There’s a story told that the London Times at one point sought answers from the public to the question: “What’s wrong with the world?” As the story goes, G.K. Chesterton humbly responded with the answer: “I am.” Chesterton would later write a book, entitled What’s Wrong with the World, but today it is a question that has largely been sidestepped.
The modern Catholic and Christian mind is more inclined to proceed to an apologetics of a world shot through with the Transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty, which is true enough. Transcendentals are universal, which means they are ubiquitous and are found to some degree in everything that exists. The world is beautiful and good, but there can be at times subtle pressure to turn aside from any consideration of what may be wrong with it. The unspoken pressure can require optimism instead of pessimism in the form of avoiding topics like sin which can seem so negative, even injurious to one’s self-image.
But pessimism, optimism, and self-image are psychological terms. Catholic and Christian anthropology, however, rooted in the Bible, envisions man and woman within the horizon of a living relationship with God requiring faith, hope, and love to remain alive.
These gifts, bestowed in Baptism, root us in theological virtues like hope more than a psychology of our dispositions, whether pessimism or optimism. Hope is centered in God while psychological dispositions like pessimism or optimism are simply reporting reactions in the soul to our environment, which is constantly changing. The virtue of hope is steady and accounts for how Maximillian Kolbe refused to throw himself like others on the electric fence at Auschwitz, instead giving his life for another prisoner even though the environment gave ample cause for pessimism and despair.
So, what are we hoping for? Since hope is centered in God, it would be focused on something God is going to do, but it’s not necessarily something we will see, as Paul relates when he asked the question, “who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance” (Rom. 8:25). What are we waiting for and what are we enduring? To answer these questions, we look to Peter who taught, “But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:13). And in the meantime, we endure the same things Jesus did while He walked the face of the earth. Neither of these may be particularly welcome meditations.
A “new earth” could be envisioned as an unpleasant, even catastrophic event that tries our faith in a God who is all good all the time, even when we suffer. A “new earth” also subtly suggests the lead question of this article, “What’s wrong with the world?” Why would God deem it necessary to introduce a “new earth” when the one we now enjoy is so full of truth, goodness, and beauty? G.K. Chesterton’s answer suggests there’s something about us and our world that requires renewal, but with what specifically does God refuse to abide in foretelling a new earth?
The cross of Christ reveals the answer. The cross testifies that the love of God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ and was met with malice. There’s something wrong with a world that meets love on offer with malice. In fact, a world where love on offer is met with malice has no place for the God who is love.
This is what’s wrong with the world and what God shall not abide, namely, a world without Him. God wishes to dwell with us not simply from a distance or even side-by-side. He wishes to construct His tabernacle and dwelling place within us. What we await is a world wherein love on offer is met with love. That would be “new” which is not, in saying it, pessimistic, but true to the Word of God and the meaning of the cross.
Jesus lamented: “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head” (Lk. 9:58).
Christ coming among us is Emmanuel—“God-with-us” in a deeply personal and intimate way. He was unwelcome, and yet, His dwelling was not a forced entry either. Being unwelcome, God did not poll us or ask our permission to come down. The Father simply sent the Archangel Gabriel to His lowly handmaid, Mary, “in the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4) and upon proffering her loving surrender she quietly conceived Jesus in her womb by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus didn’t make a “big splash” upon entering the world. He approached our ancestors humbly and in mercy, beginning with 30 years of hidden life at Nazareth. God in Jesus Christ was eager to eat the Passover with us (cf. Lk. 22:15), and yet He was so patient and unobtrusive: “I will now allure her . . . and will speak to her heart” (Hos. 2:14).
In fact, the humility of God in Christ upon the cross is so disarming that it can lead us to dismiss Him as irrelevant, no more than a rug over which people walk unawares. Little do we realize that Christ crucified now stands as a sign of God’s judgment on the world. Paul declared that the Father has “subjected everything under his feet” and that Christ crucified “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25-27).
The communion of saints in the heavens is the new community now being formed in Christ for the “new earth” wherein there will be no death and love on offer will be met, not with malice or indifference, but love.
Christ is the first born of the new creation, but not before passing through this world in the valley of death that He might draw all men and women to Himself, alluring them “so that where I am you also may be” (Jn. 14:3). In the interim between the old and the new, therefore, Christ places love on offer by taking up His dwelling place within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we receive in Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist.
So, what’s wrong with the world? It is this: love on offer in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, met malice and ultimately crucifixion. The cross of Christ reveals not only the love of God but also stands as a peg in the earth, forever reminding its inhabitants in every age of what’s wrong with the world. A world where love on offer is met with malice has no room for the God who is love. Despite all the truth, goodness, and beauty of this world, love on offer can still meet malice and indifference, a condition with which God refuses to abide, regardless of any wish to the contrary.
Jesus sought to instruct Simon the Pharisee in this truth. Upon seeing the woman enter his house and begin bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears, Simon thought to himself: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner” (Lk. 7:39). Knowing his thoughts, Jesus said to Simon: “I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little” (Lk. 7:47).
That’s what’s wrong with the world.
Photo by Kirill Pershin on Unsplash