ABSTRACT
The world reveals and hides God. As George Tyrrell emphasizes in the initial quotation, Jesus encountered such a world as much as we do, and was aware both of its positive qualities, and of its fall. When I am among some Christian pessimists, I feel that the first truth must be emphasized: there is a lot of goodness in the world, in cultures, in human relationships, attitudes and desires. ‘In embracing God’, Jesus embraced all that. And likewise, all that is good has to feature somehow in our following Jesus into the embrace of God. All that is good belongs there. When I am outside the church walls, among optimists who see all as pure, I realize the second truth: the goodness has been perverted, and there is no way of following Jesus into God’s embrace that does not lead through the conflict with all that is evil.2 The two truths come together, but in this order. The world is good. The fall marks, but does not diminish, its initial goodness.
