Ever since metaphorical pen was first set to metaphorical paper, a debate has raged: which is better, the happy ending or the sad one? The sides are many and varied, each side disagreeing with itself about why it’s right and neither side quite capable of convincing the other. Some say happy endings are better because, really, tragedies are such a downer. Some say tragic endings are better because they induce catharsis, an emotional outlet which leaves the audience better off than when they began. Some say happy endings should triumph because they’re the Christian thing to write, given the happy ending God has promised the world. Some argue that sad endings better portray the brokenness of the world and of us mortals who live within it. They’re all (not quite) wrong, which is why I’m adding my voice to the cacophony. Godly stories end with justice; the happy and the sad ending should appear through the application of Biblical justice to the story’s facts.

What is ‘Biblical justice?’ For the answer, obviously, we have to go to the Bible¹. The first and most fundamental aspect of Biblical justice can be found in the Song of Moses: “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deut. 32:4). In this verse, Moses declares the nature of justice: it is the way of God. In other words, the path of true justice is the path which most accords with God’s character. Our stories should reflect this definition by doing justice to the good and the evil alike, giving reward and judgement respectively within their pages, imitating God’s authorship of this world (Gen. 1:26-27) by reflecting His character (as imposed on His creation) in our own secondary creations, without regard for that which He does not regard (2 Ch. 9:8; Ex. 23:2-6) as is shown to us in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Now we’ve established what ‘Biblical justice’ is, but I’ve yet to prove my assertion that justice, not sadness or happiness, is the true measure of an ending’s excellence (besides all the other measures, of course, like legibility and literary coherence). For that assertion, two basic lines of proof, each essentially a reciprocal of the other, exist: story’s requisite verisimilitude to reality and the example of reality’s story, the Bible, as a prescription for the moral course of our secondarily-creative stories².

The basis for both requires us to understand how the Bible- which is the core story of reality- ends, how reality is prophesied to end (or, rather, to come to a conclusion without termination). See, the classical Biblical pattern, one seen in history and applied to the apocalypse, has two parts. The first part is the damnation of the wicked; those who rebel against God, angels and man alike, are cast down into destruction (Rev. 20:7-10, 21:8; Is. 66:15-17). The second part is the reward of the righteous; to God goes the glory, He who upholds righteousness forever, its origin and its perfection, and to those of His people who whom He has imputed His Son’s righteousness (Rom. 8:1-8), whose sin Christ bore (Is. 53:10), He grants eternal life before His throne (Is. 66:22-23; Rom. 8:17,30; Rev. 21:9-27). In other words, justice is apportioned to all, though, for His people, it is justice laid upon mercy.

So, if, as Revelation 20:12-13 states, when the final days are come and this present millennium (figurative, not literal) is passed, the righteous are to be glorified and the wicked damned, if justice is to be the end of this world our stories imitate, should our stories not end similarly? Just as we are to avoid worldbuilding flaws which lie about God’s character (that is, lie about morality, the reflection of that character) as per January’s last article³, we likewise ought to abhor lies about His justice. A story which ends in injustice does not speak the truth of God’s world.

On the other side of this coin, for the second argument, the Bible is the greatest tale ever written, ever capable of being written (for the world was spoken and ordained, not written (Gen. 1:3; Acts 4:28). In writing our own stories, we seek for the beauty which the Bible exemplifies to us, imperfectly and by different paths (for only the Creator could write His Word (John 1:1); we creatures can imitate but not duplicate or excel). The Bible’s conclusion, particularly if seen in chronological order, and its perpetual theme (as an integral component of the redemption narrative), is the execution of God’s justice upon the earth (Ps. 72:1-4; Is. 11:4). Our stories ought surely to echo this tale, ought to end with justice which is, insofar as we can understand and shape it, in accordance with His law.

One proviso: by extolling just endings I am not necessarily demanding ‘clean’ endings. Ambiguity, messiness, and a sense that the story continues beyond the eyes of the reader (and perhaps even the author) can all be components of a just ending. What a just ending demands is that the world and narrative states, perhaps explicitly but always implicitly, that God reigns in heaven above, that His justice is done, whether upon this earth or another. The villain may seem to walk away, but the reader should understand in his heart that though the foe has escaped man, he walks ever forward into the trap which God has laid, save he changes. The hero may suffer, may be defeated, may even die, but it is the just retribution for his sins, the path appointed to bring him to eternal life, or both. In my own published work, Why Ought I to Die?, an unambiguously evil character escapes with seeming impunity, but his escape is, intentionally, of the flesh only; his triumph is empty in comparison to the hero’s victory (for a clearer explanation, you’ll just have to read it).

Furthermore, our stories are small. This world is complete in a way our stories, contained to sub-creation and to media, cannot be. Justice in our tales will therefore be necessarily curtailed by their scope. We may therefore let a character slip beyond the narrative, say farewell before their judgement arrives or their reward matures to fullness. We should do so, however, only with the consciousness, in our minds and in the reader’s, that this is a limit of the story’s scope, not its morals. The first is rightly limited by man’s ability; the second is not within any man’s right to modify. We may write the first half of Psalm 73 (1-15); we must not forget the second half (16-28).

Just endings, then, are just what’s right (pun intended). But where do sad endings come in? Happy ones? What of comedy and what of tragedy? Room for both exists within this rubric.

Tragedies, for the Christian, are explorations of the fallenness of man, of the world which we in Adam broke (Rom. 5:12, 8:22-23). The character fall and break through their own evil and through the evil of others. Comedies (in reference to the ending, not to humor) are explorations of the mercy of God, of His redemptive power, that even man, pervasively depraved⁴ as he is, can be sanctified. Great stories, in all likelihood, will have threads of both. In these stories, some men will run headlong into death, into tragedy (Prov. 26:27, 28:10). Some men, meanwhile, will by the grace of God reach happiness, though whether it becomes apparent upon earth depends on the tale. The death of a believer is, after all, as much a comedy for him (Luke 23:39-43) as it is a tragedy for the world and for those who harm him (Matt. 18:6; Luke 16:19-21).

God’s world shall end someday, and the fire which today refines His saints (Zech. 13:9) shall be turned in full upon His foes, for their detriment and not their healing (Rev. 20:12-13); we shall then see Him in glory and rejoice (Rev. 21:2). Till then (and perhaps, though we do not now know, afterwards as well) we have been given the ability to write stories which proclaim Him, which, if sometimes in the way of the patriarchs instead of the apostles, which proclaim Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). Let us rejoice at this high calling and be humbled for its beauty, that He gives us the tools with which to reach heights we alone would spurn to climb.

God bless.

Footnotes:

1 – Entire libraries have been written on this paragraph’s topic, particularly if we include governmental and ecclesiastical justice. Today, this definition should suffice.

2 – ‘Secondary creation’ is a term you’ll see me using a lot. It derives from Tolkien’s brilliant essay “On Fairy-Stories” (available here for free or here on Amazon), wherein he uses it to describe the process of creating (via writing) a fantasy world, creating a second creation subordinate to the one we are a part of. I use it, more generally than Tolkien, for any work of fiction, not just fairy-stories or fantasy. I highly recommend the original essay to any aspiring author, if only for his masterful observations vis a vis the story of the Gospels. If you’re curious about my use of it, an article on it will go up relatively soon here.

3 – You can find the paragraph in question here or the whole article here: (Part One) (Part Two).

4 – My preferred term for what most term ‘total depravity’ and what R.C. Sproul termed ‘radical depravity’.