In these grim and dangerous times the forces of darkness conspire to make us despair and write ourselves off.
The problem with a conservative, or should we even say mainstream Christian eschatology, is that it implies that whereas resurrection is understood as overcoming death, as the person coming back from the dead with new life and new existence, thereby defeating death, there is no such equivalent for the world as such. (By “world” here I mean the world God made, and which has been transformed or built upon by us in history for better or worse.) That is, the commonly held eschatological attitudes seem to imply not that the world will die and be resurrected, but that it will die permanently, and be replaced by a new world. Though this new Earth may be immortal, the one it replaced will be dead forever. But in that sense and problematically, death’s victory over the world will be sealed as permanent. The individual my rise from the grave triumphant, but the world he or she had lived in will have been condemned forever.
Religion thus often exhorts us to be better people, to give over this sin or that one, to be more loving, or faithful, or truthful, or whatever. It does not claim that moral perfection is possible this side of the grave, but does say improvement is possible, and commanded by God. But at the same time, any real improvement in the politics of the world, its economic or social structures, is usually rejected by religion as either being in vain, or even outright blasphemous: an attempt to force the coming of God’s kingdom before God’s own good time.
But are our deeds, great and small, in the course of human history of any consequence in the long run, or are they not? Do we have ultimately no place in the creation as actual creators, or as J.R.R. Tolkien might have put it, sub-creators? Or must we as a species be stripped clean of all history and reformatted with entirely new programs, rendering the previous ones not only forgotten but vanished without a trace?
I am not talking about “salvation by works,” but the salvation of works. Do our works, our lives, our history as a species, have meaning or not? Nor can this question be escaped by asserting our works have nothing to do with our salvation. Might not works be important in the eyes of God without saving anybody?
If there is not some form of continuity between the dead person or world on the one hand, and the resurrected person or world on the other, there is no resurrection. Parents having another child after the first one dies is no victory over death, and no salvation of the dead child. Nor will it undo their grief, no matter how much they may be rejuvenated or rejoice in their new offspring. The idea of healing the deep family wound simply by replacing the beloved is obscene.
Likewise, there is something profoundly nihilistic in believing in resurrection of the individual, but not of the world. Individuals do not exist as such, detached from the world, any more than we find healthy rosebushes floating about in outer space. What makes the rose what it is, is in part its connection to its world via soil, light, water and air, all the surrounding insects and microorganism that are a part of its life. Likewise, if we are, as St. Paul says, organs in Christ’s body, then it is true as Donne says that “no man is an island, entire of itself.” For the full salvation of the individual, the salvation or redemption—not mere replacement–of the world is needed.
If there is no new Earth, a resurrected Earth that is, a reborn Earth, then what we have is fertile ground for frustrated and vengeful fantasies of annihilation. The Christian eschatologist writes for himself permission to look upon the destruction of the world with glee, as if he will be standing aside with hands on hips, nodding in approval as an ancient enemy gets its comeuppance. (Christian eschatology is far too often a way of allowing a sickening misanthropy hide out in the open.) We give ourselves permission to shit on the creation, even to destroy it, because, after all, it is doomed to eternal nonexistence in any case.
It is deeply revolting and an offense to reason to assert that while charity to the poor is smiled upon by the Lord, the improvement of economic systems such that such charity is not so much needed is seen as some kind of impiety.
God’s creation was and is good. And it is to be saved. And if we as individuals are to be saved, what we have made in this world, however much may have to be cast into the flames either for destruction or purification, was not given into our power to make only for us to make it in vain.
But in effect, with this mainstream eschatology, it is implied that we are to be like transplanted rosebushes. In so far as we thought we saw God in the world around us, even though we were also conscious of its terrible corruption, we were apparently deluded.
If history is to be wiped out, then it was always and already meaningless. Everything we have ever done is of no significance. But if that is so, why the relentless nagging of scripture and conscience to do this thing and not do that thing?
A priority of being over doing I can understand and tend to agree with. But the annihilation of the deed is nihilism.