Wright on Eschatology
25 April 2006 by Gil
The more I’m reading Simply Christian the more I’m seeing that Wright’s theology is ultimately ‘eschatological’ in nature. That is just a convoluted way of saying that everything we believe and do now should be informed by what we believe about the future that God has for us and for the world. So I finally arrived at what Wright envisions happening in the future and what the implications of that are for today.
“God intends, in the end, to give us a new life, in comparison with which the present one is a mere thing of shadows. He intends to give us new life within his ultimate new creation. But the new creation has already begun with the resurrection of Jesus, and God wants us to wake up now, in the present time, to the new reality. We are to come through death and out the others side into a new sort of life; to become daytime people, even though the rest of the world isn’t yet awake. We are to live in the present darkness by the light of Christ, so that when the sun comes up at last we will be ready for it.” (206)
There are shades of C.S. Lewis here for sure. Lewis was big on the image of this life being a shadow of ‘real life’ which is still to come. What I like most about Wright is his constant reminder that ‘eternal life’ is something that starts now. Eternal life does not deal with the duration of life but with the quality of life. Jesus opened up the door to an ‘eternal’ kind of life, the kind of life that fit with God’s eternal purposes, the kind of life that would endure.
Here Wright seems to offer a much-needed correction to some forms of evangelical theology. On the whole, evangelicalism is plagued by the idea that ’salvation’ is primarily about going to heaven after we die and that we should believe in Jesus because if we don’t we’ll have a miserable afterlife. Aside from being a terrible motivation for belief and a fundamental misunderstanding of what God’s love actually looks like, this belief in ’salvation as a ticket to heaven’ makes most of what happens in the meantime irrelevant. If the entire point of my existence is to choose heaven or hell, the time after that choice becomes insignificant.
Wright has provided a really good framework in this book for how to conceive of God’s entire project. This project is not primarily about getting people into heaven, it’s about restoring and renewing a world that has gone tragically bad. ‘New Creation’ (Wright’s term for heaven) began with the resurrection of Christ and ‘the world to come’ is now overlapping with ‘the world as it is’. Our job is to make this world and ourselves look more like that new world that is being born. Again this sounds a lot like Lewis:
“We choose Heaven or Hell, daily becoming someone more suited for Heaven or someone who wouldn’t like the place even if it were offered.”
that does sound alot like Lewis…
it’s sad that so many Christians are “in waiting” it sure seems to make this life quite pathetic.
I too like this way of thinking about the eternal. I hope that kind of thinking will not be co-opted by those who advocate that we can recieve all the celestial ‘blessings’ in this life (much of ‘word/faith’ teaching). i doubt that is what Wright would advocate. I think it means that we have to start talking way more speifically about the nature and intention of heaven.
“We choose Heaven or Hell, daily becoming someone more suited for Heaven or someone who wouldn’t like the place even if it were offered.”
this quote you posted seems like a cheap way to get around the problem of evil. it’s like saying that the people who are going to hell wouldn’t like it anyway. i have heard this sort of thing before but find it very hard to buy into. i think i know a few people who aren’t christians that would much appreciate spending eternity in a place like heaven and less like hell.
as far as living a life of higher quality when you are a christian… i really don’t know what to think of that. i am not sure that the ratio of happy to sad people is that much different between christians and non-christians. how would you measure such a thing anyways? should you compare christian vs. everyone else or christian vs. buddhist(muslim, jewish, etc.) the statement is actually meaningless unless you assert that christianity is absolutely true and everyone else who doesn’t believe is going to hell. i just don’t see how that is useful.
YES!!! To quote my two year old: “I love it!” I recently read the great divorce - it seems that Wright is saying the same things. This way of viewing God’s plan for people is so much more hopeful (and Christ-centered) than the traditional evangelical view. It turns our focus away from binaries of who’s out and who’s in and makes us focus on the divine plan and the culmination of all history, with every life playing a key role. What I also love is that viewing eternity like this completely changes our outlook on the church - its power and its purpose - as an agent of restoration.
JC,
I’m not sure I see how this is a ‘cheap way to get around the problem of evil’. I suppose it depends on what your definition of hell is (a place where God burns people forever isn’t what I have in mind here) and what your definition of a ‘Christian’ is. It seems to me that you’re using both of those words in ways that I may not have intended.
I’m not sure how thinking that people who end up in hell may have chosen it is a way around the problem of evil. Maybe you could explain that one a bit further.
Nor did I say that Christians (however defined) are awarded a higher quality of life. For me this quote was a needed reminder of the basis of Christian ethics is. The Christian calling is simply to live now in light of what we believe our future to be. I have no doubt that Christians are not always happier, more well-adjusted people. I know a lot of miserable Christians. In the same way I think there are likely a lot of happy Muslims and Buddhists.
The whole idea that ‘the religion with the happiest people wins’ seems a bit silly to me and not a helpful way to evaluate religious claims. It seems better to evaluate a religion’s beliefs as opposed to the particular (sometimes misguided) expressions of its adherents.
The questions you raise are significant. I just wasn’t attempting to raise them here so I’m not sure where you found them.
gil,
your right in your criticism of my post. my compaint doesn’t really connect directly to the problem of evil. but here was my line of thought if you are interested.
some question the existence of God because of all of the evil that exists in the world.
some respond to this by saying that God wanted to give humans a free will to chose him or not. so the oppurtunity to reject God must exist. Evil is necassary then for that option to exist. Then they say something about this being the best of all possible worlds that God could create so people could have that free will. so then this argument appears to let God off the hook for letting evil into the world and sending them to hell.
now when i read “We choose Heaven or Hell, daily becoming someone more suited for Heaven or someone who wouldn’t like the place even if it were offered.” i think that wright is saying that people are clear on what choice that they are making daily. some are choosing Christianity and becoming more suited for heaven and some are choosing to reject God and becoming more suited for hell. i know wright doesn’t explicitly say the last part of the above sentence but i think that is what he is implying. by saying that “we choose” heaven or hell daily makes our eternal destiny our problem.
as far as what i said about the quality of life of Christian. you wrote “Eternal life does not deal with the duration of life but with the quality of life.” the way i understood this was that wright was saying that eternal life starts in your present life accepting a “new life” that God gives us. By accepting then your quality of life increases or something. did i misinterpret this?
as for definitions… on what hell is, i don’t know. from what i have read on the subject, it looks as though the definition has changed quite a bit throughout the history of christianity. on what a christian is, i don’t know that either. you raised the topic of a personal relationship with Jesus earlier. i have usually understood a Christian to be a person with that personal relationship. but now i don’t really understood what is meant by personal relationship. now i guess i would just assume that to be called a Christian one should ascribe to the beliefs of the nicene creed or the ‘rule of faith.’ what’s your definition?
JC,
Thanks for the clarification. You explained the traditional Christian explanation for evil well but it seemed like you didn’t really buy it. I guess we could pick that one up another time.
With regards to the quote on heaven and hell, I don’t think Wright or Lewis would say that anyone would willfully chooses hell if by ‘hell’ we mean the place where God punishes people forever. But I think Lewis would agree with your statement that our eternal destiny IS our problem.
Heaven and hell, to me, are words that talk about a person’s relationship with and submission to God. If a person rejects and resists God for their entire life, hell is simply God honouring that choice eternally. If a person lives in submission to Christ and seeks to conform their life to his, heaven will be the eternal fulfillment of what was begun on earth.
In both cases, heaven and hell reflect the choices of people. That seems consistent with how God reveals himself throughout the Bible, always giving people the option of rejecting him, always reaching out in love to bring them back.
I find myself more and more resistant to the idea of hell as a place where God punishes people for eternity. The ‘punishment’ consists of separation from the ultimate source of goodness. It has more to do with God sadly turning his face from someone who rejected him than God taking some kind of perverse pleasure in torturing those who don’t love him.
Hey JC, thanks for your participation on this cite. While this is my favourite read in blogdom, I have to admit that sometimes the language used overwhelms me and at times I miss the gist of ideas being expressed.
I find your ideas logicly progressive and both clearly and simply expressed. Your easy for me to understand. Thank you.
I was touched by your comment regarding the relative happiness of Christians and non Christians and inspired to comment.
I think someone with a real,tangibly felt and expressed relationship with Christ, is happier than someone living apart from Him. I say that, not neccessarily because a life in Christ leads immediately to happier circumstances but rather because in the relationship, a loving Christ reveals to you, His true self.
His true self is ever nuturing, ever sustaining, ever loving, ever lasting. Once understood, your true self always knows that no matter how severe the circumstances of life may be, their is someone to turn too; some place to go. This assurence enables us then to survive the worst of life, without despair or returning evil for evil. This assurence enables us to look outwardly towards others at difficult times and seek to offer them comfort rather than to draw inwardly for fear of our own selves. We need not be afraid for Christ has and always will, save us.
I think everone who lives secure in the thought that they have a safe haven, a loving home, lives happier than someone who may not.
The cicumstances we live in may not be happier but our responses to these circumstances usually will be.
Peace