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“And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’” (Rev 5:13).

 As I look out my window this morning at the sun rising over my house to shed its light on tops of the trees behind it, a golden crown is set on a forest still caught in the dead of a hard winter. A long awaited spring is still kept at bay, though now we are well into April. As much as any of us do, the creatures too groan with the delay and suffer in this life under interminable stresses. We feel our spring shoots on the verge, burned by a bitter cold world unready for our new offspring. There is no home for us in this wasteland: we come home poised to crash into a soft bed which has been removed to another place while our room is renovated.

In this state we are lifted by John’s vision of the future world, where everything lives in its full beauty, singing out, whether it has a formal voice or not, the glory of its Creator. The new world is no less teeming with life than the present, but life there is without limitations. The winter death shrouds have fallen and what was hidden – partly by our sin-clouded eyes and partly by the curse upon the land – is opened as this material temple curtain is rent.

We will see the creation, the natural world, with the right eyes, and that creation will be seen, without its covering of course, but then the question of continuity and discontinuity immediately returns. In what sense will things be like they are now, and in what sense different? The question is as plain as the child’s, “Daddy, what will heaven be like?” The sometimes brief and often apocalyptic renditions in John’s revelation or the prophets tease us with images often presented to us for other purposes. With those exegetical challenges still before us, we should turn to the clearest physical instance of glorified flesh, the resurrected Jesus Christ.

Christ’s resurrected body was a body like ours. Its parts were, as far as we can tell, all in their usual places such that he was recognized as a man. He spoke, stood on the ground, and ate fish. He did also have powers unique to him as God, such as rising from the dead and leaving a sealed tomb, appearing in a room with a locked door, and ascending into the sky at his ascension. Those features are not to be expected in our resurrected bodies, at least as regular features beyond the initial miraculous work of resurrecting our decayed flesh. For the present purpose, the most important detail to remember is that Jesus still had holes in him from the nails and the spear that pierced his side. Thomas was invited to stick his finger in them. Human bodies don’t normally do well with such lesions, but this is the resurrected state. Jesus bore the marks of his suffering, but his stigmata become something different in his resurrected form.

When you think of your glorified state, not just physical, but mental and emotional, what do you imagine? Are we all to become Hugh Jackman or Olivia Wilde, forever locked at age 29 1/2, with not a hair out of place? When we all speak, will our words flow forth as music from the mouth of an opera singer, backed by our heavenly friends from the Cleveland Orchestra? Will we remember every person’s name ever told to us or be able rationalize the number pi to a hundred digits without the help of a machine? And what of machines: will we have them, or need them, or continue to build them? I ask these questions, as silly as they may sound, because I know that you have entertained such thoughts.

Who hasn’t?

The problem is in the interpretation of passages like Revelation 7:16–17. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Is it that we will not require food or, rather, that we will have sufficient food? And how is it that we will have sufficient food? Will it arrive like manna or will we grow it the usual way? It’s the question of continuity and discontinuity again. Likewise, what will be the reason for no more tears? What will be the source of our contentment that will eliminate all sadness? Surely, it is the escape from sin. But rest from sin does not in any way imply a divine makeover. The profound discontinuity is first a spiritual one, and thereafter a physical and mental one. Jesus was raised from the dead, but his unsightly wounds remained. Do you think they detracted from his glory or added to it? His resurrected body, physically speaking, shows significant continuity with his former body. So, while he was restored to 100% functionality, there was no divine makeover, not even for the Son of God. We should not let our sinful vanity control our interpretation of the heavenly state. It is characteristic of Islam but not Christianity to fill paradise with our lusts.

With rest from sin, as noted in Part 2, is also rest from the curse for the creation. Again, following the pattern of our own resurrection and restoration, and the principles of continuity and discontinuity, where are we led? This was already explored in Part 2, where it was noticed that animals will retain many of their current attributes, save the adversarial one. The whole concept of survival of the fittest is clearly one only suited to a fallen world with scarcity, greed, and competition. In ecological balance, brought on by a fundamental animal knowledge of God, animals eat what they need, but by no means would they consider harming God’s vice-regent, man.

This principle is movingly illustrated in Jack London’s White Fang, a book written almost entirely from the perspective of a dog. There, this part-wolf, part-dog, comes to live among men and learns their ways. His first series of masters are cruel and beat him. He learns a kind of obedience based on fear of the “man-gods”. Later in the story, he is taken in by a kind man, who with gentleness, patience, and grace teaches White Fang to obey out of love. This “love-master” is treated with an even greater obedience than all of the previous cruel masters had received. In the course of White Fang’s rehabilitation he discovers the depth of his bond to the love-master when his master returns after a long journey away from him. Upon his return, this once wild animal overcomes his fierce pride and buries his head in his master’s armpit.

Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilty of it often. It was the final word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing which he had always been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked to have it touched. It was the Wild in him, the of hurt and the trap, that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contact. It was the mandate of his instinct that that head must be free. And now, the love-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position  of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: ‘I put myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me.’

This entire series of essays might be considered nothing more than a biblical and theological elaboration of London’s tale. The dog, even now, on a good day, is a special sign to us of things to come.

No less ought we to observe that the Church, even now, on a good day, is a special sign to us of things to come. The love that our Lord prayed for in John 14–17 was in order that we would begin to realize the future in the present. That loving care is the primary means by which we will live in peace and security. How many times have you heard the word “foretaste” in sermons or books, but not wholly grappled with the significance of it? Are you too caught up in utopian science-fictions of white walls, quiet voices, and perfect medical care to see what the real heavenly future is going to be? Our heaven is too physical, perhaps even too technological, when it ought to be human, as in flesh-and-blood. The discontinuity between the church and the world is the discontinuity between the dog and the wolf.

Again, Christ is our preeminent archetype of the discontinuity of this present age and the age to come. Paul further explains this through the first and the second (and last) Adam. There is a clear contrast to the first Adam in the second Adam (Rom. 5:12-21), Jesus Christ. Just as the first man, the second Adam also faced Satan in an epic standoff (Matt. 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). In this case, however, the outcome was very different. The first Adam accepted the authority of Satan and ate the fruit, thus rejecting God’s authority. Notice that, in the garden, Satan is quoting God’s words, but twisting their meaning. When the second Adam, Jesus, faces Satan, again Satan is quoting Scripture to the man. Jesus, in contrast, rejects Satan’s authority, quotes God’s words in their correct sense, and ultimately resists temptation. Matthew and Luke give fuller accounts of the event. Mark summarizes it in half a sentence, “He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan”. However, for the current discussion, what follows does not appear in Matthew and Luke, but is enlightening. In Mark’s account, he continues, “and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Where Adam failed to resist temptation, and was cursed with an adversarial creation, Jesus resisted temptation, and found himself in Franciscan glory, nursed by God’s angelic servants. It is the second Adam who Christians will follow ultimately, not the first. We will rise from the dead just as he did and rest in happy communion with the creation as he did in that moment. In this restored communion with God we find our restored communion with the animals that were originally Adam’s close companions.

So, we are now equipped to handle the final question, the one that has formed the title of this series of essays—dogs in heaven. Remember that Adam, before he was presented with his ideal helper, Eve, lived among the animals, naming them. They were his companions, though not perfect match like his future wife. This connection between his fellowship with his wife and his fellowship with the animals provides a clue for us. Understanding one helps us to understand the other. In the New Testament, Jesus speaks explicitly about marriage in heaven. The Pharisees, forever trying to demonstrate their biblical mastery over him and discredit his ministry, challenge Jesus with a puzzle about the woman who had multiple husbands in her earthly life. Jesus’s answer is unequivocal: there is no marriage in heaven, so there is no dilemma.

Pastors are often asked by those who have lost a spouse if they will be with them in heaven. The answer is, yes, of course, as you will be with all of the saints. There will not be a unique fellowship with that person; however, the deep fellowship you enjoyed with them in this life, in its best moments, is an indication of the unity of fellowship that will be enjoyed by all the saints with one another. Do not mourn the loss of a friendship, so much as look forward to the gain of many such friendships. The question about our particular dog in heaven may be approached in a similar manner. While the Bible provides no provision for the resurrection of dogs past, the special relationship we have enjoyed with our special pet, in its best moments, will be characteristic of our relationship with all of the animals of the earth. Has not everyone who has watched the live shows at Sea World wished to be the one riding the whale and cavorting with the dolphins? Dogs are a lot of fun, but will you miss your earthly past when one day a lion, enjoying his meal, sees you sit down, and brings a piece of meat to share with you?

Thus the Lord has provided a mercy and a hope for us in the household dog. As they sit at attention and their eyes fix on yours, they wait for our instructions, hoping to serve and to please. On a good day, they do not bite you or destroy things, but simply enjoy your company, to go where you go, and when not needed to be content in themselves. They are no less a part of what is mentioned in Rom. 1:19-20, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” The next time someone makes the joke, ‘Did you hear about the dyslexic atheist society—no?—they don’t believe in DOGs’, you could perhaps consider responding with the apologetic of the dog. Do not forget that within the divine nature that Paul mentions in these verses are not merely power, justice, knowledge, and wisdom, but the very particular, dare I say, humanity of the creator in filling the world with creatures meant to live alongside us. I should perhaps exercise caution the next time I want to pass through a narrow passageway in the house and feel tempted to scold my dog for standing too close to me, blocking my way. I should more politely excuse myself lest I be found to be fighting against God.

The post Of Dogs and Heaven: Part 3 appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

To understand animals biblically, both pre-Fall and post-resurrection, we must not take the biblical texts in isolation, but follow them along the trajectory of man’s redemptive history. This is the most appropriate context. As I noted in Part 1 of this series, plants and other animals were made for us and remain connected to us as our servants, whether as obedient servants or disobedient ones, but in all instances by their relation to us.

In the creation event recounted in Genesis, a clear hierarchical order was established for all of creation. God has supreme authority both as Creator and as Lawgiver. Man, understood as both male and female, were established as his local rulers on earth, ruling over everything else. The creation of angels is not addressed in Genesis, though we meet one in the appearance of Satan in chapter three. The Genesis account is limited to that order which is normal for the earth environment. Satan’s first act recorded in Scripture is to disrupt that order by turning an animal into an authority over man, and then man hubristically against God in disobedience. Even within this act is a mini-inversion between the man and the woman as she initiates the eating of the fruit. This first inversion of the order between man and animals becomes characteristic of the fallen state in which we now live. The curse states this inversion with respect to the creation explicitly as the ground  or earth becomes an obstacle to man’s contentment. So far then, both animals and plants are turned against man in the Fall and curse.

Shortly thereafter in Genesis we witness man turning against man, destroying the innate brotherhood in humanity: Cain against Abel, and then Lamech the arch-murderer against everybody. Essentially, every living thing on earth has become man’s adversary. Nothing, it would seem, of the original good creation order has remained. Yet, mercifully, the rain still falls on the just and the unjust alike (Matt. 5:45). God has preserved us, and while the creation is cursed, we are not destroyed. Even though we broke covenant with God and therefore God has no obligation to keep the covenant himself by keeping this damned world going, our God has graciously persevered in preserving humanity to this day.

Why, in fact, does it make sense that the rest of creation would be cursed in this way? Was this an arbitrary act of God as punishment to humanity? An act of God, yes, but arbitrary, no. Again, the curse reinforces the original creation order with man over it. It was Adam’s act of rebellion against God which precipitated it. Adam rejected his responsibility both for his wife in guarding and leading her, and in his rule over the creation. He prejudiced the authority of an animal (however magical and peculiar the talking serpent may have been) over his own, and then mismanaged his use of the trees available to him in eating from the forbidden one. Adam received the curse of the bad farmer. In God’s supreme poetic justice, he got what he deserved. Likewise, he was a bad husband (originally, in English, an agricultural term) to his wife in failing to exercise good judgment or decision making for the sake of his family.

When the prophets of Israel speak of judgement and curse upon their nation, they use the same language. We find the creation turned against them. The summary of blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28 speak in both agricultural and political terms. The land will be made desolate first by failed crops, and then by invading armies. The original curse pattern is repeated as crops fail, wild beasts take over, and then other people come in for the kill—plants, other animals, and humans all become adversaries. Notice that agriculture seems to resume once the country has been occupied. The first step is failed crops, but then the insult is doubled as the crops return only to be handed over to the occupying army. The picture is of a land overrun, unmanaged and thus filled with wild beasts doing as they wish, even occupying homes (Isa. 13:22), indicating again the reversal of the divine order on the earth. And yet, even though the curse brings the danger of animals turned against humanity, God restrains them, as indicated by the fact that he may just as easily let them loose again (Lev. 26:18; Ezek. 5:17; 14:15).

This representation of the negative, cursed relationship between man and animals helps to explain the restored order by way of trajectory. As the curse is characterized by danger from animals, the restored order will contain peace and safety, even an affectionate proximity to the animals. Most fundamentally, the beasts will honor God (Isa. 43:20), that is, not act in a way contrary to the original order of obedience towards man.

Isaiah 11:6-9 has become a problematic passage on this point, and has provoked the polar positions of continuity and discontinuity explained in Part 1. The chapter begins with a prophecy of the coming of Christ, “the shoot from the stump of Jesse,” who exercises just judgment, defending the poor and oppressed. It is in this context that we encounter the famous words, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb.” This passage is one of the great “gotcha” texts of the advocate for profound discontinuity between the pre-Fall and post-Fall orders by indicating, it seems, that the restored order exhibits such a different biology than the present. The predator snuggles up with his prey since bloody death has been eradicated in the new order. For those who advocate for biological continuity between the pre-Fall and post-Fall orders, Isaiah is taken as speaking poetically, even hyperbolically, in order to emphasize the magnificence of heaven, and not necessarily to provide a literal picture of the new order. Will the carnivorous bear suddenly become vegetarian? Will that not require, then, that the bear cease to be a bear altogether? Will a child truly fish around in a snake hole and not be bitten? This, it is argued, would be completely contrary to the way we know animals behave.

As explained in Part 1, the biological continuity and discontinuity positions are a result of concluding too much from the Scriptures. These interpretations of Isa. 11:6–9 are a result of concluding more from them than is warranted, this time with respect to science. The bio-discontinuist assumes from the fact that the wolf dwells with the lamb that the wolf therefore never eats a lamb or any animal again. The passage does not say that. Similarly, the fact that a bear and lion eat plants does not mean that they no longer eat animals. We should not conclude from this passage that all flesh-eating of any kind or at any time has been abolished. Likewise, with respect to the bio-continuist, Isaiah is indeed written in typical poetic form, but that does not mean historicity is abandoned. Isaiah may speak of the Christ as “the shoot from the stump of Jesse,” but in doing so he refers to a real Savior actually coming in history to judge.

Another way of looking at this passage which avoids making too many assumptions is to consider a restored earth in ecological balance. Rather than considering flesh-eating as either necessary to ecology or the result of sin alone, why not consider the current state of flesh-eating as inappropriate, but not necessarily evil in itself? In a world thrown into disarray, animals seek, like their human counterparts, to consume more than they should. This results in the Malthusian struggle characteristic of Darwinian ecology, “red in tooth and claw.” However, in a world of perfect ecological balance, a wolf may eat a lamb from time to time, but will not desire to eat every lamb at every time. It’s a picture of animal self-regulation. What we see now in our fallen world are animals let loose, on each other and on us. The new order does not have over-population or scarcity of resources which are essential to the Malthusian picture. It is a perfect circle of life that Disney can only dream of and only God can provide.

How is this possible—animal self-regulation? Isaiah says in v. 9, “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Now, this passage is related particularly to the relationship of animals to mankind: it follows immediately upon v. 8 which speaks of the child’s hand in the snake hole. There will be absolutely no harm done to humans in particular by animals, and the scope of this blessing is indicated by the phrase “in all my holy mountain.” This is the domain of God’s holy people, which in the future state is all of humanity. The animals know this because they are “full of the knowledge of the Lord” in their own animal way. In heaven, animals will accept the ecological order that God has established for them. They will follow it innately and not rebel against it as they do now. The change in animal behavior, we might say, will not be one of action but of attitude. They would not dare harm God’s vice-regent. They are no longer our adversary. And this exercise of self-regulation towards us in the vertical direction, will also be exercised towards other animals in the horizontal. Thus it is not the end of flesh-eating but it is the end of domination driven by scarcity because a perfect ecosystem has no scarcity.

A similar picture of the heavenly ecological balance is evident in Ezek. 34:25–30, “I will make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods” (v. 25). This covenant is not unlike the first covenant with man wherein he also lived safely, sleeping where he pleased. The word “eliminate” is sometimes noted because of the assumption by some, already discussed, that in order for man to be safe from dangerous animals, they must be entirely absent from his presence. Again, this is unnecessary. If the attitude of the wild animal is altered in this covenantal order, then he would not dare attack God’s special overseer. In fact, the word is shabbat, “rest”, and is used frequently in this form to describe the end of sinful practices (note Isa. 13:11; Jer. 48:35; Ezek. 23:27, 48; and especially the play on words and reversal in Hos. 2:11–12). Those sinful practices, in particular, are laid to rest. So, it is not annihilation of the wild beasts, or even their banishment, but the removal of the sin at work in creation which makes them wild and dangerous. “They will no longer be a prey to the nations, and the beasts of the earth will not devour them; but they will live securely, and no one will make them afraid” (v. 28). This verse also moderates our understanding of the “eliminate” above by explaining that the animals simply “will not devour them,” not that they will vanish altogether. Ezekiel also explains that plants, likewise, will be changed in their orientation towards man, producing what the curse snatched away.

Thus, the Edenic order will be restored, but not simply by returning things to the way they were. The way in which it is restored and the form of that final restoration state will bear the marks of past suffering. This results in further biological counter-intuitions that we should not rush to resolve too quickly. Children and adults often wonder what heaven will be like—who, and what, will be there, how we will look and how it will work. Perhaps it is our vanity which prevents us from appreciating just how much of that question can be answered. Perhaps we are accustomed to thinking of our restored glory in terms that are too fleshly, not too spiritual, and then project that fleshly model onto the rest of the restored creation. This suggestion will be developed further in Part 3, where we look to Christ, the first glorified animal.

Part 3 will be the final post in “Of Dogs and Heaven”. Comments are welcome.

The post Of Dogs and Heaven (Part 2) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

As we look around at our relationships with all other animals, this should strike us as peculiar. Cats fare well at home and there have even been recent attempts to domesticate foxes, but no domesticated animal has had such a deep and enduring place as the dog. They appear in a playful demeanor on Greek vase paintings and their unharmed bones are among the remains of very old human dwellings. So while many animals have found their way into our homes and won our affection, there is none so universal as the dog. I’m not trying to start an argument about what is the best household pet and some marine aficionado will no doubt inform me that porpoises communicate with humans much more effectively than dogs. My point is simply to recognize that the domesticated dog has always been with us, in its present role, for as long as can be known. As you stare into their attentive eyes and they stare back, there is something peculiar that we all feel, but are not always able to articulate.

Do dogs go to heaven? Rather than avoid the most sensitive dog question of all, I will strike it head on because the fact of its sensitivity—which turns ordinary rational people into a bear robbed of her cubs—is far too revealing to avoid. The special relationship between humans and dogs does have very much to do with heaven, which is why all children and many adults are so concerned to see them there. This intuition that dogs will most certainly be in heaven is a sign of a hope that has been with us since Adam. Since the sin of Adam, our wonderful relationship which he enjoyed with all animals, affectionately naming them as he pleased, was severely disrupted. With the curse of the ground came also a curse on all of those creatures which roamed about on it. No longer were they his friends and companions, but his adversary. Despite this curse, God has mercifully left us at least one creature, which on a good day, represents something of the restored order to which we look forward. As we stare into our dog’s eyes, we have a glimpse of the future.

Among Christians, the question of animals in heaven has become more difficult to address in the last century. There are those who take a firm stance on the claim that there was no death before the Fall, either for humans or animals, the position of Young Earth Creationists. This view emphasizes the biological discontinuity with the world as it was then and the world as it is now. The reaction to this position by other Christians, such as Theistic or Christian Evolutionists has been an extreme at the opposite pole, maintaining animal and human death before the Fall (if the Fall is even recognized as a singular historical event). This view emphasizes the biological continuity of the pre-Fall state and the present time. Both of these positions have a natural extension into our future state in heaven. Again, we find the biological discontinuity between our death filled world and the future world in the first group, and again, the biological continuity for the latter group. Both positions, of which there are ample proponents among evangelical Christians, claim more than is warranted by the Scriptures.

The Scriptures do not say that there was no death before the Fall. It is an inference drawn from the facts that God declared his creation good, death is not good, therefore he did not create death. The modern (Christian, mind you) biologist challenges this by noting that death is a normal part of biological processes that benefit us. We will leave that for the moment. Another inference is that God said to Adam that if he ate from the forbidden tree, he would surely die. Adam ate from the tree and now humans die.

In this sense, quite explicitly, there was no death before the Fall. Humans, without this disobedience, would have lived forever. Note that the command and the curse are given particularly to Adam, and thus to humanity, not to plants and other animals. So, the most conservative position, without further reference to other parts of Scripture, is that humans took on mortality in the Fall, but we remain silent about plants and other animals dying and decaying. The Scriptures do not tell us more in Genesis. At this point, the Christian biologist may hold onto the continuity of biological function for plants and other animals, but will have to bite the bullet when it comes to man. The Christian who wants to maintain that there was no death before the Fall will have his discontinuity in the state of humanity, but will have to bite the bullet on the goodness of a creation that has plants and other animals dying and decaying. One or the other party may have to move from their position, but the arguments cannot be based on the text of Genesis alone.

One other relevant point that we do carry away from Genesis, one which makes the Christian biologist differ from the non-Christian one, is the man-centeredness of the creation. Indeed, all of it was good, but man is special as God’s vice-regent (Gen 1:28–30; 9:2). The creation serves man and he has a responsibility to manage it well. This hierarchy in nature resembles the difference in order between God and the creation at large. There is a fundamental difference between the creator and creature. Likewise, as God’s vice-regent, there is a qualitative difference between man and the rest of the creatures. We are on a higher order with all of its benefits and responsibilities. All of the rest of creation testifies to God’s handiwork indeed (Rom. 1:20) in their structure, function, and wonder, but nothing else is fabricated particularly as a direct representation of God himself. In fact, all of those other things, as they are well suited to us as servants—food, trees, coal, or dogs—also point to the centrality of mankind. This distinction still applies, despite the Fall, which has complicated matters but has not eliminated this fundamental role of humanity in creation.

This gives us a clue in attempting to resolve questions about what the rest of creation was like before the Fall, but more importantly, what it will be like when the earth is restored to its proper function, that is, this most important question of dogs and heaven. We know that the world was made with humanity’s good at its center. So strong is this belief within the church, it even led some churchmen astray as the Copernican heliocentrism seemed just plain irreverent. Yet while we know we are not the center of the universe in a physical sense, theologically we are the pinnacle of God’s creation. The Bible has plenty to say about us, both past and future. The history of our redemption is the story of the Bible. To discover the story of plants and other animals, past, present, and future, we are best led in investigating it through their relationship to us. We can follow their story as they follow ours and discover their eschatology in our own. That may not answer all of our questions, biological or otherwise, but will at least show us the Bible’s priorities with respect to the rest of creation.

Dogs are special, everybody knows that. In the posts that follow I hope to offer some insight into why that is true.

The post Of Dogs and Heaven (Part 1) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

Why?

The modern scientist may tell you it is a vestige of an animal economy which depends on survival among limited resources. We are playing out our deepest urges to stay alive, yet in a civilized setting. The contemporary philosopher may tell you such games are about power, our fundamental desire to subject one another and rule. Both of these answers include uncontroversial elements of truth. Indeed, our life contains a struggle to survive, the need to succeed in securing adequate resources. That is true regardless of your phylogenetic assumptions. Likewise, Michel Foucault is not the first anti-Christian philosopher to borrow a Calvinist tenet: that man desires to oppress other men to his benefit.

Foucault, unlike the Calvinist, does not have any way of explaining why this is so. The evolutionary biologist is on equally shaky ground in his attempt to account for the goal-directed behavior of humans in particular. Is the human child’s game of tag just a variation of two puppies playing at “bite my jugular” or “you can’t have my stick”? There is a justifiable similarity, but can the scientist explain why the human decides to vary the game into one where the ball must go through a wire hoop, only in one direction, and only under a certain set of conditions governing one’s steps across the floor? The puppies will always play “bite my jugular.” Goal changing is not their pleasure. The uniquely human obsession with goals, from the child’s game to a cooperative adult endeavor to land a probe on Mars, cannot be overlooked if we wish to attempt an explanation of the most basic features of human nature.

The philosophical importance of goal-direction has not been overlooked. It was the center of Aristotle’s metaphysics of potentiality and actuality, which was really a biological physics. The ultimate demise of Aristotelian natural philosophy was that it had used the concept too heavily, giving goal-direction to everything, rather than limiting it to the human, or even animal psyche. In the eighteenth century, the feared outcome of a mechanical physics arrived. With goal-direction removed from physics, it was then removed from biology too, not least of all in the human mind. Without goal-direction, there is no choice, and thus no real freedom. These are all interrelated principles which come and go together.

This question was taken up by the British brain scientist Donald M. MacKay (1922–1987). For those familiar with his involvement with Christian organizations throughout his career, it may come as a surprise that the overriding concern of his scientific research was the nature of goal directed behavior in the human brain. Over his lifetime, he conducted a series of experiments on the visual and auditory systems in his lab at Keele University, testing his model outlined in other more philosophical writings on the nature of information flow in the brain. MacKay modeled the brain, in very mechanical fashion, on a control system like a thermostat. There is a thermometer to measure the air temperature, a heating and cooling system to change the air, and a dial to set the desired temperature. The thermometer checks the temperature, compares it with the set-point, and activates the appropriate system if required. The human brain is like a thermostat, albeit more complex, yet still a machine. Everything you need to know to understand the game of tag is in your thermostat.

Many Christians are uncomfortable with a brain that is a machine since it seems to take away contingency, that is, genuine human freedom. While this question must be saved for another occasion, suffice it to say that a free human brain must at least be a machine, otherwise with no rule bounded physical laws working within it, you might decide to do one thing, but your brain would go ahead and do something else. Mechanical laws still hold in your brain in order for you to act freely. The way MacKay understood this machine brain to be free was that it had the ability to set its own goals. This is where choice, decision, and human freedom breaks into the circle of the thermostat’s life. The rest of our body is a machine, and we generally do not argue when a doctor sets a broken bone, checks our blood pressure, or administers a medication. The brain also has an unsurprisingly mechanical function. It breaks, works better on same days than others, and gets stronger with regular exercise. What makes it different is that it uses its machinery to collect, move, and process information. Information does not have any mass, but you will not find it anywhere without the brain.Your goals are like the dial on the thermostat in their determination of the outcome, but unlike that dial because they exist informationally. So, to answer the question, are we just stuff? Well, yes and no; it depends how you look at it.

The universal human affection for tag reveals this innate goal-directed nature. Without pressing the neuroscientific details for the moment, goal-direction is a fundamental feature of animal, but especially, human brain function. This basic teleology of human nature is also revealed in our equally universal delight and desire for narrative. Stories, history, and films all play on our goal-directed nature as they move us through time and space in their narrative structure. The “story line” is the vector pointing towards a goal. Our whole human sensibility rides along it as a familiar way of life as the plot unfolds before us. Even shocking modern books and films that militate against such narrative cohesion are only able to shock because they cut against our normal human orientation.

Humans and other animals share a great deal of machinery, so much so that we are often fooled into thinking that there is more inside animals than is warranted. Yet part of our affection for them, especially mammals, who are most like us, is exactly in our identity with their inner goal-directed life. (The other part will be the subject of another essay.) While they may not entirely understand us, we understand them and at times pity their limitations.

In the ways that we are less like our animal friends we are more like God. We are created in his image which in this context means that we are engaged in many activities that, analogically speaking, are the kinds of activities carried out by God himself. It is all the more easily seen since God’s revelation of himself to us is in terms accommodated to human life. So all of the divine activities we might list here are given to us in plain human terms. God plans, creates, ordains, judges, destroys, restores, grieves, helps, hopes, speaks, listens, shares—what facet of human existence, save sin, is not in the Bible at some point ascribed to God? This is true because human nature follows from the divine. The professors of religion have it all backwards. Our divine book does not look so human because it was created by humans, but rather looks so much like us because as God comes to reveal himself to us, he uses the language of humanity to describe himself, a relationship which he had already established in creating us like himself.

The nature of God may be described according to the traditional attributes and categories of omnipotence, omniscience, aseity, and so on. These are all on a sound scriptural basis. However, if we are to attempt to identify some most basic central feature of the divine nature, what would it be? Aquinas, following his deeply Aristotelian commitments, said it was his being. To answer this difficult question, we want to take the Scriptures in their entirety, without singling out some particular attribute, which, albeit faithfully represented here and there in the Bible, is not the overarching theme of biblical revelation. To take the Bible as a whole is to read through the most magnificent story of all time, a statement which may be taken literally. The Bible contains multiple narratives, but by following our best biblical theology may also be taken as a grand narrative of creation, Fall, redemption, and glorification. It is impossible to divide these individual themes into parts which might then be divided into chapters since each chapter, it seems, is inundated with ongoing sneak-previews and retrospections into all of the others. Every word of the Bible is goal-directed, either in looking forward towards it, or commenting back from it. This is the highest feature of God’s nature as our archetype. Such a statement does not pretend to comprehend God as he is in himself, but is only a statement about how his nature is most supremely represented in human nature.

In his teaching on apologetic method Cornelius Van Til said one could start anywhere, not least of all in the behavior of the atheist himself. The atheist may decide to do things contrary to God’s Word. In doing so, he is revealing first, his free will to do so, and second that he is an inextricably goal-oriented creature, and especially powerful in his ability to decide what those goals will be. Even the anarchist who loves to spray paint his mark on public buildings is not shy about expressing his desire that society be different than it is now, ironically goal-directed in its hope for pan-directionality. This philosophical catch-me-if-you-can is both sad and comic (as tragedies often go) since God is not mocked and he will bring all things to a definite end decided by him in advance.

Adam was created with explicit goal-direction. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1.28). This was his explicit mission which should not allow us to forget his most basic implicit mission coming by virtue of his creation. The sacramental Tree of Life was separate and special, distinct from other delicious and beautiful trees in the garden. It pointed to something more. Adam worshiped there with the Lord in anticipation of something yet beyond the pleasant place he then enjoyed. The garden was not the end-all and be-all. Human nature has always had a future and other orientation. After the Fall and God’s promise of salvation, the means of attaining that goal changed dramatically, requiring the mediation of a Savior, but the natural goal-direction remained the same.

The revelation of God in the world (Rom 1.20) extends much farther beyond some select philosophical attributes of the divine nature. This colorless natural theology does little to enlighten the mind of both the believer and non-believer. The human nature is just as much a part of creation revealing the divine nature and is, in fact, the most obvious place to discover a richer general revelation. Our affection for tag is a playful indicator of a deep truth about us and about God’s pattern of action. One could note on an even more universal scale (literally) that the unidirectionality of time speaks the same truth. The reality of such directionality in all that God does, and thus in all that we do, is biblically displayed in the vector of creation to consummation.

Understanding this biblical view of God, man, and the world makes us more sympathetic to Aristotle for having based his own natural philosophy on an elaborate system of final causes and ends. Yet his was one built out of nature only, and not from Scripture. It is a reminder that while natural theology is enlightening to the faithful mind, it is insufficient to turn us from our sin and human idolatry. However, we can build for ourselves an even more comprehensive system of thought, but here guided by special revelation. Donald MacKay began to do so in his work in neuroscience and there is no reason why we should not attempt to discover other areas of human activity which are better understood in this light. Furthermore, the universal interest and energy with which we play at tag in so many ways should reorient our attention to the priority of goal directed behavior in ourselves, but also upwards as we consider the activity of God. This fact suggests to us that our theology proper (i.e. Doctrine of God) should not be centered on attributes named according to philosophical properties such as power, knowledge, and even the Trinity, but rather on the religious story of creation, fall, and redemption. This is only a statement regarding emphasis, and not that we should do away with those topics altogether. Yet, such a change of emphasis may be necessary if we are going to advance theology (more broadly speaking) so that it effectively communicates to us truth which will challenge our sin infused ways of thought.

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Freud’s Last Session

by Mark St. Germain

directed by Mary B. Robinson

C. S. Lewis: Jonathan Crombie

Sigmund Freud: David Wohl

Performed at the Pittsburgh Public Theater March 20, 2012

Children often play at imagining chance meetings of their favorite superheroes or fantasy characters. What if Batman faced off against the Human Torch, or the Incredible Hulk against a T-Rex? We chuckle inside as they spell out exactly which gadget or superpower would be relevant to defeat their opponent. My wife and I were entertained with the adult version of this scenario in Freud’s Last Session, a fictional meeting between two superheroes of the intellectual world, C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud.

The date is Sept. 3, 1939 when Lewis is 41 and Freud 83, on the eve of World War II—not irrelevant to the script as scenes are frequently interrupted by radio broadcasts and air raid warnings as the two converse inside Freud’s study in London. It is an imposing scene as you are immediately awed by the three story wall of books in the backdrop, warning anyone who enters that the man you are to face has the full weight of human learning with which to crush you. Nevertheless, Lewis spryly bounds in for his visit, leading you to anticipate a speedy and sophomoric end to his engagement with the learned doctor.

Lewis, wisely, recognizes the singular opportunity of this encounter and is persistent in his conversation. Lewis knows, Freud knows, and everyone in the audience knows that this is a David v. Goliath encounter, or, at least that is how the religionist hopes it will go. Our writer leaves that observer hopeful throughout the dialogue, though never allows the conflict to become so clear cut. A recent Post Gazette reviewer complained that the sparks never flew and the conflict was never really battled out. This can only be attributed to that reviewer’s own dull perception as a much more subtle engagement took place.

Freud’s greatest argument against Christianity is the stark reality of human suffering. This is most forcefully advocated by the environment of the war, its satanic promulgator, Hitler, and in a touching way throughout the play, Freud’s mouth cancer, which has left him with a painful and messy mouth prosthetic in his upper palate. Religion is a convenient myth, he argues to Lewis. Lewis tries his usual tactics, such as an appeal to conscience. We all have a conscience and does that not give some indication that there is a God with a moral will? Freud sees this as nothing but social determinism, even joking that he too cannot avoid phrases like, “God willing,” learned in his own childhood. Lewis’s repeated rational arguments are easily rebutted by Freud, either with further reasons or by wit alone. Yet, these are the staple of Lewis’s writings, appealing to our ideas about religion or God—what we say we believe about Christianity. Both Lewis and Freud are perfectly competent and could have continued back and forth in this way, offering reasons, one way or another. No progress is made in their conversation going this way. At one point, Lewis even attempts a quotation from the arch-rationalist St. Thomas Aquinas and is abruptly cut off by Freud.

This stalemate which we oft waste ourselves repeating in our own conversations, gives way to a more intriguing exchange. When the sound of war planes is heard overhead and a bombing is anticipated, the characters begin racing about, especially Lewis, in fearful preparation for disaster. When the supposed threat passes, they both reflect on their irrational actions, such as Lewis’s attempts to darken the room in midday. Despite the conflict we anticipate between these two giants of the religious and non-religious realms, the author presents them both with a dignified humility. When Freud presents Lewis with a plain question about the reason for suffering and pain, he says he does not know. He does offer that it is God’s way of perfecting us, though Freud cannot see that amidst the pain in his mouth and the death of a young child he knew. In fact, Lewis struggles to persuade Freud not to end his own life. While we expect Lewis to be the evangelist, we discover Freud attempting to make a disciple, to help Lewis see real pain and depart from the childish fantasies of religion. Lewis had been in the first war, graphically describing the death of his compatriot a few feet away, and Freud is left puzzled that this experience was not sufficient to turn him to his viewpoint.

The dramatic high point (spoiler, if you’re intending to see the play) is the moment when the antagonism of Freud’s mouth device becomes unbearable and must be removed. Previously, he had explained that only his daughter was allowed to deal with it, even calling her away from her teaching job to come home and help him. Yet, it becomes intolerable, and he begs Lewis to help him wrench it from his mouth. The scene is arranged with Freud seated with his back to the audience and Lewis standing over him (facing us), with his hand lodged in Freud’s mouth. Freud’s argument is loudest here as we observe Lewis contending with Freud’s pain and gory, struggling to be compassionate and not repulsed. He pulls the bloody mess free, much to Freud’s relief, and quickly moves to clean his hands on the fresh white towels nearby. Freud is forced by outside powers into a position of humility before Lewis, as Lewis takes on the blood and pain of his disease and then transfers it to the pure white towel. Lewis becomes the Christ in this scene, bearing Freud’s ills, but an imperfect one as he is reluctantly drawn into the task. We wonder if he helps him more out of the annoying English habit of avoiding the appearance of offense  or inconvenience (which Crombie portrays perfectly), rather than Christian charity. Lewis is a reluctant savior and seems more changed himself by the encounter than Freud who also was thrust into the situation.

Stepping back to earlier in the play, Lewis does at points reach Freud, at least so far as he would admit. Freud describes an instance when he was in the hospital and was suffering from a potentially mortal ailment, perhaps not unlike the one above. There was no nurse or doctor around to help him. He is saved by his hospital roommate, “a hydrocephalic dwarf”. Freud viewed this as some kind of joke. Lewis replies, “Who’s joke?” Freud pauses and says that Lewis has made a point, “his first one.” It is in this sort of argument that Lewis succeeds in catching Freud’s attention, not in his many rational appeals. It reminds us of the Christian apologist and theologian Cornelius Van Til’s statement that there are no true atheists, that we all believe in God, but some of us (the self-proclaimed atheists) will simply not admit it. Lewis here catches Freud in his belief, that his hospital fiasco is comic only on a divine scale, from a heavenly perspective. Lewis does not need to spell it out for the perceptive Freud, but we should spell it out for ourselves. Freud, the competent scholar and physician had to be saved by a diseased dwarf, apparently intended as an image of incompetence. Freud perceived humor in it, as he said, as an antidote to pain. However, it is impossible to see humor in it unless you view it from a perspective entirely outside of his or the dwarf’s or even our viewpoint. Of course, there is humor in picturing the dwarf hopping down from his bed to save the distinguished doctor. That is what makes us laugh in the theater. But that is not the joke that Freud or Lewis has in mind. The telling of that joke is the creation of the narrative which is Freud’s real experience in the hospital. The creation of that narrative is not something that we do in repeating the event for a laugh. Only God can arrange history, telling a story with our lives, and even telling a joke with the most peculiar circumstances. When Freud calls it a joke, Lewis calls him out on the statement and Freud gets it. Freud sees that he has been trapped in an instance where he does believe that God orders all events for a purpose. Here, God ordered events in a fashion that would hopefully get his attention. I would say that God’s narrative in Freud’s life was analogous to a joke, but actually it is the other way around. Our jokes are an analogy of God’s way of challenging our expectations of life’s narrative. Van Til says that even Freud is not an atheist, and in his statement Lewis shows him how that is true.

After a news program on the radio, some music comes on and Freud switches it off. Lewis comments, since Freud has done it several times since his visit. Freud says, “Something in me retracts against being moved by something I don’t understand.” He did not say that he was not moved by music, but in his mind, to be consistent, he should not be since that is a childish quasi-religious type of feeling. It is a very rationalist position which would require a reason to be moved by music in order to allow oneself to be moved by it. Later, the play closes with Lewis’s departure and Freud in the quiet of his study. The lights dim as he listens to another speech about the war, a single lamp shining on Freud’s lonely soul. The news program ends and music begins playing through the radio. Freud reaches to turn it off…no, he turns it up. The scene closes with Freud serenely enjoying the music. The question remains, has Freud found a peace within himself, on his own terms, having faced off the Christian apologist? Or, has Lewis genuinely touched him at the deepest level and laid bare his hypocrisy and unwillingness to let in the God who is there?

All is left in peace, even if for just a moment, but the question of pain and suffering was not well answered by Lewis. Or, we could say that it was answered in Christ, in the moment when Lewis, as Christ, was required to take on the blood and pain of another. We know that to be the endpoint of suffering, the cross and our hope in resurrection, but we as Christians often do not do very well in answering the question of pain and suffering now to the world that questions us. The answer is really in Lewis’s moment with Freud’s mouth, but not taken so eternally. Lewis was called to be a Christ, not just as an image of a great theological truth, but as a humble man called to suffer and be in pain. Being a Christian is not just a future hope, but a present reality. Our present suffering is not so much something we look forward to escaping, but a truth we recognize about ourselves. When you become a Christian, your suffering in vain is exchanged for a sign of your identity with Christ. There are two kinds of suffering in this life, though we usually lump them all together. There is suffering which is the result of the Fall and sin, and there is the suffering which comes as a result of being a Christian, that is, like Jesus. The nature and purpose of our suffering differs based on the spiritual nature of the one who suffers. In fact, Christianity tends to bring more suffering than average, testifying further to the weight and burden which Christ truly took upon himself, being greater than that of any one individual person. We should not be surprised to find that our weight of suffering is more than one can bear.

In answer to the question, Lewis was only able to give the “refiner’s fire” reason for suffering. This is the rationalist response to the question of suffering. Our answer needs to give a historical response to a philosophical question. This history is that of redemption and our place in that narrative. Everyone, however much an atheist they may proclaim to be, already believes they are in the divine story of human history, sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, as even Sigmund Freud admitted for a moment. Although approached by philosophical questions which pretend only to answer to reasons, we must appeal to the obscured but innate sense that the drama of our life is a book unfinished and there may yet be a twist of the plot with a different ending than one was previously led to believe.

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