A Perspective on Judgement

by bebu 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  bebu

  I ran across this excerpt a long while ago from The World's Last Night, an essay by CS Lewis about the apocalypse. In it Lewis gives a very interesting perspective on the concept of God's judgement. It's very different from what JWs and many Christians (or other religions) think about judgement. IMO his description is right on target...

  Our ancestors had a habit of using the word 'Judgment'... as if it meant simply 'punishment': hence the popular expression, 'It's judgement on him'. I believe we can sometimes render the thing more vivid to ourselves by taking a judgement in a stricter sense: not as the sentence or award, but as the Verdict. Some day... an absolutely correct verdict--if you like, a perfect critique--will be passed on what each of us is.

  It will be infallible judgement. If it is favourable we shall have no fear, if unfavourable, no hope, that it is wrong. We shall not only believe, we shall know, know beyond doubt in every fibre of our appalled or delighted being, that as the Judge has said, so we are: neither more nor less nor other. We shall perhaps even realize that in some dim fashion we could have known it all along. We shall know and all creation will know too: our ancestors, our parents, our wives or husbands, our children. The unanswerable and (by then) self-evident truth about each will be known to all.

  I do not find that pictures of physical catastrophe--that sign in the clouds, those heavens rolled up like a scroll--help one so much as the naked idea of Judgement. We cannot always be excited. We can, perhaps, train ourselves to ask more and more often how the thing which we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at each moment will look when the irresistable light streams in upon it; that light which is so different from the light of this world--and yet, even now, we know just enough of it to take it into account.

  bebu
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  AuldSoul

  I enjoyed that. Thanks, bebu! (are you sure you're Pakistani?)
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  Narkissos

  Liked it too. He goes to the very core of what the concept (or myth? ) of final judgement is about.

  I once surprised a (good) Calvinist theologian by telling him that his description of hell (being overcome by God's light) would satisfy me entirely: I could not dream of any better salvation.
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  Now What?

  I liked the post! Thank you very much. CS Lewis has some very interesting readings.

  The only point that I am not so convinced of is the either/or result of the 'favorable' or 'unfavorable' judjement, the choice of no fear or no hope. I would like to think that there is a chance of restitution or reconcilliation at some point, with a 'mostly favorable but we need to work on some stuff' final judgement.
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  bebu

  Hi AuldSoul,

  No, I'm not Pakistani ... but thinking/praying about them a lot recently, due to the earthquake.

  Narkissos,

  I once surprised a (good) Calvinist theologian by telling him that his description of hell (being overcome by God's light) would satisfy me entirely: I could not dream of any better salvation.

  Reminds me of ...John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

  Light is welcomed (even if it brings pain) by some; reviled by others. But the Light itself is the same.

  bebu
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  Narkissos

  Now What?

  John 3:19ff (quoted by bebu) is interestingly echoed in a less symmetrical and more redemptive manner in Ephesians 5:14f (perhaps originally from a similar kind of proto-Gnosticism in Asia Minor):

  but everything exposed by the light becomes visible,
  for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
  "Sleeper, awake!
  Rise from the dead,
  and Christ will shine on you."

  Your suggestion also reminds of 1 Corinthians 3:15:

  If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  interesting bebu! thanks for posting it, and i "get" what he is saying. it certainly is liberal, and i like that.

  but i do have a question:

  so, if judgement is an ultimate critique, then does that mean we all get to go to heaven anyways? heaven filled with people who had poor critiques, and those who had good critiques?

  or is there still the punishment of hell or eternal death for thos who have less than optimal critiques?

  thanks,

  TS
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  Now What?

  Narkissos, very interesting, thank you.

  What I am seeing then is that the middle of the road stuff would fall one way or the other, to the light as exposed and dealt with or not. Even if the 'dealt with' part meant loss, it would still be counted as in the light.

  I might need to hunt this book down and see the rest of Lewis' thoughts on this. Thanks for causing a neuron to fire.
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  bebu

  
  
  Tetrapod,

  Is that Verdict permanent? I don't know...

  John 3:20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

  Personally... I think that when we are confronted with God (or Light, as John puts it), we make the core reaction to that light by ourselves. That is, we suddenly don't change course only at this moment of "Verdict" and decide we really now 'love' what we have consistently avoided until that minute. If we have, at heart, hated whoever God (in reality) is, then our turning away from that Light is simply automatic. Judgement is perhaps then a kind of an indisputable revelation--to US, not God-- of what we really chose to be, in relationship to who God is. How this verdict can change after God has revealed/declared who you truly are... looks really difficult when I really think about it. Change of heart is possible... but is far easier right now, at any rate!

  Hypothetically, if God's decision are right and good (and that we would, hypothetically, in that moment, recognize them fully as such), what part of a good and perfect decision would anyone wish to change?? We are still quietly imagining that there is yet another, better standard (eg, our own); but if God really is going to render an infallible verdict, how could there be another? His is the last word, but He promises it will completely satisfy our senses of justice and morality; even the condemned (permanent or temporary) would agree with that justice. The blessed as well as condemned might be shocked (a la Matt. 25).

  Are there degrees of reward or punishment? Maybe... But I don't think sorrow in heaven will mean being given a half-full cup while everyone else's is more full. More like one having a full cup the size of one gallon, instead of several gallons (or more), and discovering that you limited the size of your cup by yourself. It would still "runneth over".

  Personally, I think there will be a hell... but I think far fewer people will be there than you'd guess. It's pretty much the result for people who have chosen to be left alone by God... again, all their choice, which gets revealed. ( ...God has long sleeves, however. If anything else could be done for people without taking away their free will, I am sure it will be done. For to take away their free will would turn them into less than true human beings.)

  bebu

  PS Sorry that's so long!!
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  bebu

  May as well clarify here (since editing really creates weird formatting!) that I don't necessarily envision hell as a hot fire... Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire
  Others say ice From what I've tasted of desire
  I hold with those who favor fire But I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction Ice Is also great And would suffice. (Robert Frost) Just mho, bebu