In Peter Jackson’s, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Arwen (an elf) says to Aragorn (whom she loves): “I choose a mortal life.” In Tolkien’s fantasy world, she must give up her elven immortality in order to wed a human. She chooses a mortal life and now she, like the man she loves, will eventually grow old and die.
We do not choose a mortal life. We are born with one. And this is deeply significant.
In Western theology, there is frequently an assertion that human beings are born with “original sin,” which, in its classical form, means that we are born with guilt inherited from Adam and Eve. Additionally, it asserts that we are born as sinners. We are not innocent nor are we good from the moment of our existence.
This is a theological assertion that takes a variety of forms. I have heard it in non-theological settings. For example, I have heard it as a basis for political reasoning and the battle against crime. The world is a dangerous place.
For some, this understanding is bound up with the “fall,” with humanity’s sin in the Garden. We are criminals, living out the just reward for what has been done.
This is not the Orthodox faith.
Rather, we teach that human beings are “mortal.” This is specifically what is described in Genesis. We are not cursed with a “fallen nature.” Rather we die: “In the day you eat of it, you shall die.” And, the world in which we now struggle is a world that has been “made subject to futility” in “bondage to corruption.” Creation dies as well. If we must speak of a “fallen nature,” then we should understand that sin and death are like a disease at work in us. We have not become the disease though it permeates our lives.
We live a mortal life. And there are consequences that come with that fact. There is this:
“… that through death he [Christ] might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb. 2:14-15)
This specifically cites our spiritual bondage (sin) to the fear of death. The reality of death, in a myriad of small ways, is a moment-by-moment form of bondage. We chase pleasure and flee from pain. We dislike pain as a protection against a pain-induced death. We prefer pleasure because it doesn’t feel like death. Of course, pleasure is often little more than a disguised form of death.
With that being said, living a mortal life requires something beyond the pain/pleasure mechanisms of our bodies. It requires a level of reason and the discipline we call virtue. We have to learn to pay attention and make decisions, including some that involve a measure of pain. In Orthodoxy, this is known as asceticism, a word for athletic struggle.
A child must be taught, not because of original sin, but because he/she is mortal. Children must learn to look both ways before crossing a street and to eat some foods that are not made of sugar. They must learn to do some measure of math and to nurture the human skill of reading. They must learn how to tell the good from the bad and how to choose the good. Every culture on earth has known this to some degree. Without virtue (the ability to consistently choose and do good) a whole culture falters. If you think that we are failing to do this latter thing, then you’ve probably noticed that our culture has been faltering.
Living a mortal life means learning to live it well. It also means teaching those who will come after you to live it well. It also means learning to die well. There is a saying among monastics, “If you learn to die before you die, then you won’t have to die when you die.” It is a play on words that underscores the mortality of our existence.
St. Benedict, in his Rule, said, “Always keep death before your eyes.” This is not a morbid monastic practice, but an honest human manner of living. Modernity, the culture that permeates our world, is death-denying. It can’t even manage a decent funeral with the body present. We have a cult of youth, striving to remain young, look young, act young, until aging catches up with us and we are shuttled off to the places where we hide (and ignore) those who are sick and dying. This supports a marketing scheme that feeds on those “who through fear of death are subject to lifelong slavery.” Little wonder it is so successful.
Christian asceticism accepts that we are mortal and must live a mortal life. It sees a life beyond mortality in the Resurrection of Christ, but, like Christ, it chooses mortality for the sake of immortality: it tramples down death by death. It tramples down mortality by mortality.
In my early 70s, mortality sits at the table with me in social gatherings. It’s not unusual to fall into conversations about choosing where and how to be buried (it’s a more popular topic than I had expected). Living a mortal life carries thoughts of how to die well. Living a virtuous life carries thoughts of how to die-to-self well. Mortality entails humility.
Oddly, living a mortal life entails hope. While secularism places its hope in medically controlling a certain future, Christian mortality is grounded in the hope of eternity in the life of Christ. Asceticism is more than practicing a mindful honesty regarding death. It also allows the light of eternity to shine on our works.
Live like you’re going to die. Die like you’re going to live.
Glory to God.
I am appending a very hopeful thought from a mouse who understood his mortality (Reepicheep in The Dawn Treader)
“My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”
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