Dame Julian's Radical Optimism


"All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” are the words of Julian of Norwich made famous by T.S. Eliot in his poem "Little Gidding". They do not represent any facile optimism but a commitment to the goodness of the world and the beauty of creation based on the presence of God within it. This involves no arbitrary and ungrounded belief in human perfectibility, only that nature, even human nature, cannot be wholly debased by sin. In fact, there is a striking backdrop to this claim: the claim, traceable to Plotinus, that the soul is unfallen. This takes some unpacking, especially for those who associate Christianity with notions of ‘radical evil’ or ‘total depravity’. We might state the point this way: the basic intentionality of the will is towards the good just as the basic intentionality of the intellect is towards truth. The basic intentionality of the soul is towards God structurally and inalterably. This makes the state of separation from God, sin and evil, a radical illusion. Mercy exceeds and enfolds judgment. God’s providential care for creatures includes suffering and even sin (which is necessary not accidental) but only so far as it is purgative and preparatory to a fuller reception of joy and love. This, of course, causes some problems with Christian Orthodoxy which maintains, in its doctrine of hell, the possibility of a permanently evil will. Julian openly acknowledges this tension: the Church teaches that the final reconciliation will exclude the devil, the fallen angels and humans who have chosen their kingdom over God’s. These people have chosen the illusion of separation and duality and this condition is painful, indeed agonizing, in so far as the soul itself (which is transcendentally structured towards the real) struggles against it. The pains of hell are like the pains of the body, a sign of underlying health. No more than the body can the soul exist without pain for pain is the natural sign of disorder and indeed represents the struggle of order against disorder.
Can the soul maintain itself forever in this conflict or must the good eventually triumph even among the tyrants and devils of this world? It is hard not to suspect that Julian’s answer is, like God’s, a final no. Still, from our finite perspective we must regard irredeemable evil as at least a possibility (not fully knowing any better) and indeed a possibility we must struggle to overcome. The sense that life is a struggle to overcome our desire for separation seems to me to underlie Julian’s hesitation in this matter as well as a sincere desire not to offend against orthodoxy (which would not, in the 14th Century, be entirely prudent either). This, I must add, is secular question as much as it is a theological one as we wonder whether Nazis are redeemable human beings or whether serial killers should be paroled. The radically hopeful answer of Dame Julian might be as objectionable to modern moralists as it would have been to medieval ones. One thing I like to point out to people who are too complacent in such matters is that many people burned in the middle ages would absolutely be burned today and not just by reactionaries. Reconfiguring the claims of ancient and medieval mystics as secular praxis is a project I take rather seriously though if it were DONE seriously the results might be uncomfortable for all sides in our current disputes.                           

                           

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