Endings

A partial self-review of Solomon Among the Postmoderns : Ironically, while I problematize beginnings at the outset of the book, I don’t do the same with endings. I treat the “end” as a simple end. Several recent encounters – including a fine paper from my student Ryan Handermann – exposed that mistake, which, once pointed out, is glaringly obvious. Christianity’s “end” is an end only from one angle of vision. From another perspective it is another beginning. It is not a total closure; it’s more an opening than a closing.

This is not only obvious, but would have been a neat parry to postmodern fears of totalization. To postmodern thought, the Christian notion of a final judgment seems tyrannical; it’s frightening. It should be, perhaps, but on the other hand the philosophical objection can be addressed by pointing to the complex nature of Christian finality. On the one hand, there is closure, which ensures that meanings don’t proliferate to infinity and that injustices don’t remain buried forever. On the other hand, this closure is a new beginning, an inconceivable liberation; the end is not twilight but the blinding brightness of day.