THE TRAGIC CASE FOR CHRIST
by Joe Heschmeyer
We cannot make ourselves angels, and we don't have to be beasts. We can be Saints instead.
I. AN ANATOMY OF TRAGEDY
Man knows two things: how things are (the World), and how they should be (the Ideal). I don't mean that he knows these things perfectly, or that every man completely agrees with every other man about what is or what ought to be. But everyone has some sense of these two things, and tragedy – all tragedy – can be traced to the chasm between the two. Together, these two observations form a single insight: things are not as they should be. The larger the gap between these two things, the greater the tragedy.
It is necessary to know both of these things – the World and the Ideal – to experience tragedy. There could be no experience of tragedy if everything were how it ought to be, or if we had no sense that things ought to be other than they were. Neither the beast in the field nor the angel in Paradise feels the anguish of tragedy. But man, in this “valley of tears,” does feel it, because he sees that things are not as they should be. He is like the beast, but without the tragic ignorance; like the angel, but without Paradise.
This is not just a truth about the external world. It's also a moral assessment of man, and a damning one. You know how you have acted, and you know how you ought to have acted. It's here that we encounter some of life's deepest tragedies. Worse yet is the twofold recognition that you're 1) even now not living the way that you know you should, and 2) not able to be the man that you know you ought to be.
II. THE FOUR POSSIBLE REMEDIES
If the entire drama of human tragedy is this war between how things are and how they should be, between the World and the Ideal, how can we be freed? Left to our own devices, we are faced with only four options: overturn the World, abandon the Ideal, both, or neither.
..............
Read more: www.wordonfire.org
We cannot make ourselves angels, and we don't have to be beasts. We can be Saints instead.
I. AN ANATOMY OF TRAGEDY
Man knows two things: how things are (the World), and how they should be (the Ideal). I don't mean that he knows these things perfectly, or that every man completely agrees with every other man about what is or what ought to be. But everyone has some sense of these two things, and tragedy – all tragedy – can be traced to the chasm between the two. Together, these two observations form a single insight: things are not as they should be. The larger the gap between these two things, the greater the tragedy.
It is necessary to know both of these things – the World and the Ideal – to experience tragedy. There could be no experience of tragedy if everything were how it ought to be, or if we had no sense that things ought to be other than they were. Neither the beast in the field nor the angel in Paradise feels the anguish of tragedy. But man, in this “valley of tears,” does feel it, because he sees that things are not as they should be. He is like the beast, but without the tragic ignorance; like the angel, but without Paradise.
This is not just a truth about the external world. It's also a moral assessment of man, and a damning one. You know how you have acted, and you know how you ought to have acted. It's here that we encounter some of life's deepest tragedies. Worse yet is the twofold recognition that you're 1) even now not living the way that you know you should, and 2) not able to be the man that you know you ought to be.
II. THE FOUR POSSIBLE REMEDIES
If the entire drama of human tragedy is this war between how things are and how they should be, between the World and the Ideal, how can we be freed? Left to our own devices, we are faced with only four options: overturn the World, abandon the Ideal, both, or neither.
..............
Read more: www.wordonfire.org
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