Essay:Two adjacent paths to unity with God; Simone Weil and Charles Williams

Two Adjacent Paths to Unity with God

The writings of Charles Williams and Simone Weil represent two polar opposites in the discussion of the role of freedom in life. Simone Weil advocates a life which begins as a standard Christian account with God as the telos. Weils account ends with a method of reaching him that advocates the total removal of freedom and the necessity of absolute obedience. Charles Williams however advocates a similar Christian account where the main characters seek to both defeat the Anti-Christ and liberate Lester and Evelyn from purgatory. Charles Williams is an account that allows for complete freedom of choice. Indeed, in Charles Williams account life, death, and the afterlife cannot work properly without complete freedom of action and choice.

The life lived in Simone Weils account is a grim afflicted life of determinism. This determinism is not one of the direct physical manifestation and intervention of God {although she does not discount this possibility and in some ways probability }. The determinism of Simone Weil is one of the absolute rationality of Gods superiority and sovereignty. ‘En anglais’ this means that God is so obviously high and mighty that if one is true to oneself one has no choice but to follow him. This assertion is proven not only by her words regarding the subject but by her own actions .Simone is caught in an odd reciprocity in that as much as she ‘envy’s the cross ‘, she hates the church. Rather however than entirely reject the church as she does in the rational sense, she moves always towards it or in its sphere, as according to her “man can never escape from obedience to god” .

When Simone says this thing about obedience to God, she is not referring to the church or its sacraments but is stating that this meaning is implicit in her life. Two of the things that God commands a Christ follower to do as of the utmost importance are to get baptised and, join a church congregation . It says in Acts 8:16; “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”. This verse usually is not read in the most literal of ways, but the magnitude of the meaning is carried across.

Simone Weil entirely rejects any application of the church or of “its” baptism to her. What she says of the church is very clear, concerning doctrine: “to add dogma to this conception of life, without being forced to by indisputable evidence would have seemed to me like a lack of honesty” . The more Simone Weil rejects the church and its baptism the closer she comes to an intellectual assent of it. In another one of these dual moments of hers she says “the sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it ” Meaning that the more she critiques it and the more she rejects it the closer she actually comes to it in that so much of her mind is caught up with contemplation of these things that she cannot but help to consume it. This compulsion is voiced by her on page 67 in the Spiritual autobiography when she says that “Christianity is primarily the religion of slaves and that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and I among others. ”

A great portion of her writing is directed at what seems to be begging, a prayer, for a new church separated from the legalism and statism that defined the contemporary. On page 77, Simone spends three paragraphs expounding on her rejection of anathema sit. “It is the use of the two little words anathema sit. It is not their existence, but the way they have been employed up until now. It is that also which prevents me from crossing the threshold of the church” . Simone is saying that anathema sit is the only reason why she is not in the church and this because her own intelligence is numbered among those things that are categorized as anathema sit. She feels such a compulsion to the church that she is literally being divided between her mind and her soul.

The strength of her obedience to God’s will forces her too constantly try to get into the church . She asserts several times that aligning one with the will of God is a force of nature. The human soul will always try to better the human in the sense that without it the human is simply an animal free to indulge in base desires. The human soul always pushes the human toward obedience to God for several reasons. The main reason as explained by Simone Weil is that “the whole of creation is but a vibration of the word of God ” Furthermore, Since our whole essence is but a by-product of Gods command the only way we can be unified with him, to achieve the telos of the Christian life, it to be obedient; she goes further to say that “as soon as we feel this obedience with our whole being, we see God” . Indeed this force of nature that Simone refers to that deprives us of our freedom is attested to by the erratic nature of the church body. Weil says, “A blind mechanism, heedless of degrees of spiritual perfection, continually tosses men about and throws some of them at the very foot of the Cross” .

Choice however is an essential part to the life and death of the human being in All Hallows eve. Choice in All Hallows Eve as a theme is contrasted with Simone Weils account in that Charles Williams allows for an active evil entity working against God. In Simone Weils account there really isn’t such a thing as evil, there is either unity with God or succumbing to ones bestial nature. There isn’t room for an account where a character can make an intellectual and spiritual movement towards actively opposing God. The antagonist of All Hallows Eve is just such a figure.

Simone the Clerk is clearly meant to be interpreted as an antichrist figure. From the earliest chapters Simon is interpreted as a dark analogy to Christ; “"Oh well, sir," said Plankin, "you'll hear about them, if you stay. The Father gives us peace. He'll tell you about it." He nodded his head, swaying a little, and saying, "Peace, peace". ” Anyone familiar with the book of revelation and Anti-Christ prophecy knows that the main way to identify the anti Christ is through his similarity to Jesus. Asides from identifying himself with things that Christ said and taught in the gospels Simon also performs miracles. Jesus is massively identified in the gospels with the instantaneous healings of those diagnosed with terminal ills. This same case is taken up in the figure of Simon; “But after a tumour on the brain-! He said:"I wanted to ask about Father Simon's work. Does he-"The short man, sitting quite still, began to speak. He said: "yes, sir, a tumour. He put his blessed hands on my head, and cured it. There isn't a man or woman in this house that he hasn't cured. I've never had a pain since, not of any kind. Nor they neither.

We all carry his mark in our bodies, sir, and we're proud of it." ”. Furthermore, the most important proof of Simon’s active opposition to God is in the underlined portion of the selected text. The defining feature of the Christian Anti-Christ is the dispersal and acceptance of a recognized physical mark that would mark one as a follower of the Anti-Christ. Furthermore Simon is later identified with witchcraft, spiritualism and necromancy, all things which the bible identify as false satanic images of the true power of God, and the support base of the Anti-Christ. The central narrative of All Hallows Eve is the journey of Lester through purgatory, implying that the Christian narrative is indeed true, that there is one immutable set of laws that all fall under. Simon resists this in All Hallows eve telling his followers that “You are an exception," and "You are different; you are not under the law; you are particular." There is clearly no ‘blind mechanism’ here calling him to obedience, and there is no opportunity offered by Williams for Simon to gain salvation because of his choices to deceive and delude others.

Furthermore, the main narrative is concerning choice. You have Lester and Evelyn, one who chooses selflessness and thus ascends to heaven and one who chooses herself and thus descends into hell. Lady Wallingford and the unconscious choice to save her child and thus gain the salvation denied to Simon by his choices. Lester and Evelyn start as the same basic type of character in purgatory. They both died without ever performing an act of divine charity or exhibiting some form of selflessness, substitutionary sacrifice. Furthermore, both died without ever having loved anyone other than herself .

Lester progresses on a path where grace is made more and more fully available to her through her increasingly capacity to love others. The fullest sense of this is when Lester is finally made able to love her husband Richard. It finally comes down to, and it finally signifies the full progression of her free choice to choose other than herself in that the last words she utters to her husband are “She said: "Dearest, I did love you. Forgive me. And thank you-Oh Richard, thank you! Good-bye, my blessing!" ” To contrast is the path of Evelyn who gets more and more caught up into herself and makes the free choice at the end to do so. Evelyn’s last words to Lester in any meaningful sense are these “Evelyn said: "I suppose you think that's kind. You think it's clever to be kind, don't you? I always hated being with you, and I daresay eventually I can find someone else there, thank you." ” Following this Evelyn runs out of Lester’s sphere, back to purgatory where she seems to be damned to forever inhabit.

The final contrast between Simone Weils account and Charles Williams is the concept of repentance. Simone Weils account seems to lack this element. Simone Weil is about being moved by the will of God towards a determined direction, the example of this being the seemingly inexplicable movement of those farthest from God direct into his arms and vice versa. If God has already determined your path and all you must do to achieve unity in him is to consent, then what need is there for a concept of repentance? In Charles Williams, there can be no unity with God without repentance. Williams explicitly refers to Richard as “not yet spiritually old enough to repent ” Williams portrays an account of a succession of choices until one has attained sufficient knowledge of God to make the final act of loving another, or substituting oneself for another. Therefore, in the end you have two paths both leading to God, but on adjacent routes.

Copyright: Jeff Doherty,2008

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