Chapter 1: The Meaning of Life

The Theology of the Future

Writer’s note:

[First, an aside to the agnostic reader: I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’ve had many agnostic friends read and enjoy this. I also probably won’t say what you think I might say... If nothing else, from a cultural level this has a lot of explanatory power that will be useful to you.]

This week we attempt to answer, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ A small task. Versus pulling a number out of a hat, say randomly like 42, I want to summarize what the Bible says about it. To Christians, this is the “Gospel”. Perhaps you have heard people yelling things to you about the Gospel on the streets of your city or the quads of your University campus - yelling about sin, fire, and brimstone.

They are wrong. 

Well, it is hard to litigate individuals - I don’t know what they said! But I can almost guarantee they are missing the bigger picture. The reason that I can almost guarantee this is that most churches and pastors and even faith leaders I believe are missing the bigger picture of what God is doing. 

This large of a claim could only be true if it was fundamentally a critique of foundations of our culture. Fish don’t know they swim in water. Something is rotten in the state of the west.

Ok, why ‘the meaning of life’? It’s a bit cliche, right? Yea, you are right. But it’s also our only chance at teleology, a real hope that transcends. The real epidemic happening that no one is talking about, is a severe lack of hope - no vision of the future and certainly no belief in it. Asking the big questions at least gives us a shot.

A note on the writing style: There will be many questions left unanswered. That is intentional. You must think for yourself. You must do the hard work of considering the hard questions for yourself, and even more importantly asking God the hard questions.

This was written for other people searching for greater truths. This is for people searching for the deeper truths about God and purpose. This text is really a set of reflections and possibilities and provocations. My greatest hope is that it borders on mystical, in that it helps you see God more. 

The Theology of the Future

Human participation in the Kingdom of God

Introduction

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." - Proverbs 29:18

What's the point of being a Christian?

Getting saved always felt just a tad bit selfish to me. Get out of hell free card. Get some peace of mind and hope. Maybe get some material blessing depending on your strain of Christian belief.

In the Westminster Catechism, we are taught that we are here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." I must have learned that 15 years ago and I'm still not sure what it really means. The “enjoy him forever” part still feels a bit "me-centered." What does it mean for one to glorify God?

Read your Bible, do a quiet time, tell other people about Jesus, follow his commandments/don’t sin, take care of the poor, orphans, and widows, maybe volunteer in the parking ministry, and if you are Catholic definitely procreate. My experience of this list growing up is that it was all well and fine but lacked cohesion and lacked a clear direction. I don't mean to downplay these activities, I think they are important in the life of the Church, but without a framework to put them in, they all just feel like treading water until we die. It seems that the Church in the West has been pretty good at making converts, but very bad at making disciples. As a quick reminder: Jesus commanded us to make disciples.

I believe there is a crisis in Christendom - we have lost the answer to the most essential question: "why are we here?" And you see it's effects everywhere: people leaving the faith, people de-churching themselves, and people who attend every Sunday, but whose lives look identical otherwise to each of their neighbors. Why is this happening? I believe we have failed to give people the truth that is the Gospel and the hope that is the coming Kingdom of God. We have replaced this radical hope with programs and navel gazing. And the Sunday school felt boards just aren't novel enough anymore to keep people coming or keep them engaged.

The Gospel that is preached likely sounds very familiar to you, "we sinned, we were separated from God, Jesus died for our sins, now we can be with God and go to heaven when we die if we accept that gift." This has been the drumbeat of evangelicals for the past 100 years. It worked, and worked really well. It fit the culture. It answered the questions that people for the past 100 years had. It was clean and clear cut. It was very focused on the individual. It emphasized that the Gospel was knowable and rational, and through knowing the truth, it brings our individual salvation. What is this Gospel's answer to "why am I here?" Basically get saved, try to get others saved, and wait to die or be raptured.

You may be nodding along, and wondering, "yea... so what?" The critical observation is that what Evangelicalism has emphasized over the past 100 years: the individual, reason, clear cut binaries is also what Modernity and the Enlightenment have emphasized. Evangelicals are not nearly as counter-cultural as they might believe. I would argue they did what they should do - they took the Gospel which can fit every context, race, and creed - and made it relevant to people living in Modernity. They took the pieces of Christianity that resonated and elevated them just by talking about them a lot. Sadly, in the process, we lost the rest of it.

I don't blame Evangelicals exclusively, Christianity has been on a 500 year journey after the enlightenment. It has been marked by a retreat from the physical world into the spiritual world. Through a de-enchantment and de-sacramentality of matter, Christendom no longer has anything to say about matter. Neoplatonic thinking, that goes back as far as Augustine, gained strength and, as a result, Greek dualism, which teaches that the physical and the spiritual are wholly separate domains grew stronger. It led to an obvious conclusion: a de-emphasis on matter and on actions. It led to escapism and hundreds of songs that talk about leaving this world and going to heaven when we die. The problem is that the Bible never says that we go to heaven when we die, not even once. The Catholic church has realized this and started to try to unwind it, one of Ratzinger’s/Pope Benedict’s main priorities was on De-Hellenization. 

The Gospel we have been taught has been neutered. Is the Gospel about saving us from our sins? Yes. But that's just the key that unlocks everything else. The Gospel is a powerful force for welcoming and bringing the Kingdom and Spirit of God into this world and into ourselves for the restoration, transformation, and renewal of all things. It is the most hopeful, most inspirational and most amazing message ever taught: that God is coming back to the material and is infusing it with his Spirit, starting with the Holy Spirit living in us. That God has a plan and that plan A involves us co-laboring and co-creating with him to usher in a more prosperous and abundant world. We are here to make people more like they should be, the Great commission, and to make the world more like it should be, the Genesis commission. To God be the glory.

This is the Gospel taught in the Bible and the Gospel taught by many Christians for the past 2000 years. And it's time to rediscover it. Modernity is passing away, and the growth that Evangelicalism experienced is fading as well. People are leaving. No one really agrees what the prevailing philosophy is now. Some people call it postmodernism: a skepticism of metanarratives. Modernity’s emphasis on reason, the individual, and finality are leading to a new emphasis on experience, group identity and process. If you google "postmodernism", you'll find more books by Evangelicals hand-wringing over this than secular scholars discussing it seriously. But we should not fear. The power of the Gospel is not in right knowledge of individual minds for securing a place in heaven, the power of the Gospel is in the radical experience of a group of people called the Church for the purpose of participating in the process of ushering in the Kingdom of God here on earth. 

The best place I know to start is with a study of what God is doing and where this is all going. 

"Eschatology means the doctrine of the Christian hope, which embraces both the object hoped for and also the hope inspired by it. From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day. For Christian faith lives from the raising of the crucified Christ, and strains after the promises of the universal future of Christ. Eschatology is the passionate suffering and passionate longing kindled by the Messiah."  - Jurgen Moltmann

Jurgen Moltmann is a German Reformed theologian who is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen. He has contributed significantly to the theology of eschatology and is well known for his books such as The Theology of Hope and The Coming of God. Moltmann was a mentor to Miroslav Volf.

Chapter 1: Eschatology

"May your kingdom come... on earth as it is in heaven." - Matthew 6:10

HOW CAN WE EVEN SPEAK ABOUT THE FUTURE

Questions about eschatology are hard. They are questions about the future. And the future, especially the far future, feels unknown because it is unknown. No one alive today has ever been to the far future, no less tomorrow.

But eschatology forges on none-the-less.

How can you say things about the future? You can extrapolate from the past through a study of the environment and humans. The future of science is heat death. More entropy. The future of the historian is repeating himself or herself. More of the same. The future of technology is either mutual assured destruction or singularity: depending on who you ask.

You can also try to learn from beings that have future in them. That define the future. That have been to the future. Beings outside of time. We can ask God.

When we consider the future, we stand at the benefit of having an account of God working in the world. We can read about Jesus. Not everyone has had this benefit. In some sense, we are further along revealed history. Further along in the process. From where we stand in time, what can we say about the past and the future?

If the universe was created by God, and if we assume his power is absolute: then the most important influence on the future is simply put: what is God doing? 

To answer the question of what God is doing: we can look at our own lives and the lives of others and see fruit. We can see relationships healed, lives saved, and brokenness wiped away. With a larger view of God's work: we see mouths fed through agriculture, thirst quenched through sanitation, and bodies healed through medicine.

But to more fundamentally answer the question of what is God doing: it's more instructive to attempt to answer: what does God care about? What is God's end goal? If you have causes and effects: effects are handy, but causes are predictive. Where we want to go starts with our desire.

WHAT IS THE ARC OF THE UNIVERSE

What is God's desire and intention for the universe?

Does God see what he is doing as telling a story? Does he find meaning in stories? If he does, then story is a useful way to understand His desires. If you believe that the Bible is inspired and if you believe that the Bible is a story: then it follows that God does care about narrative. Said another way, God is the omniscient narrator.

The story that God is writing has a beginning, middle, and end. The Christian view on the universe is that it has a direction and progression from beginning to end. It is not cyclical. Christians don't believe in the circle of life. Sorry Rafiki.

But stories are always harder to understand mid-stream. If you read the first and last chapter of a famous novel, you are more likely to be able to make sense of the book than a random sampling of 2 chapters. We live in the middle of history, after 65 of the books, and before the 66th (or at least pieces of Revelation). What can we learn from the beginning and end of the story we live in that are clues or signposts to the full narrative?

The basic structure of the story is simple: God created, God lived amongst us, we left God, God's son came, God's son is coming again. At the beginning God lived amongst us: Eden, and at the end he will live amongst us again: New Jerusalem. We are in the middle period, we have left Eden and yet we have not arrived at the New Jerusalem.

What does God want? He wants his essence, who he is, to be unified with his energy, his creation. He is concerned about the Omega point, the unification of the heavens and the earth. What is happening when the New Jerusalem comes? The Lord asserts his authority over His creation. He integrates his creation into himself. His qualities: love, joy, peace, have no rival in his Kingdom.

"to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ." - Ephesians 1:10

"so that God may be all in all." - 1 Corinthians 15:28

It is completely finished. In the New Jerusalem, God does not only say "it is good", he will say "it is done."

"He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' He said to me: 'It is done.'" - Revelation 21:5-6

What does God want? God wants his Kingdom. He wants the reunion of God's domain, the heavens, with humanity's domain, the earth. The Biblical story is about the coming of God. He is "the God who comes"

"Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together—before the Lord, for he comes to rule the earth" - Psalm 98:8

"The Lord came from Sinai, and dawned from Sinai upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran, he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand" - Deuteronomy 33:2

"For behold, the Lord is coming forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him and the valleys will be cleft like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place" - Micah 1:3-4

And let us not forget the very last word in Scripture, at the very end of Revelation:

"'Yes I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." - Revelation 22:20

Come, Lord Jesus. Through Jesus, the material was created, and is being filled, and will be fulfilled.

"but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." - Hebrews 1:2

He is the God that took on human flesh and walked among us. In his own body and life, he showed that the created material order and the divine were not separate spaces destined forever to be split. He showed his desire for the material world, to make them one. Through his death and resurrection, he defeated death and ushered in the age of life. Jesus is not the destroyer, He is the redeemer. He is King, and he will reclaim his Kingdom.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" - Colossians 1:15-29

Through his brief ministry, Jesus gave us a vision of what the Kingdom of God looks like. Through his hands and his words, he nudged that small corner of the world further towards a Kingdom state. His time here on earth was intentional, it had a direction. Jesus understood his place in the broader story of God.

Jesus in Luke 13:32, speaking about his last days, says "And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox (Herod), ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course." There is a destination, a direction, a progression from the beginning of time to the end of time. Time progresses forward, Jesus turns over more of the corrupt powers and principalities. Jesus was and is on a mission. Jesus has a calling.

"This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord" - Ephesians 3:11

This is our hope. The Christian hope is of this progress, of this moreness. This is The Way. Our hope is in the Kingdom of God. The Christian hope is rooted in the fact that God is King, he will come, and "He will be".

We see now what God wants. And when you put it in plain-speak, it sounds obvious. God is love, and he wants to fill his creation with himself. God wants this, it is happening, and he will complete it at the second coming

THE KINGDOM IS ALREADY AMONG US

But what about in the meantime? If the direction of the universe and the arc of the Bible is from separation to union with God, is that happening now? Put another way: is God winning His battle right now? Between Eden and the New Jerusalem, is God making any steps, baby steps included, towards his New Jerusalem? In some sense, absolutely: in the life and person Jesus Christ. Christ was the first of the new creation. Christ showed that the material and humanity could co-exist with divinity. There was a time before Christ came, and then after Christ came. A cosmos with the manifest and revealed Christ is closer to God than before. His Kingdom is already in our midst, and it is coming more and more. 

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son," Colossians 1:13

Jesus’ ever-coming is an apocalypse in the classic sense, a dramatic revealing of a deeper reality. It is a dramatic revealing of the true nature. His coming is not Christian triumphalism: defined as the world gets better and better, more and more people become Christians. Yes, the colloquial definition of apocalypse also may hold: his coming is also revealed in the limitless and runway violence in humanity - it reveals that which is true: we are broken.

His Kingdom has arrived, is arriving, and will fully arrive.

"Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you." - Luke 17:20

We see this in our own lives. We do not need to wait for the second coming to see the breaking in of the Kingdom of God in our own lives and the lives of others.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Kingdom does not refer mainly to a place or time. It refers to the rule and reign of God. God's Kingdom then is already here. And it will continue to reveal itself until it is fully made manifest.

In the Christus Rex tradition of atonement, Christ is victor. He came to overcome death and to bring the Spirit. We are now given the same Spirit as Christ. For us that are Christians, we are dim mirrors of the unity that is to come. In a world of darkness, a world without union with God. We are literally lights. We are beacons of the Spirit, a way for the Spirit to work and act in the world. We are God's hands and feet.

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

— St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Our faith creates thin spaces that enable the Kingdom of God to break through. We are called sons and daughters, heirs, and conquerors.

The Christian hope is the resurrection of the dead and the breaking in of the Kingdom.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" - Romans 8:18-25

There is so much potential put into the universe and into us. And the revealing of that is glorious. When free sons and daughters, the tip of the spear of the Spirit's renewal, spread faith and love and good works while awaiting the restoration and glorification of all things, of all creation.

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If you enjoyed this, share it with someone who you are sure will disagree with it. In fact, if you hated it, do the same thing!

Next week, Chapter 2 reintegrates the spiritual and the physical into a pneu-material creation, with reflections on the New Jerusalem. Subscribe for the updates.