Wisdom of the Seraph

 

By Harry Moss

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            It was not long ago that, in a time of great trouble and confusion, I went to visit an especially wise and helpful seraph of whom I knew. As the best of the seraphim, this individual counts truth-speaking and sound argumentation among those acts which can be rightly classified as speaking the praises of God, and so was quite willing to help me with my dilemma. I sprung into it straight away. You see, I had been looking into the case of one Johnathan Carp, a human who enjoyed both fame and infamy among his people as a result of a protracted murder spree. The trouble will be clear in the record of my conversation with the good Seraph:

            “What troubles you?”

            “Well, you see, I’ve been combing through the counterfactuals–”
           “Forbidden.”

            “Yes, well I assumed that He would stop me if my study was not part of His plan.”

            I should perhaps give a quick brief on counterfactuals of creaturely freedom: they are the components of God’s middle knowledge, resolute facts which describe the behavior which a free agent would have exhibited in circumstances other than those which are actual. The counterfactuals are thought to be very important to divine judgement.

            “Continue.”

            “Well, I was looking into an individual, one Johnathan Carp who is now on his deathbed.”

            I assumed, of course that the seraph knew who I meant. Seraphim are closer to the divine, and so their knowledge is more perfect than mine.

            “He will die tomorrow.”
           “I see. Well, I was wondering what his fate will be. The life he lived was naturally quite abhorrent, the sort of life that I would expect to result in damnation. However, I was looking into the counterfactuals and I saw a particular life path that was very different.”

            “Which path?”

            “It was a path in which Johnathan, after a somewhat troubled early childhood, would have accepted God into his heart at the age of fifteen and proceeded to devote his life wholly to charity, public service, and the study and teaching of scripture. He would have been a vegan and strived to erase prejudice from his mind. He would have donated blood at every available opportunity and given up all his non-vital organs while he lived. He would have died stepping in front of a bank robber’s gun in order to save the life of an innocent child.”

            “Most virtuous, but not real.”

            “Yes, but the trouble is this. At age fourteen, Jonathan stayed at school five minutes later than he was accustomed to because he was engaged in idle conversation with his friends. This conversation was of such a nature as to have no effect whatsoever on his moral character. Had he foregone the trivial chatting, he would have, on his way home, encountered one of his bookish classmates being physically tormented by a group of older boys. This would have reminded Johnathan of the way his own father treated him, and his moral character at that time was such that he would have intervened, and would have been beaten badly as a result. As a result of this harrowing altercation, Jonathan would have realized and internalized the value of virtue and sacrifice, and would have set himself on a path of righteous self-improvement culminating in the developments I described.”

            “All true.”

            “Does this not seem problematic?”

            “What?”

            “Johnathan could have lived a life every bit as virtuous as his actual life was wretched. His virtuous life would have sprung from precisely the same moral character that ultimately produced his wretched life, the defining difference being a trivial and morally neutral encounter that happened to deny him his chance at goodness.”

            “The Lord chooses wisely.”

            “Thank you, wise one.”

            The Lord chose to damn Johnathan Carp. Sure as the wise Seraph is, and sure as I am of the Lord’s goodness, I cannot help but be unsure here. Even angels must doubt, from time to time.

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