Pessimism and Optimism in the Christian Worldview

From Charles Williams' book War in Heaven:

Mornington suspected his Christianity of being the inevitable result of having moved for some time as a youth of eighteen in circles which were, in a rather detached and superior way, opposed to it; but it was a religion which enabled him to despise himself and everyone else without despising the universe, thus allowing him at once in argument or conversation the advantages of the pessimist and the optimist.

Williams here states (in his unique style) the way that Christian doctrine(s) (viz., the fallenness of man and the holiness of God) give to the Christian the best parts of other philosophies while avoiding their errors. Within the Christian worldview, one finds a healthy cynicism and a healthy idealism perfectly wedded.

-Jon Vowell