The pagan Greeks were wise. They knew that life was tough and then you die. The gods used us for entertainment and then did not die. The problem from the gods’ point of view is that people might see this truth and quit. People who mope in despair are not entertaining. So when they unleashed evil on the the world, they included hope. Hope was a cheat and a fraud.
And if you think about it, most of what people peddle as hope is a fraud.
We are told that our efforts are worth it, because “humanity” will survive. If nature is all there is, was, or ever will be, then I am unsure why I should care about generations not yet born and that might (given a Sweet Meteor of Death) not be born. When my beloved dies, the fact that her genes are chugging along someplace else is of no comfort to me whatsoever.
But what of the struggle? Isn’t there joy along the way? We can face our end impassively and enjoy the treats we get. This is fine if you happen to be a fairly well off American in this century where the treats (might!) outweigh the tricks, but this sort of cheap stoicism is less impressive to almost everyone else. Many of us do not get many treats in this life and “Courage!” is a much better motto in a Hollywood movie with a swelling score than if you trudge to work every day to screw toothpaste lids on the toothpaste.
“Eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die!” will never work well for the romantic soul, because we keep falling in love and the minute we fall in love, then eating, drinking, and merry making are no good without the beloved. Surely nobody thinks the aging Elvis stuffing himself on peanut butter sandwiches, liquor, drugs, and parties in his garish house was happy?
If that is hope, then thanks, but I will return to my private den of ennui.
And so that might be it: life sucks and so we will be sad.
I have respect for that. If told that my life can have meaning, because I can create meaning, I always look at the speaker. He (it is almost always a he) generally lives a pretty bourgeois life that seems detached from poetry, passion, and wonder. If I ask about poetry, passion, and wonder, I am often told that nature without purpose and meaning has wonder enough for us all. He might show me a slide of some lovely picture in the cosmos.
I am then left to wonder why he thinks it lovely. Is the cosmos lovely? In that case, I don’t want to leave it. If it is lovely, then ideas exist and that suggests to me that materialism (and so his form of atheism) may not be true. If it is not really lovely, but feels lovely to him, then I am looking at a man not glorying in the cosmos, but in his own feelings.
He might as well drop acid and pretend that what he sees is real. There is no loveliness there, only a chemical reaction that his brain is making him think is lovely. One must carefully not think too hard to preserve cheer and hopefulness.
Perhaps we should just not think about death . . . put off the evil day. I suspect that is what most people do nowadays when they are lucky enough to be able to do so, but I reject any idea that begins “just don’t think.” Think. It is the human thing to do and look reality in the eye.
All of this is why I respect Nietzsche who did not put up with cheap secularism or false hopes. Looking at his life, however, reminds me that his path is not one I would take if there was any other rational way.
There is, of course, the thought of life after death and the evidence that life after death exists. I would start with the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. I would add human experience of an after life in near death experiences and with the paranormal. This evidence is less conclusive, but hard to dismiss without falling into a fundamentalist naturalism: every paranormal experience can be debunked, even if we cannot do so yet.
Yet as Homer shows us, just because there is an afterlife or “spirits” does not mean they are good. Much of religion is horrifying and CS Lewis was right that many of us are tempted by atheism because it cuts off some frightening possibilities. God might exist, but is God good? Gods might exist, but are they just?
Hope in gods and the afterlife seems chancy indeed. Yet we are not left to guess because Christmas came and is coming. God came and revealed Himself to us in Jesus and so we know God is good, reasonable, and just. He is love. He may ask us to deny some desires, but there is hope in the City of God that is to come. This life, and even the small pleasures of this life, are hopeful signs of the greater pleasures to come. Surely I will die, but this feast today is nothing compared to the feast God is preparing for His children. Of course, when one speaks of revelation, one is not making the foolish modern mistake of referring only to a written text (though that too!), but the lived out life of the church. We have two thousand years of experience, a stable text, and two thousand years of thought. On this we can be (fairly!) certain: God is real, in charge, gives us free will, and loves us.
A Christian can say (joyfully): Eat! Drink! Be merry! Tomorrow we die!
I do my duty not for some abstract future, but a tangible future seeing Good, Truth, Beauty forever with all those who also desire such a vision. This pie is tasty, yes, but also hopeful, because there is pie in the sky by and by. It is odd that we have been criticized using that very phrase as if the tasty treats of eternity cheapen today’s treats.
Instead, they give us joy in the eating! We are souls in bodies and we will (someday) be souls in bodies again, never to die. This is rational, though not certain, so what Christians call faith is needed. I love the poor because it is right to love the poor and because any good deeds live forever. Christianity begins with self-denial if one is living for just today, but ends with jollification without end.
Hope is with me always and this hope is not a fraud, a cheat, or one that cheapens today. I will lose, death comes to us all, but even that day is fraught with good meaning because God will make all right in the end.
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