Epistles to Ansgar: Letter 07 Salvation
24 November AD 2024,
Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe
Dear Godson,
Today is the last day of the Liturgical Calendar, which differs from the Gregorian Calendar used by the world. This worldly calendar, as is fitting, begins and ends in the fortnight of the Winter Solstice, when, daylight hours cease to dwindle, light returns, and longer days begin again. But the Liturgical Calendar takes Christ as our Sun, and so we begin the year with the advent of his birth, and end with his triumphant Second Coming.
Today is a celebration of Doomsday. This Doomsday is the celebration of our salvation, and our resurrection, and of the salvation of the world, and the renewal of the world.
What is salvation?
From what are we being saved?
The word “Doomsday” has a dreadful sound to modern ears, but originally the “doom” proclaimed by a king included indeed the downfalls and punishments owed to the disloyal and wicked, but also the promotions and rewards owed to the loyal and righteous.
Back in the days of long ago, when the king would travel his realm, he would establish his court in a town to hear the local cases and rule on them on a day when all concerned where summoned to hear their fate, or doom, decreed. This called the doomsday.
Nowadays, the word is reserved for the final judgement, when the King of Kings assumes the Great White Judgment Seat and brings all the nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues of the world, the quick and the dead, before Him.
On this day, the evildoers who died happily in bed, unrepentant and praised by a flattering world, and the innocent who were ill-treated and reviled, will be revived together. Sinner and saint will receive the justice they did not see in this life, or the mercy never shown them by their fellow man.
The Curse of Adam will be over and done for the Sons of Adam. Neither the damned in hell nor the blessed in heaven will eat bread through the sweat of the faces after that day, for the bread of life is freely available in heaven, and the toils of hell have no reward. Neither will be the pain of childbirth afflict the Daughters of Eve, for in heaven they are not given in marriage, and in hell there is no love, no pleasure, no birth. Even the serpent crawls on the ground no longer, nor eats dust, for he is flung into a lake of fire forever and aye.
To know what salvation is, let us say, insofar as mortal tongue can say, what God is.
God is light. God is love. God is life. God is the source of truth, virtue, beauty.
God is good. Good is that at which all men aim their actions. By definition, no man acts unless he deems this action better to do than not to do, either because he regards the act itself as worth doing, or regards the outcome to be worth attempting, or, at least, better than any alternatives at hand.
God is the ultimate source of all things, the cause before all causes, and likewise God is the ultimate end of all things, the final end establishing all intermediate ends.
Even men who imagine a do evil mean it for good, but they mistake good for evil. Perhaps the evil man prefers a short-term gain without counting the long-term loss. Perhaps he prefers a lesser good and betrays a greater good to gain it. Perhaps his passions and appetites are diseased or disordered, making a good thing unpalatable to him, but stoking his lust for a false pleasure or vain ambition. One can be addicted to perversions, drunk on gossip, intoxicated with wrath, as well as with wine or opium.
An evildoer misleads himself with corrupted or foolish imaginings that adorn evil with properties evil does not possess. He thinks it practical to use evil means to gain a good end, or thinks it lawful to achieve a bad end by good means. He thinks evil stronger than good, or more practical, or more admirable.
Strong and practical and admirable evil does not exist. It is unreal.
Eve ate the forbidden fruit to become like unto God, but damned herself instead. One does not become good through evildoing, one cannot become like unto God by godlessness. Hoping to be more godly than God is a contradiction in terms. It is unreal.
Hence, this error, as indeed all error is and must be, is to mistake unreal for real. Vice is untruth made manifest, which is why the conscience finds its ugly. All sin and error is as a vacuum, the mere absence of air; darkness is the absence of light; cold is absence of heat; and hell is the absence of God.
It is from this unreality that Christ saves us.
The final and ultimate good is to be in fellowship with God, to behold the divine countenance, rejoice in His glory, and see Him as He is. Where God is, is heaven, and God is everywhere. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.
Hell is the absence of God. Darkness, departure, death form a kingdom of lies, of vice, of abomination too ghastly to behold.
In the same way that the greatest joy in heaven is the beatific vision of the face of God, so, too, the worst torment in hell is the miserific vision of the face of Satan. If you go to hell, you are alone with the devil. The devil consumes you and you swallow him. You are the devil. Everyone is alone in hell.
It is from this misery that Christ saves us.
Salvation involves two realities, one physical and one mystical.
The physical reality is that death will die.
Death is not death, but sleep. If it were death, we would enter oblivion at the terminus of life, and all our elements dissolve, and nor would we ever return. This is what the world sees as death, and what our faithless fears color death to be.
But a period of inanimate absence followed by waking, once more animated and aware, is properly called sleep. So Christ and his disciples call death, and the truth of this word is demonstrated by the resurrection from the dead of Christ, as well as Lazarus, Eutychus, Tabitha, Talitha, and the son of the widow of Nain.
The physical reality is that you will be raised up on the Last Day. All bodily weakness, deformity, pain, and defect will be gone. Your flesh will return to the perfection it knew in Eden, when man walked nude, knowing no shame, and needing no garment.
This does not mean we will be frolicking like nudists in the next world. We will be clothed in light like the angels, and our white robes will be the righteousness of Christ wrapped around us. Nor is this my speculation, nor the deduction of a theologian: it is the eyewitness of St. John, who was carried physically to heaven and wrote down what he was shown.
He saw the Elders in heaven garbed in white. More to the point, their virtues shined like the visible radiance of the Shekinah — which is the glory that issued from the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant during Moses’ day.
Such glorified bodies will be immune to pain, as Jesus was after resurrection, when mortal wounds no longer could give hurt, but were turned into signs of glory.
He was as agile a thought is agile, able to be in two places at once, to travel great distances in an instant, even as a thought can dwell on two topics at once, or turn from near neighbors to distant realms in the twinkling of the Mind’s Eye.
His body was likewise as subtle as a spirit, which can pass through locked doors unhindered. He was unburdened by the limitations of matter, not heavy with gravity, and could ascend to heaven.
These four gifts of the resurrection are called clarity or lightsomeness, impassivity, agility, subtlety.
Clarity here means brightness, not clearness.
Impassive means absence of suffering of any kind, wounds or sickness, fatigue, or hunger or death, not just absence of passionate emotions and moods.
Agile here does not mean agile as an acrobat, but agile as a thought.
And subtle means more rarified and swift than matter, a body of levity, not gravity, like the bodies angels assume when they speak to men. It means subtle like a spirit not subtle like a scholar.
A man is such a body cannot age nor die nor sicken nor be wounded, nor be imprisoned nor chained nor buried in a cave, nor be exiled nor banished, nor left lonely, not if he is able to walk through walls and travel in a footstep to China or Luna or Andromeda. He cannot even be late for an appointment, not if he can be in two places at once.
We are promised a new heaven and a new earth after this world passes away. Not just the globe of the earth, but all things in time and space will be consumed, done away with, then restored and replaced. All things are to be made new. Those who imagine eternity to be winged spirits with harps floating on clouds have not read closely what was seen and foreseen, or not heeded clearly what was promised.
Much of the new creation is described in apocalyptic language, heavily symbolic, making it difficult to imagine in literal terms. A river of living waters will spring from the tabernacle of the New Jerusalem, rich as blood from the side of Christ, and pass through a city paved in gold with pearly gates, set square with twelve portals atop twelve foundations richly begemmed. Neither sun nor moon is needed, and no wicked thing can enter. By this river grow trees of life whose leaves are for the healing of nations. Here we shall be seated at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God.
Heaven is not hard to imagine, it is impossible: is it written, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Part of this inability to imagine perfection is merely a self-imposed limit on our fancy. The Sons of Adam seek false pleasures, and are sated, and get bored. One eats a tub of sweets or spicy meats and guzzles a gallon of wine, and falls into a stupor, belly swollen; or one dallies with a doxy, and, energy spent, grows bored and discontent, and throws her aside; one gathers gold or praise or prizes or fame until stupefied with ennui.
Even in this life, however, true pleasures do not pale, but grow in time to richer forms of happiness and joy. The romance of courtship is the beginning of marriage, but domestic bliss is its end. We do not laud the Christmas goose merely for the savor, but for the feast days with family and friends during the celebration of mass in solemn days of joy.
A happy marriage is an ongoing adventure, and days of sickness, disease, quarreling, departure, or death merely mar the bliss, they do not add to it. Christmas is not made better if the Christmas tree catches fire, nor is the threat of coal necessarily for the enjoyment of stocking filled with treats.
Some yammerers might say the contrast of pain is needed for pleasures to be pleasing. This notion is oddly prevalent among science fiction writers, who pen earthly utopias based on secular notions of pleasure and pain, right and wrong.
This is the doctrine of a shallow soul or a sick one: a mother nursing a babe, a father teaching a son to hunt, an athletic contest held in a spirit of good-sportsmanship against a worthy opponent, a symposium with wise scholars or an exchange of jest with a witty wag, a quiet book by a fire, a quiet walk in the country — none of these things are improved or made better by sudden bouts of blindness, gout, mishaps, slander, civil war, plagues of locusts, torture, or the threat of earthquake or flood. We can enjoy the sight of snowy lawns and forests seen through a window on the Feast of Stephen without the prospect of biting hunger or biting cold killing me. The tiger is a handsome beast, even if our blood flows not from his fangs. The green hills of Ireland do not somehow grow more emerald due to the sinking of Atlantis.
Whatever else is true in the next world, boredom will not be an issue.
Christ says men shall not marry there, nor women be given in marriage. Does this mean we are to be bereft of connubial love?
But sound theology reports no pleasures known on earth are unknown in heaven, but rather, they are perfected, changed into the fulness of the way they were meant to be. The poet Milton imagines erotic love to be returned to its Edenic purity, or to be more splendid yet, for he speaks of angelic forms able to intermingle their spirits more entirely than mere embrace of flesh can do, unhindered by any limbs or parts or members.
Will there be food and drink? If we are all ghosts, the pleasure of the cup and platter will be gone. But, again, no sound pleasure will be absent, but many things we do now out of need, then we will do out of love. Christ ate and drank, chewing and swallowing fish and honeycomb, after his resurrection, when He walked among the astonished disciples. Hunger pangs did not drive him to this, but fellowship for his followers, and to allay their fears.
Adam was given fruit and herb to eat in Eden; nor could he have starved had he chosen to fast, for death was not in him before the fall. There is no reason to suspect we shall not be so after all things are restored. God will have us have us food in paradise, as fine as manna or moreso: He made man’s mouth.
Will we be bored just plucking harps all day? Will there be something useful to do?
Again, there was work to do in Eden for Adam, as he was set to watch and tend the garden of God. But before the Fall, the work was joyful, not a chore, nor did the earth bring forth weeds and thorns to vex him, nor did he sweat. The labor was joy, not laborious, much as we labor for pastimes or games, at times with great energy or persistence, without it being a weariness or a sorrow. What economist call a disutility of labor could not exist for those whose bodies cannot suffer weariness nor weakness.
What duties there will be in the next world, I cannot say, but I note that God made Man in His own image, with creative powers like that of the creator. Making new worlds may be a work found pleasing to him, and tending gardens, not merely of plants and herbs, but stars and constellations, worlds beyond worlds.
So we can speak of perfect men living in a perfect world, even if such life in unimaginable to us. This is the practical reality of salvation.
What is the mystical reality?
The mystical reality is we shall be cured from sin, which not only means all the evil both done by us and inflicted on us will be redressed and restored, and all tears wiped away, but that even the temptations and inclinations that bend our will toward sin will be abolished, and we will walk upright, not bent beneath the unbearable burden.
I call it mystical because it is a mystery. I can speak of what life among perfect men might be, but I cannot imagine it, nor can you, no more than a toddler can image the joyful raptures of marriage which conceived him.
However, we can see in part, as if a looking glass, darkly, if we let reason lead our speculations, and if we trust in what holy writ reveals.
The first thing reason must address is the notion that perfection stops all further change. Reason says this is true in limited cases only: if one is a composer putting the finishing notes to a symphony, once one has achieved exactly what the muse inspires one to write, one may justly declare the work to be perfect, and throw down his pen. Any note added or subtracted will mar the work.
But if one is a mother, and her child is born perfect, all his fingers and toes of the right number, eyes and heart and all organs in perfect working order, the growth has just started. And if one if the Virgin Mary, the child will be perfect as a baby, as a toddler, as an apprentice, a youth, a student, a rabbi, except perhaps for the one time he tarried in Jerusalem after the feast, and went to go argue with lawyers and scribes. That was worrisome! But otherwise, nothing requires a perfect baby to stop growing.
If we found a republic, and the constitution is written with all the wisdom men can muster, it might be arrogant to call it perfect, but the number of amendments will indeed be limited the closely it approximates perfection: the nation then grows and goes about its business.
Because there is a second case where we use the word “perfection” aside from meaning the work is done and no more improvement is needed. The second case is when a defect, such as a derth of maturity, or even an illness or lapse or lack, such as how sinful men must enact laws to learn to live together in peace, prevents the perfection of one’s nature. A man born blind, once he receives his sight, is perfect insofar as he does not need more blindness taken from him. This does not mean the man has no business to do, no bride to woo, no children to rear, no psalm to compose. All it means is that his imperfection was cured, and now he is whole.
So it is with all men once we are cured of sin. We will become whole men. A whole man is one whose human nature is perfected; he is everything a man should be in all his parts and faculties. Such a man is sacred, sanctified, for the sickness of being separate from God is gone: therefore whole and healthy men are called by the name “Saints.”
Ponder the meaning of that word.
The salvation promised by Christ saves us from sin. Sin severs us from God. God is light, life, and love, God is the fountainhead of truth, virtue and beauty. Sin is godlessness; sin is self-condemnation that yearns for sorrow and death. Man invited death into this world by our willfulness. All manmade evils come from the evils men choose, and virtuous men would not choose. Natural evils, famines, plagues, storms, tornados, floods, earthquakes, volcanos, and all turmoil of land and sea was no fright to Jesus when he walked the earth, nor shall be to us once we walk with Christ to where He could lead us. Winds and waves obeyed him, and saints have spoken with wolves and birds, healed the sick, raised the dead, as a sign that, in the world to come, natural evils will have no power over us.
The evils of the Man spring from Man’s disobedience to God, and the evil of Nature spring from nature’s disobedience to Man. Salvation cures sin, which is separation from God, and cures death, which is separation of body and soul. If body no longer wars with soul, nor man with God, nor man with nature, the great wound of Adam is healed by the Five Wounds of Christ, and all is set right.
That is what salvation means. God is ruthless, for He means to make saints of us all.
Yours,
John Charles Justin-martyr Wright
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
