Late Notes
There are evident gaps, misfits, in "intelligent design," many have observed recently: one is the old problematic urges, as in Genesis—of spirit and/or flesh—persisting despite diminishing means in an aging person, making for a familiar repeated human trial. "The awful grace of God" (Aeschylus), in time, settles that, either through resignation and wisdom or death. Plus ça change...
A splendid Christian clergyman, warmly friendly and ecumenical, nevertheless invoked Jesus's "No one comes to the Father but through me." I questioned, "What of Anne Frank?"—and so many other innocents over the ages, including Abraham and Moses left in a limbo of non-salvation, as Dante described it. But I decided not to press my point, though I reflected that I, and Anne herself, did not deny the salvation of Christians and puzzled about the evident unfairness, which worried even Saint Bernard, Dante's model.
There was no practical problem with my Protestant friend, whose heart was clearly in the right place. Rather, he seemed caught in a familiar dilemma of logic, as in the ancient one-many problem Plato and Aristotle wrestled with (or Zeno's continuity-discontinuity). But Abraham on Mount Moriah (pivoting arationally from purity to on-going life and mercy) and Jesus himself, varyingly, showed greater "tolerance of ambiguity," as when he both praised the Commandments and moved beyond them, and said to the adultress: "Neither do I condemn thee." Paul exemplified the dilemma in his pervasive utter faith in the new covenant and yet sustained belief in a monotheistic God who in the end of time would be "all in all" subsuming the Son.
Every honest and sensitive Christian must know this dilemma: Dante himself could hail "the God of Israel" as Jesus had done again and again, humbling himself.
If Christians can handle the one-many mystery of the Trinity internally, they should have no real trouble with the (single) old God-new (Trinitarian) one. The Hebrews too had such problems with the persistence of pagan idols (e.g. Rachel's teraphim) and in other familiar modes such as "graven images."
Why should a fine working pastor, let alone his flock, bog down in such abstruse matters, more suitable for a rather useless old intellectual raised in the modern "absurd"?
We may feel an advantage of sophistication momentarily—ah, but our whole privileged and arrogant era is atoning for that!
Indeed, a sort of long-range Yom Kippur mood—or full "crackup" à la Fitzgerald or Tolstoy—overtakes old writers and proud folks, generally (e.g. glamorous Hollywood celebrities), and always have, as the Bible warns. And now, there is a visible public version of that afflicting hyper-privileged folks like media personalities (too brilliant, loquacious, famous, rich, puffed-up) and aggravating the sense of come-uppance in the naturally self-important intellectuals, who like canaries in mines, begin kvetching about the imminent catastrophe. So we see a smart and impressive David Brooks clutching his head and crumbling into vulgar, abject finger-pointing at the higher-ups in a way not entirely different from the radical Muslim imams blaming the Zionists for 9/11 and the Asian tsunami!
"To be sure, the whole world's mad" (Richard Wilbur, "Mined Country"). Well, let's not exaggerate; let's say, rather, with Swift, "the rot starts at the top" and cheer the child-heart-warming red fire truck with a happy load of folks, clanging its bell rousingly as it ran through our small-town streets, flying Old Glory up front.
My good wife told me my new insistence on the need for humility, personal and general, was "boring." I saw her point and thought about it. When I answered that she had less need of it, she had to agree. It was obvious to both of us.