Hobbesianity

What comes after this, something or nothing, oblivion or pearly gates and streets of gold? And can Saint Peter pull a lever to open a trap door that drops the Calvins into the apocalyptic lake of fire? What differentiates losers and winners? What will I be? If existence ends I will no longer be, I will have been. Gospel song: "We'll understand it better by and by." If we are, perhaps so. If we are not, no matter.

About dying, someone recently said, confidently if smugly, "I know where I'm going." Not, actually. To confuse faith for knowledge, knowing with believing, is folly, the scriptural opposite of wisdom. So, believe, but remember: believing, even believing fervently, even believing with every fibre of my being don't make it so. "She's in a better place now" is not a statement of fact, but a faith assertion. Or, it may be a fact, who knows?

Nobody. Nobody knows.

This thought has surfaced here before, but yesterday's Calvin & Hobbes cartoon ch130525 brought it back to periscope depth this morning. For anyone who's ever had a general anesthetic -- not that dreamy elixir they drip before repairing droopy eyelids, or wheel you away to commit the indignity of a colonoscopy; but a general -- which as I -- know -- releases one into complete oblivion, as is done for open heart surgery. Inducing a trip into eternity, general anesthesia may be a metaphor for Saint Paul's vision of sleeping in Jesus until the trumpet sounds. Sleep with no dreams, no memory, no awareness of the passing of billions upon trillions of years. That's a long sleep: how far along is great-Uncle Eb, 1872 - 1942, whose grave I visited last Thursday morning? 

Postmoderns are skeptical, but modern Christians prefer not Paul's vision of "sleeping in Jesus" but the image of a late loved one meeting us at the gate of death and escorting us into the Promised Land -- like the ghost who travels from the distant mountains down to the plain to meet the bus rider in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. I too prefer that image to Paul's long sleep. But neither view can be proved anymore than oblivion can be disproved. This means that we can choose; which, then, is not knowledge, but Faith.

But, suppose Calvin's question: suppose this is all we get? 

A thoroughgoing Hobbesian, I'll take it anyway.

TW+

Thanks, Phil!!