The Great Rider

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” – Revelation 19:11-16

“And this I also say: you are our captain and our banner. The Dark Lord has Nine: But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider.” – Aragorn, The Lord of the Rings

What will Jesus look like when he returns? Something like what John saw in his vision, except more glorious than words can ever convey. I like to imagine a great Rider on a white horse, a mighty warrior riding into battle like the wind, robed in white and clothed in glory and light and magnificent splendor. His hair flows in the wind, but his face is constant, calm and benevolent and loving, yet at the same time full of strength and power – he is in control, and his triumph is at hand. He is ageless, both young and old, and his majesty is all the greater. All wisdom and knowledge are present in his face. He is good. His presence brings strength and hope – his victory is inevitable, and all danger is passed. The sunlight beams down on the face of the Son. The greatest of swords is in his hand, his armor shines like the sun, he rides his white horse with ease and unshakeable control. All warriors or heroes or armies that are told of in stories are nothing compared to him and the host he leads. They are mere vessels or images of his far greater glory and strength. Perhaps the archangel Michael would ride beside him, or the angel Gabriel, but our Lord would be far greater than them, and in the moment of battle he would outride them and fly like the wind, annihilating all of his enemies. Jesus Christ will return in glory – that day is coming. But...

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Tolkien on Stories and Sub-creation

…Tolkien writes that a successful story, although it describes a fictional “secondary” world, must reflect or point towards reality, towards truth in the primary world. For Tolkien, and for me, this means pointing towards eucatastrophe, the climax of the Real Story.

“Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality…The peculiar quality of “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”

A story, although fictional in its details, can thus reflect the essential quality of reality. The very heart of the story, the great theme of hope and joy that underlies it and is its essence, and the “turn” from evil to good – these things are true and real:

“The answer to this question [is it true?] that I have at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist…But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater – it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”

One need only look at any Disney movie to see this glimpse of truth in the “turn” from the low point near the end to the high point of the happy ending. For example, things look terribly bleak for Aladdin when Jafar becomes the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but suddenly his pride and lust for power betray him, and the danger of ultimate ruin is transformed into a very happy ending. Nearly all stories have traces of this eucatastrophic “turn.” In particular, recent popular fantasy books and movies reach a climax in events strikingly similar to the real eucatastrophe of Christ’s resurrection. Tolkien describes this Story, which seems to be etched into human nature, as the culmination and true fulfillment of all happy endings:

“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels…among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. [T]he joy which the “turn” in the fairy-story gives…has the very taste of primary truth…It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is pre-eminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme, and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men – and of elves.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”

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Made in the Author's Image

Before moving on to look at the Great Eucatastrophe, lets pause to see how eucatastrophes in stories that we tell point towards the knowledge of God’s Story and of the primary nature of good over evil that is written on our hearts.

God has given us, his children, the ability to tell stories that bear the mark of the Great Story, which alone is wholly true, and of which he is the Author. The Creator has given his image bearers the ability to imagine and design worlds of their own and thus imitate his great imagination and power to create, and in telling these stories and making these worlds we show ourselves to be made in the Author’s image. We are like God! Just as he acted in accordance with his nature when he created the great realm of reality, so it is our nature as children of God to create worlds and stories in our minds.

“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ‘twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.”
-J. R. R. Tolkien, “Mythopoeia”

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The Eucatastrophe

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the term “eucatastrophe,” meaning a good catastrophe or happy ending, and he describes the idea in his essay “On Fairy-stories”:

“[T]he “consolation” of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it…I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function. The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending, or more correctly of the good catastrophe, of the sudden joyous “turn” does not deny the existence of dycatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will), universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief…In such stories when the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”

The eucatastrophe is the triumph of light over darkness, life over death, freedom over bondage, beauty over ugliness, majesty over horror, love over hate, hope over despair, joy over suffering, good over evil. It is the sudden and final overturning of what appears to be the triumph of the great evil (indeed, as Tolkien writes, there may be “much evidence” that universal final defeat is at hand), into the absolute victory of the still greater good. Miraculous and mysterious, enormous and epic, sudden and sweeping, ultimately encompassing all reality, it is the great, climactic turning point in the Great Story. It is the real, true “Happy Ending.” It is the passing “through darkness and fire to a new day” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings), a “miraculous grace,” the great turn of the tide towards the great final Joy.

What Tolkien describes here is the kind of epic event one might look for in history if one expects that good will ultimately triumph over evil, as we do. And indeed, we find just such an event in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! The eucatastrophic nature of this event, and the astonishing beauty and grandeur of what it accomplishes in God’s Story, will become clear as we take a deeper look at the victory of God in Jesus Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the Great Eucatastrophe of God’s Story and the victory of God over all that is not of God.

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The Problem of Good

“[T]he thought pierced him [Sam] that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.” – The Lord of the Rings

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” – Haldir, The Lord of the Rings

In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or maybe ‘tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey’s end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the day is done
or bid the stars farewell.”
– Sam, The Lord of the Rings

“They cannot conquer forever.” – Frodo

An awareness of this victorious nature of good is planted deep within us – what scientist and theologian John Polkinghorne calls “intimations of hope” – and it sprouts up in little shoots in things we say and do. We tell our loved ones, “it’s all right, everything will be okay.” It’s a phrase that comes up again and again in movies, even when there seems to be no hope or reason for its being said, as when Sam sings his song of hope in the darkness of Cirith Ungol. Are we merely trying to ease the pain for one another, or is this a seed of a deeper and stronger hope that never dies, a demonstration of our intuition that good is victorious?

To sum up, we find that good is superior to evil – primary, original, and victorious – and we are left with the problem of explaining this reality. This is essentially what is meant by the “problem of good.” We are faced with the issue of finding an answer to our intuitive confidence that good will defeat evil just as we are faced with the issue of discovering if there is a greater purpose for which evil exists.

The answer to both quests is in the victory of God. Just as we know that good will triumph over evil, we know that there is one source of all that is good and beautiful and majestic and perfect. The victory does not belong to some abstract entity called “good,” but to God, the source of all reality. God defines goodness and light and beauty and majesty and all that is worthy and perfect. It was he who set in our hearts intimations of hope and joy and beauty, and the knowledge that good is victorious and primary, and it is in his victory that we find an answer to our intuitions. God has set in the hearts of his lost children, his image bearers, a knowledge of his ways and his Story (cf. Romans 1-2), and he has revealed that Story to us more fully in his Word. So let’s take a long hard look at the climactic victory of this true Story and how it answers our questions.

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An Unbalanced Duality

“We find ourselves in a world of transporting pleasures, ravishing beauties, and tantalizing possibilities, but all constantly being spoiled, all coming to nothing. Nature has the air of a good thing spoiled.” – C. S. Lewis, Miracles

“Last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin.” – G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I’ve approached the main issue by starting at the problem of evil and proposing that there is a reason evil exists, but now I want to do the same thing by discussing what might be called the problem of good, or the problem of joy or beauty or hope. The astounding existence of evil should cause us to tremble, but the existence of good, which we perceive no less than evil, should fill us with hope. Yes, there is evil, but there is good, too. As Sam Gamgee said to Frodo, “there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for!” We see it in the stars and the sky and the faces of people, we hear it in music and voices, and we perceive it in our hearts to be truly real by experiencing love and joy, and beautiful things. Good and evil – they are both shockingly real – foundational and irreducible realities. Again, we need to step back and wonder at the sheer existence of these things. The very fact that joy and love and beauty are realities that we experience should draw our breath away and kindle a deep hope in us. These things are not to be taken for granted.

What do we make of this apparent dualism? It is a bittersweet and fallen world we are in, a mixture of life and death, love and hate, joy and pain. Are we confronted with two opposite realities that balance each other equally? If so, I am baffled by reality and cannot think of an explanation. But I do not think there is an equal balance. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis describes why good is in a sense more real then evil. First, he says that merely the fact that we judge “good” to be right and “bad” to be wrong shows that there is some higher standard by which we judge. Deep down we know that what is good is not simply preferable or more likable than what is bad because it feels good. Beauty and joy and love are absolutely and universally right, and evil and suffering are absolutely and universally wrong. We are judging by some higher standard to which good adheres but evil does not, and that is, as it were, a point in good’s favor. Lewis then makes another point:

“[W]ickedness, when you examine it, turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way. You can be good for the mere sake of goodness: you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness…no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong – only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. In other words, badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled…you can explain the perverted from the normal, and cannot explain the normal from the perverted…evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are the powers given it by goodness.” – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.” – Frodo, The Lord of the Rings

Good is original and primary. As Lewis says, one cannot do a bad thing simply to be bad; rather, one often does it for pleasure, which is good in and of itself. When we really see it we think, “yes! YES! This is truth.” Evil is just a parasite, as Lewis says. When we really see it we think, “no! NO! This is wrong – a perversion, a twisting of the truth.” Our emotional perception of good and evil is, you might say, “polarized” in the direction of good. Good attracts and evil repels, and therefore good is superior. Our hearts are inclined towards what is good and beautiful and loving, and thus the “reason of the heart” (see my posts on this) provides evidence of this primary and original nature of good over evil, evidence that good “came first.” Because of this, our hope should overcome our fear. Love is not merely opposite to grief, but greater in magnitude, as it were, even in a world full of grief. This primary nature of good strongly suggests that good is not only primary over evil, but also victorious, that is, that in the end good will remain and evil will not. To see that good is primary is to be drawn towards the truth that good is victorious. This “victory of good” is virtually self-evident to me. We perceive a deeper and stronger and older reality in good than we do in evil, and this should fill us with undying hope.

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A Greater Redemptive Purpose

More common among those who reject Christianity than this black-and-white logical objection is a struggle to accept that a loving God would allow such a broken, pain-filled world to be. How could an all-powerful and loving God allow people to suffer? It might seem there is a contradiction here that rules out the existence of this kind of God, but a hidden premise lies beneath. As Tim Keller explains in The Reason for God, the assumption behind this objection is that evil is pointless, that it could not possibly serve some greater redemptive purpose, but how could we rule that out from the beginning? Surely we must leave open the possibility. Indeed, if God is good, then will he not make reality, on the whole, something good – if he loves his creatures, will he not give them joy in the long run? Could evil, as a passing reality, possibly contribute to this?

I am convinced that there is a greater purpose for which evil exists. It is this glorious divine design that I want to search into in these posts on the victory of God. The way God has used evil to achieve a greater good and a higher joy is filled with deep wisdom and glorious riches. This great mysterious redemptive design is what Christianity is all about.

NOTE: It is important to remember that, according to the Christian worldview, all people are sinners and worthy of divine judgment. The question of why God would make creatures whom he knew would fall into sin is another matter, and one that we will investigate. However, it remains true that we have freely rejected God and deserve hell, and although this is so, God continues to pour out his goodness and “common grace” on all people, even the wicked. As the sun continues to rise and the rain still falls and life goes on, even for those who daily scorn God’s name (Matthew 5:45), we have cause to wonder at God’s goodness and mercy.

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Evil Points to God

Others would paint things in black and white, saying that God and evil cannot coexist, and since evil does exist, God does not. This idea, however, is plagued with a serious problem. First, there is nothing obviously mutually exclusive about these two realities. In fact, the existence of evil is strong evidence for God’s existence. In saying there is such a thing as evil, a person implies there is an absolute standard of what is morally right and wrong – a standard that divides evil from everything that is good and right and worthy and honorable. How can we condemn an event or act as evil without assuming some moral law? And how can there be a law without someone to set it? How can there be a moral standard without a source for its being? Only God is big enough to define and give reality to moral good and evil. A reality as huge as good and evil requires God as its source. Thus, the existence of evil, and of a moral standard, is strong evidence for God.

One might also put it this way. We can hardly consider the enormity of the moral horrors that have taken place in this world without acknowledging the existence of something truly great and powerful at work, something beyond this world. We can hardly look for a moment at the enormity of good and evil in human history and yet leave open the possibility that the material and physical universe is all there is. No – both the evil and the good that we perceive, like our emotions, point to something beyond a world of matter, towards a single moral source and ontological foundation of incomprehensible greatness – that is, towards God himself.

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The Problem of Evil

The Victory of God
The Cross and the Resurrection as an Answer to the Problem of Evil

The problem of evil is a problem for everyone. Different worldviews may face different problems in reconciling their claims with the existence of evil, but all must face the troublesome fact: evil exists. We need to take a step back and look at reality for what it is. The fact that there is great pain and suffering in the world should trouble us. Its mere existence should unsettle us. Why? Because we know that it is wrong – we know that something is not right. There is (obviously) something perverted and horrible about suffering. And yet, here it is, a problem we all must face in the search for truth, and in our lives.

Some would deny that there is a problem – they would say that evil does not exist, that nothing is absolutely wrong. There is no objective moral standard. This is clearly false. We know that evil is real because we see it with our hearts just as we see the world with our eyes. Just as we conclude that the world exists objectively and absolutely because we see it, we conclude that evil (and consequently good as well) exists objectively and absolutely because we see it (that is, it really does exist and is not just a delusion of our thoughts or emotions). The heart directs us towards truth as well as the mind, and anyone can see quite clearly with the heart that there is a moral reality. We perceive it to be real, and therefore it is real. One cannot look at the horrors and hatred that mark human history and deny the existence of evil. A person who denies evil is either ignorant of reality or “out of his heart” in the same way that we say someone is out of their mind – they are denying something as plain as logic. Take a look at the holocaust. Take a look at wars throughout history, at the events of the 20th century, and at conditions across the globe today.

NOTE: Some have suggested that it would be inconsistent for God to stop every bullet before it hits a person or prevent every natural disaster from killing people – one would not expect a God of order to be constantly fighting against the forces of nature which he designed. But it seems to me that this approach avoids the main issue: it takes a fallen world filled with evil for granted. The real question is: why would a good God have created such a world in the first place, knowing what it would be like? It may be that the possibility of evil is inherent to any world, as C. S. Lewis argues in The Problem of Pain; that is not, however, an argument I will rely on here.
Another approach to the problem of evil is to break down incidents of suffering and treat them individually, looking for an explanation or redemptive purpose to each. For example, one of my professors said that out of the eight worst events in his life, he has, over time, come to see good things result from five of them. (Although we may not see it in every case, God does nothing without a purpose. I believe that in heaven we will look back and see our broken and pain-filled lives in a new redemptive light, seeing the purpose in each event that could not be seen before.) While we may find some specific incidents where evil circumstances lead to a greater good here and now in peoples’ lives, we should not expect to see this all the time, and there are many evils, like genocide, that could not be “justified” in any way by pointing to a greater good that they achieve. A better approach, I think, is to treat all evil and suffering together – to look at the whole reality of a fallen world and search for a larger and deeper meaning behind it, a meaning and purpose that may not be at all apparent in the events of our daily lives.

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 6: Irreversibility in Physics and Redemptive History

As a final reflection, I note a connection between thermodynamics and the Christian worldview concerning the nature of time. Although science paints a bleak picture of the cosmic future, observations of the physical world reveal a general quality of the universe that is also suggested in Scripture, namely, that events in time are largely irreversible. The second law states that entropy must increase, and that processes which increase entropy cannot be reversed. Similarly, the uncertainty principle results in time asymmetry on quantum scales. In general, occurrences of the “arrow of time” in various fields of physics indicate a preference for the forward temporal direction. Similarly, Scripture portrays redemptive history as a series of events that cannot be undone; time is unidirectional. God is portrayed as moving things forward in time towards their final purpose⁷ ; each stage builds on what came before, and there is no return to what has been. Perhaps most significantly, after Christ’s resurrection there was no return to the cyclical system of sacrifice (Tallon); Christ’s sacrifice was final and complete.⁸ In this sense the scientific fact that the universe is moving forward in time and constantly and irreversibly changing is very much in agreement with the Christian understanding of redemptive history and what God is doing in the world. Indeed, this is the very nature of story, which is at the heart of Christianity. A series of events moves towards a final end, but the whole only makes sense in one direction. Even a dying world like ours is moving in a definite direction, and is thus not a static reality, but a dynamic and moving one, just like the Christian story. It may appear that that direction is inevitably one towards decay and ruin, but we have a firm hope that what seems now to be an irreversible tendency will be irreversibly transformed into something higher and better, which tends not away from God but towards him.


⁷ For example, Isaiah 42:9, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
⁸ In the words of C. S. Lewis, “Among times there is a time that turns a corner and everything this side of it is new. Times do not go backward” (Lewis, Perelandra 62).

Works Cited

Fiddes, Paul S. The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. 181-218.

Gunton, Colin. The Triune Creator. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998.

Lewis, C. S. Perelandra. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1996.

Peters, Ted. God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in the Divine Life. Louisville:Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. 175-76. As cited in Russell, “Eschatology and Scientific Cosmology.” 96.

Polkinghorne, John. “Eschatology.” In The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology. Eds. John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, Int’l. 29-41.

Polkinghorne, John. The Faith of a Physicist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1994.

Russell, Robert J. “Eschatology and Scientific Cosmology: From Conflict to Interaction.” In What God Knows: Time, Eternity, and Divine Knowledge. New York: Baylor UP, 2006. 95-120.

Tallon, Jeff. “Time, Eternity, and Christian Belief.” 23 May 2002. University of Wellington. 14 Dec. 2008.

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 5: Hope for a Dying Universe

In conclusion, science and Scripture agree on the present state of the cosmos. But Scripture tells of renewal and resurrection (Isaiah 11, 35, 61; Romans 6; 1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 21). Christ endured the cross before his victory. Perhaps the entire physical universe must also pass through some sort of thermodynamic or cosmological death through the wearing passage of time if it is ever to be fully redeemed. Christ destroyed sin and death on the cross. Perhaps the physical effects of sin and evil must in turn be undone through a final act of God in order to complete the process of redemption. Paul writes that, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:35, cf. also John 12:24), and describes in Romans the reason why creation was subjected to decay:

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” - Romans 8:20-22

It seems, then, that a broken and decaying world, although ruined in and of itself, will serve the ultimate purpose of rendering the new creation something even more glorious than it would have been without a redemptive history. If we believe in a God powerful enough to bring creation out of nothing and to structure physical reality according to his redemptive purposes, then it is only sensible to expect that he is able to and will perform an act of cosmic resurrection, and that he will do it in such a way as to preserve the elements in the physical world that reveal his character, and purge away those elements that are not ultimately from God.⁵ In short, God will redeem a broken world in order to bring to completion the best of all possible realities.

Although there may seem to be a tension between science and theology in one regard, there is no flat contradiction, and a more comprehensive examination of the Scriptural and physical data, along with an open-minded consideration of the possibilities, suggests that there is still hope for the universe. “Increasing entropy” writes Polkinghorne, “can only be parasitic on the openness of creation to what is new” (Polkinghorne, Faith 165). God is making all things new, including the heavens and the earth (Relation 21:1,5; Isaiah 66:22), and his plans will not fail to reach completion (Isaiah 14:24, 51:6).<sup>6


5</sup> For example, since the second law implies death, and death is a consequence of evil (in the Garden, but on a deeper level, through the fall of Satan), there is something in the second law that is not wholly consistent with God’s character and his ultimate purpose for reality.
⁶ Polkinghorne writes, “an ultimate hope will have to rest in an ultimate reality, that is to say, in the eternal God himself, and not in his creation” (Polkinghorne, Faith 163).

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 4: Elements of Continuity in the New Creation

The question then is,

“Could the degree of discontinuity necessary to deliver human and cosmic destiny from being a mere resuscitory revival, with its dismal implication of slavery to an eternal return, be compatible with the degree of continuity necessary to ensure that it is this person, or this world, whose fulfillment lies beyond the threatening fact of anticipated demise?” (Polkinghorne, “Eschatology” 39).

With a sovereign and wise God who created the universe knowing and planning its future, the answer must be ‘yes.’ If there is to be some measure of consistency between the old creation and the new, one would expect the foundational mathematical patterns of physics to remain the same. Robert John Russell has suggested that mathematics, physical symmetries, and conservation laws may be potential elements of continuity (Russell 112). One might allow for subtle variations, such as changes in the physical constants or parameters built into the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Perhaps more significant changes in the laws of physics would be necessary. It is at least conceivable that such changes might result in the undoing of the second law of thermodynamics and a new cosmological direction for physical reality, and it is conceivable that this could be accomplished without changes to the most foundational physical structures of the world.

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 3: New Creation Ex Vetere

Creation is not to be annihilated and replaced with something wholly different; rather, Scripture gives us the impression of the transformation and renewal of what is already there.⁴ That is, the kingdom will be “not a radically discontinuous world, but one in some way perfected to be a new form of life by and before God…the one who raised Jesus from the dead is the one who will transform and so perfect this whole order of space and time” (Gunton 224). Polkinghorne describes this transformed creation as ex vetere as the old creation is ex nihilo (Polkinghorne, Faith 167). Indeed, we would not expect the God of order, structure, and consistency described in the Bible and suggested in nature (Romans 1:20) to perform some act of sudden stark discontinuity (Polkinghorne, “Eschatology” 29). Moreover, matter and spacetime are intimately tied together in general relativity as components of physical reality, and thus, writes Polkinghorne, “if it is intrinsic to humanity to be embodied, then it must be intrinsic to humanity to be temporal” (170). If this is true, then the idea of the general resurrection suggests a large measure of continuity in physical reality, in addition to elements of discontinuity, just as there was for Christ’s resurrected body.


⁴ Polkinghorne notes that “surely the ‘matter’ of the world to come must be the transformed matter of this world. God will no more abandon the universe than he will abandon us. Hence the importance to theology of the empty tomb, with its message that the Lord’s risen and glorified body is the transmutation of his dead body” (Polkinghorne, Faith 164). Indeed, we can observe in Scripture elements of both continuity and discontinuity between Jesus’ former body and his resurrection body. He could be seen and touched physically, and bore the scars of the cross (Matthew 28:9, Luke 24:40, John 20:27), and he ate food (Luke 24:42-43), but he bypassed locked doors (John 20:19,26, Luke 24:36), and his physical appearance was apparently somewhat different (John 21:12).

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 2: The Biblical Vision of Redeemed Creation

In sharp contrast with the bleak future for the universe predicted by thermodynamics and cosmology stands the biblical picture of the end times. Not only God’s children, but the whole world, is to be renewed, redeemed, resurrected from its state of decay and brokenness, and restored to what it was meant to be, and once was in part (Romans 8:19-23, Colossians 1:20). Although the eschatology predicted by science is in conflict with what Scripture foretells, the present state of the universe as described by the second law (and also as observed in the phenomenon of physical death ³) is exactly what Scripture portrays: corrupt and bound to inevitable decay and death. But it will not always be so. God’s victory over death is so powerful and so complete that it spreads over all of redemptive history, raising millions of fallen people from death and resurrecting this fallen world itself, all in the wake of the cross. Creation is lifted to an entirely new level, and on a cosmic scale. In the words of John Polkinghorne, “our destiny is intimately bound up with the destiny of the cosmic womb from which we were born” (Polkinghorne, Faith 167) in such a way that “human salvation brings with it the redemption, not obsolescence, of its environment, just as human sin incorporates the world in the process of destruction and dissolution” (Gunton 224).

In particular, redeemed humanity is to follow Christ in bodily resurrected from death:

“Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead…But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ…For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death…the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 52-53; cf. also Romans 5:12-21, 6:1-11, 2 Corinthians 5:17)

A broken world is healed by the Great Healer, and corrupted and depraved creatures are “transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18) – into the children of God they were made to be. With Adam, the first man, sin and death entered the whole world, but with Christ, the new man, death was reversed. It was with Christ’s resurrection that this new creation began. He is the firstfruits of redeemed humanity (1 Corinthians 15:20), “the seed from which eschatological fulfillment will eventually blossom for all” (Polkinghorne, Faith 166), and in his resurrection body, something new entered creation. Polkinghorne writes that the Gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection “can be interpreted as indications appearing within history of the transformed nature of eschatological ‘matter’” (Polkinghorne, Faith 168).


³ Polkinghorne writes, “cosmic death and human death pose equivalent questions of what is God’s intention for his creation” (Polkinghorne, Faith 163).

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Integrating Scientific and Biblical Eschatologies, Part 1: The Future Forecast by Thermodynamics and Cosmology

Observations in cosmology indicate that the universe will either expand indefinitely and die a “heat death” where entropy reaches a maximum, the total energy of the universe is evenly distributed, and all unstable particles ultimately decay, or the universe will be pulled together by gravity and end in a “big crunch.”

“If the universe is open or flat, it will expand forever and continue to cool from its present temperature (2.7 K), asymptotically approaching absolute zero…If it is closed, it will expand to a maximum size in another 1 to 500 billion years, then recollapse to an arbitrarily small size and unendingly higher temperatures.” (Russell 98)

Either way, the universe ends in a ruined state, devoid of any life. “The whole cosmos seems to be hitched to a universal principle of degeneration, running downhill towards chaos…the whole universe seems to be on target for death” (Fiddes 182). Carbon-based life requires carbon atoms, and thus protons and neutrons, but neither of these final scenarios includes that possibility (Russell 99).¹ Not only is the universe bound to final destruction; it is in an ongoing state of decay. The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of the universe must continually increase. This means that the number of possible “microstates” for the entire universe must increase, which requires what could be called a progression from order to disorder. The microscopic interactions of particles towards a macrostate with more possible microstates results in macroscopic processes of decay such as rusting iron or rotting wood. Structured and ordered processes, such as the bodies of living creatures, must ultimately break down into disorder. Consequently, “the second law of thermodynamics is the universal physical principle which underlies decay, illness, death and ultimately sorrow” (Tallon).² The thermodynamic “arrow of time” drives the universe on a downward spiral of inevitable ruin. To summarize the observation of science concerning the ongoing and ultimate fate of the universe, “should the final future as forecasted by the combination of big bang cosmology and the second law of thermodynamics come to pass…we would have proof that our faith has been in vain” (Peters 175-76).


¹ Biologists have portrayed evolution as a tendency towards increasing complexity as time moves forward. Some have speculated that “if the movement of the arrow towards complexity is the more powerful tendency [than the thermodynamic or cosmological “arrow”], then it may be possible for our descendents to outwit the loss of energy in hear-death” (Fiddes 192). Most significantly, Frank Tipler’s “Omega Point Theory” suggests that human technology capability could overcome the collapse of the universe even in its final seconds. Many arguments have been made against this theory. John Polkinghorne notes that this idea requires “highly conjectural properties of matter” as the universe collapses (Polkinghorne, Faith 165) and that its computerized humanity does not fit well with the biblical idea of the redemption of the body (cf. also Gunton 214-15). In general, it is difficult to imagine how biological tendencies could possibly trump the fundamental laws of physics. Perhaps most importantly, arguments for biological or evolutionary “salvation” make the theological error of placing the future in the control of creatures rather than the sovereign Creator (Fiddes 192), as if we were capable of achieving our own salvation.
² This is not to say that the second law is the ultimate cause of all sorrow. It is merely the physical reality which corresponds to spiritual brokenness. Also, it is not necessarily true that all forms of human sorrow are connected to the second law.

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C. S. Lewis on Theistic Evolution

I just ran across this passage in The Problem of Pain. In this chapter Lewis gives a tentative explanation of how the fall of man could have happened, and how human beings, as God's image bearers, could have been created.

"I offer the following picture - a 'myth' in the Socratic sense, a not unlikely tale.
For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say 'I' and 'me,' which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgements of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past."
- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, ch. 5, "The Fall of Man"

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C. S. Lewis on Miracles, part 2

…Lewis compares God to a poet, a painter, and an author. The poet works with a meter or rhyming scheme, and the painter has certain techniques, but neither is constrained to write or paint totally within the boundaries of these structures. The poet may break from his meter for a line in order to emphasize a point to which the meter itself also contributes, or to form some beauty in the contrast between the meter and the break in the pattern. All this is done in order to make the poem more complete and beautiful as a whole. Lewis writes, “There are rules behind the rules, and unity which is deeper than uniformity.”

Lastly, Lewis refers to the writings of Dorothy Sayers, in which God is viewed as an author, and reality as a story. Some object that miracles would be inconsistent events and poor story elements because they come out of nowhere and do not fit with the rest of the story, just as it would be a poor story element to have the main character escape from trouble by inheriting a large sum of money from some completely unknown source.

“Now there is no doubt that a great deal of the modern objection to miracles is based on the suspicion that they are marvels of the wrong sort; that a story of a certain kind (Nature) is arbitrarily interfered with, to get the characters out of a difficulty, by events that do not really belong to that kind of story.”

But this could not be further from the truth:

“If they have occurred, they have occurred because they are the very thing this universal story is about…They are precisely those chapters in this great story on which the plot turns. Death and resurrection are what the story is about.”

Indeed, Lewis goes on to write how the “Grand Miracle,” the death and resurrection of Christ, is the very center of the story, on which everything else depends, and without which the story would make no sense. It is not an inconsistency, but the most consistent and essential element. The theological and narrative inconsistency that exists without miracles (and the resurrection in particular) is much more severe than any apparent physical inconsistency resulting from miraculous events.

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C. S. Lewis on Miracles, part 1

Last year I wrote a post on miracles, in which I argued that there is nothing illogical or impossible about ‘miraculous’ events. Rather, they are very likely when we consider not only science, but science and human history in a larger theological framework, based on the description of God’s story given in the Bible.

Right now I’m reading C. S. Lewis’ book Miracles, which is a philosophical defense of theism and of the possibility of miracles, given God’s existence. It may seem that a miraculous event in Nature would be an inconsistency on God’s part – breaking his own physical laws – but Lewis argues in chapter 12, "The Propriety of Miracles," that this is not necessarily the case.

“If we had grasped as a whole the innermost spirit of that ‘work which God worketh from the beginning to the end’, and of which Nature [the physical world] is only a part and perhaps a small part, we should be in a position to decide whether miraculous interruptions of Nature’s history were mere improprieties unworthy of the Great Workman or expressions of the truest and deepest unity in His total work.”

But, as finite creatures within the physical world and limited by space and time, we are in no position to be sure that we perceive the full extent of reality.

“For who can suppose that God’s external act, seen from within, would be the same complexity of mathematical relations which Nature, scientifically studied, reveals?...If miracles do occur then we may be sure that not to have wrought them would be the real inconsistency.”

The laws of physics are part of a much larger theological reality, and our history is only a tiny part of God’s great story. If we were to restrict our field of vision to the functioning of this physical world, ‘miraculous’ events may seem out of place, but is reality no more than the physical entities and the laws of physics? Are we to narrow our view to spacetime and fields and particles? Lewis writes:

“If you have hitherto disbelieved in miracles, it is worth pausing a moment to consider whether this is not chiefly because you thought you had discovered what the story was really about? – that atoms, and time and space and economics and politics were the main plot? And is it certain you were right? It is easy to make mistake such such matters.”

We have no reason for assuming that the laws of physics are what reality is all about, so we have no reason to presume that what appears to be an inconsistency would appear that way if we could see fully the sum total of reality. What matters is how God sees this world, and the physics of this world, in light of all reality. We must leave open the possibility that the laws of physics are folded into God’s larger reality in such a way that miraculous events are rendered consistent – even physically consistent – in light of this larger reality…

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