First, an acknowledgment should be in order. My reflections in this essay are a response to Robert W. Jenson’s penetrating statement about modern culture’s attitude about the future in his book The Triune Identity (1982: p172). Because Jenson’s book is primarily on Trinitarian discourse, his analytic description of modern culture, however profound, is extremely laconic. This essay, therefore, seeks to expound Jenson’s argument.
Jenson critiques modern culture for espousing what he calls a “contentless eschatology.” In simpler terms, modern culture does not have a vision of the future. The world’s unbelieving population (which constitutes the vast and still growing majority) simply has an “empty future” (“future” in here primarily refers to the end times, or after death). There are two ways in which this can be explained. First, people do not have an intellectual grasp about their future. In a sense, this is true of all people, including Christians. Life after death is an unexplainable hope. Even the story of Jesus’ resurrection should be categorized as a “mystery.” There is a sense of and a need for a worshipful resignation of the human mind regarding life after death. It is simply a phenomenon that transcends human logic and technology.
Secondly, people have religious (or irreligious) unbelief about the future. Or more precisely, people do not believe or do not want to believe about life after death. In this sense, having no vision of the future is both an existential and a religious state. It is in this sense that an “empty future” or “contentless eschatology” applies only to the modern secular world. And it is this emptiness that I want to address.
What is the prevailing mindset about life after death? With the abandonment of religious belief prevalent in modern society is the concomitant disbelief in anything religious or supernatural. If religion teaches life after death, then the irreligious or non-religious does not believe in life after death, and so on. (It should be mentioned, however, that members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in the annihilation of the soul of the wicked.) So in place of the belief in life after death is the belief in nothingness after death. In death happens the absolute termination of consciousness, joy, suffering, love, hate, and everything life-related. The present life on earth is all there is. After here awaits nothing but black nothingness. (It is interesting to note that in the science of neurology, scientists are taking interest in the human consciousness. But even within the field, there is still not a unified consensus about the state of human consciousness after death. Sure there are several theories, both for and against the idea of consciousness after death, but it seems that even the theories proposing the idea of consciousness after death has long ways to go, because some of them are intricately related to other unverified theories, such as the idea of the multiverse.)
The question is: “What does belief in future nothingness do to a person?” People might respond to this question differently, but apart from the loss of the sense of accountability to one’s own well-being, the greatest damage this view does is the loss of hope. Even from a sociological perspective, it is the people who have no sense of hope for their future that are the ones with high self-destruction tendencies. It is those who are born in poverty who have the tendency to be uninterested in education. It is those who are uneducated who have the tendency to take drug addiction and alcoholism as their life-long careers. Having a vision of an empty future is absolutely damaging to one’s morale. Of course, suicide is also the best option, because it is through dying that all sufferings meet their ultimate end. How many movies have we already watched portraying a deluded villain who wants to end the world because the world is getting worse? The logic is: “Why prolong agony, when non-agony is just a death away?”
If nihilism, or the belief in nothingness after death, is coupled with both narcissism and hedonism, tragic consequences follow. Narcissism and hedonism are philosophies that promote a self-gratifying and pleasure-seeking lifestyle. Horace’s dictum (interpreted through Ovid) “seize the day,” represents the best life motto. On the plus side, this aphorism teaches us that time is irredeemable, that each fleeing moment needs to cherished as unique unrepeatable events, and that we should make the most of the 86,400 seconds per day given to us. But the complete phrase is this: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (in Odes Book I). In English, it translates: “Seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future.” Imagine someone who has no vision of life after death making this as his/her life motto. The concomitant conclusion will logically be that “If the only life we have is this life, then it should be thoroughly enjoyed.” And so again, the person without hope of a better future will attempt to enjoy this life by all means possible. The poor, having no means to support a pleasurable lifestyle, will have to resort to stealing and taking advantage of others. The rich, having the means to support a pleasurable lifestyle, will continue in his/her hedonistic journey without regard of his/her health.
The Christian has a radically different view from the unbeliever. If for the unbeliever, it is nothingness that is eschatologically promised, for the Christian, in the words of Jenson, “it is love that is eschatologically promised” (p173). In short, the content of the Christian’s vision of the future is nothing else but LOVE. If the Triune God in his essential nature is Love; if “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16); if God demonstrated his love by his Son dying for us (Rom 5:8); if the Holy Spirit is the nexus amoris or the vinculum caritatis (“bond of love”) between the Father and the Son and between God the world; and if the same Son, whose Love is everlasting, is he who judges the world, then our future consists of Love, of gracious Love. Our future is not a dark nothingness or a fiery ocean of eternal torment, but of eternal and loving communion with the Life and Love of God.
This vision of the future as Love offered by the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a better alternative to a vision of the future as nothingness offered by the gospel of modern naturalistic philosophy. Compared to understanding life after death as utter annihilation, a vision of a future filled with joy and fellowship is more comforting for the oppressed and suffering of today. Ultimately, it is Life, not Death that is the best solution to pain and suffering.
It is for this reason that Christianity has much to offer to the modern world. We have a hope that is steadfast and sure. We have a future of Love to offer to a self-loathing and others-hating world. We have a beautiful vision to offer to an ugly-faced worldview. We have a Life secured in Christ to offer to our suicidal neighbours.
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