what thou hast suffered, not for thine own sake, not for the sake of thy selfish purposes, but what thou hast in self-denial suffered for the sake of God.
[bolding mine]
from: Kierkegaard, Søren. The Gospel of Our Sufferings" Christian Discourses being the third part of “Edifying Discourses in a Different Vein”, published in 1847 at Copenhagen. Translated by Aldsworth and Ferrie, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 1964, pp. 19-20.
As we continue to watch the Culture Wars continue to ramp up, if that were possible, this bit seems particularly apropos. So-called “Christian” nationalism runs rampant. Self-assertion is regularly, consistently confused with self-denial.
I was reading some stuff from Kallistos Ware, the Orthodox theologian who became popular outside Orthodoxy, and found a quote from St. Isaac the Syrian concerning God’s love and Hell:
Also I say that even those who are scourged in hell are tormented with the scourgings of love.
The scourges that result from love—that is, the scourges of those who have become aware that they have sinned against love—are harder and more bitter than the torments which result from fear.
The pain which gnaws the heart as the result of sinning against love is sharper than all other torments that there are.
It is wrong to imagine that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God… . [But] the power of love works in twο ways: it torments those who have sinned, just as happens among friends here on earth; but to those who have observed its duties, love gives delight.
So it is in hell: the contrition that comes from love is the harsh torment.
This does away with the problem of a loving God tormenting people, as Ware notes:
Thus those in hell feel as agonizing pain that which the saints feel as unending delight. God does not inflict torment upon those in hell, but it is they who torment themselves through their willful refusal to respond to His love.
This is correct only if sinners understand completely the nature and consequences of their (our) sins, and they undergo profound changes in spirit, heart and mind. So whatever the setting, repentance, and desire to change profoundly is required for all; the universal faith is this.
To face God in person is the beatific vision; this is the ultimate direct self-communication of God to the individual person. A person possessing the beatific vision reaches, as a member of redeemed humanity in the communion of saints, perfect salvation in its entirety.
Your comment may be interpreted as a sinner is saved automatically - I am not saying this is what you mean, but instead pointing out the difficulties posed by this line of argument.
There are some here who would interpret that as meaning suffering will only occur if the sinful have been warned either by reading the Bible or by some Christian eager to see those suffer who fail to hold as holy what they themselves do. I think of them as not understanding the nature of sin at all and therefore racking up their own poor record even as they try to facilitate the meting out of damnation of others by way of their snitching. If I was a Christian I might pray they repent. But being under no such obligation I leave to do the best they can.
I think the suffering discussed in this context is because everyone would have a complete understanding of what they have become as a result of the bad, horrific, destructive acts they had performed. Those that have heard the gospel would suffer in that context while those who have not, would suffer because they now realize what they have done and become.
The Christian teaching has more to do with restoration, and those who have chosen the good would be restored to righteousness through Christ, while those who had chosen evil will be required to undergo painful changes.
Instead of the beatific vision, which is endless joy, the sinner would come face to face with his sins and what he has become, which would mean anguish and regrets, the degree of such pain I think will be in proportion to the evil committed.
Oh I agree with you. I think that is much more the way of it than the idea of God as tyrannical parent who lays down rules and then punishes those who do not obey.
So if they listen to or read the gospel but fail to take it to heart as applying to themselves restoration isn’t possible. Likewise if they can only imagine that it applies to the people they do not approve of, and it would only make matters worse for them if in their hearts they were gladdened at the thought of those others being tortured for all time.
No, this not what I said - if they heard and claim to live according to the gospel, but secretly they perform all sorts of evil acts, they would stand condemned. Also, if they have not heard the gospel, or ignore it if they had, and perform evil acts intentionally, they too would stand condemned.
Obedience is part of the faith - to hear the good, obey the commandments to do good, will bring God’s grace to any of us.
Never meant to imply that was what you meant. I was speaking for myself though it was inspired by my agreement with at least part of what you said. None of my understanding of God comes from the Bible and I don’t assume God has the same meaning for me as for Christians. But often enough Christians do express thoughts about God or some scripture which strike me as another good way to think about God. I don’t think of there being any fact of the matter where human conceptions of God are concerned. Whatever helps keep God present in one’s thoughts is good in my book.
From Tim Alberta “The Kingdom, the Power, the Glory” Chapter 12 (discussing the new evangelical fad of chasing after autocratic rule.)
…The best antidote to bad religion, as Volf noted, is good religion.
Hovorun pointed to a hopeful precedent. It was Volf’s mentor, the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, who helped to lead an interconfessional effort that rectified so many deadly distortions of Christianity in post–World War II Europe. This was no easy feat. For decades, Hovorun said, “totalitarian theology” had seized much of Europe. Christo-fascists had a foothold inside the Roman Catholic Church. The Deutsche Christian faction in Germany was rabidly antisemitic. Orthodox leaders in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe spewed antidemocratic propaganda. It took the extermination of six million Jews—at the hands of soldiers wearing a twisted cross—for Christians to deconstruct this fascism, antisemitism, and authoritarianism. “Putinism is a mosaic consisting of all those pieces,” Hovorun said. “We need to come together and figure out how to deal with this new monster, which is so similar to the totalitarian theologies of the thirties.”
What made the old monster so difficult to slay, Volf told me over lunch afterward, was that it feasted on the trembling heart of man. Jesus instructed His followers to “take heart!” because He had overcome the troubles of this world. But most of us don’t listen. Christians remain just as susceptible to panicky groupthink and identity-based paranoia as anyone else. Despite Jesus promising His followers that they would suffer—or perhaps because of this promise—Christians since the age of Constantine have run anxiously into the arms of the state, desperate to be protected by the rulers of their time and place. The irony, Volf said, is that Jesus Himself was killed by the state because He was daring enough to “offer an alternative to the powers that reigned in the domain where He was.”
Or regarding the bit of the quote above where Alberta writes “…Christians are running into the arms of the state …”; I think I would clarify that, at least here in the U.S., it’s even worse: Christians are trying to become the autocratic arm of the state! Not only do they turn their backs on pretty much everything their Bibles actually teach, but they don’t even heed all the warnings of the nation’s founding fathers they so wish to venerate! Washington would be spinning in his grave to see how quickly people can become so forgetful so as to chase after a worldly king!
Some might think a divine review in the next world, of the consequences of their behavior in this world would be undesirable torture leading possibly to repentance in some purgatory after death.
As N.T. Wright says: “The dividing line between Heaven and Earth is very thin.”
Hear hear! It seems that when principles become as interchangeable as facts, there is no sincere veneration of anything. Founding fathers like the authority of the church and God himself become just more levers to use in the service of the will to power.
A friend mentioned he was reading Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman to start the new year. Having just found it online and begun to read I was struck by how upbeat it is but Whitman is nothing if not a carpe some diem kind of guy.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
I like the feeling of sufficiency and being happy right where you are, one element of a great unity toward which you feel a great sense of belonging and gratitude, exulting at the company of the rest of creation. I think I will spend a little time with Walt too.
Here is another snippet from the same poem from part 6 I like even more.
Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.
Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.
Here is realization,
Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him,
The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.