It seems to me that being a Christian - trusting in Christ's death and resurrection - gives you the greatest freedom to be both a misanthropic nihilist and a happy-go-lucky humanist. Most of the time those two things tend to be imbalanced rather than held in tension, however.
I'm sure that's not what you mean Benjamin but "held in tension" is the phrase used by apologists when proffering nonsense (e.g. God loves you but will punish you eternally if you don't love Him back) disguised as wisdom. For preachers the phrase is "His ways are higher than ours"...
ReplyDeleteHi Marc,
DeleteWhat I meant was that Christians can sometimes have a very nihilistic view of humanity (we're all totally depraved, damned), and that can take over, while some focus so much on the resurrection hope that they ignore the fact that humanity is still messed up and there is time for reflection on that. Both need to be kept in mind, in my opinion, though not out of any apologetic motive.