Lecture: The Reverend Professor Paul S. Fiddes, “Patterns of Hope and Images of Eternity: A Theological-Literary Enquiry” . October 9th, 2009
The Reverend Professor Fiddes opened his lecture by speaking of the natural human discomfort with time. The passage of time means merely one thing, a movement closer to the time of death, and thus enters hope for an eternity. In his lecture, Fiddes brought forth several views of eternity from famous literary authors to communicate about this eternity that humankind so hopes for.
Shakespeare was Fiddes’ first reference. Through Shakespeare’s “tragic hero” figures, a challenge to the system occurs as the characters create friction with their surroundings. This friction, and break from the status-quo, made Shakespeare’s pieces “art” in his times, and art was the first image of eternity Fiddes chose to expound upon. Art discloses value and beauty, and so to “die well”, as many of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes do, is to “make death serve one”, and triumph over it, creating eternity. Christ, Fiddes argued, also accomplished this. Christ brought to light more of humankind’s potential in life. The second image of eternity Fiddes posited with Shakespeare, was that of an open future, supported through the Epilogue of “The Tempest”. Prospero pleas before the audience, in character, that they would live lives of forgiveness, and free him by their applause. Prospero brings art and audience into each other, just as Christ-Fiddes states- by death allows humans to become “new creations”, free to change.
With this thought, Fiddes moved into speaking of James Cone. Cone wrote comparing the effect African American slave songs-songs of eternity and heaven had on their dissatisfaction with their conditions of slavery. These songs gave hope, but also created what Fiddes called “an enduring tension between art and the images of a hopeful future”. Eternity motivates humanity to find wholeness, Fiddes continued, quoting texts from William Blake. But, contemplation of eternity leads humanity to note the crisis of the present times, and the need for a healed future.
The final author Fiddes incorporated to the lecture, was TS Eliot. “Words in a pattern can weave time itself together” Fiddes quoted Eliot, and words in a pattern may redeem time by bringing together the fragmentation, and creating wholeness. Furthermore, words in a pattern are literature, aka, art. Christ was called the “word of God”, and Christ brought together the past, present, and future moments of God’s creation into a balance where sins were paid for simultaneously over the ages. Fiddes referenced this concept with Simultaneity: this allows for the balance of moments to be timeless, thus eternal.
Although Fiddes did not incorporate the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible to his lecture, approaching the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament from a literary perspective is incredibly feasible. It allows for historical discrepancies to be overlooked in the understanding of the “story” as a whole, and motifs desired to be impressed on the Hebrew peoples by the texts’ authors to become the primary focus. The specific number of people in the exodus from Egypt, and other such statistics, become decreasingly relevant. The point becomes the message, less than the facts. And when precision is less emphasized, there is more room to appreciate the textual material. Individuals such as Abraham, Moses, and David (as well as many others) can be considered artistically, like Shakespeare’s “tragic heroes”, and be deemed as having fulfilled their hopes for “eternal lives” by their endurance through the texts. Adopting a literary lens for viewing of the Hebrew/Old Testament texts, permits the viewer to make concessions for some discrepancies, and be less concerned with what the text allows for the enduring God. Approaching the text with Fiddes’ explanations for eternity makes the highest theme the eventual unification of chaos, with the first step being the compilation of the many “tense” moments.
