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Remembering his college logic studies, Goines thought of another thing the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in Jerusalem could have been doing with the “faith is evidence” maneuver – establishing an axiom to throw in whenever he couldn’t prove something any other way.
And by saying that “faith is the evidence of things not seen,” did the writer also mean to imply the converse, that lack of faith – in heaven, for instance – positively prevents a person from experiencing it? If so, then it was incumbent on the early Christians to go out and evangelize their own loved ones – to start with – so that they might all ascend into heaven together.
Or, Goines conjectured darkly, was the author hinting at magic? Later in his letter he recalls that Abraham, by faith, “when he was tried, offered up Isaac...his only begotten son.” If there was a magician in that sordid episode of the Old Testament, Goines shivered to think, it had to be Yahweh himself, cruelly conjuring Abraham into thinking Yahweh actually meant for him to sacrifice his son. Of course, Goines reflected, Yahweh might well have meant it, at least at the time, going by what all else the Old Testament says about him.
And then Goines began to think of the people he knew who say they couldn’t bear to live without the hope that they will be reunited with their loved ones someday. Was Goines a loved one someone wanted to be reunited with?
His thinking fell silent as he rethought the act of his nephew’s sending him that book, in the apparent hope that it would “change Goines’ perspective.” Goines had perused the book’s table of contents without feeling his interest piqued by anything – rather the opposite. But Goines was coming to understand that his nephew cared about him and wanted to see him in heaven someday....
He had the intuition now that if there was an afterlife – he didn’t believe there was, but then he didn’t know there wasn’t – he would be there, to see and be seen by his nephew and anyone else who might long to be reunited with him. For Goines didn’t believe that afterlife – if there was an afterlife – was produced, staged, and directed by Christianity, so how could Christianity exclude Goines from the cast?
Goines proposed to Mrs. Goines that he heat a kettle of water for some lemon and ginger tea.
“And maybe some of that pumpkin bread I baked?” she said.
Amen to that!
| Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle |
The writing of this series of “true-belief” vignettes spanned over a month, starting the day Goines’ nephew offered him the McDowell book. The book didn’t arrive for around three weeks, so the fun didn’t really start until it did and Goines felt the weight of the package. Several days later, it looked as though the original vignette would become four, and then five, and then six, although one reader I asked for feedback even suggested a seventh, to explain the surprising development of Goines’ thinking that IF there WAS a heavenly afterlife, then he would be there. I was delighted to figure out how to state that adequately (I think) in a single paragraph, using the metaphor of a film production company, from which developed the concluding vignette’s title, with LTD significantly included in the company’s name. (I checked, and such companies typically do register as “Ltd.”)
ReplyDeleteAnother serendipity for me was that the allusion to movies subtly underpins Goines’ point that Jesus is mostly a fictional character (and fictional characters are as real to us as actual people, as he realized while watching the Israeli TV series Shtisel).
However, I regret using the pun “the tome was empty” prematurely, for at the end of the first vignette Goines really only knows the book is heavy.
Again logic fails us when we contemplate what is euphemistically known as "the hereafter"-as dissatisfying a phrase as can be, similar to saying "she passed" when someone dies. If there is such an afterlife, one would agree it would be the most important subject in our lives, wouldn't it? After all, (what an ironic phrase in this context) eternity will be far longer than our brief sojourn on this rock, won't it? But we can't even talk about it! I'm reminded of the old country spoof tune:"Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die."
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. It hadn't occurred to me to point out that our having next to nothing to say about that very, very, very, very long time of continuing to exist after "passing" sort of tells us how unlikely such a continuation is....
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ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed Goines' ruminations on faith tremendously, finding a refreshingly different perspective. (That would be "a perspective with an open mind"). It is difficult to discuss faith with the overtly faithful because you are literally questioning their entire world view, their entire "Weltanschauung" so to speak. They are too invested in it to brook dissent. Well, that never worked with me and it's not about to start now. I can't tell you how much i've enjoyed my Muslim friend and our discussions on religion. He is a wonderful, caring man, and just like the veriest Evangelical Christian, he cares so much about my eternal soul that he wants to SAVE me! Bless his generous soul, and this man is the chief hydrologic engineer at the Aswan High Dam. So he is the perfect example of a scientist with a deep abiding faith. My father was such a man, an aerospace engineer, and he lived and died by the cross.