A Thinking Reed

Month: May 2015

  • Does it matter if Jesus never returns?

    A friend on Twitter asks:

    “Will there be a point at which Christians accept that Jesus won’t return? 5,000 years? 10,000 years? When the sun consumes the earth?”

    For what it’s worth, my view is that Christians don’t need to believe in a “literal” second coming. Eschatology, like creation, points to something that lies beyond the boundaries of normal, historical experience and thus escapes precise conceptualization or description. Just as the biblical creation story can (and should) be seen as a symbol pointing to a trans-historical reality, so can the stories of Jesus’ return, the last judgment, etc.

    In the case of creation, what the stories point to is the absolute dependence of all created reality on its divine Source. Creation is not something that happened “once upon a time” such that, say, you could hop in the TARDIS and go back and observe it. Similarly, eschatology is not about events that will occur in the historical future. Rather, the eschatological symbols point to the destiny of all created beings and their ultimate consummation in and with God. What this will look like is not something that human beings can describe in any precise, “literal” way, since our language and conceptual apparatus are fitted for mundane, historical realities. But from a Christian point of view, the symbol of the second coming of Jesus provides a powerful assurance that our destiny is with the God who Jesus re-presented to us as a loving Parent, and not an implacable judge.

    Obviously there are Christians who would take issue with this interpretation, and many people are able to reconcile the “tarrying of the Lord” with belief in a historical, this-worldly second coming. But I also think a view like that one I outlined has a respectable pedigree in the history of Christianity. Church fathers like Augustine and Origen recognized the highly symbolic nature of the biblical language about ultimate realities and did not insist on literalism. The function of the biblical symbols is to orient us to that inexhaustible fountain of love and creativity that Christian faith maintains is the source and goal of our being.

    UPDATE: Here are some relevant posts from the archives:

    A better hope

    Jesus and the end: what if he was “wrong”?

    Keith Ward at the National Cathedral

  • Maimonides on the Messiah

    I’ve been reading a (heavily abridged) edition of Moses Maimonides’ (1138-1204) systematic digest and commentary on the Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, and found his discussion of the Messiah toward the end of particular interest. The Messiah, he says, is not some kind of supernatural figure, but simply a righteous king in the line of David who will reestablish Israel’s sovereignty and freedom from external domination.

    Do not think that King Messiah will have to perform signs and wonders, bring anything new into being, revive the dead, or do similar things. It is not so.

    […]

    If there arise a king from the House of David who meditates on the Torah, occupies himself with the commandments, as did his ancestor David, observes the precepts prescribed in the written and the Oral Law, prevails upon Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and to repair its breaches, and fights the battles of the Lord, it may be assumed that he is the Messiah. If he does these things and succeeds, rebuilds the sanctuary on its site, and gathers the dispersed of Israel, he is beyond all doubt the Messiah.

    […]

    Let no one think that in the days of the Messiah any of the laws of nature will be set aside, or any innovation be introduced into creation.

    […]

    Said the rabbis: “The sole difference between the present and the Messianic days is delivery from servitude to foreign powers.”

    […]

    The sages and prophets did not long for the days of the Messiah that Israel might exercise dominion over the world, or rule over the heathens, or be exalted by the nations, or that it might eat and drink and rejoice. Their aspiration was that Israel be free to devote itself to the Law and its wisdom, with no one to oppress or disturb it, and thus be worthy of life in the world to come. (Book fourteen, chapters 11 and 12.)

    I think it’s safe to say that this is very different from the prevailing Christian view of the “messianic age,” which is usually portrayed in frankly supernaturalistic terms. It’s also worth noting that Maimonides distinguishes the time of the Messiah and “the life of the world to come.” “The world to come” seems to refer to life beyond death, but this is distinct from the reestablishment of Israel under a just and pious king. The time of the Messiah is an entirely this-worldly affair, achieved through the “natural” means of politics, study, and obedience to the Law.

    My (admittedly highly incomplete) understanding is that this is by no means the only way of thinking about the Messiah in Judaism, and that there are other, more overtly supernatural views. But Maimonides’ doctrine, in which the messianic age is not eschatological but arrives as a result of human effort rather than direct divine intervention, provides a striking contrast to the common Christian understanding.

    UPDATE: Just a few further thoughts on this. I think this discussion highlights how the disagreement between Christianity and Judaism isn’t (just) about who the Messiah is, but what messiahship consists of. If you accept the criteria laid out by Maimonides, it’s obvious that Jesus was not the Messiah, since he was not a king who reestablished the sovereignty of Israel. In calling Jesus the Messiah, Christianity was taking a particular stance on what it meant to be the Messiah–something about which, as I understand it, there was no uniform consensus at the time. And this understanding was shaped by the particular details of Jesus’ life and death–and particularly the belief in his resurrection.

    Christians have often talked as thought Jews’ unwillingness to embrace Christ was due to a kind of willful blindness, since he was “clearly” the fulfillment of their messianic hopes. But this dramatically undersells the extent to which the role of the Messiah as understood by Christianity drew on a particular selection and reshaping of ideas floating around at the time. Both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are ongoing traditions with their own ways of making sense of and appropriating the biblical material, including the idea of the Messiah.

  • Kimel and Hart on universalism

    Universalism is a leitmotif of Fr. Aidan Kimel’s blog, Eclectic Orthodoxy. In this post, he lists some writings that have been particularly influential in moving him toward the universalist position. As a bonus, Orthodox theologian David B. Hart pops up in the comments to offer his thoughts. Apparently DBH is also a convinced universalist!

    I’m much less well-versed in the literature on this topic than Fr. Kimel and his commenters, and I don’t have a completely firm position on this. But as I wrote here, I think there is a trajectory toward universalism inherent in the Christian message. It’s also worth noting that hell, at least understood as “eternal, conscious torment,” has been rejected by many of the theological giants of recent history. In short, if God is a reality of unbounded, inexhaustible love, then it’s hard to see how the doctrine of hell–at least as it’s commonly expressed–can be maintained.

    I’m pretty skeptical of human efforts to describe “the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell,” as Reinhold Niebuhr put it, but universalism (or at least hopeful universalism) has always struck me as more consonant with the spirit of the Christian gospel than preaching hellfire and damnation.