“… 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.