One of the great things about reading classic literature that has survived and impacted every subsequent generation is to see that the questions and issues that concern us have always been questions that mankind has struggled with, like Boethius, and before him Socrates, and before him Job. So great literature teaches us that we are not alone in our struggle with these titanic questions.
That being said, I think it is wise to keep in mind the line from the old novel, "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." For Boethius, we might change that to "they thought differently then." When we moderns read lines like, “those who commit an injustice are more unhappy than those who suffer it," we feel our brains wrench a little bit as we say, "huh?" That kind of reasoning is so far from the way we think today, or maybe it's as Lady Philosophy says, "Ordinary people don't think that way."
I think for this notion of justice to make sense ultimately, one has to have an eternal perspective. Which Boethius, being a Christian, certainly would have understood this. We may not see the counterintuitive outcomes Lady Philosophy so patiently lays out for Boethius in this life, but we can have hope that in the next, we will see the Good in all its splendid reality.
I'm reminded of this beautiful Scripture from Revelation 21:
"Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe
every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for
the old order of things has passed away."
The question is finally not whether to have hope, but what to have hope in.
One of the great things about reading classic literature that has survived and impacted every subsequent generation is to see that the questions and issues that concern us have always been questions that mankind has struggled with, like Boethius, and before him Socrates, and before him Job. So great literature teaches us that we are not alone in our struggle with these titanic questions.
That being said, I think it is wise to keep in mind the line from the old novel, "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." For Boethius, we might change that to "they thought differently then." When we moderns read lines like, “those who commit an injustice are more unhappy than those who suffer it," we feel our brains wrench a little bit as we say, "huh?" That kind of reasoning is so far from the way we think today, or maybe it's as Lady Philosophy says, "Ordinary people don't think that way."
I think for this notion of justice to make sense ultimately, one has to have an eternal perspective. Which Boethius, being a Christian, certainly would have understood this. We may not see the counterintuitive outcomes Lady Philosophy so patiently lays out for Boethius in this life, but we can have hope that in the next, we will see the Good in all its splendid reality.
I'm reminded of this beautiful Scripture from Revelation 21:
"Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe
every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for
the old order of things has passed away."
The question is finally not whether to have hope, but what to have hope in.