The birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe* of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of incarnation.
This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'.
There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits.
For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of primary art, that is, of Creation.
To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.
From the Epilogue to On Fairy Stories by JRR Tolkien
Until a person has understood in his heart the validity of what Tolkien wrote above with no tale ever told that men would rather find was true; he has not understood Christianity - and does not know what he rejects, or accepts.
*A sudden and favourable resolution of events in a story; a happy ending
3 comments:
It may depend somewhat on the man, but a great many would rather find out that the truth was they had never truly sinned or fallen short in virtue and thus needed no redemption or salvation from a higher and more perfect being.
However despicable this desire to find out such a thing of oneself might appear from without, there are always some who contrive to hide the contemptible (because contemptuous) nature of this pursuit from themselves. There are even many who suppose the example of Christ to be applicable as a proof of the possibility of their own innocent and unstained perfection.
Ultimately, what matters is not what we would rather find out to be true but what is actually possible to discover as genuinely consistent truth.
@CCL - "a great many would rather find out that the truth was they had never truly sinned or fallen short in virtue and thus needed no redemption or salvation from a higher and more perfect being."
I agree that many would and do choose that - and which absolutely self-excludes a person from the heavenly family because it means, implicitly, that 'I am fine, the world is fine, I have everything I need as things are - and for eternity'. Clearly, Heaven has nothing to offer such a person.
However, in reality, almost all such persons actually want to change things in many ways, in line with their own wishes ('I am fine, but the world needs changing, and I'm the Man to do it'): and this is the sin of Pride.
Indeed, it is commonplace that most of the evil in the world is done by those who are seeking to 'fix' the errors of others without considering their own.
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