“… in the Beautiful no limit is to be found
so that love should have to cease with any limit of the Beautiful."
–St. Macrina the Younger
“Our theology needs to be beautiful; if it’s more beautiful, it’s probably more true.”
–Brad Jersak
As a young girl, I remember laying in my bed at night, gripped by fear and grief as I wept and prayed for the salvation of my family – the people I loved. I thought they were all going to hell. This is what my church taught me. My sweet country church on the hillside, who also taught my heart to sing “Jesus loves me this I know.” I believed them. If there is one belief that has plagued my experience in the church it is what has been taught about the final judgement. You see, it was the church who introduced me to a greater Love than I had ever known, and it was the church who taught me that that great Love was capable of incredible harm. I tried to hold these teachings together for a long time, because I loved this Love. Then one day I just couldn’t anymore.[1]
I have found that the process of letting go of these beliefs is harder than it sounds. The things we are taught when we are young become deeply rooted in us and they are not easy to depart from. This has led me to believe that it is important to re-examine the emotionally destructive doctrines we teach and to be faithful to challenge a theology that is not good. I want to echo a Platonic thought that influenced the early church and some came to hold as a foundational truth: the belief that God is good and only good. This concept became a mirror, or a standard for interpretation. Later, Origen took this thought further by pointing to Christ as the mirror, perfectly reflecting what God is like. Bridging these two, we find Philo of Alexandria’s voice insisting that everything we say about God, must be worthy of God. It must be good.[2]
It is holding this thought that gives me the courage to write about what has always been the deepest longing of my soul – a universal hope. I will use biblical text provided by St. Paul to explore how the early church mothers and fathers understood him. St. Macrina the Younger will be my chosen guide on a path of understanding toward a universal lens, as her thoughts had great influence on the Cappadocian fathers. I’ll briefly engage the countering thoughts of St. Augustine that influenced the western evangelical teaching of my youth and then connect this to what I think as one who deeply desires to be faithful to the Spirit within her. My goal in doing this is to encourage a more beautiful way of understanding Scripture that remains deeply rooted in ancient Christian wisdom.
Today, a leaning toward universal theology can be misinterpreted as new or emergent, and a departure from orthodoxy. I do not deny that sometimes this is true.[3] However, I would like to challenge this as I have come to learn that there has always been a stream of conservative orthodox teaching flowing from and toward a hopeful inclusion of all people. These beliefs are firmly rooted in church history and some of their most influential champions helped to compose the Nicene Creed.[4] The creed itself centers the church around Christ in a way that is intrinsically unitive. It makes space for the freedom of thought and it resists schism. When I study how the church fathers developed the creeds I see an exhaustive complexity that led to a brilliant simplicity. I point to the creed in this paper because it can be a shining symbol of welcome and inclusion; an open-ended invitation toward a universal hope.
St. Macrina and her brother Gregory of Nyssa explore the idea of this at length in the treatise, On the Soul and The Resurrection, which is the written account of their conversation after Gregory came to his sister for comfort following the passing of their brother, Basil the Great. A leading passage in their exploration of this is found in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes,
“For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. . . When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”[5]
That “God may be all in all” appears to be the golden key, encouraging deep thought into what judgement really is – a means to what end? Patristic themes such as Christus Victor, Christ’s complete victory over death and conquer of hades, and Apokatastasis, the restoration of all things,[6] become foundational in this dialogue. Macrina and Gregory use this passage (and others) as an opening, and Macrina insists here on the hope we have, even after death. Her faithful devotion to both Christ and the scriptures leads Macrina to believe in a theology that refuses to limit the goodness of God. She claims that death is not a deadline and that all people come from God and return to God. This return includes a restorative judgement, and this judgement is like a fire that burns away every attachment that has not come from God[7] until what remains is our true self, the divine image, and “God is all in all.” The judgement is Love. How long this journey will take each soul, how painful it will be, this remains as the mystery. Through beautiful analysis they insist that it must be like this, or Christ is not victorious and restoration is not complete.
In his book, City of God, St. Augustine approaches the final judgement quite differently. I think his interpretation of scripture here seems to reveal more about his own understanding of judgment and justice than it does about God. He writes,
“For that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.”[8]
Augustine, at length, provides a case for a retributive judgement that is final. This is a common view and it still persists today. There are many ways to challenge this thinking, but ultimately, it is my heart that protests this interpretation of judgement the most. It simply does not align itself with a God who calls themself Love. Here, I will counter with a simple question: if God is good, how can this be?
I have come to believe that our work on Earth is not to nail down the answers to these questions but to honour them – to let them breathe. This is what happens in the dialogue between Gregory and Macrina. He comes to his sister in grief, questioning, and she meets him there. I don’t know how this deep wisdom was imparted to St. Macrina. Perhaps it was birthed in the great space she gave to contemplation in her life. However it came to her, I am deeply grateful. Reading her words, I have imagined that I have joined Gregory there, bringing my own grief to the wise mother as I soak in the healing balm of a hope that extends to all. St. Macrina whispers a theology of unlimited beauty, to which there is no end. “In fact,” she says, “in the Beautiful no limit is to be found so that love should have to cease with any limit of the Beautiful.”[9] If I get to hope for something, let me hope for this.
Endnotes
[1] I became a mother.
[2] Brad Jersak, “Pauline Themes through Eyes of the Fathers” (lecture: St. Stephen’s University, Saint Stephen, NB, March 20-24, 2017).
[3] E.g., As in “pop-universalism,” defined as “anything goes, all are in, regardless of Christ or any response to him.”
[4] Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology. (InterVarsity Press: 1999) 174-175.
[5] 1 Cor. 15:21-28, ESV.
[6] Acts 3:21.
[7] 1 Cor. 3:10-15.
[8] St. Augustine, City of God, trans. Walsh, Zema, Monahan, Honan, (Image Books: 1958) 484.
[9] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection, Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.x.iii.ii.html (accessed April 24, 2017).