Christ describes the descent of the universe back into chaos. And it contains the interesting:
"But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
This is famous in heretical writings being focused upon by the Arians to challenge Christ's divinity.
But the essence of the gospel is judgment, the evaluation of the hearts of men and each man. In the modern world of minimalism and relativity, judgment is seem as inappropriate at best; judgment is more likely a function of arrogance and bigotry.
It is astonishing that we are so open-minded with so much evidence to the contrary. As primitive and cruel as the ancient world was, nothing can approach the Nazis for clear-eyed, focused evil. And anyone denying that would have to invent new words to describe it.
Now we have the Paris atrocity, an act whose perversity is heightened only by people's willingness to take credit for it. It is presented as an effort to strike fear in people. But, at its heartless center, this kind of behavior feeds upon hopelessness. Despair. The outsider sees no easy motive or explanation. The perpetrators are as amorphous as their motives. And there is no recourse, no place to go, no alternative. Because there is no negotiation. One can not sue for a truce. Or surrender. This is a conflict for which there is no settlement, no appeasement. Like the Nazis, the murderers see an endpoint in the distance which can be reached only by desolation of everything before it. The nature of their transition is death and only death.
Of course, again, the Greeks had a word for it. In their mythology they had a peripheral demon called Thanatos who was the personification of death. Freud tried to explain such behavior as aggression, sadism, heroism, risk taking as a death drive later named "Thanatos" by others.
Has evil slipped everyone's mind? Doubtful. It's just that when evil becomes an element in life, judgment follows. And no civilized guy wants that.
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