Willed Ignorance

     We’re very near to the end of Ordinary Time in the Church liturgical year. Next Sunday will be the feast of Christ the King. After that begins the Advent season, when Christians prepare themselves to commemorate the birth of the Son of God in mortal flesh.

     In a way, the birth of Christ as a mortal is the “beginning of things.” It was the event that initiated the Christian Era, which could not begin until He had come among us. So it’s balanced by the Gospel’s teachings of the end of things, such as in this passage from Mark:

     But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
     And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
     And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
     Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
     Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
     But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

     [Mark 13:24-32]

     The end will come… but we are not to know the day nor the hour until that day and that hour are upon us. And so a cry rises, as in this passage from Fran: “Great God in heaven, if I won’t know when it’s coming until it’s here, how am I supposed to prepare for it?”

     It’s one of the key questions of the Christian life.

     God the Father, who knows all things from a perspective impossible for mortals to fathom, also knows when He’s going to pull the plug on us. If it were His will, He could give us the date. So it must be His will that we don’t know – that we can’t know. But given that it will be the end for all of us and everything else as well, why would He want us to be ignorant about it?

     It’s a great question. My conjecture is that in this case, ignorance is good for us. At least, it’s better than foreknowledge would be. The same is true for our inability to know when we’ll die.

     Life is a gift. But life can end without warning. Therefore, every instant of life is a gift: an opportunity to grow, to become more and better than we are. God has forbidden us to force an end to that gift. We are required to ride it out, regardless of loss, pain, or sorrow, to its natural end.

     And we’re expected to make the best possible use of it.

     Too much foreknowledge would impede the proper appreciation and exploitation of the gift. We’re allowed to learn some things, such as the laws of physics, the immutable aspects of human nature, and the folly of drawing to an inside straight. That sort of knowledge allows us a degree of mastery over our world and our individual situations. But it’s strictly preparatory. It renders us able to do what we’re made for.

     One who believes in an afterlife whose quality will depend upon how we conduct ourselves in this life is expected to “live right” all the time. That’s the premise of Christian faith: if we truly believe what Christ taught us, we’re expected to be good throughout our lives. Foreknowledge of the end would encourage a quite different mindset: “I still have time. I’ll repent and reform before I die.”

     Even Saint Augustine felt that temptation: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” He was certain he would have time, and he wanted to get just a little more sinning done before the end. (Saint Monica’s reaction to that attitude of her son’s has gone unrecorded.) Far better that we not know – and that we prepare continuously for that which we know must come, even if we don’t know when:

     “The unknown,” said Faxe’s soft voice in the forest, “the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion…. Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”
     “That we shall die.”
     “Yes. There’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer. . . . The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

     [Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness]

     Not knowing is our spur to living a good life, from end to end.

     The same sort of logic applies to the end of time. If we could be sure of the day and the hour, human life would be incredibly different from the way it is now. Of course, if it were comfortably distant, we’d never think about it. But apparently God wants us to think about it, and about what will happen on that day, or He wouldn’t have had His Son tell us what to expect.

     The Sun could go nova at any instant. We’d find out it had done so roughly eight minutes later, as the explosion burned us to dust. We couldn’t do a thing about it if we knew beforehand, so why worry? Live your best life, and live it now.

     Of course, there will always be those who can’t help but worry:

     “And so,” the astrophysics professor intoned portentously, “we know that the Sun will explode in seven billion years.”
     A student in the third row leaped to his feet, screamed “Oh no!” and fainted dead away. Those around him strove to resuscitate him. The professor looked on, puzzled.
     When the young man had revived, the professor asked him, “Why did is upset you so to hear that the Sun will explode in seven billion years?”
     They young man’s eyes widened as he signed in relief: “Seven billion years? Thank God! I thought you said seven million years.”

     And may God bless and keep you all!