Nature of Judgment

The final lecture of this class concerned judgment, an appropriate end for the subject given biblical chronology. What I found to stand out most in the class was the twitter “bout” as it were, between our professor and an atheist. While I think that conversations like this are important in finding broader answers in comparing polar opposites, it can be tense, given that it tests our views of the world. Maybe it’s my millennial sensibilities, but I find that the sources given on twitter were pretty accessible and covered a lot of what was hinted at in the class. I must tip my hat to our professor, however, for being able to make such eloquent points in 280 characters. I appreciate the ability of Dr. Brown to fit years of teaching and years upon years of reading into such a constricting medium.  There are a few topics that I would like to touch on that were in previous readings, I’ll be focusing, for the most part, on the topic of this lecture: judgment and sin.

Luke 21 and Mark 13 both mention the destruction of a temple, followed by images of the end of days. Just as in Scivias, Jesus describes false prophets and deceivers as being a marking of the apocalypse. This, once again, puts humility at the center of virtue. However, the image of the temple is something that reoccurs throughout the bible verses given. Perhaps the temple is meant to serve as a metaphor for the earth—that all that we know will be dismantled. I think back to the old saying “your body is a temple.” When using this, judgment likely revolves around the destruction of the physical self and the stripping down to the spiritual self. Humanity will be judged by our character and our deeds, not by who we were. This is shown by the example of the servant in Matthew 24:45-51. Saying that God will set him over his possessions further displays how rank and possession in life do not matter, meaning the nature of judgment is not based on more earthly sensibilities. This however is amended to say that if the servant is a drunkard or violent to his fellow servants, he will face the wrath of God. Once again, character and good deeds reign above all. How then do we define mortality in this context if it is not a human concept?

Discussions of judgment can be pretty unnerving for those of us who did not grow up in the church.  A friend of mine who grew up in a German Lutheran setting who has moved to a German Catholic setting was somewhat puzzled with my discomfort on the subject when I brought it up to her. While I largely attributed her matter-of-fact attitude to having heard about judgment many times before and being desensitized to it, she said something particularly salient to me on the subject—“it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable, J.” I was more confused. She went on to discuss one of the very few sermons that her childhood church gave in three languages (they no doubt really thought that subject was important): the three Solae. While she quickly amended that the three Solae (which I now realize has been expanded to five) were markedly protestant, she pointed me in the direction of the second and third to better grasp the concepts of judgment.

I was initially a little confused with the second. After all, the subject of this lecture revolved largely around defining and avoiding sin. It would make sense to me that good deeds would be valued over faith. However, in the example of the thief who repents, I more or less see where “sola fide” comes from. Judgment is based on character, and in this interpretation action doesn’t necessarily make virtue. Perhaps in a more Aristotelian sense, the desire to do good should not be out of desire to be good but out of no desire at all. While I don’t think that empathy or good deeds are exclusive to Christians, Dr. Brown’s points on twitter further made a connection to me between faith and good deeds in a more theological sense. One more or less creates the other. I think the man she was having the bout against may have missed this, seeing the points made as being attacks on his character personally, rather than on his thoughts about character itself. I also found myself bogged down in the example of sin in the form of pedophilia, myself, at first glance. Obviously, the response Dr. Brown wished to elicit was probably “I think pedophilia is wrong because ABC,” (I use ABC because there are hundreds upon hundreds of reasons I could apply) making for an abstraction of morality that does not revolve entirely around scientific thought. Like in the example of judgment Matthew, the broader, more metaphysical question being asked was not who someone is or what they do, but why they are who they are and why they do what they do. While I’m by no stretch of the word Christian, I have some idea of the more latent arguments being made.  In its center is the idea that judgment isn’t something that happens in the physical world or based on our corporeal selves, but rather in our souls.

-jj