King Arthur: A Review

Art that aims at conveying a message of pointlessness is often dealing with the emotion of nihilism. This art (nihilistic art), however, is not pointless; it does indeed have a point: to convey the notion of meaninglessness. Art, however, that aims at making a point but never gets there, is pointless. Such is the case for the film King Arthur.

This Touchstone Pictures 2004 film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, may be one of the worst films in the last three years. The entire opening battle sequence is completely pointless, drawn out far too long, and contains none of the elements that make good battle scenes. It is nothing more than a complete slaughter that barely has any significance to the development of the plot. This is only the beginning.

The main theme of the film is the notion of libertarian free-will. Arthur and his knights have been under an obligation to Rome for at least 15 years. They have done their duty, paid their dues, and sacrificed their lives for the cause of Rome (most of which is selfish and despised by the knights themselves). Their time for freedom has finally come, but they do not receive it. Instead of giving the knights of the round table their freedom Bishop Germainus, orders them on one last mission: To rescue a noble family from territory soon to be invaded by the dreaded Saxon army. This sets the stage for the conflict between the knights’ individual free will and their servitude to Rome.

Almost every dialogue from here on out has to do with free will and human autonomy. The overemphasis on this concept justifies my saying that this may have been one of the most poorly written films in history! There is zero subtlety and creativity in the dialogue, which only compliments the rather stoic acting of the characters. The worst part about this film, however, is not its poor writing, pointlessly gruesome battle scenes, and wooden actors, but its message about God.
Within the film Arthur is the lone “Christian” among his band of knights. Periodically he engages in quick and rather futile debates with the other knights about God’s goodness, sovereignty, and existence. Arthur, however, is also the largest proponent of human autonomy in the film (even to the degree that he tells an entire village their free will absolves them of serfdom). The references to God throughout the whole scope of the dialogue always leave the impression that God is much like the oppressive Roman Empire: Nothing more than a totalitarian overlord. There is never an attempt to accurately represent the God of Christianity.

I was so disappointed in this film. It was cast in the light of a film in the likeness of Gladiator, but fell far short! It mutilated the amazing legends of Arthur from British literature, stories such as Le Morte d’Arthur. And aside from a few puns on these tales and a horribly thin and underdeveloped love relationship between Arthur and Guinevere it bears no likeness to the tales of old. So what’s my suggestion about seeing this film? While I don’t believe in the free will that this movie has presented, a libertarian free will, I do believe in a compatablist free will. And in a compatablist free will humans may always choose according to their strongest desire; so unless you are compelled, do not see this film!

Mona Lisa Smile: A Review

One of the major questions often asked of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is related to her smile: is she happy? It’s a legitimate question I suppose, for not everyone who smiles is happy. Far too often the smile is a cover up, a charade. Today we use the word “fine” in the same way that older generations painted on a smile. Our world is falling apart and we respond to the question “How are you” with “O, I’m fine”. But below the surface there is much more going on. It is this looking beyond the surface that the film Mona Lisa Smile (Revolution Studios, 2004) intends to promote.

In this 2004 release Julia Roberts leads an outstanding cast on the search for finding one’s self. Unfortunately the concluding message that it sends will, I believe, disappoint many. Roberts stars as Miss Katherine Watson, a “free-thinking” art history teacher who comes to teach at the conservative Wellesley College. As a period piece it magnificently portrays the early 1950s. The scenery, the girls’ college, and the dilemmas all reflect well this post-war culture. Since so few can pull off period pieces well I certainly applaud director Mike Newell and his staff. But beyond this I find little else to appreciate about this film.

The discipline of art serves as an analogy for the film. As the bold Miss Watson teaches her students that they cannot learn art by reading a textbook but only by looking beyond their initial impressions and sense experiences so she teaches them to do the same with life. Marriage is one of the big issues in the development of the plot. The young women of Katherine Watson’s class are all focused on one thing: husbands (specifically Harvard husbands). As the plot unfolds, however, the conclusion is drawn that marriage is not all its cracked up to be.

For student Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst) marriage turns out to be a complete sham. Her husband is cheating on her, her mother tells her to ignore it, and pretending everything is okay eats her alive, to the point that she has a complete breakdown. It is a terribly sad scene when Betty verbally assaults her promiscuous friend with the thoughts that she is actually thinking about herself. For Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) marriage stamps out her personal dreams. She is a stellar student with the potential to go to law school, but she turns it down to stay at home with her new husband. The one redeeming moment of the whole film comes when Joan lectures Miss Watson on her hypocrisy. As Joan sternly points out to her teacher that she is only looking at the surface of the housewife, just like they were only looking at the surface of the modern art, one gets the feeling that the film is shifting. Suddenly there comes a rainbow up from the thunderstorm of feminism in this film. But the light lasts only a moment and is gone. With barely a second comment the incident with Joan is forgotten in the film. The one redeeming quality of the film is lost in a torrential down pour of an anti-housewife conclusion.

As the story comes to a close Watson leaves Wellesley’s repressive halls, and her love interest, to travel across Europe; the “free-thinking” woman leaves with her independence intact. Betty divorces her husband, who indeed is a jerk (to say the least), and shares an apartment with the girlfriend she had previously derided. Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal), one of the other main characters of the film, continues her promiscuous affairs, one with a married man, without ever expressing any regret. Nothing, in the end, is said about marriage, the family, and all those who have represented the goodness of the home are forgotten or cast in a backwards or foolish light.

To say that a film such as this has no agenda is really to say that it was poorly written, and I do not think it was poorly written. There’s nothing wrong with the production of this film, it is a high quality production- it is, rather, the message itself that I find disappointing. Marriage, as God has ordained it, is a wonderful gift that, though only dimly, is meant to reflect the love that Jesus Christ has for His church. And though all of us fail in our marriages, any film that portrays this side as all there is to it, and as something worth avoiding, has really only seen the surface, and has sadly missed out on the real beauty beyond that surface!

The Purpose of Life

The Purpose of Life
What is the meaning of life? This is the question that has plagued generation after generation. Isaiah 43:7 gives it to us. “…Whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Here the prophet speaking the words of God says we (that is all of mankind) were made for the display of God’s glory, and to bring Him glory. Certainly we are only awakened to that truth after we believe in Jesus Christ and the cross, but it is none-the-less true. All men were created to glorify God. Both the sinner and the saint were created with that purpose, and all men will fulfill that purpose eventually. Romans 14:11 says, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So man either glorifies God starting now in this life and leading into eternity, or he does so on the Day of Judgment. God will either be glorified in your praise and worship of Him or in the just punishment of you for your sins. The question to ask practically is: “What does it mean to glorify God?” This question is much easier to ask than it is to answer.

What is Glory?
The first step is to define “glory.” What is the “glory of God?” Al Mohler says, “In the scripture the glory of God is, in the Old Testament and in the New, and in the language that is used, associated directly with the idea of heaviness. With weight.” C.S. Lewis spoke of the “Weight of Glory!” Mohler continues, “And in the scripture that is expanded to mean fame, and renown, and praise. God’s glory is the fame that is rightly His. It is the value of His name, it is the display of His character, it is the weight of His awesome and infinite being[1].” John Piper adds, “God’s glory is the beauty of His manifold perfections[2].” God’s glory speaks of His perfection, His “infinite greatness and worth[3].” So now that we’ve explained what God’s “glory” is we wonder, “what do I have to do with that?”

God’s command in scripture is that we glorify Him; that is that we praise Him. We are called to reflect His glory on earth, to point people to Him, and to magnify His name. Let me clarify this statement. We have already seen that God’s glory is His infinite greatness and worth, and the beauty of His perfections so how can I magnify what is already infinitely great, worthy, and perfect? Piper aids us here by stating that there are two ways to magnify. “You can magnify with a microscope or with a telescope. A microscope magnifies by making tiny things look bigger than they are. A telescope magnifies by making gigantic things (like stars), which look tiny, appear more as they really are. God created the universe to magnify His glory the way a telescope magnifies stars. Everything He does in our salvation is designed to magnify the glory of His grace like this[4].” It is our duty, not to make God more glorious, but to know God as He really is (which is infinitely glorious) and to make His glory known. This is our task, and what a difficult task it is. Thankfully God gives us specific ways to do this.

The Ways We Glorify
We are called to glorify God in a multitude of ways, each of which will be detailed in upcoming chapters. For starters it will suffice to list a few key ways we glorify God here. We glorify God in ruling over His creation (Genesis 1:28). We glorify God by doing good works (1 Peter 2:12). We are commanded to glorify God in our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We are commanded, both husbands and wives, to glorify God in our marriages (Ephesians 5:22-33). Also, we glorify God in loving others (1 John 3:16) and through a Biblical Church (Ephesians 3:21). Finally, the point we will focus on in the remainder of this chapter, we glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

Desiring and Enjoying God is Glorifying God
It is found in the old Westminster Catechism. “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever[5].” John Piper has wonderfully changed the wording here to better represent precisely what the authors intended, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever[6].” He says, “Evidently, the old theologians didn’t think they were talking about two things. They said ‘chief end’ not ‘chief ends.’ Glorifying God and enjoying Him were one end in their minds, not two[7].” The common idea floating among the minds of Christians today is that enjoying God is really just an option, the icing on the cake or the caboose on the train. If we do get joy, good for us, if we don’t, oh well. This idea stems from a philosophy that states it is merely our duty to serve God! C.S. Lewis spoke of this problem earlier in history. In a sermon preached back in the mid 1960s, called “The Weight of Glory,” he said the following:

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak[8].

What a mind blowing thought! We have weak desire. Lewis continues with what may be one of my favorite quotes of all time.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased[9].

We are far too easily pleased! What truth there is in that statement. You and I settle for the lesser joys, the fleeting pleasures of this world. But God has offered us infinite joy in Him. “You have made known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). Where is there fullness of joy? In God’s presence. Where are the pleasures forevermore? At God’s right hand. There may be fleeting joy here and there in our earthly life but it is a mere shadow of the “fullness of joy” that is in God’s presence! Joy is not merely an option for the Christian. The scripture command us to have joy in God. Here are a few:

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

“Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

“Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2)

“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

Perhaps one of the most terrifying scriptures on the command to enjoy God is found in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you…” (Deuteronomy 28:47-48). What was the cause of Israel’s punishment? Punishment came because they did not serve the Lord with “joyfulness and gladness of heart.” Piper quotes Jeremy Taylor saying, “God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy[10].”

If we will take time to notice we will see that all those verses begin with imperatives: “Delight…”, “Enter…”, “Serve…”, “Rejoice […].” They are all commands to do something, and they all contain some appeal to our joy. We aren’t merely to serve, but we are to serve with gladness!

In his most classic work Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, John Piper argues that the “effort to achieve worship [of God] with no self-interest in it [proves] to be a contradiction in terms[11].” C.S. Lewis, however, had a struggle with praise just before his conversion to Christ; maybe you have this same struggle. In his work Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis writes:

When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should ‘praise’ God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it[12].

What a hard truth to grasp, God demands to be praised. It seems so selfish for God and so undesirable for us. But Lewis continues:

But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game…I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation[13].

So in regards to our joy: God’s demanding that we praise Him is the demand that we complete our enjoyment in Him! What a gift! Could there be any sweeter command? Is there any more wonderful duty? As the back of Piper’s book says, “Delight is our duty.” We do not fulfill our duty to God until we have enjoyed Him. That is the testimony of scripture. The commands “Delight yourself in the Lord” and “serve the Lord with gladness,” are part of our duty. The delight and the gladness are not options and suggestions they are commands. We do not complete our duty until we have joy in it.

A man who most helped John Piper in the development of his theology, a man that (if read) impacts most of us, was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was an American Puritan preacher/theologian in the 1700s. His most famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is still being examined in high school English classes across America[14]. Edwards’ own words are most helpful in uncovering the truth of our enjoyment in God as part of our fulfilling our duty to Him.

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to…their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself…God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it…He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also to his approbation of it and his delight in it.[15]

Knowing that God is glorious is not quite the same as delighting in God’s gloriousness. People everyday, everywhere, see God’s glory. It is in the trees, the birds, the sunshine, the rain, indeed in the whole created world. But God is not glorified in man simply by man’s seeing this. For, as I said, all men see it. God wants us to delight in His glory! The saying of John Piper’s that is most frequently quoted is a truth that is applicable here: “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.” Enjoying God is our duty, and anything less than that is a failure of full duty.

God’s Passion for God’s Glory
So that settles the issue, for me at least, of how God’s command for us to glorify Him is good for us. Our glorifying Him is the consummation of our enjoyment in Him! God’s command for us to glorify Him is His command for us to be joyful. But there is still this nagging feeling that God’s command for us to glorify Him is selfishness on His own part. How do we settle this issue? Certainly God is seeking our joy in His demand for worship, but couldn’t He have devised another method of giving us joy? Isn’t this somehow a vanity on God’s part? Does He merely want His divine ego stroked? The answer to that is a resounding no!

Piper has written another book, well worth reading, titled God’s Passion for His Glory. This book, while containing a more biographical sketch of the development of Piper’s Theology, includes in it one of the most profoundly influential works on this subject of God’s demand for praise. It is a work by Jonathan Edwards called, The End for Which God Created the World. In this book both Piper’s words and the re-printed words of Edwards tell us that God is uppermost in His own affections. Edwards’ writes:

Whatever that be which is in itself most valuable, and was so originally, prior to the creation of the world, and which is attainable by the creation, if there be anything which was superior in value to all others, that must be worthy to be God’s last end in the creation; and also worthy to be his highest end[16].

That if God himself be, in any respect, properly capable of being his own end in the creation of the world, then it is reasonable to suppose that he had respect to himself, as his last and highest end, in this work; because he is worthy in himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of him. And therefore, if God has respect to things according to their nature and proportions, he must necessarily have the greatest respect to himself. It would be against the perfection of his nature, his wisdom, holiness, and perfect rectitude, whereby he is disposed to do every thing that is fit to be done, to suppose otherwise[17].

God would be unjust to love anything less than what is supremely valuable, and He is supremely valuable. He must love His glory first and foremost because His glory alone is worthy of His affections. It is proper and right to love something in accordance with that objects worthiness, and God’s glory is above all things worthy. He must love what is worthy of love! God is not being selfish when He demands that we glorify Him, He is being true to His nature! If He denied glory to what was worthy of glory, then He is being unjust. So He demands that we bring Him glory because He is worthy to be glorified. John Piper says it, perhaps, better than I do, “If God should turn away from Himself as the source of infinite joy, He would cease to be God. He would deny the infinite worth of His own glory. He would imply that there is something more valuable outside Himself. He would commit idolatry[18].”

What’s the Bible Say?
The question we must consider is do the Scriptures, God’s own words, echo this teaching or is it man made theory? Let’s look at Isaiah 48:11, “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” What God does, is ultimately for His “own sake.” Whatever God does is to bring Him glory. Here in this particular text God says that it is “For my name’s sake I defer my anger” (v.9). One might also consider the text of Ezekiel 20: 8b-9, “Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.” Here again God says He will not pour out His just wrath upon the Israelites, not for their sake, but for His “name’s sake.” What God does is ultimately for His glory. We turn again to the Psalms, “Yet He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make known His mighty power” (Psalm 106:8). God saved the Israelites from the Egyptian oppressors by parting the Red Sea; and He did this not for their sake but for His sake, that He might make known His “mighty power.” God is first and foremost for the display of His glory. He loves His glory and loves to be glorified! Even salvation is ultimately for His sake, His glory. God loves God’s glory!

There are a multitude of other texts that echo these same truths (Exodus 14:4, 18; Psalm 23:3; 2 Kings 19:34; 2 Kings 20:6; Ezekiel 36:22-23, 32). The New Testament as well promotes this truth. Specifically in the revelation of Jesus Christ is God glorified. God delights in the Glory of His Son. Hebrews 1:3 says, “He [Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…” When God delights in the glory of the Son He is delighting in His own glory, for the Jesus is God (John 1:1). John 17:4 testifies to Jesus’ chief duty in His incarnation, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Jesus came to glorify the Father, and we praise God that the means of glorifying the Father was by redeeming lost sinners.

That God has a passion for His glory is not a man made theory, it is the very teaching of the scriptures. We believe it because the Bible says it, not because John Piper or anyone else has stated it. God’s word says that He is for His glory. “The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever[19].”

Enjoying and Desiring God: The Practical Means of Fulfilling Our Purpose
If we are commanded to “Delight in the Lord,” then we had better do it. But how? Being satisfied in God is not so simple. We find ourselves, as C.S. Lewis put it, “too easily satisfied.” We find ourselves delighting instead in TV, cars, money, jobs, family, friends, food, and all these things steal our joy and praise and rob God of His glory. How do we fight for joy in God? What are the practical ways to “delight yourself in the Lord?” The Bible is practical theology, it does not merely say “delight yourself in the Lord,” but it shows the actions taken by individuals to fulfill such a command.

The Psalmist wrote, “For He [God] satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things” (Psalm 107:9). This is the first truth that we must come to an understanding of: “Authentic joy in God is a gift[20].” Notice that in this text “He,” that is God, is doing the action: God “satisfies the longing soul,” and God “fills with good things.”

True joy in God cannot be conjured up. It is not something that we, initially or finally, generate within us. (1) Initially: It is God who saves, not man! “For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom…” (1 Corinthians. 1:21). “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). (2) Finally: It is God who gives us joy. As the Psalmist prayed, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation…” (Psalm 51:12). Paul writes that the fruits of the Spirit, notice not the fruits of man, are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Do not ever imagine that you are able to be joyful in God without His working it in you. Do not think that you can simply be joyful in God whenever you feel like it, or that you will when appropriate “feel” happy in God. It is a gift of the Spirit of God. So why does God punish us for not being joyful in Him? How can He command what we cannot do and then punish us for failure to do it? God can do so because our inability does no absolve us from moral responsibility. If I borrow 30,000 dollars from my neighbor and blow it all on gambling I have a moral responsibility to pay that money back, even though I am physically unable. Inability does not eradicate responsibility. Piper says, “It is not biblical to say that the only virtues God can require of me are the ones that I am good enough to perform[21].” Martin Luther said it this way in his arguments against Erasmus, “By the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do; that is, that he may know his sin, not that he may believe that he has any strength[22].” The commands of scripture teach us not what we are able to do but what we ought to do. We have a moral responsibility to God despite our inability.
But the fact that joy in God is a gift does not allow us to sit idly by waiting for God to make us happy in Him. For God not only pre-ordains that Christians will “delight in Him,” but He pre-determined the means by which we find that delight in Him as well. God has mediums that He works through, He does not arbitrarily bestow joy, but He does so through His pre-determined means. Thus it follows that we must learn what those means are and pursue them with all our might; for this is where the gift of joy is bestowed upon us.

The Pre-Ordained Means of Finding Joy in God
Piper argues “the fight for joy is first and always a fight to see. Seeing the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospels awakens joy[23].” To glorify God we must see God as He really is. Seeing God how He really is is what we fight for. We fight for a clear picture of Jesus; we fight to see His glory.
There is a danger here. It would be easy to assume that by simply seeing God as glorious we are glorifying Him. But the Bible talks of two ways of seeing. Jesus says in Matthew 13:13, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see…” So it is evident here that merely seeing with the eyes in our heads we do not glorify God. Paul prayed, however, for an illuminating of the eyes of our hearts. “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). So there is a distinct difference between seeing with the eyes on our face and seeing with the eyes on our hearts. Piper showed me the difference; “Spiritual seeing is the act of the heart that corresponds to the revelation of the glory of God for the enjoyment of His people[24].” Piper was shown this through the Bible first, and through Jonathan Edwards’ writings second. Edwards, whom I heard about first through Piper, said, “God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it[25].” This is spiritual seeing, not merely seeing it, but enjoying it. For Paul tells us that all people see God’s glory. “For what can be known about God is plain to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20). But we suppress the truth in our unrighteousness (v.18) and seeing we do not see. Now comes the all-important question: how do we fight for this gift of spiritual sight?

Well of course it starts with the cross. As I said in the last chapter, all things flow from or look back to the cross of Christ. First comes salvation by the cross and then comes a living in the shadow of that cross. It is in the Gospel first and foremost that we see God’s glory revealed. No one will see God’s glory until He looks to the cross. “The divine glory we have been redeemed to see is most beautifully shown in the redemption itself. The all-glorious Christ is both the means and the goal of our salvation from blindness[26].” The fight to see Christ is the same one that we fight to live in the gospel, because it is in the gospels that we see God’s glory most beautifully shown. Fighting for a Cross-Centered Life is fighting to see and enjoy God’s glory (spiritual sight). Remember our practical steps: Memorize the Gospel, Pray the Gospel, Sing the Gospel, Reflect on how the Gospel has Changed You, and Study the Gospel. These are the same practical steps we take to see God’s glory more fully; for it is in the Gospel that it is most beautifully shown. Piper adds, “The relationship between the word of God and the glory of God is remarkable, and we should grasp it firmly[27].” To see God’s glory with spiritual eyes we must go to the word of God, that is the Bible. We must fight with ourselves to be in the Bible daily; studying, reading, and saturating our minds in the truth of scripture and the glory of God as it is displayed there within. We fight for this spiritual sight of seeing and savoring (that is enjoying) God by meditating on the word of God. “I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules” (Psalm 119).

Summary
We were made with the purpose of glorifying God; but in order to truly fulfill our duty to glorify Him we must enjoy Him. The command of scripture is to “Delight yourself in the Lord,” and to “Serve the Lord with gladness.” When God commands that we praise Him, He is commanding that we have fullness of joy. When He commands that we praise Him, He is commanding that what is worthy of glory be given glory, thereby maintaining His justice. We glorify God in a multitude of ways, in fact Paul tells us to glorify God in all that we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). To enjoy God we must, however, see God as glorious; this is seeing with the eyes of the heart. The place where this happens is in the gospel, where God’s glory is shown most beautifully. So the fight for a cross-centered life that we examined in the last chapter is the same fight we face to see Christ as glorious and to have joy in God.

We were made to glorify God. Glorifying God means enjoying God. Enjoying God means seeing Christ as He really is. Seeing Christ as He really is means living in the Gospel!

[1] Quoted from his sermon “The Glory of Christ The Redeemer,” preached at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.
[2] John Piper, Desiring God. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2003). p. 42.
[3] Ibid.
[4] John Piper, The Dangerous Duty of Delight. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2001). p. 17.
[5] Westminster Catechism. Question 1.
[6] John Piper, Desiring God. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2003). p. 18.
[7] Ibid. p. 17.
[8] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory. (New York: Harper, 1980). p. 26.
[9] Ibid.
[10] John Piper, Desiring God. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2003). p. 9.
[11] Ibid. p. 22.
[12] C.S. Lewis, Reflection on the Psalms. (Orlando: Harcourt, 1958). p. 90.
[13] Ibid. p. 95.
[14] Though it is commonly used as a means of proving that the Puritans were a group of religious prudes and pessimists, which they indeed were not!
[15] As quoted from John Piper, Desiring God.
[16] Jonathan Edwards, The End for which God Created the World. (Chapter 1: Section 1. 3).
[17] Ibid. (Section 1.4).
[18] Desiring God. p. 47.
[19] Ibid. p. 321.
[20] Ibid. p. 352.
[21] John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004). p. 47.
[22] Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will. J.I. Packer, O.R. Johnston trans. (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1957). p. 159.
[23] When I Don’t Desire God. p. 43.
[24] Ibid. p. 58.
[25] Quoted from Jonathan Edwards, The End for which God Created the World. in John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory. (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998). p.242.
[26] When I Don’t Desire God. p. 62.
[27] Ibid. p. 65.

The Cross Centered Life

The Cross Centered Life
There are a multitude of blessings that flow from the cross. It is important, at this point, to state the obvious: the cross of Christ is at the center of Christianity! There is no Christianity without the cross and I am not Christian without the cross. The cross is the heart of the Gospel! C.J. Mahaney writes, “The message of the cross is the Christian’s hope, confidence, and assurance. Heaven will be spent marveling at the work of Christ, the God-Man who suffered in the place of us sinners[1].” Jerry Bridges echoes these sentiments by saying, “The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message of history[2].” This is the message of the whole Bible, the cross of Christ.

From the Old Testament to the New Jesus is proclaimed and His redemption for sinners is testified to. From Genesis to Revelation Christ is exalted as savior! The apostle Paul, who’s letters fill up most of the New Testament, continually reminded his readers of the gospel. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24). “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16). “But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:5). “[Jesus] who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). “And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him” (Colossians 1:21-22). “To wait for His son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). “But we ought to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14). “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8). “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Titus 2:11). Those verses are all from Paul’s numerous letters and epistles and they are all full of his testimony to the importance of remembering the gospel.

Remember the Gospel! Live in the Gospel! Make the gospel the very center of all you do as a Christian. Mahaney again writes, “The gospel isn’t one class among many that you’ll attend during your life as a Christian- it is the whole building that all the classes take place in[3]!” Only by the God’s grace in the cross of Christ do we accomplish anything, all things stem from the truth of grace in the gospel. So it is essential that we as Christians live in, dwell in, and never forget the gospel message. If it is the heart of the Bible, the center of my religion, and the reason for my faith, then it should be the center of my life.

Five Practical Steps to Center Your Life on the Cross
It is one thing for me to examine the scriptures and discover just how essential the cross is. It is one thing for me to be challenged by C.J. Mahaney to live a cross centered life, but how do I do that? Fortunately C.J. didn’t leave me in the dark on that one, and more importantly neither did the word of God. I read through The Cross Centered Life twice before I picked up on this, but to live the cross centered life means to dwell on the cross mentally. All of C.J.’s wonderful steps are meant to cultivate a mind that rests on the cross and the fruits that come from it. The author has identified three “tendencies that can draw our hearts away[4]” from the gospel. Each of these hindrances is a state of our mind.

When we forget about justification by faith alone our minds tend to think about working for God’s favor; the author identifies this as legalism. When our minds stray from the biblical truth of Jesus as our propitiation we become overwhelmed with the multitude and magnitude of our sins; Mahaney has labeled this as condemnation. Finally, when our minds stray from the active and passive obedience of Christ then we wander into a “subjectivism,” as Mahaney calls it, that causes us to base our view of God on how we feel at any given moment. All of these battle start in the mind, it will take a re-wiring of our thoughts to move on from them. He says, “The cross centered life starts with biblical thinking. Are you going to build your life on what you feel or on what is real[5]?” When Adam sinned in the Garden and brought sin on the entire human race that meant that I would be born a sinner. And not only was my nature deprave when I was born, but so was my mind. It will take labor, self-discipline, and (of course) the grace of God, to re-wire my brain to think “biblically,” but where does it begin?

Mahaney again writes, “If the gospel is the most vital news in the world, and if salvation by grace is the defining truth of our existence, we should create ways to immerse ourselves in these truths every day. No days off allowed[6].” These are the practical steps to living in the gospel that must be the discipline of our daily lives:


1) Memorize the Gospel- The word of God is powerful and amazing! Its ability to change and shape our thoughts proves that it is the very word of almighty God. The way that the mind works is, likewise, an amazing thing. Think for a moment about your memories, and how you can picture that vacation last year. Or how you can remember exactly how your “sweetheart” looked on that day. The mind has amazing capabilities. Now think how doubly amazing it would be if you used your mind (an amazing creation of God) to memorize scripture (the all powerful word of God). Memorizing scripture that speaks the direct message of the gospel is like having a mobile storage house of weaponry to ward off temptation, intimidation, and depression. Mahaney comments on this subject by saying, “Having these verses instantly accessible is so helpful. For example, if you find yourself losing perspective at a difficult point in the day, reach into your memory and pull out 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Does that put things in a new light? God has addressed our most serious problem: sin and judgment. This perspective has a transforming effect in the midst of the daily troubles and inconveniences of life[7].” C.J. says it so well. Having the truth of scripture memorized and accessible at any point during the day causes a transformation in our thinking about life and situations. The word of God puts all things in their proper places.

2) Pray the Gospel- Living in the gospel means not only storing it up in your heart for rainy days but also dwelling on it each and every day; and that can happen in prayer. As we pray we remember that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can pray at all. Jesus’ death and resurrection make it possible for us to approach the throne of God with confidence. This helps us to put things in perspective as well. Jesus’ finished work allows me to have access to the almighty God of heaven and earth who is my heavenly Father.


3) Sing the Gospel- This was a new one for me, but what an effective tool it has been in my life. The worship of God is the reason we exist and since God’s glory was displayed most evidently in the Cross of Christ let us sing songs that speak of the cross, that we may see and worship the God of grace who died on that cross. Music is a powerful tool as well. When we teach our children their “ABCs” we teach it to them in song form (some people learn the books of the Bible this way too). Music has a way of making an impression in our minds so that we can call to mind the words of a song more easily than the words of a textbook. This of course is not meant to sound as a replacement for reading your Bible or good books for that matter, but it is meant as a supplement to those things. Good songs that talk about the cross and the grace of God there, will give us a passion to live in the light of the gospel.

4) Review How the Gospel has Changed You- John Newton, the author of the classic hymn “Amazing Grace,” once wrote, “The 21st in March is a day much to be remembered by me, and I have never suffered it to pass wholly unnoticed since the year 1748. On that day the Lord sent from on high, and delivered me out of the deep waters[8].” John Newton was a slave trader and a blasphemer, but God, as Newton says it, “saved a wretch like me.” The apostle Paul said it long before Newton. “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus” (Galatians 1:13-17). These two men remembered how the gospel changed their lives because it put their new life into proper perspective. What mattered in the new life for Paul and John Newton was God’s grace, evangelism, and worship. All this stems from remembering what you were before Jesus saved you and what you are now thanks to God’s great grace.

5) Study the Gospel- Here again Mahaney’s words shed light on the point. “Never be content with your current grasp of the gospel[9].” If God, who is infinite in His wisdom, wrote the gospel in word and action then there will always be more to learn about it. I remember the first time I learned about propitiation: the removal of God’s wrath from upon me by Jesus taking it on Himself. What a wonderful and glorious truth: that Jesus bore the wrath of God for me that I could know of His grace. There is always more to learn about the gospel. Take it upon yourself to learn the theological terms that are written into scripture: justification, redemption, propitiation, atonement, reconciliation, etc. Understanding the gospel more fully today than you did yesterday will require study. There are great books out there to help in this process as well, let me recommend some: The Cross Centered Life (of course), The Cross of Christ by John Stott, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ by John Owen, The Gospel According to Jesus and The Murder of Jesus by John MacArthur, The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper, and Authentic Gospel by Jeffery Wilson. But whatever you do, study the gospel as it is presented in the Gospels themselves, read through the gospel of John. John does a beautiful job of presenting Christ as the glorious Son of God, God incarnate, and savior of the world! But STUDY it don’t just read through it. Examine every word, what does it mean, why does Jesus say this, why did He do that. What is the theme of a specific chapter? Really read it!

Preach it!
All of these things can be summed up in one phrase, which Mahaney echoes from the words of both D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Jerry Bridges, “preach to yourself.” Tell yourself the truths of the gospel over and over again. Whether its through memorization of the gospel, singing the gospel, praying the gospel, or studying the gospel make sure you preach it to yourself! Don’t let it every slip from your mind! Bridges says it best when he says, “To preach to yourself means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life[10].”

This is living in the gospel. Dwelling on its truth from moment to moment, never letting it slip from our mind. Preaching to ourselves that we are sinful and without the wonderful, sufficient grace of God we will never accomplish anything. All things in the Christian life are made possible because of the cross of Christ. Don’t ever forget that truth!

[1] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2002). p. 75.
[2] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace. (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994). p. 46.
[3] Cross Centered Life. p. 75.
[4] Ibid. p. 22.
[5] Ibid. p. 47.
[6] Ibid. p. 54.
[7] Ibid. p. 56-57.
[8] As quoted in John Piper, Life as a Vapor. (Sisters: Multnomah, 2004). p. 89.
[9] Cross Centered Life. p. 67.
[10] The Discipline of Grace. p. 58.

A Position Paper on Total Inability

What can dead men do? The answer, of course, is that dead men can do nothing. When Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb, the work of bringing the dead back to life was wholly and act of God, not of Lazarus himself. Dead men don’t get up from the dead, well at least not of their own power. But some in the church today have professed that indeed dead men do act on their own behalf.

Dead is Dead
The apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in the church at Ephesus, said, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”[1](Ephesians 2:1-3). So here Paul tells us that sinners are “dead” in their trespasses and sins; and if physically dead men can’t make themselves physically alive, then spiritually dead men cannot make themselves spiritually alive. We are “dead” in our “trespasses and sins” without Christ! Regardless of whether it is physically dead or spiritually dead, dead is dead! There must be an outside force that causes us to be made alive, just like there was for Lazarus. The Arminian does not agree with us. He says that man is deathly ill, or sick, and if he does not take the medicine that God offers him, he will indeed die. “But,” says the Arminian, “he must ‘take’ that medicine!” But that is not what the apostle Paul said. God’s word does not say that men are deathly sick, ill, dying…but rather that man is dead! Dead men cannot reach out and take medicine, for they are already dead, lifeless! There is no medicine for dead men, only re-birth, new life, given by God. All men are sinners and so all men are spiritually dead without God’s working in them; this leaves us quite hopeless in our sinful state.

The Law of Morality
The law of morality states: “the morality of man must proceed the morality of the actions.”[2]So it is that men who are dead in their sins cannot do anything to make themselves acceptable to God. If it is God who takes us from spiritual death to spiritual life, the question must be asked why does He do that? Is it because we have done things that make us worthy of life? Can dead men, sinful men, please God? The answer is no. The apostle Paul again gives us a word on this matter.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Thos who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8)

Men in their sins cannot please God. This is not to say that men cannot do good deeds, but ultimately if their hearts are far from God no deed is good. The most evil men in all of history were not completely evil. Even Hitler didn’t kill his own mother. But regardless of whether you are Hitler or just an average sinner like me, you cannot do anything to please God. Why? “A moral act is to be judged by the standard of love to God.”[3] W.D. Smith wrote, “the good actions of unregenerate men are not positively sinful in themselves, but they are sinful from defect.”[4] So if all of the unregenerate man’s actions are sinful from defect how did they get that way?

I Didn’t Vote for that Guy
Why are all the actions of an un-saved person sinful? Because men are born in sin. “Behold I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). There were only two humans, ever, who were not sinful from the moment of their existence. The more obvious of the two is Jesus, who never sinned as man. The first however was Adam.
Adam was the first human; he was created by God and put in the Garden of Eden in a state of original uprightness. He was without sin, and was placed in a Garden that was without sin. So it is that God placed Adam and Eve there in the garden without any sin and gave them strict commands to tend the garden, and not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:16-17)

Adam was the representative of all humanity. His very name means “man” or “mankind”. He stands for us. So God tested Adam, gave him this command not to eat of the tree, and Adam failed. He ate. And when he did we all fell with him. When Adam sinned he sinned for all of humanity throughout all of time. Now you may complain that it is not fair, that you do not wish for Adam to have represented you. You may say, “I didn’t vote for that guy!” But there are many cases where those before us have made decisions that affect us and we did not get a vote. Your parents are a sort of representative of you. You did not get to choose them and yet if your parents are drunkards and gamblers that will play out in your life. If they are wealthy business people that will affect your life as well. So it is that Adam is our representative. Do not think either, that if you had been there you would have chosen differently.
Adam is our representative and his sin is our sin. His fall is our fall. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Sin came through one man to all of us. We are born in sin. Do you doubt this? Think for a moment about man’s punishment for sin. In Genesis 3:19 God declares that for his sin Adam will die. “From dust you came to dust you shall return.” So if death is the punishment for sin and yet some infants die without ever having done any good or bad we must conclude that they are born in sin, as we all are. And because we are born in sin none of us can love God, our hearts are fee to choose what they desire, but what they desire is only sin. We choose to follow what our hearts our most inclined to, and sinful men’s hearts are always most inclined to sin.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Conclusion
Well it does seem rather hopeless, doesn’t it? Man is sinful. He cannot change his sin any more than a leopard can change its spots (Jeremiah 13:23). We cannot please God; we cannot convince Him to save us because all that we do is sinful. Even the good deeds we do apart from love to God are sinful. Man cannot love God because he is born in sin and has no inclination towards God. But there is hope yet.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)



[1] All scripture, unless otherwise stated, comes from the English Standard Version (ESV).
[2] Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1932). p.69.
[3] Ibid.
[4] As quoted in Boettner. Ibid.

The Morning Star of the Reformation: A Brief Sketch of John Wycliffe

The morning star is the first sign of light, the pointer to the coming, rising, glorious dawn. The star is a testimony to light in the midst of darkness, and hope in the midst of despair. This title, “The Morning Star,” was given to the man John Wycliffe, for he was the pre-cursor to that amazing sunrise in Western history known as the Protestant Reformation. John Wycliffe was the Morning Star of the Reformation.

Young John was born into a wealthy family, probably in Yorkshire, England, somewhere around 1330. The exact date has been somewhat hard to identify. He first appears in history in the year 1356 as a junior fellow at Merton College; it is this date that leads most historians to calculate his birth at 1330. In schooling the boy would quickly excel to the top of his class and most expected great things from him, he would not disappoint.

The writings of William of Ockham were very influential in his early studies and through his comprehension of theology and metaphysics the young John won recognition in philosophy. By 1361 he would be made the Master of Biallol College, and according to A.S.N. Lane by 1370 he was Oxford’s foremost philosopher and theologian (753). Between 1365 and 1372 he wrote a comprehensive treatment of philosophy, and in 1362 the Pope, himself, granted Wycliffe a canonry and prebend, an honor reserved for only the most deserving graduates. While serving in this capacity Wycliffe began to develop some “radical” theological and sociological concepts. His first break with the accepted Orthodoxy of the Catholic Church was on the issue of Lordship.

In his work Civil Dominion the theologian began to expound upon this idea, suggesting that only the godly could rule. In this treatise he stated that because of the corruptions within the church the state had the right, and indeed duty, to take possession of ecclesiastical property. K.B. McFarlane suggests that had Wycliffe’s superiors given him a more substantial position in the church, with good pay, they could have easily shut him up forever. He writes, “It is possible to believe in Wycliffe’s absolute sincerity as a reformer while at the same time suspecting that a plum or two (and the church had many at their disposal) even as late as the early 1370s might have shut his mouth forever” (27). This, however, is purely speculative and requires a view of the reformer that is skeptical. There is no indication, especially from his earliest days as a brilliant thinker, that he was either shallow or a pushover.

The idea that Wycliffe proposed, while not being highly accepted by the church, found him great favor with the crown and in the early 70s he entered the royal service. The governmental structure in which Wycliffe served was, of course, monarchical, at least on the surface. Behind the scenes, however, there was a group of lay politicians who were manipulating the circumstances. The royal power was slowly diminishing, and this backdrop is crucial to understanding the development of Wycliffe’s reformation theory.

When Wycliffe had bee made Warden of Canterbury Hall, in 1365, it would not be a long stay. He was quickly expelled due to his status as a secular priest, which forbid him from being the Warden, since only a monk could fill that position at Canterbury Hall (a rule enforced by its founder: bishop Islip). This termination ended the theologian’s time at Oxford and subsequently he involved himself in the political realm, even joining the political party of John of Gaunt, the third son of the king. It was in this sphere of work that Wycliffe’s theology began to change and flourish. Johann Loserth states, “He had given study to the proceedings of Edward I. England’s most popular king, and had not only attributed to them the basis of parliamentary opposition to papal usurpations, but had found a model therein for methods of procedure in matters connected with the questions of worldly possessions and the Church” (455). It was through the development of his understanding of political work that Wycliffe would find the method for reforming the church.

The reformers first official “run-in” with the church came over the issue of a tribute to be paid by England to the Roman Catholic Church; a tribute that Pope Urban V had renewed. Wycliffe voiced a loud opposition to this tribute and the Parliament, in 1366, as well, refused to pay it. The papal claim for tribute was revised a few years later and in 1374 Wycliffe, with several others, was sent as a delegate to Bruges to discuss the matter with the Pope’s ambassador. This of course would be the least confrontational of all his disagreements with the Church.

His favor with the King grew steadily. One friend is quoted as having said that he had “the ‘house of Herod’ to guide him” (McFarlane, 63). Wycliffe, in 1374, referred to himself as “in a special sense the king’s clerk” (McFarlane, 63). This favor is most visibly displayed in the man’s appointment to the rector of Lutterworth in April of that same year. Though not quite yet passionate about reform, the following year at Lutterworth would be filled with a study of papal claims and followed by a series of articles and pamphlets against the practices and doctrines of “Romanism”. These works had a wide spreading and an almost immediate impact. Young men began flocking to Wycliffe for teaching and training; the morning star was beginning to twinkle.

The great fame that Wycliffe had is due in large part to the fact that his debates were brought before the public, the layman. The majority of his followers were educated laymen and some nobles; they were not theologians or ecclesiastics. By 1376 his teachings were being echoed in the sphere of the common man. So Loserth writes, “While he would at first have preferred to have these matters restricted in discussion to the classroom, he soon wanted them proclaimed from the very roof and would have temporal and spiritual lords take not of them” (457). Wycliffe saw corruption, self-indulgence, and materialism invading the “Bride of Christ”. He maligned the priests who stored up earthly possessions, and he boldly declared an opposition to the Church’s acceptance of this decadence. That stance alone would have made him favorable among the laity, but he followed up with a call to rectify these abuses. He was not merely complaining about his lack of these possessions, as some throughout history have suggested, but was clearly calling for a return to faithfulness to Scripture. Obedience to God’s written word was his desire.

Finally in 1377 the Church responded with a formal trial, or at least they tried. Wycliffe’s works from the mid to late 70s said a number of un-acceptable things; the most heretical being that king was above pope. On May 22 of this year Pope Gregory XI received a list of Wycliffe’s propositions, eighteen of which were condemned. The Papal bull did not find it’s way to England until the end of the year, but by mid November all were aware that Wycliffe was now officially a heretic. He was not immediately arrested, though the Church had made it clear that if Oxford withheld the rebel rouser they would lose many, if not all, of its privileges. McFarlane points out, with good humor, that though “He had the princes of the church against him does not, in fact, seem to have greatly troubled Wycliffe” (81). There were several attempts to put the man on trial but each time his patron, John of Gaunt, intervened on his behalf. John and his son Henry Percy were faithful protectors of their protégé. In the final stages of his life Wycliffe’s reform began to target not simply the abuses in the practice of the church, but the Church’s doctrines as well.

In 1378 he wrote a work in which he stated that the final authority in all things was not the pope, but Scripture. A.S.N. Lane states, “In…The Truth of Holy Scripture…he portrayed the Bible as the ultimate norm, by which the church, tradition, councils and even the pope must be tested. Scripture contains all that is necessary for salvation; there is no need for additional traditions” (753). It was this major conviction that eventually led the reformer to encourage a translation of the Bible into the modern English. The Word of God must not be only for the clergy, but for all man. Though he encouraged the translation there is doubt surrounding just how much Wycliffe himself was involved in that work. Nonetheless Wycliffe’s reforms had moved well beyond a mere declaration of corruption within the church. Now the reformer boldly proclaimed that it was the Church’s leaders, not he, who were the heretics.

Though his call for reform would not lead to any major changes to the Church his influence would be lasting. This first call paved the way for future protestations; specifically that of Luther’s and the Puritans. Martin Luther, in 1517, would be able to depend upon the work that Wycliffe had done nearly two centuries prior. When Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31 it was the subject of indulgences that initiated it. Wycliffe, however, had done his own writing on this subject. In his work On Indulgences he speaks to this issue.

I confess that the indulgences of the pope, if they are what they are said to be, are a manifest blasphemy, inasmuch as he claims a power to save men almost without limit, and not only to mitigate the penalties of those who have sinned, by granting them the aid of absolution and indulgences, that they may never come to purgatory, but to give command to the holy angels, that when the soul is separated from the body, they may carry it without delay to its everlasting rest…(Lindberg, 15).

His followers The Lollards, Wycliffe’s own evangelists, also helped prepare the way for the English Reformation in the time of the reign of King Henry VIII. Their work in distributing the Wycliffe Bible and by an engendering of general discontent with the Roman Church tilled the ground for the planting of the Reformation seeds. The man’s own personal writings would influence the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus as well.

The church’s final response came in 1428 when the dug up the bones of Wyclif and burned them to ash. Lane gives the following fitting quote from one later chronicler: “They burn his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighboring brook running hard by. Thus the brook conveyed his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. And so the ashes of Wyclif are symbolic of his doctrine, which is now spread throughout the world” (754). While it is the sad truth that his battle for reform did not bring about any great changes in his own life, it, like his ashes, in time, finally spread all the way to Christian Europe; and that “Morning Star” was a lamp unto the feet of those who came after him.

Works Cited:

Kenny, Anthony. Wyclif. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.
Lane, A.S.N. “John Wyclif.” Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. Ed. Timothy
Larsen. Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2003. 753-754.
Lindberg, Carter. The European Reformations. Malden: Blackwell, 1996.
_____________. The European Reformations Sourcebook. Malden: Blackwell, 2000.
Loserth, Johann. “John Wyclif.” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge. Ed. Samuel Jackson. XII. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977. 454-467.
McFarlane, K.B. John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Non-conformity. London:
English Universities Press, 1952.

The Abandonment of Christ: Christian Symbolism in Modernist Literature

“He is my cross and he will be my salvation” (Faulkner, 1755), these are the words spoken by the dying Addie to the young and religiously zealous Cora. These words are, of course, a reference to the cross of Christ, and to the salvation that He won for those who repent of sin and believe upon His substitutionary work. While the words are most definitely a reference to that Christian theology they are not the immediate reference in this context. Modernist literature, such as William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, uses a great deal of this Christian symbolism, but in a much less than orthodox manner. In their literature modernists have abandoned Christ in order to make a clear statement about the Christian religious system. Two works in particular that use this Christian imagery heavily to send an anti-Christian message are Faulkner’s work (mentioned above) and Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman. An analysis of their selected imagery compared with Biblical understandings of the Christ show that modernist literature aimed to do away with the notion of any divine, eternal salvation.

In Faulkner the message is abundantly clear. As Cora recounts the conversation she has had with Addie it become apparent that the older woman see no need for salvation. Cora begins by explaining that Addie had “never been pure religious, not even after that summer at the camp meeting when Brother Whitefield wrestled with her spirit, singled her out and strove with vanity in her mortal heart” (1754). This lack of pure religion in Addie gives rise to a misunderstanding of Christian theology on the subject of sin. Cora relates their conversation:
I said that because she took God’s love and her duty to Him too much as a matter of course, and such conduct is not pleasing to Him. I said, “He gave us the gift to raise our voices in His undying praise” because I said there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner than over a hundred that never sinned. And she said “My daily life is an acknowledgement and expiation of my sin” and I said “Who are you, to say, what is sin and what is not sin? It is the Lord’s part to judge; ours to praise His mercy and His holy name in hearing of our fellow mortals” because He alone can see into the heart, and just because a woman’s life is right in the sight of man, she can’t know if there is no sin in her heart without she opens her heart to the Lord and receives His grace. (1754)

In Orthodox Christianity, man’s sin problem can only be rectified by a righteous sacrifice that fully satisfies the justice of a holy God. This is why Christians teach that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to earth and died on a cross. His death bore the punishment that was meant for human kind. God in His justice must punish sin and Christians teach that He either punished a person’s individual sins when He poured out His wrath on Jesus or He will pour it out on those who have not repented and put their faith in Jesus Christ as savior. This, however, is not the theology of Addie.
Addie states that her life, not Jesus’ death, is the means of expiation for her sins. She has done away with the need for a savior, for an external righteousness, for a perfect sacrifice that meets God’s standards. Rather it is the burden of living the hard life that she has endured that makes her acceptable to God. Addie uses the word “expiation” which is a synonym for “penance” or “compensation”. She sees no need for a savior because she has lived a hard enough life, made an “atonement” (in a sense) through bearing this burden and is therefore no longer in debt to God. “Salvation” comes merely through enduring the “hard-life”. Christ has been abandoned.

Cora smugly states, “She has had a hard life, but so does every woman. But you’d think from the way she talked that she knew more about sin and salvation than the Lord God Himself, than them who have strove and labored with the sin in this human world” (1755). Perhaps this was exactly how Addie felt about it. Her theology certainly does not match up with the Biblical message. The full picture of Addie’s soteriology comes forth in her final words to Cora. “He is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me” (1755). This sounds like an Orthodox statement. To anyone listening to Addie it might sound like “sound biblical theology.” Cora, however, sees through the veneer of proper language to the message behind it. She soon realizes Addie “did not mean God. I realized that out of the vanity of her heart she had spoken sacrilege” (1755). Whom did Addie mean if not God? She had abandoned the Christ for another savior. While her hard life may have been an expiation from her sins she her speaks of Jewel as her identifiable savior.

That Jewel is here the savior of Addie can be clearly seen in two accounts within the text itself that fulfill the prophecy Addie here speaks of. (1) It is Jewel who saves Addie from the flood; he is the only one to remain on the wagon and driving the horse to shore (1749). (2) When the barn goes up in flames it is Jewel, again, who saves the coffin containing his dear mother (1775). Both of these instances reveal Jewel as the savior to which Addie refers. Again Christ is abandoned for a salvation from a child. Addie’s child is her source of salvation, and this salvation is, of course, altogether different than the salvation that Jesus Christ gives.
There is no heaven in this account, no eternal life. Faulkner’s tale reveals no need for a divine savior because there is no eternal salvation. Christ has been abandoned because, according to the modernist author, there is no need for Him. Nanci Kincaid, in her article As Me and Addie Lay Dying, has recognized many Christian references and the overall tone of mockery that Faulkner gives to the work concerning religion. She has, however, completely missed this one crucial scene of the Messiah Jewel, and in so doing left out an enormous argument for Faulkner’s criticizing Christianity.

Amiri Baraka approaches the subject of Christian theology from a different angle, one much darker. Nita Kumar writes, “To Clay Lula is a white bohemian; to Lula, Clay is a typical middleclass young black, eager to achieve success on the terms laid down by white America” (African American Review, 275). One feature of this work is its use of binary opposition. Kumar lists several of these opposites: “aesthetic/politics, black/white, individual/community, mask/face, and Europe/Africa” (273). The opposition between black and white is crucial, for Baraka will condemn Clay for his assimilation with white culture.
Despite what Kumar has tried to defend in her article The Logic of Retribution: Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman this is a work about a distinctive black identity. He is quite opposed to the notion of compromise, or, as Kumar puts it, “complex negotiations” (271) between black identity and white identity. The element of Christian theology comes into play in the particular role that Lula plays in this work. From the very earliest encounter readers have with this character she is representative of the Christian personage of Eve. Baraka sets the scene up for his readers with the following introduction to Lula:

Lula enters from the rear of the car in bright, skimpy summer clothes and sandals. She carries a net bag full of paper books, fruit, and other anonymous articles. She is wearing sunglasses, which she pushes up on her forehead from time to time. Lula is a tall, slender, beautiful woman with long red hair hanging straight down her back, wearing only loud lipstick in somebody’s good taste. She is eating an apple, very daintily. Coming down the car toward Clay. (Baraka, 5)

Within moments of their dialogue Lula is already tempting the innocent young lad with sexual fantasies. She states one peculiar thing that is relevant to this discussion, however. After touching Clay’s leg and trying to “excite” him she “she plunges [her hand]…in her bag to draw out an apple” and temptingly says to the boy, “Eating apples together is always the first step. Or walking up uninhabited Seventh Avenue in the twenties on weekends. Can get you involved…boy! Get us involved. Um-huh. Would you like to get involved with me, Mister Man” (11)? Women offering apples to men is, of course, most frequently associated with the Biblical character of Eve, who tempted her husband Adam with some fruit, which having been eaten brought about a transgression against a holy God. The two were banished from the Garden of Eden and, according to Christian theology, brought sin and death into the world. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

In considering how Baraka, like Faulkner, abandons the Christ as savior we must focus on the role that his “Eve” plays in the drama and how the Bible relates the real Eve’s sin with Jesus’ salvation. While the Christian New Testament concedes that it was Eve who first ate of the apple and led Adam to follow it places the brunt of the blame on Adam, not his wife. Original Sin, the contamination of all of humanity with a sin nature, is the result of “one man’s disobedience” (Romans 5:19). This is significant because a second Adam, Jesus Christ, rectifies the first Adam’s failure. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many are made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Baraka’s “Eve,” however, allows no room for the blame to be placed on her “Adam”. Clay is not simply tempted to transgress by Lula, he is violently murdered by her. It is a message of hopelessness.

After having stabbed Clay, Lula orders his dead body to be thrown out of the subway car and readers are left with a bleak feeling. The “Adam” figure in the work is dead, he has been killed by Eve and any hope of a second Adam to rectify the world is lost. In Dutchman it is clearly obvious that Lula is the one to bear all the blame. The work has no concern for Clay’s “sin,” whatever that might have been. He is of no consequence and therefore the entire Christian theme of the second Adam coming into the world to correct the mistakes of the first Adam is lost. Again readers see evidence for an abandoned Christ, an abandoned salvation. The despair of the play, the blackness, the void, the emptiness of the conclusion (leaving readers without any gratification or hope) point to a confession of its author. Speaking about the concept of the “black identity” Baraka said, “It was our intention to be hard and unyielding in our hatred because we felt that’s what we needed, to hate these devils with all our hearts, that would help in their defeat and our own liberation” (Kumar, 272). Kumar comments on this Black Nationalism that was driving Baraka with a keen observation that speaks to the focus of this paper.

These rejections of the white world, however, cannot simply be understood as realistic and attainable goals. In some cases they were inspired by the various struggles of independence being waged across Africa and Asia. There is, however, a crucial difference, since the African American could aspire to nationhood only in spirit, not material control of land. Therefore these gestures of rejection have to be seen primarily as ideological and rhetorical strategies for the empowerment of the community” (272).

One way to reject the white culture ideologically was to reject the predominate white culture, especially Southern, religion: Christianity, and in order to do just that Baraka knew where to start. Strike at the foundation of the whole system: abandon Christ.
While Faulkner and Baraka came from different worlds, different times, and struggled with completely differing issues they had this common feature: both were modernist writers who, like many of their contemporaries, saw no need for a savior Jesus Christ and therefore no need of the Christian impositions. Thus they aimed at displaying an abandonment of Christ in these two literary works.

Paradise and Society: The Middle Worlds of Rousseau and Golding

Plato, that ancient Greek philosopher who most influenced Western thought, believed that the way one came to a knowledge of the truth was through dialogue. In this context, then, community is important, socialization significant. In our own time former First Lady Hillary Clinton has written a book titled It Takes A Village, by which she means that the responsibility for raising children rests with an entire community. Even those of us, however, who would disagree with Mrs. Clinton do not, in general, believe that community is a bad thing. Most people agree that community is a healthy and important part of life. Jean Jacque-Rousseau, however, disagreed. In his work A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Rousseau asked the question “What is the natural state of man,” and in so doing postulated a theory about the role of society. In comparing his theory with that of William Golding’s, however, from his work Lord of the Flies, readers find that while the two authors do not agree they both accept a middle-ground between pure civilization and complete savagery, and this they call paradise.
Both authors begin with the savage man, that is man outside of the constraints and structure of civilization. Rousseau confronts the task of looking at the natural state of man head on. In the opening paragraphs of his work he deals with the preliminary question and wrestles with the difficulty of his assignment.
The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the necessity of returning to the state of nature, but none of them has reached it. Some have not hesitated to ascribe to man in that state the notion of just and unjust, or even that it was useful to him. Others have spoken of the natural right that everyone has to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they mean by “belonging.” Others started out by giving authority to the stronger over the weaker, and immediately brought about government, without giving any thought to the time that had to pass before the meaning of the words “authority” and “government” could exist among men. Finally, all of them, speaking continually of need, avarice, oppression, desires, and pride, have transferred to the state of nature the ideas they acquire in society. They spoke about savage man, and it was civil man they depicted. (Rousseau, 17)
The task appears somewhat daunting to the author but he is aware that he must make this his starting place. In raising questions about the role of society one must begin with an examination of what man is like outside of society. For Rousseau the man outside of society is closest to paradise. So he writes:
When I strip that being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received and of all the artificial faculties he could have acquired only through long progress; when I consider him, in a word, as he must have left the hands of nature, I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all. I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and thus all his needs are satisfied. (Rousseau, 19)
In this quote readers will be able to note elements of a paradise. The garden, or at least vegetation, imagery, the delight and satisfaction of that creature dwelling in it, and the peace all reflect the Genesis account. He continues, “When the earth is left to its natural fertility and covered with immense forests that were never mutilated by the axe, it offers storehouses and shelters at every step to animals of every species (Rousseau, 19),” and, “Let us conclude that, wandering in the forests, without industry, without speech, without dwelling, without war, without relationships, with no need for his fellow men, and correspondingly with no desire to do them harm, perhaps never even recognizing any of them individually, savage man, subject to few passions and self-sufficient, had only the sentiments and enlightenment appropriate to that state…(Rousseau, 41). Isaac Kramnick states, rather succinctly, “For Rousseau, men were naturally good, ‘noble savages,’ who were corrupted by civilization” (41).
In Lord of Flies William Golding finds man in his natural state not as one closest to paradise, but rather as violent and even “beastly”. Sociologist David P. Barash comments that the theme of this work is “An unruly, ingrained savagery, verging on bloodlust” (B19); this assessment is a bit extreme. John Fitzgerald and Johan Kayser, however, have interpreted this work as an illusion to the Egyptian Osiris myth. They summarize the myth as follows:
According to Plutarch, while reigning as king on earth, the god Osiris gave the Egyptians civilization by introducing laws, worship of gods, marriage, and agriculture. Before Osiris gave them agriculture the Egyptians had been savages and cannibals. Osiris’s brother, the daemon Set-Typhon, filled with envy and pride, sought to usurp his throne. Frustrated in this attempt to take his brother’s place, Typhon tricked Osiris and drowned him. Isis, the wife of Osiris, searched for the body, regained it and concealed it in the woods. Typhon, while hunting pig during a full moon, discovered and mutilated it. A war, punctuated with “terrible deeds” and “confusion,” ensued until Horus, son of Osiris, appears to have defeated Typhon. But as Plutarch notes, although “weakened and shattered [the] power of Typhon still gasps and struggles” (362E). (Fitzgerald and Kayser, 78)
Their research is helpful in the analysis it offers on Golding’s original state of man. The authors write, “Most importantly, an Osirian interpretation illuminates man’s fallen nature…” (79). When Golding speaks of man as savage there is no hint that he is a “noble savage,” as Rousseau would have it; rather man is depraved from within. The Osirian interpretation is interesting but even Fitzgerald and Kayser concede that “Lord of the Flies is a multilayered work and open to various interpretations” (Fitzgerald and Kayser, 78). That being said it is not necessary for this essay to examine it further; it is sufficient to say that their conclusions about Golding’s conviction of man’s inner wickedness is a keen observation.
Golding himself makes this point abundantly clear within the work. His character Simon identifies, at an early stage in the plot, that the beast that the children fear is actually themselves. When asked whether he believes in the beast or not Simon responds, “maybe it’s only us…We could be sort of…” (Golding, 89). He hesitates but the narrator fills in the thought, “Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.” As the plot unfolds further it becomes even more apparent that the “beast” is the innate corruption in the human heart.
Simon finally comes to a definite affirmation of this concept by means of a revelation. The head of a pig, which the boys have viciously slaughtered, impaled on a stick speaks to the young boy and explains what or who the beast is.
“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!” said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (Golding, 143).
When Simon goes to leave the head adds this stirring comment, “This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you’ll only meet me down there- so don’t try to escape!” Simon does indeed meet the beast face to face when he returns to the boys; their response to his appearance is to murder him. This is what happens, Golding argues, when we move further and further away from society, from civilization, and from sociability. Christina Perez Braid comments that “When Ralph asks, ‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?’ he raises one of the fundamental questions readers of Golding’s novel must consider” (237). Alongside this question comes a related one: “What causes someone to act “human,” “animal,” or “savage”?
For Golding it is man’s nature to be savage, for Rousseau it is civilization’s influence that causes him to become a criminal. Rousseau claims that the creation of law also made for the creation of crime; so he writes, “For according to the axiom of the wise Locke, where there is no property, there is no injury” (Rousseau, 50). This raises the question, however, of what would posses someone to offend newly laid laws if he did not already have a bent toward evil? If it was not in man’s nature to be “savage” why would the creation of laws compel him to break those laws? Golding’s answer is that it is within man’s own nature to commit crime and that the creation of laws is the only thing that keeps him from being as bad as he possibly could be. It appears that Lord of the Flies offers a criticism of Jean Jacque-Rousseau’s theory.
It is not, however, as though William Golding completely disagrees with the philosopher. The two authors do have one common agreement: civilization does not stand as the epitome of paradise. It has already been clearly stated that Rousseau sees civilization as the downfall of paradise, but Golding also testifies to the horrors of civilization.
Continually throughout the work the author reminds his readers that the civilized world, that is the world off the island, is in the midst of waging a war. The “Sign [that comes] down from the world of grown-ups” (Golding, 95) is evidence of a war. The author describes the scene in such a way that there is no room for ambiguity. He writes, “There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars. There was a speck above the island, a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs” (95). If the island, away from civilization, is becoming more savage and violent it is necessary to remind us that the civilized world offers only a more acceptable form of savagery. Paradise, however, can still be found in a sort of middle world.
For Golding that middle world is best displayed in Ralph’s democratic society. Here is a medium between Jack’s wild and animal-like tribe and the civilized warfare of the adult world. Ralph’s small society has two key leading figures with different roles; it is in these figures that readers find the basis for the middle-world.
Both Ralph and Piggy represent two facets of civilization that are necessary for creating this paradise. Ralph is the representation of morality and hope. His belief that his father will rescue the boys repeatedly gives rise to hope in the boys. Fitzgerald and Kayser quote the author himself having said that Ralph is “the average rather more than average, man of goodwill and commonsense” (81). Meanwhile Piggy represents the logical, scientific, rational thinking figure.
After arriving on the island, Ralph does not know how he got there. The opening conversation makes it pellucid that Piggy does. Although Ralph discovers the conch, Piggy knows what it is and how to use it. But perhaps, most important of all, Piggy sees the need for a meeting. Once the boys are gathered, Piggy “moved among the crowd asking names and frowning to remember them” (p. 17). Not Ralph, but Piggy knows the importance of assemblies. Piggy can, for these reasons, be deemed the true founder of the parliamentarian society created by the assembly. At the start of the novel, the narrator states, “what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy” (p. 21). (Fitzgerald and Kayser, 80).
It is the combining of these two qualities, the hopeful (dare we call it religious) and the rational that Golding sees as the foundation of the paradisiacal state, not the absence of reason as Rousseau attests, nor the commitment to reason alone. Both men seem to be, in someway, distancing themselves from the work of the Enlightenment, which hailed Reason as god.
Rousseau fought against the Enlightenment tendencies in a different manner. He articulated the same things Golding here articulates: that human civilization is no paradise. He did not, however, agree with the natural corruption of man’s heart. Isaac Kramnick writes, “Fame came to Rousseau in the early 1750s, with the Discourse on Arts and Sciences and the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, both of which rejected the central creed of the Enlightenment, its belief in progress fueled by reason, science and commerce” (41). Concerning the divergent paths of Golding and Rousseau Fitzgerald and Kayser remark, “The foregoing interpretation of the Osirian myth loosely resembles the view of man advanced by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, and obliquely attacked by Jean Jacque-Roussea in Discours sur I’origine de I’inegalite. Man is a fallen creature, destined to prey upon his kind, because he is vain” (85). Rousseau’s criticisms of Hobbes are, indirectly, a criticism of Lord of the Flies.
Despite their differences, however, both articulated a paradise between savagery and civilization. For Rousseau this paradisiacal state comes after the development of language but before the corruption of a full-blown society is in place. So he writes:
But it must be noted that society in its beginning stages and the relations already established among men required in them qualities different from those they derived from their primitive constitution; that, with morality beginning to be introduced into human actions, and everyone, prior to the existence of laws, being sole judge and avenger of the offenses he had received, the goodness appropriate to the pure state of nature was no longer what was appropriate to an emerging society; that it was necessary for punishment to become more severe in proportion as the occasions for giving offense became more frequent; and it remained for the fear of vengeance to take the place of the deterrent character of laws. Hence although men had become less forbearing, and although natural pity had already undergone some alteration, this period of the development of human faculties, maintaining a middle position between the indolence of our primitive state and the petulant activity of our egocentrism, must have been the happiest and most durable epoch. The more one reflects on it, the more one finds that this state was the least subject to upheavals and the best for man, and that he must have left it only by virtue of some fatal chance happening that, for the common good, ought never have happened. (Rousseau, 50).
Here Rousseau argues that an existence between laziness and ill-temperedness, the state we were in just post language development, was the best state of our existence. This state, however, cannot last. For the author of that quote, once you have begun to build up a society you cannot prevent the progression toward a full-blown civilization. “As soon as one man needed the help of another, as soon as one man realized that it was useful for a single individual to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property came into existence, labor became necessary” (Rousseau, 51). He continues by saying, “Things in this state could have remained equal, if talents had been equal, and if the use of iron and the consumption of foodstuffs had always been in precise balance. But this proportion, which was not maintained by anything, was soon broken” (53). As with the loss of the traditional paradise, in the Garden of Eden, so Rousseau sees a transgression occurring in the loss of this paradise of isolation: egocentrism.
Golding too sees a transgression occurring in the loss of his paradisiacal middle-world. Frank Field noted this when he wrote:
“William Golding showed in Lord of the Flies how fragile civilized behavior can be. Away from parents, schools and police, the boys at first change their established patterns of behavior only in small and almost imperceptible ways, but then descend at alarming speed into mayhem and finally murder. Early in the novel, Ralph, the boys’ natural leader, shouts at Jack, his rival, that he is breaking the rules. “Who cares?” Jack replies nonchalantly. Ralph then delivers a great truth for our age. Rules are crucial, he says, because they are “the only things we have got.” (Field, 42)
The speed of the transgression isn’t nearly as astounding as is the degree to which even Ralph himself goes in the degeneracy. “Damning to the interpretation that Ralph is the reasonable character,” write Fitzgerald and Kayser, “is his attraction to the seductions of hunting, fierce exhilaration, and ambition.” They continue:
“In the incident where Ralph almost maims Robert in ecstasy of a pig killing ritual, he was ‘Carried away by a sudden thick excitement’ and overmastered by a ‘desire to squeeze and hurt’ (p. 104). More damning is his participation in yet another pig killing ritual: the murder of Simon” (81).
Even Ralph succumbs to the temptation to be violent. The major transgression comes, however, from the boys desire to be rescued. They want to leave paradise and return to the world of the adults; thus it is quite appropriate that their rescuer was a naval captain (another reminder of the civilized savagery of the adult world).
From reading both of these works readers note an all to common assertion, paradise is rather short lived. As with the biblical account of paradise so all paradises end due to some transgression. Concerning the role of sociability in paradise both Rousseau and Golding seem to suggest that it is limited. Their creation of middle-worlds, containing both elements of the “natural state” and the created society, direct the reader’s attention to a narrow function of sociability. While Rousseau contradicts himself by suggesting society is purely evil, and then using it in a limited fashion to develop a post-lapsarian paradise, Golding re-affirms all that he says within his novel. Humanity is depraved from within, not corrupted from without, and even in civilization that depravity seeps out in culturally acceptable ways. The reason, according to Golding, is that while society stands for logic, logic is not sufficient to stem our immoral natures. By combining both Ralph and Piggy, and, as Kayser and Fitzgerald suggest, Piggy and Simon, Golding presents paradise as a middle-world where both the religious and the rational must co-exist.