The Satisfactions and Merits of Christ - Essay Example

The Crisis of Redemption According to the Catholic dictionary, the term ‘redemption’ refers to “the restoration of man from the bondage of sin to the liberty of the children of God through the satisfactions and merits of Christ” (Sollier, 1911). This definition makes several requirements before a man can be redeemed. First, he must somehow overcome the normal sins of man and he must do this through attaining the blessing of Christ. According to theology, it is only through acceptance by Christ that man’s natural sinful state, which has caused him to lose a great deal of his supernatural power, can be shifted sufficiently enough that he might win God’s acceptance and mercy. Anyone failing to work through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is therefore determined to be destined for hell, simply because he did not work through the accepted channels. This assumption has been heavily questioned by the intelligentsia of various ages, though, as the directives in the Bible and the legends proposed by the Catholic Church continued to be at cross-purposes to themselves and as science and technology provided more concrete and reliable solutions to age-old problems in other arenas. This form of questioning the true nature of redemption can be found at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epic poem Faust as well as in the twentieth century with T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. Goethe’s poem was published in two parts, the first appearing in 1808 and the sequel not being completed until just before the poet’s death in 1832. While there have been many interpretations of the basic storyline over time, including several circulating well before Goethe adopted it, Goethe’s Faust is presented as a character seeking fulfillment in terms of finding absolute truth and the meaning of existence as opposed to the more typical representation of a self-absorbed scholar interested only in increasing his own power. While Goethe’s character retains the sense of the dissatisfied scholar, he also demonstrates the higher existential longings of the new age of science and intellectualism. His dissatisfaction is illustrated upon his first introduction in the poem: “I have, alas! Philosophy, / Medicine, Jurisprudence too, / And to my cost Theology, / With ardent labour, studied through. / And here I stand, with all my lore, / Poor feel, no wiser than before.” While he has spent his life educating himself and others in every possible field of knowledge, Faust still finds he is no wiser than before regarding the Universal Truth at the heart of all things. That this is what he seeks is revealed further in the same initial speech. Looking upon the sign of the Macrocosmos, he describes all that he sees but then rejects it: “A wondrous show! But ah! a show alone! / Where shall I grasp thee, infinite nature, where?” The Catholic religion would suggest that the only place in which Faust may find the peaceful knowledge he seeks is within the church through acceptance of Jesus Christ as his savior, yet Faust is not able to abandon himself to such faith untested. As he becomes lost in admiration of Margaret, Faust begins to forget, if only for a moment, that his good fortunes are brought about through his association with the devil. When she asks about his religious beliefs, “How thy religion fares, I fain would hear. / Thou art a good kind-hearted man, / Only that way not well-disposed, I fear”, he suggests she is enough religion for him to believe in as a means of saving his soul. Through her questioning, Faust is forced to admit that he does believe in something larger and most beneficial to human beings, “Then call it, what thou wilt, - / Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! Got I / I have no name for it! / ‘Tis feeling all; / Name is but sound and smoke / Shrouding the glow of heaven.” While he will not admit that he believes in God as such, he cannot deny that he recognizes that there is something greater and better that he cannot quite understand. Although Margaret recognizes that he sounds much like the clergyman, she cannot accept the idea that he might find redemption simply because he will not proclaim himself a Christian, thus directly addressing the great question whether redemption is only available through the Christian church or if there are more ways into Heaven than the narrow form of Jesus. Margaret’s complete destruction because of her association with Faust is telling in that society could not accept this idea, yet her own redemption suggests that the church is not the final authority regarding such matters. Although he has committed innumerable crimes against the church, consorted with demons and witches and has destroyed the woman he once loved, Faust is also able to eventually find redemption. He does this not by a remorseful return to the church, as was assumed, but instead through his own realization of how he should have used his knowledge to bring about the betterment of mankind. Through the disastrous end of his son by Helen of Troy, Faust realizes that all of his science and knowledge have come to no meaningful end. This realization leads to the conclusion that knowledge should be used to inspire others to create a more prosperous and happy country; that knowledge and hard work combined into a unified objective can create a paradise on earth. Thus, although he never repents of his rejection of the church or accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, Faust is redeemed in the eyes of God because he earnestly sought a good and noble truth and, although he was not able to implement it, finally discovered his God-given purpose. Goethe’s audience was living in a time of tremendous social change, a time when society was becoming increasingly fragmented even as it saw tremendous growth in art and expression. Rather than concentrating so much on religious matters as had been done in the past, people were looking more and more for fulfillment within themselves and within the world of science and philosophy. The time in which Goethe lived is recognized today as a German Renaissance period in which philosophy, the sciences and literature were greatly advanced. By describing the various ways in which the seeking of knowledge failed to provide Faust with the satisfaction he craved, Goethe provided a not-so-flattering mirror to the information seekers of his time, yet still rewarded them with a possibility for heaven as reward for undertaking the search. Goethe’s decision to focus on the question of redemption within this framework reflects one of the more significant concerns of the day. His Faust is able to accept the idea of something being greater than him, but with science making it impossible for him to retain the same unwavering belief in the Bible that his forefathers had, is seeking instead a more satisfactory answer within himself. He has educated himself in every known intellectual pursuit, but still cannot find the answer that rings as True. This questioning pursuit of something to believe in that provides a deep inner conviction of ultimate truth or knowledge without jeopardizing a true connection with the concept of redemption is also illustrated within T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Like Goethe, Eliot was writing during a period in which people were undergoing tremendous transition and questioning the Truth of life. This poem deals directly with the decline of civilization and the seeming impossibility of recovering meaning in life. In this poem, Eliot alludes to and quotes from various classic works and myths such as Greek mythology, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Shakespeare and so on, taking a cubist approach in incorporating numerous faces of the same idea. Insert quote from poem. These allusions to various classical works are referred in a seemingly fragmentary form that lends significance to the meaning of the poem as it is in this fragmentary approach that Eliot is able to make a comment on the nature of modern society in general. Rather than focusing on the words of the poem itself, Leavis sees the significance of The Waste Land as residing principally in the disorganization of the poem (1932). By definition, a wasteland denotes an area that has been devastated spiritually, emotionally, physically and culturally. In short, Eliot attempted to reveal the complication involved in the lapse of attention given to mentality and culture in the modern capitalist society. Moreover, Leavis (1932) phrases the modern predicament as a breach of continuity and an uprooting of life as is expected in a wasteland. He insists that a major cause of this uprooting lies in the incessant rapid change that characterizes the Machine Age. An important point brought out regarding Eliot’s poem is its strange disconnection with nature, a statement that could be made of modern society as it made its transition from a mostly agrarian society to an urban society, from the old ways of life to the new. Looked at from a broad perspective, the poem basically follows the path of a single soul seeking the true path to redemption in much the same way that Goethe had sought truth and knowledge. It is divided into five sections that can be said to adopt a much older religion in that its symbolism rests on the pagan tradition of paying homage to the four elements – earth, air, fire, water – as well as the fifth element of ether or spirit, a metaphysical concept that continued to elude the modern society. Although the section begins with the onset of spring, traditionally associated with concepts of life and renewal, Eliot’s speaker, a girl named Marie, startles the reader with the opening proclamation that “April is the cruelest month.” Throughout the section, the speaker illustrates how life within the middle class has become little more than a mechanized process of endless meaningless tasks and a profound disconnection with nature and with each other. This section reveals how society has failed to provide the spark of Truth. The second section demonstrates in a similar way that neither upper class status and comfort nor lower class comfort in family is sufficient to provide the missing answer of how to find the ultimate Truth. In the third part, sex and greed are shown not to be the answer and the fourth part examines the emptiness of material wealth. It is only in the fifth part that any hope of redemption is offered to the modern world. While it might at first seem that Eliot is promoting the same sort of Christian solution through his discussion of the trials of Jesus, his use of shifting voices and his ending words, “Shantih! Shantih! Shantih!” spoken in a different language and referring to a different religion, suggest he instead intends to remind his readers that the path to redemption lies within. Thus, both Eliot and Goethe find the path to redemption to lie within the judicial and generous application of knowledge and labor. Goethe illustrates this as his character Faust is taken on a whirlwind tour of the many vices and temptations and yet still finds redemption because of his adherence to a single ideal understanding that he can never properly attain until death. Eliot does this by portraying the various ways in which the pursuits of the modern world fail to satisfy the deeper needs of the average human being with the final conclusion that the answer lies in giving of oneself to the best of one’s ability as a means of answering that higher truth that exists somewhere outside of human understanding. This may be through the medium of a church, as Eliot provides room for, but must first gain its inspiration and dedication from something that exists within. Works Cited Eliot, Thomas. Collected Poems. London: Faber and Faber, 1963. Leavis, F.R. New Bearings in English Poetry: A Study of the Contemporary Situation. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932. Sollier, J.F. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. XII. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust. Ed. Cyrus Hamlin. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001. Read More