In 1969—what some consider the high-watermark of modernism --sociologist Peter Berger wrote, “we have come a long way from the gods and from the angels. The breaches of this-worldly reality which these mighty figures embodied have increasingly vanished from our consciousness as serious possibilities.” But not yet entirely, Berger allowed. He went on to tell of a priest working in the slums of a European city who was asked why he continued to work in such a place. The priest gave the answer: “So that the rumor of God may not disappear completely.” Of course, one might argue this rumor of the supernatural was one of the worst-kept secrets of the modern age. In fact, the observations of supernaturalists like Waugh, Greene, and Percy amount ultimately to a very simple conclusion: God is there, and He is not silent.
This simple statement of dogma carries with it a malicious whisper, though: if God is there, if He is not silent, what will He say concerning our modern project? He has cast down towers before. He has babbled tongues and afflicted kings with plagues, madness, and worms of the stomach. Apparently, He is a God who works His judgment in life as well as death. Is there cause to fear? Will we be judged?
The first response to this is, Hasn’t the judgment has already begun? In the book of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher describes the death of man as a quiet passing into meaningless and impotency. “Desire fails,” and mourners wander about the streets (12:5). A handful of dust returns to the earth as it was (v. 7), and all the projects of man become a vanity (v. 8). In the end, every work will be brought into judgment (v. 14), and those who failed to fear God will receive the worse end of things.
Of course, divine judgment sometimes comes in the form of Gomorran fire and brimstone. But for sins of pride, madness can be a worse punishment than brimstone. Catastrophe might be interpreted by the sinner as validation of his own importance, even as the fire rains down from heaven. Madness cannot be misused in the same way; it is the ultimate mockery of the sin of pride. Madness is fragmentation and isolation. It induces paranoia and pursuit of goals no sane man would contemplate. And ultimately, madness is the removal of human language and—by effect—community. When the nations gathered under Nimrod, their project was ruined by the dispersal of language. When Nebuchadnezzar boasted to heaven of his majesty, God drove him “from among men” (Daniel 4:32). In his madness, Nebuchadnezzar identified himself with beasts, eating like them, dwelling with them, and even adorning himself after their manner. (vv. 32-3). Of course, our own modern madness reminds us we are only beasts as well. We just happen to be talking beasts—a species which science was supposed to have proven doesn’t exist.
All this is merely to suggest that while we might expect a divine judgment to be loud and violent, just as Dr. Tom More assumed in Love Among the Ruins, sometimes God lets pride devolve into self-parody. Hellfire isn’t necessary if the madman is already eating and sleeping with beasts. Babel isn’t necessary if we have already destroyed our language. Dispersion and exile aren’t necessary if we have already retreated from human community and into our own individualistic virtual world.
With the exit of language and community, we also lose human feeling and pleasure. Pleasure brings only pain after all, said Nina Blount. Maurice Bendrix agreed, but pursued it anyway as a means to punish God for his alleged nonexistence. And Dr. More hoped to find pleasure again by means of science, and instead invited a minor apocalypse into his backyard.
Of course, at this point the sane among us might wonder whether the Catholic misanthropes reviewed here left any room for hope. If all is vanity, really, what hope is there for anything?
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes follows his dour pronouncement that all is vanity with the ironic explanation his whole purpose was “to find words of delight” (12:11). One wonders whether at first whether the Preacher is indulging in one last satirical gesture meant to drive his reader to distraction. Words of delight? If all the projects of man end in vanity, what is there to delight in? Is pleasure cannot be found, what is there to rejoice about?
Perhaps nothing, if we have no reason to fear God, angels, demons, or the Devil.
The Reintroduction of God
The great ironic conclusion of the Preacher’s message comes in verse 13: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” The argument of the modernist has been that it is this fear of God which has inhibited man from indulging in his pleasures. But here, the final command is to fear God, knowing that He “will bring every deed into judgment” (v. 14). It is this acknowledgement which allows the God-fearer to hear the message: “God has already approved what you do.” Therefore:
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart….. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going (9:7-10).
This introduction of purpose comes from the simple pleasures which God gives to His children. Pleasure can be found—as Dr. More learned—in good drink and food, in an orderly home, and while seducing one’s lusty Presbyterian wife. These things have meaning precisely because one fears God’s judgment. Those who flee judgment will receive it; those who accept it will discover what Peter Berger calls “the comic relief of redemption,” which “makes it possible for us to laugh and to play with a new fullness.” Modern man, by refusing to acknowledge the presence of God and His judgment, has progressively killed off his senses. He blinds himself to the glory of God in nature; he is deaf to God’s Word; he refuses to taste God’s goodness at His table. Recognizing the supernatural is therefore not a limiting belief, but one which broadens our minds. There is more between heaven and earth, as the saying goes. Because of this, Berger argues, “A rediscovery of the supernatural will be, above all, a regaining of openness in our perception of reality. It will not only be…an overcoming of tragedy. Perhaps more importantly it will be an overcoming of triviality.” If the rumor of angels turns out to be true, it would be ignorance to continue to deny it. The Christian conception of the world contains angels and demons, witches and monsters, miracles of belief and judgments of unbelief. It is a world of signs—a world “in which the visible reality contains many signs of the invisible presence of God.” He has scattered pieces of His glory throughout the world, while He “plays a vast game of hide-and-seek with mankind … [leaving] more than a few hints as to where He is hiding.” Perhaps Binx Bolling was wrong after all: God is still speaking through signs. We’re just too blind to see them and too busy plugging our ears to heaven to hear His voice. We are like Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. Having been shamed by love, we reject fellowship and withdraw into a sterile communion-less existence.
Leave us to ourselves, without a book, and we’ll immediately get confused, lost—we won’t know what to join, what to hold to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. It’s a burden for us even to be men—men with real, our own bodies and blood; we’re ashamed of it, we consider it a disgrace, and keep trying to be some unprecedented omni-men. We’re stillborn, and have long ceased to be born of living fathers, and we like this more and more.
If this madness isn’t the judgment of God, what is?
