Advent Warnings

On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry announces that the Lord is nigh.  So it does, and St John had another announcement to make as well: the fearful arrival of the wrath to come. Just the thing to prepare you for the onslaught of the festive season, although I doubt that that is what he intended.  But for many people God and wrath are a fairly compulsive combination made all the more certain by the guilt of our original sin or our most unoriginal sins - or both.  Either way it hardly matters: most of the human race is headed for perdition, since as Augustine observed, the fact that God has chosen to save a few shows his mercy, while the fact that has not chosen to save the majority shows his justice.
Now what is wrong with St Augustine's analysis of the situation?  See if you can spot the problem.  Is it the equation of wholesale damnation with justice?  Is it the very concept of damnation itself?  You could get good marks with either of those answers.  But the real answer, I think, has to do with God's choosing, and by that I do not mean just the choice he makes at the end of our earthly lives, but also the choice he makes at our conception when he chooses to endow each of us with an immortal soul.
Before I began to exist I do not recall being asked if I wanted to run the appalling risk of ending up among the lost.  Had the matter been explained to me, I can confidently assure you that I would have politely declined the offer.  Who could possibly do otherwise?  Oblivion trumps Auschwitz every time - especially for eternity.  And nor do I expect any enquiries as to my preferences when I depart this life.  Once again, a grateful oblivion will not be an option.
So what is all this about free-will?  God is going to make the two most vital decisions for me whether I like it or not.  He has already decided that I would exist, and he is not going to give me the option of ceasing to do so when my earthly life is over.  I rather think this puts God under an obligation to see me right in the end, but I bet you some of my most fervent co-religionists will feel cheated if there is not a substantial number of God's children burning down below.  Augustine himself rather looked forward to it since he believed that the sight of their suffering would be one of the joys of the redeemed.

O I do so hope not. 

[Originally published on my now-defunct blog Speculations and Certainties]