Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. [1 John 3:2, RSV, Catholic Edition, Ignatius Press]
I was struck by this verse when I recently saw it quoted because I know that some, perhaps many, of my fellow-Christians will use verses such as this to justify pessimistic assessments about man’s ability to understand. Mostly, we human beings tend to be pessimistic about those lines of thought which require great discipline, a lot of time, and a bit of sheer effort before we can make those thoughts our own. They say that mathematics is hard but so is any historical analysis or any theological speculation which is worth much.
If I’m an image of God, or a potential image of God, I can understand what I’ll be and where I’ll be, assuming I’m amongst those who are resurrected. That is, I can understand life after death in rational terms and I can understand what Heaven is in similar terms or else I wouldn’t be suited to that life. In terms of modern empirical knowledge, we would probably need to consider what physicists have learned about the nature of matter and how it’s organized — including thermodynamics, what biologists and historians and others have learned about the developmental nature of this world — including the evolution of the human mind and the development of an individual man’s mind, what mathematicians have discovered about the abstract aspects of Creation — including the way in which seemingly chaotic systems can suddenly self-organize. From these piles of poorly integrated empirical knowledge, we can construct philosophical and theological systems worthy of the name. This is what Augustine of Hippo did in providing discussions of Christian beliefs in the terms of the best knowledge of his day. But that took a lot of courage and faith, one hell of a lot of work, and modern Christian thinkers seem to be missing either the courage or the faith.
This is not to say that any human thinker can reach the complete truth about life after death. After all, we know that Augustine’s system, and the system which Aquinas put together eight centuries later, eventually proved inadequate. Human additions to our knowledge of Creation have proved many of their speculations wrong and left many Christian beliefs unsupported — the traditional understandings have eroded.
Christians are always ready to claim, “We human beings are images of God,” but seem to have no sane way of speaking about the meaning of this claim. Christians have a number of doctrines which seem to be no longer expressible in sane language. God has invited us to participate in His life and His work and that implies we have the capability and the responsibility to understand Creation. Our earlier understandings of Creation and of most Christian doctrines no longer make sense because we now know more about Creation, that is, we know more about God’s acts as Creator. We’re capable of higher understandings. We need to respond in our proper way to God’s Creation. We need to be fearless and confident. Some participate in God’s work by dancing or playing the piano, by teaching young children or caring for those who are dying. We who are called to intellectual work participate in God’s work by being the pioneers in a never-ending effort to shape the human mind to encapsulate God’s Creation, to share in the divine thoughts manifested as the stars in the sky or the children playing in the front yard, most importantly — as the story in which the stars and those children play a role.
Pioneers are succeeded by those who live more routine lives. Not quite 2,000 years ago, the Egyptian scientist Ptolemy invented trigonometry as part of an astronomical and astrological research project to predict and explain the movements of stars and planets. Though trigonometry still is difficult for many to deal with when presented in the classroom, I grew up knowing men who had entered the mills after sixth grade or so and had acquired some pretty high levels of skills in trigonometry over the course of their careers as metal-workers. Double-entry bookkeeping was introduced to Europe during the Renaissance and was considered so difficult as to inspire the same sort of awe we 21st century folk feel towards quantum mechanics or general relativity. Nowadays, your corner drugstore has piles of account-books which are intended for use in that form of bookkeeping.
The older discussions of Christian beliefs are no longer tenable and few Christians have responded to the ever-present call of God’s Creation — “Talk to me, explore me, wonder at me.” What were once rationally defensible doctrines have become mysteries of the sort found in Christian fantasy novels. God is a rational, all-powerful Creator and not a magician who calls upon forces which exist independently of Him. If we are truly His images, or maybe it’s better to say — “potentially His images”, then we’re not magicians nor are we intended by our Maker to be uncomprehending citizens of a world of forces beyond our understanding. We’re children who are called to watch our Father and to playfully imitate His actions as He goes about His work in Creation.
If we are to live in the world of the resurrected, the same would hold. The Son of God isn’t resurrecting us to put on a never-ending magical act to amuse us. He’s resurrecting us to share His life, but we can’t share that life if it’s a mystery to us. We can share God’s life only if we can truly imitate His actions as Creator, if we can think the thoughts He manifested in Creation, if we can have some hope of truly understanding this story God is telling. This understanding is a matter of principle and no particular human mind is capable of understanding so much as a flea, let alone this world, let alone the world of the resurrected. Yet, we have to realize that the human mind is the sort of entity which can shape itself to be a reflection of God’s thoughts manifested in Creation. If we truly love the Creator and truly wish to be His images, then we Christians before all others are bound to respond to His world rather than to retreat into a dreamworld which is more comfortable in the short-term.