I F

Y
N O
T
R HT
E G
AN
M
NA years or so, the sun will burn out and the
LI

N
KI earth will cease to sustain life? Though
ILY that’s a long time away, the fact of the
EM world’s ultimate trajectory remains. And it
S
IN

D doesn’t feel right that, in the end, all of our

OR
W best efforts at creating justice, all of the
love shared between human beings, will be
T

swallowed up in darkness, the same as if

they never happened at all.
E

Many believe that embracing reality -- be-

Given the events of the last few months,
we are perhaps more acutely aware than
ever of one certainty of life: death. Many of
us have been given the time to ponder and
to wonder: what makes life worth living?
What are the most important things in life?
Most people would list things such as love,
kindness, doing good, as things which give
life meaning. Despite -- rather, because of --
the world being turned upside down, these
things shine through as the really import-
ant things in life.
But why do we care about justice, love,
kindness, or goodness? Those things are
of no benefit to us once we no longer are
alive; indeed, a life committed to these
values often requires great sacrifice of im-
mediate personal wellbeing or satisfaction.
Further, what do all our efforts to improve
the world amount to when, in 5 billion
ing honest about life -- means quieting our
instincts about what is natural and unnat-
ural. Though death is one reliable fact at
the end of every human being’s life, it never
ceases to cause disruption and grief; it
feels unnatural. We would like to imagine
that there is something beyond our short
lives, but that seemingly must be replaced
with the uncomfortable reality that earth
is all there is. God, and the possibility of
meaning beyond ourselves, is portrayed as
an idea which must be abandoned as one
grows in maturity and understanding of the
world.
But what if we didn’t dismiss our instincts
as childish, but instead listened to them as
guides to our most essential needs? Our
biological feelings of hunger and thirst
point to real needs that have an object
which can directly and completely satisfy
them. In the same way, Christians believe
that our deep-rooted desires come from a
creator God who designed human beings
for a world different than the one that we

8 TAUG
currently inhabit. In Mere Christianity, C.S.
Lewis writes, “If I find in myself desires
which nothing in this world can satisfy,
the only logical explanation is that I was
made for another world.” Thus, our desire
to believe that humans occupy time be-
yond their 80-or-so years on earth reflects
an essential truth: that human souls are
immortal, designed to live with God forev-
er. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “Also, he has put
eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he
cannot find out what God has done from
the beginning to the end.” It is in this eter-
nal future that we find the fulfillment of our
desire for good things to last; justice, love,
beauty, hope, and goodness all continue,
and indeed are the final order.
If these good and right things represent
the way the world is meant to be, what do
we make of the state it is in now? In the
Christian narrative of history, the world,
which has been corrupted since the fall of
humankind, continues to exist in broken-
ness; death, pain and suffering continue
to plague humanity. To make matters even
worse, we as humans have no ability to
truly save the world. Many people today
strive toward creating a better world, in
some manner or another. These efforts to
do good in the world are important, and
part of the call on human beings to reflect
the character of God, which is redemptive
and creative.
But none of our human efforts are complete
answers to the massively broken world that
we live in; they can never bring about the
full restoration we so deeply desire. For
every issue that we solve, a new one arises.
We play a game of Whack-a-Mole as evil
and suffering never go away, but instead
reappear in new places.
The Christian view of history and of the
future then offers an answer as to how we
can reconcile the knowledge that we will
die with our innate drive to live a worth-
while life. We can then view pursuing
virtue and doing good then as a discipline
in modeling God’s character and partner-
ing with God in his work, rather than an
effort to save ourselves. This relieves a
large amount of pressure, so that we can
be honest about the results of our work:
even the greatest efforts often create only
small changes. And yet, we don’t lose hope
because our hope was never in our own
efforts to begin with. Instead, we can place
our hope in God, who isn’t constrained by
time like humans are, and who can judge
without human limitations. We can have
real hope in a future where God “will wipe
away every tear from [his people’s] eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain
anymore.”
Emily is a third-year biology
major with a side interest in
ancient history. She enjoys
reading, running, and
cooking elaborate meals.
TAUG 9