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No Exit: Theism is not for the Fearful (Hamlet 2/3)

No Exit: Theism is not for the Fearful (Hamlet 2/3)

Last updated on: April 26, 2016 at 7:26 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

No Exit: Theism is not for the Fearful (Hamlet 2/3) 2016-04-26T19:26:51-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Alexander_Roinashvili_opt There is no escape from this life, what we have done, and the person we become. Those are facts and the sooner we start to deal with them, the happier we shall be. This will come as bad news to many, I am sure I don’t like it (at first.)

Atheists sometimes claim that theists adopt belief in God out of fear of death. Somebody may have done this, but as CS Lewis pointed out in Surprised by Joy, many fewer than one might think. Why?

Belief in God is only comforting if God is good. Forget the polytheistic “gods” of ancient times . . .they have nothing in common with the God of the philosophers other than the English name “god.” They are super heroes . . . blown up men and they could exist or not exist without saying anything about the existence of God. Unicorns and rhinoceroses are animals with a single prominent horn, but unicorns do not exist and rhinos do.

If we assume God is good and just, then we have a second problem: we are not good and just. Why would God “love” us and tolerate our errors? Forget the ones we cannot help (assume most of our “sins” are like this kind) and look at what we do choose to do that we know is cold, curt, or cruel. It isn’t as if our good deeds can simply outweigh the bad ones and so get us into God’s good graces. Instead, if God exists, then He is a perfect being with no stain of evil. He simply cannot tolerate a blemish in Paradise because such a mark would be horrific.

If we close a giant pool for a bit of poo, imagine what our stench would do to the high courts of Heaven. There is something rotten in our character and Heaven is scent sensitive to the least whiff of injustice or corruption.

Life can grow, as one grandparent put it, tedious. We long to escape our troubles and who could blame us? Many of the burdens we bear are not of our making. Why not quit? Shakespeare, a Christian wise man, understood the temptation to quit and his tragic hero Hamlet wonders about finding the exit stage life.

Hamlet says:

To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die- to sleep.
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 1760
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry 1780
And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb’red.

This is a passage so well known that even starting the soliloquy can be a nightmare for an actor . . . as a recent experiment with an actual Prince showed.

Hamlet is unsure what to do, tormented by his family, and overloaded with guilt. He would gladly kill himself, but two considerations stand in his way. What is on the other side of death? What if the dreams that come are worse than the real life Hamlet is fleeing? Second, Hamlet has a conscience that makes him cowardly. Christians believe suicide is a serious sin because there is no chance to repent. A dead man can be sorry, but is out of time to make amends. As a result, Hamlet is stuck with life.

If God cares about our suicide, then we should not kill ourselves. If God does not care, then God is uncaring and the potential afterlife is too potentially frightening. The belief that it cannot “get worse” is foolish. Achilles is a gibbering shade in Hades who manages to communicate this message to a visitor to Hades: any life on Earth is better than what he experiences. Remember: the Greek Hades is not nearly so loathsome as Hell. If you believe in the probability of an afterlife, then the day of death is a day of doom.

This is also true for a Christian. We think we are right and that God is love. We affirm, reasonably, that He will accept us into Paradise. Yet only a saint or a fool has total confidence when facing the final challenge. Biblical faith is a rational and experiential belief in the truth of something uncertain. When a man faces the undiscovered country, he wishes for certainty, but no certainty is available.

Is there a God?

If so, is God good?

If there is a God, is there an afterlife?

If so, is it good?

Will it be good for me?

God revealed His existence and the answer to these questions in Jesus. We believe, but someday our belief will face the ultimate test. This should concentrate our minds wonderfully.

—————————————-

William Shakespeare went to God four hundred years ago. To recollect his death, I am writing a personal reflection on a few of his plays. The Winter’s Tale started things off, followed by As You Like It. Romeo and Juliet still matter, Lady Macbeth rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V is a hero. Richard II shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily. Coriolanus reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility. Our life can be joyful if we realize that it is, at best, A Comedy of Errors. Hamlet needs to know himself better and talks to himself less. He is stuck with himself so he had better make his peace with God quickly.

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