Is Christianity a utopia?

Is Christianity a utopia? In order for someone to answer this question, first he should examine some important relevant facts.

So, what is a utopia? If we want to analyse the word, we should see that it derives from the negative particle “un” and the word “place”. That is “utopia” means “without a place”. It is inapplicable, non-existent and elusive. The word utopia prevailed and is used internationally, especially after the publication of the sensational book by Thomas More, Utopia: De optimo statu reipublicae deque nova insula utopia= for the perfect condition of the state and for the new island utopia (1516 A.D.).

Utopia seems to resemble ideology. But ideology draws its power from the past and aims at the preservation of some idea or situation. Utopia turns to the future and envisages the change or the creation of a new situation.

Typologically utopias are divided in two categories, the religious and mundane. If fact, though, all of them are religious because all of them are based on transcendence. The every day reality faces a weakening in the search of fullness. That is why, it turns to other sections beyond itself. Prospectively.

Till Renaissance, the transcendence is done with reference to God’s power. Later, though, the transcendence is done with reference to the human being himself.

The utopian state is not so much a state of another world, but the residence of equality, peace, justice, prosperity. The Marxist society is placed in this perspective.

Something that must be stressed is that utopia is not irrelevant with the historical reality. On the contrary. History creates utopias and the utopias create history. So, for example, the utopia is the mother of socialism, because socialism owes its rule over the mass to the power of the utopia.

Plato by describing his (utopian) state does not present a specific reality; neither does he hope in its realisation.

A utopia is a denial of place, which is of the specific empirical place. The effort for the connection of the utopia with place, that is the effort for its realisation in a specific empirical place, is inevitably connected with the death of the utopia or with the destruction of those who envisage it.

Contrastively with the utopian, social systems, which search for the ideal society in the historical reality, Christianity accepts that the full and ideal form of the human society is not ever to be found in history, but beyond it: in the Kingdom of Heaven. The placing of this ideal situation to a transcendental territory has these two consequences:

a. it offers in the bound of the empirical reality a point of unity and support

b. it gives wide bounds of freedom to the individual and to the society as a whole.

Of rouse the placing of the ideal state in the life after death, embodies this danger: It is possible to be cultivated among the people a spirit of indifference for the present affairs. This is what some newer social systems invoke, which reject the metaphysical expectation and ask to create the ideal society in history. But another transcendence is done in the historical future, which is another utopia.

But it is time to see what we can answer to the first question.

Christianity would be a utopia, if it promised something in time. Something historically placed in the future, but in time, though. If something like this applied, it would not be different from the Jehovah Witnesses and its likes. They said, for example that the Day of the Judgment would happen on February 1967. So all (of their people) waited. They created dreams and hopes. But when that time came and passed without anything special to happen, they understood that they created a utopia. Something placed in time, but completely elusive. This, though, did not make their leaders think, who just appointed a … new date. But what about the hopes and the dreams of the others? They were shattered in an instant.

Christianity does not promise something inconceivable, or anything “in time” but something beyond time. It promises something sure, something that will definitely happen. That is why it is not a utopia.

But some dangers are faced. It is possible an effort to start from the Christian point of view and to end up becoming a utopia. For example: A monastery is founded. If the purpose, which will be placed, is realized or tends to be realized in time, then it is not a utopia. More specifically, whereas those who are called to be in the monastery (to become monks), promise landlessness, a removal (as individuals) from materials etc, when they get in, they change their effort to a struggle for material prosperity, they fight for the prosperity of their group, of the community. So they missed their aim and created a parody of the community of the monks.

But if they continually have in mind the “beyond the present” time, then it is different. This, of course, does not necessarily mean that they will not try to earn their living. Utopia on the one and Christianity on the other. So the difference between Christianity is made clear, whereas at the same time it is proved how fair the introducer of utopia. More, was when finishing his book said that does not believe ever to see the utopia applied. And this is because it is inapplicable and does not satisfy nor fulfills people.

Only Christianity can offer this.

+Fr.G.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-23