From exile to Eden

There are various introductions to Roman Catholicism. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a modern classic. More recently are entries by Robert Barron and Thomas Joseph White. Barron's book was based on the script for his 10-part documentary film. Ratzinger uses the framework of the Apostles' creed. White's organization owes more to systematic theology. Barron uses the Incarnation as a unifying principle–plus Catholic art as well as thumbnail biographies of notable Catholics. 

This raises the question of how a Protestant might write an introduction to the evangelical faith. How would we present the alternative? There are different approaches. You could take the approach of systematic theology. You could take the approach of historical theology and church history. Another possibility is to take a more existential approach. I don't have time to write a whole book, but here's a sketch:

Each of us is on a journey. We were born in exile. Our progenitors were banished from the garden. We lost the tree of life. We face into death. 

We came from God. Some of us are on a journey back to God, while others are on a journey away from God.

We were born at sea. Born aboard a ship. There were passengers before we were born. There will be passengers after we disembark. We don't end with the same passengers with whom we began. Some passengers disembark at the harbor of heaven while others disembark at the port of hell. 

God is interpersonal by nature. One God in three persons, who mirror one another. The inmost circle of reality. But God shares his beatitude by making creatures are able to enjoy the gift of life. The inmost circle of the Triune God ripples out in concentric circles of creation. Like our Creator, we are social beings. 

We are creatures of time and space while our Maker exists above and beyond time or space. The Son left the inmost circle of the Triune fellowship to invade the outermost circle of his alienated creation. Like a child separated from his parents by the dislocation of war, we grew up never knowing our Creator. Like an estranged child who meets his father for the first time, we see in Jesus the face of our Maker. 

Every now and then, miracles break into our world to remind us of another, greater, better world beyond our fleeting, dying world. Not miracles enough to transform our world, but sufficient to point beyond our world, like flashes of lightning that illuminate trail and the distant destination. A sign, special providence, or answered prayer to renew our hope. Sometimes we walk in twilight. Sometimes we walk in darkness. But when we despair, when we feel utterly forlorn, a flash of lightning shows the way forward.  

There is darkness without and darkness within. We need redemption and renewal to enlighten the darkness within. Revelation to illuminate the trail ahead as well as redemption and renewal to illuminate our darkened hearts. 

Darkness is otiose. It creates nothing. Left to itself, darkness remains darkness. It has no spark. To irradiate the moral darkness of our hearts, the match must come from something–or Someone–outside ourselves. 

The Fall was Adam's error, but it wasn't Heaven's error. There are children of light born to children of darkness. Children of the dawn whose existence emerges from children of the night. That was God's plan all along. In the world to come, the sons of dawn will praise the wisdom that brought them about and brought them out. In the beginning, God separated the light from the darkness. And he continues to do so throughout church history. And he will do so at the Consummation of all things.