Index
Foreword
Having treated elsewhere
of God [1] and of providence [2] from a purely speculative point of view, we
here resume the consideration of these great questions in their relation to the
spiritual life. The primary object of contemplation is, in fact, God Himself and
His infinite perfections, especially His goodness, His wisdom, and His
providence. Our activity and our progress toward eternity must be directed from
the higher plane of this contemplation. From this point of view we shall treat
here: (1) of the existence of God and of His providence; (2) of those
perfections of God which His providence presupposes; (3) of providence itself
according to the Old and New Testaments; (4) of a trusting self-abandonment to
God’s providence; (5) of providence in its relation to justice and mercy.
May these pages instill
in the minds of those who read them a better understanding of God’s infinite
majesty and the absolute value of the one thing necessary, our last end and
sanctification. Their chief aim will be to insist on the absolute and supremely
life-giving character of the truth revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ and
infallibly proposed to us by the Church. Souls are perishing in the
ever-shifting sands of the relative; it is the absolute they need. Nowhere will
they find it but in the Gospel entrusted by Jesus Christ to His Church, which
has preserved, taught, and expounded it. It has been exemplified in the lives
of the best of her children.
Translator’s Preface
In these days of
positive unbelief, agnosticism, and general indifference concerning the
supernatural, it is to be hoped that this English translation of the Reverend
Father Garrigou-Lagrange’s La Providence et la confiance en Dieu will serve a
useful purpose. In this book the author has proved conclusively to anyone of
upright mind that there is an all-wise and designing Providence, who has
created all things with an end in view, and this especially as regards human
beings. The whole of creation confirms this view. Long ago the psalmist
declared that “the heavens show forth the glory of God: and the firmament
declareth the work of His hands” (Ps. 18:2). If we believe in the existence of
God—and no reasonable being can deny this—then we must say with the bard of
Avon that “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will”
(Hamlet, V, ii, 10).
The first part of this
book is a brief summary of a previous work by the same author, entitled: God,
His Existence and His Nature. The proofs for the existence of God and a
discussion of the divine attributes constitute the basis of Providence. This
French work was well received. Within a short time after publication six
thousand copies were sold. It has also been translated into German, Italian,
and Polish.
In conclusion I wish to
express my indebtedness to the Reverend Dr. Newton Thompson for his painstaking
care in preparing the manuscript for publication. This indebtedness also
applies to the second volume of God, His Existence and His Nature, which due to
an oversight was not mentioned at the time of its publication
I also wish to thank the
Reverend Dr. Bernard Wall, late of Wonersh seminary, England, for his courtesy
in allowing me the use of his manuscript, which I consulted on various
occasions. The verification of many quoted passages was thereby much simplified
and this enabled me to proceed more rapidly.
Bede Rose, O.S.B.
St. Benedict’s Abbey
Mount Angel, Oregon
PART I : THE EXISTENCE
OF GOD AND OF PROVIDENCE
1. God The Prime Mover
Of Corporeal And Spiritual Beings
Before we proceed to
consider the meaning and import of the proofs for the existence of God and His
providence, it will be well to point out one general proof that virtually
contains them all. It may be summed up in this way: The greater does not come
from the less, the more perfect does not come from the less perfect, since the
latter is incapable of producing this effect.
There are in the world
living, intelligent beings that come into existence and disappear again; they
are therefore not self-existent. And what we say of the present applies equally
to the past.
Consequently they
require a cause, one that is self-existent. Hence there must exist from all
eternity a first Being who owes His being to none but Himself and is able to
confer being on others: a first living being, a first intelligence, a first
goodness and holiness. If it were not so, the life, intelligence, goodness, and
holiness of which we have experience could never have made their appearance in
this world of ours.
Already open to common
sense, this proof may be further scrutinized by philosophical reason, but no
fault can be found with it.
The greater cannot come
from the less as from its wholly adequate, efficacious cause, for the
additional perfection would itself then be without a cause, without a reason
for its existence, and hence absolutely unintelligible. It is utterly absurd to
maintain that the intelligence or the goodness of Jesus, of the great saints—of
St. John, St. Paul, St. Augustine—are the result of unintelligent matter, of a
material and blind fatality.
This general proof is at
once more convincing when we consider the motion of bodies and spirits—motions
from which it is shown that God is the first mover of every being, both
corporeal and spiritual.
Already advanced by
Aristotle, this proof from motion is set out as follows by St. Thomas in his
Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 2, a. 3:
There is motion in the
world, from the lowest order of beings to the highest.
St. Thomas takes as his
starting-point a fact of evident experience, that there is motion in the world:
the local motion of inanimate bodies displacing and attracting one another; the
qualitative motion of heat increasing or diminishing in intensity; the motion
of development in the growing plant; the motion of the animal desiring food and
going in quest of it; the motion of the human intellect passing from ignorance
to a knowledge at first confused, then distinct; the motion of our spiritual
will, which from not desiring a certain object comes to desire it more keenly;
the motion of our will which after desiring the end desires also the means to
attain it.
Here, then, is a
universal fact: there is motion in the world, from the motion of the stone that
is thrown into the air, to the motion of our minds and wills. And we may say
that everything in this world is subject to motion or change—nations and
peoples and institutions as well as individuals. When a motion has reached its
peak it gives place to another, as one wave of the sea is followed by another,
one generation by another, a phenomenon that the ancients represented by the
wheel of fortune on which the more successful were lifted up, only to descend
once more and give place to others. Is it a fact, then, that everything passes,
that nothing endures? Is there nothing constant, nothing stable and absolutely
permanent?
All motion requires a
mover
How are we to explain
this universal fact of motion, be it either corporeal or spiritual? Is the
explanation to be found in motion itself? Is it its own reason, its own cause?
To answer this question, we must begin by pointing out two facts. First, in
motion there is something new that requires explanation. Where does this new
element come from, which previously had no existence? The question applies to
past as well as to present forms of motion. Secondly, motion exists only in a
movable object: it is this individual motion for the sole reason that it is the
motion of this mobile object. There is no displacement without a body that is
displaced, no flowing without a fluid, no current without a liquid, no flight
without a bird that flies, no dream without a dreamer, no motion or volition
apart from an intelligent being that wills.
But if there is no
motion apart from a mobile object, is it possible for that object to move
itself by its own power and without a cause of any kind? Can the stone of
itself set itself in motion without someone to throw it into the air, or
without some other body to attract it? Can the cold metal become hot of itself,
without a source of heat?
But, you may say, a
living thing moves itself. True, but is there not in the living thing a part
that is moved and another that moves? If the blood circulates through the
arteries of an animal, is it not because the heart by its contraction makes it
circulate?
So also in man. If the
hand moves, is it not because the will moves it? And if in its turn the will is
moved, passing from a state of indetermination to one of determination, must it
not be moved by some object attracting it, by some good? And is it sufficient
merely for the good to be presented to it? Must not the will direct itself or
be directed to it? It does in fact direct itself to the means because it first
of all desires the end; but in the case of the first desire of an end, as when
we come to the age of reason or when on waking in the morning we begin to
exercise our will, is not an impulse from some higher source necessary to start
our volitional activity, so as to make our will pass from the state of repose,
of inactivity, to that first act which is to be the cause of all the acts that
follow? That act contains something new which demands a cause; and the will,
not yet in possession of this new perfection, cannot give it to itself. (Cf.
St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 9, a. 4; q. 10, a. 4.)
Shall we say that this
particular motion, whether corporeal or spiritual, has as it cause another
motion anterior to it? But, if we consider motion as such, whether realized in
this present motion or in the motions that precede, we shall see that it is a
transition from potency to act. Now potency is less perfect than act; potency,
therefore, cannot confer act upon itself. Once again, if there were not a mover
for every motion, the greater would come from the less.
The stone was capable of
displacement; now it changes its position, it does not do so without a mover that
projects or attracts it.
The plant in its growth
passes from potency to act, but not without the action of the sun, air, and
moisture from the earth. The animal passes from potency to act when it pursues
the prey that attracts it, but only in virtue of that higher activity which has
endowed it with the instinct to feed upon this object rather than upon some
other.
Man himself passes from
potency to act, from ignorance to knowledge; for him it is an intellectual
acquisition. But the intellect does not give itself these acquisitions which
hitherto it did not possess.
Our will, too, passes
from potency to act, to which at times it clings heroically. Where does this
new perfection come from? The will could not confer this upon itself, since it
did not possess this before.
All motion, then,
whether corporeal or spiritual, requires a cause: without a mover the mobile
thing is not moved. The mover may be within, as the heart is within the living
animal; but if this mover is itself moved, it demands another mover superior to
itself. The heart that at the moment of death stops beating cannot set itself
going again; in this case it would require the intervention of the Author of
life Himself, by whom that life was given and who maintained its motion until
the organism finally spent itself.
Every motion demands a
mover: such is the principle by which St. Thomas throws light upon this great
universal fact of motion. The irrational animals perceive, indeed, that there
are motions of the sensible order; but, that every motion demands a mover, is
beyond their comprehension. They have no grasp of intelligible being or of the
raison d’etre of things, but only of sensible phenomena—color, sound, heat, and
the like. On the other hand, being and the raison d’etre of things constitute
the very object of our intellect; hence we are able to grasp the truth, that
without a mover all motion is impossible.
Every motion requires a
supreme mover
But we must go a step
farther. If for every motion either corporeal or spiritual a mover is required,
does this necessitate a supreme mover?
A number of
philosophers, including Aristotle, thought it possible to have an infinite
series of movers accidentally subordinated to one another in past time. For
such as these the series of animal generations, for instance, never had a
beginning. There was never a first hen or a first egg, but always, without
beginning, there were hens that laid eggs; the motion of the sun revolving in
the heavens had no beginning and will have no end; the evaporation of water
from the rivers and seas has always been producing rain, but there was no first
rainfall.
We Christians hold it to
be a fact known from revelation, that the world had a beginning: that it was
created not from all eternity (non ab aeterno), but in time. This is an article
of faith defined by the councils.
But precisely because it
is an article of faith and not merely one of the preambles to the faith, is why
St. Thomas holds that reason alone can never demonstrate that the world had a
beginning (Ia, q. 46, a. 2). And why does this truth transcend the natural
powers of our intellect? Because that beginning depended on the free will of
God. Had He so willed, He might have created the world ten thousand years, a
hundred thousand years, millions of years before, or at a time even more
remote, without there having been a first day for the world, but simply a
dependence of the world on its Creator, just as a footprint in the sand is due
to the foot that makes it, so that, had the foot always been there the footprint
would have had no beginning.
Although revelation
teaches that the world did in fact have a beginning, it does not seem
impossible, says St. Thomas, for the world always to have existed in its
dependence on God the Creator.
But, if a series of
movers accidentally subordinated in the past may be infinite and does not of
necessity require a first in time, it is not so with a series of movers
necessarily and actually subordinated at the present moment. Here we must
eventually arrive at a supreme mover actually existent, one that has not merely
given an impulse at the beginning of the world, but that is moving all things
now.
For example: the boat
carries the fisherman, the sea enables the boat to float, the earth holds the
sea in check, the sun keeps the earth fixed in its course, and some unknown
center of attraction holds the sun in its place. But after that? We cannot go
on in this manner ad infinitum in a series of causes that are actually
subordinate. There must be a first and supreme efficient cause existing not
merely in the past but in the present, and this supreme cause must act, must
exert its influence now; otherwise the subordinate causes, that act only when
moved by another, would not act at all.
Trying to dispense with
the necessity of a source is the same as saying that a watch can run without a
spring, provided it has an infinite number of wheels. The watch may have been
wound up a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, or times without number,
in the past—it matters little; what is necessary is for it to have a spring.
Likewise it matters little whether the earth had a beginning in its revolution
around the sun; what is necessary is for the sun to attract it now, and for the
sun itself to be attracted by a more remote and actually existing center of
attraction. In the end we must come to a first mover that acts of itself and
not through another of a higher order. We must come to a first mover able to
give a full and adequate account of the very being or reality of its action.
Now that alone can
account for the being of its action which possesses it in its own right, and
that not only potentially but actually; a being which, as a consequence, is its
very act, its activity, and which, instead of having received its life, is life
itself. Such a mover is absolutely immobile in the sense that it already
possesses of itself what others acquire by motion. It is in consequence
essentially distinct from all mobile things, whether corporeal or spiritual.
And here we have a refutation of pantheism. God cannot be confounded with the
world, for He is immovable, whereas the world is in a state of perpetual
change. It is this very change that demands an immobile first mover, who,
instead of passing from the potential to the actual, is His act from all eternity;
who is consequently being itself, since action presupposes being and since the
mode of action follows upon the mode of being.” I am the Lord and I change not”
(Malachias 3: 6). It is false to say that everything passes and nothing
endures, that nothing is constant, nothing stable. There must be a first mover
who is Himself absolutely immovable.
To deny the necessity of
a supreme cause is to maintain that the explanation of motion lies in itself,
that a mobile thing can of itself and without a mover pass from potency to act,
can confer on itself the act, the new perfection it does not yet possess. To do
away with a supreme cause is to claim that, as someone has said, “a brush will
paint by itself provided it has a very long handle.” [3] This is maintaining
always the same thing, that the greater comes from the less.
As evidence of this
necessity for a supreme mover in the present and not merely in the past, we may
take another example, this time from motion of the spiritual order.
Our will begins to will
a certain thing: a sick person, for instance, wishes to call in a doctor. And
why? Because first of all he desires to be cured, and to be cured is a good
thing. He began to will this good thing, and this act of willing is an act
distinct from the volitional faculty; for with us this faculty is not of itself
an eternal act of love for the good; it contains its first act only
potentially, so that when the act makes its appearance it is in the will as
something new, a new perfection. In order to find the ultimate raison d’etre of
this becoming, of the very reality of this first act of willing, we must go
back to a first mover of mind and will, one that has not received the impulse
to act, who acts without its being given Him to act, to whom it can never be
said: “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” We must eventually arrive
at a first mover who is His own activity, who acts solely through Himself,
since action presupposes being and since the mode of action follows upon the
mode of being.
Only being itself, which
alone exists of itself, can in the last analysis account for the being or
reality of a becoming, which is not self-existent.
Are we not forced to
recognize the existence of this first mover when we are confronted with an
important duty to be performed at all costs and without delay, such as the
defense of family or country; are we not too aware of our weakness, our
powerlessness to proceed to action? What is then needed is action, not words.
Who, then, will effect the transition from potency to act, if not He and He
alone who has given us the faculty to will and is able to move the will, seeing
that He is more intimately present to it than it is to itself?
Similarly, the first act
of our intellect, whether it be when we come to the age of reason or when we
wake in the morning, presupposes a first impulse given to it by the supreme
intellect, without whose concurrence we could not think at all. This impulse,
by many unperceived, becomes at times strikingly apparent on those occasions
known as flashes of genius. Even the man of genius merely participates in
intellectual life. He has a part in it, and everything that is by participation
is dependent on that which exists of itself and not through another.
Is not the existence of
the first mover of intellects forcibly brought home to us when, after failing
to see where our duty lies, we retire within ourselves and there eventually get
enlightenment? How have we passed from potency to act if not by the assistance
of Him who has given us intelligence and who alone can enrich it with new
light?
The first mover,
therefore, is not in potentiality for further perfection. He is pure act
without any admixture of imperfection. Consequently, He is really and
essentially distinct from every limited mind, whether angelic or human, these
passing from potency to act, from ignorance to knowledge. Here again we have a
refutation of pantheism.
Is the first mover of
corporeal and spiritual beings necessarily spiritual?
To move intellects and
wills without doing violence to them, evidently the mover must be spiritual.
The greater does not come from the less.
But even the first mover
of corporeal beings must be spiritual, for, as we have seen, It must be
immobile in the sense that It is its own action, its own being. This cannot be
true of anything corporeal; all bodies are mobile; matter is in perpetual
motion.
Even if prime matter is
supposed to be endowed with primitive essential energies, still it cannot as an
agent account for the being of its own action; for such an agent must not only
possess action and existence, it must be its very action, existence, and
consequently must be absolutely immobile, possessing of itself all perfection
and not a tendency to it. Now matter is forever in motion, constantly acquiring
new perfections or forms and losing others.
The first mover,
therefore, of corporeal and spiritual beings must evidently be spiritual. It is
of Him the liturgy speaks when it says: Rerum Deus tenax vigor, Immotus in Te
permanens. (God powerful sustainer of all things, Thou who dost remain
permanently unmoved.)
In what then does the
immobility of the supreme mover of corporeal and spiritual beings consist? Not
in the immobility of inertia, of an inert body, for that is inferior to motion.
It is the immobility of supreme activity, which has nothing to gain, because of
itself and from the first it possesses all that it is possible for it to
possess and is able to communicate that abundance externally. On board ship the
sailors pass to and fro at their duties, but is it not the captain who directs
them to action by the spiritual activity of his intellect and will, standing
immovable on the bridge? There is far more vitality in the steadfast
contemplation of truth than in mere commotion.
The immobility of the
first mover is not the immobility of the stone, but the immobility that
characterizes the contemplation and love of the supreme good.
The characteristics of
the supreme mover
Since the first mover is
pure act with no admixture of the imperfection of potentiality, it follows that
He is in no way perfectible. He is infinitely perfect, pure being, the pure and
ever actual intellection of supreme truth, the pure and ever actual love of the
fullness of being ever actually loved.
He is omnipresent,
because to move all beings whether spiritual or corporeal, He must be present,
since these beings do not move themselves, but are moved by Him.
He is eternal, for He
has always by and of Himself all His being and all His action of thought and
love. In one immobile instant transcending time, He possesses His life
simultaneously in all its completeness. When the world was created, the
creative act did not commence in God, for it is eternal; but it produced its
effect in time at the desired moment fixed from all eternity.
The first mover is
unique: for pure act does not receive existence, it is existence; it is being
itself, which cannot be multiplied. Were there two first movers, since one
would not be the other, each would be limited and imperfect and would no longer
be pure act and being itself.
Moreover the capacity of
a second pure act could be nothing more than the first, and would be
superfluous: Could there be anything more absurd than a superfluous God?
If such be the case, if
there is an actually existing first mover of corporeal and spiritual beings,
what practical conclusions are to be drawn from it?
In the first place we
must learn to distinguish in life between the immobility of inertia and the
immobility of higher activities. The immobility of inertia or of death is
inferior to motion. The immobility that characterizes the contemplation and
love of God is superior to the movement it may produce by directing and
vivifying it.
Instead of dissipating
our life in mere commotion, let us endeavor to recollect it so that our
activity may be more profound, more consistent and lasting, and directed to
eternity.
Secondly, let us
frequently establish a contact in the summit of our soul with the first mover
of corporeal and spiritual beings, who is none other than the living God,
author not only of the soul and its natural acts, but of grace also and
salvation.
Let us make this contact
on waking in the morning, for then we receive within us that impulse from God
that stirs us to action. Instead of going astray at the beginning of the day,
let us welcome this first impulse by responding to it.
Let us in the course of
the day resume this contact with Him who is the author of life, who was not
content merely to urge us in the past, or merely to set us in motion at the
beginning of the day, but is ever sustaining us and actualizing our voluntary
actions—even the freest of them—in all their reality and goodness, evil only
excepted.
Before lying down to
rest, let us renew this contact, and all that sound philosophy has just told us
about the first mover of corporeal and spiritual beings will appear
transfigured, transported to a higher plane, in the Our Father.
“Thy kingdom come”: the
kingdom of the supreme intellect, by whom all other intellects are directed.”
Thy will be done”: that will to which every other will must be subjected if it
is to attain to its true end.
“Lead us not into
temptation, “ but sustain us by Thy strength; maintain our intellect in truth
and our will in the good. Then we shall have an even deeper insight into the
meaning of those words of St. Paul spoken in the Areopagus (Acts 17:24) : “God,
who made the world and all things therein... hath made of one all mankind...
that they should seek God, if happily they may feel after Him or find Him,
although He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and
are.” In Him we have our being—not natural being only, but the supernatural
being of grace which is the beginning of eternal life. Of this supreme mover,
the source from which the life of creation proceeds we have been able to speak
only in an abstract and very imperfect manner. It is He whom we must see face
to face when we come to the end of our journey and reach eternity.
2. The Order In The
Universe, And Providence
The general proof for
the existence of God—that the greater cannot come from the less—we have made
more precise by an examination of motion. We have seen how all motion,
corporeal or spiritual, requires a mover, and in the last resort a supreme
mover; for in a series of actually subordinated causes (for instance, in the
series: the earth attracted by the sun, the sun by a more distant center), we
must eventually arrive at a supreme mover who does not require to be previously
moved, who must therefore possess activity of Himself if He is to confer it upon
others. That is, He must be His action instead of merely receiving it. He acts
without its being given Him to act. And as action presupposes being, and the
mode of action follows upon the mode of being, the supreme mover of corporeal
and spiritual beings, to be His action, must also be being itself, according to
the Scriptural expression: “I am who am.”
We must now speak of a
proof that establishes at once the existence of God and His providence—that
based on the order prevailing in the world. Of all the proofs for God’s
existence, it is the most popular. Easily accessible to commonsense reason, it
is susceptible of greater penetration by philosophical reason; and when it is
applied from the physical to the moral order it may lead to the most sublime
contemplation. We find it expressed in Psalm 18: 2: “The heavens show forth the
glory of God: and the firmament declareth the work of His hands.”
The fact: the order
prevailing in the universe
The fact is this, that
in nature, in those things that lack intelligence, we have an admirable
ordering of means to ends.” This is evident, “ says St. Thomas, “since those
things which lack intelligence—the heavenly bodies, plants and animals—act
always, or at least nearly always, in such a way as to produce what is best”
(Ia, q. 2, a. 3).
Finality and order are
apparent in the universal attraction between bodies. The purpose of this
attraction is the cohesion of the universe. It is seen in the translational
motion of the sun through space, carrying with it its entire system. It is
again seen in the twofold motion of the earth—the rotation about its axis every
twenty-four hours, which is the cause of day and night, and its revolution
round the sun in three hundred and sixty-five days, which is the cause of the
seasons. In this constant regularity of the heavenly bodies in their courses,
we have an obvious instance of means directed to an end, as the greatest
astronomers declared, rapt as they were in admiration for the laws that they
discovered. And many good things in this world would not be realized without
the difference of day and night and the distinction of seasons, so necessary
for the germination of plants and their development.
If we ascend a little
higher and consider the plant organism, we see how admirably its arrangement
enables it to use the moisture and transform it into sap, in a word, to nourish
and reproduce itself in a regular and constant manner. If we but consider a
grain of wheat put into the ground, we see that its purpose is to produce an
ear of wheat, not of barley or rice.
We have only to consider
an oak to see the utility of its roots and sap for the life of its branches and
foliage. We have only to examine the collective organs of a flower to see that
they all concur in the formation of the fruit which the flower is intended to
produce—a cherry, for instance, or an orange. A particular flower is intended
to produce a particular fruit and no other. How is it possible not to see in
this formation a designing idea?
If we ascend still
higher and consider the animal organism, whether in its lower or higher forms,
we see that as a whole it is adapted for the animal’s nourishment, respiration,
and reproduction. The heart makes the red blood circulate throughout the
organism for its nourishment; then the dark blood charged with carbonic acid is
again transformed into red by contact in the lungs with the oxygen of the air.
Obviously the heart and lungs are for the preservation of animals and men.
Certain parts of the
animal organism are truly marvelous. The joints of the foot are so made as to
adapt themselves to every position in walking, and those of the hand are suited
to a great variety of movements. A bird’s wings are adapted for flight far
better than is the best airplane. The smallest cell, which is related to
thousands of others, is a masterpiece in itself. Of particular beauty is the
harmonious arrangement of the many parts of the ear, for the perception of
sound; and again, the very complex structure of the eye, in which the act of
vision presupposes thirteen conditions, each of these again presupposing very
many more, all of them adapted to this simple act of vision. In the eye we have
an instance of an amazing number of means adapted to one and the same end, and
this organ is formed in such a way as to produce always, or usually at any
rate, what is best.
If now we consider the
instinctive activity of animals, especially such as bees, we meet with fresh
marvels. It would require the genius of a mathematician to invent and construct
a bee-hive; and no chemist has yet succeeded in making honey from the nectar of
a flower. Yet the bee is obviously not itself intelligent: it never varies its
work or makes any improvement. From the very beginning its natural instinct has
determined it to perform its task in the same way, and it will continue to do
so forever, without in any way bringing it to perfection. On the contrary, man
is continually perfecting the implements of his invention because, through his
intelligence, he recognizes their purpose. The bee, too, works with an end in
view, but unconsciously; yet it works in a way that excites our admiration.
Shall it be said that
this wonderful order in the heavenly bodies, in vegetable and animal organisms,
in the instinct of animals, is the effect of a happy chance? What happens
fortunately by chance is not of regular or even frequent occurrence, but
extremely rare. It is by chance that a tripod, when thrown into the air, falls
on its three feet; but this rarely happens. It is by chance that a man digging
a grave finds a treasure; but it is an unusual thing. On the contrary, the
wonderful order we have been considering as prevailing in nature is an order of
fixed unchangeable laws, which are always applicable. It is a constant harmony
and, as it were, the perpetual symphony of the universe for those who can hear
it, that is, for great artists and thinkers and for the simple, to whom nature
speaks of God.
Shall it be said that,
amid a large number of useless organisms, a fortunate chance has formed a
select few capable of receiving life, with the result that these have been
preserved while the useless ones have disappeared? Such is the evolutionist
theory of the survival of the fittest. But this would be tantamount to saying
that chance is the first cause of the harmony prevailing in the universe and
all its parts, and that, surely, is impossible. To be convinced of this, we
need only reflect on what is meant by chance. Chance and its effect are
something accidental; it is accidental for the tripod, when thrown into the
air, to fall on its three feet; it is accidental for the gravedigger to find a
treasure. Now the accidental presupposes the non-accidental, the essential, the
natural, as the accessory presupposes the principal.
Were there no natural
law of gravitation, the tripod would not, when thrown into the air, fall
accidentally on its three feet. If the man who accidentally finds a treasure
had not had the intention of digging the grave at that particular spot, this
accidental effect would not have come about.
Chance is simply the
accidental concurrence of two actions that are themselves not accidental but
intentional, intentional at least in the sense that they have an unconscious
natural tendency.
To say, therefore, that
chance is the first cause of order in the world is to explain the essential by
the accidental, the primary by the accessory; it implies as a consequence the
destruction of the essential and the natural, the destruction of all nature and
of all natural law. There would no longer be anything but fortuitous
encounters, with nothing to encounter or be encountered—which is absurd. It is
equivalent to saying that the wonderful order in the universe is the outcome of
disorder, of the absence of order, of chaos, without cause of any kind: that
the intelligible is the outcome of the unintelligible: that brain and
intelligence are the result of a material, blind fatality. Once again it is to
assert that the greater comes from the less, the more perfect from the less
perfect. That is the substitution, indeed, of absurdity for the mystery of
creation, a mystery that has its obscurities, but that is plainly in conformity
with right reason.
The fact, then, that
constitutes the starting-point of our proof holds good: namely, there is order
and finality in the world, that is, means ordered to certain ends; for beings
without intelligence, such as plants and animals, always or nearly always act
so as to produce what is best. Universal attraction is for the cohesion of the
universe, the seed of a grain of wheat for the production of the ear, a flower
for the fruit, the foot of an animal for walking, the wings of a bird for
flying, the lungs for breathing, the ear for hearing, the eye for seeing. The
existence of finality is an undeniable fact, as even the positivist Stuart Mill
admits.
More than this: not only
is it a fact that every natural agent acts for some end, but it cannot be
otherwise. Every agent must act for some purpose since, for the agent, to act
is to tend to something determinate and appropriate to itself, that is, to an
end. If the agent did not act for some determinate end, neither would it
produce anything determinate, one thing rather than another; there would be no
reason why the eye should see rather than hear, why the ear should hear rather
than see. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 1, a. 2.)
Perhaps the objection
may be raised, that we do not see for what useful purpose the viper and other
harmful animals exist. True, the external finality of certain beings does
frequently escape us, but their internal finality is plain enough. We are quite
able to see that the viper’s organs serve for its nutrition and preservation.
Its poisonous effect upon us induces us to be on our guard, and reminds us that
we are not invulnerable, that we are not gods. Faith tells us that, had man not
sinned, the serpent would not have become harmful to him. In spite of
obscurities and shadows, there is light enough for those who are willing to
see.
The materialists say
there is as much heat or motion or calorific energy in a kettle as in a
gier-eagle. Ruskin retorts:
Very good; that is so,
but for us painters, the primary cognizable facts, in the two things, are, that
the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak; the one a lid on its back, the
other a pair of wings;... the kettle chooses to sit still on the hob; the eagle
to recline on the air. It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of
temperature in the fulfilment of it, which appears to us the more interesting
circumstance (The Ethics of the Dust, Lect. X).
The materialist does not
perceive that wings are for flying, the eye for seeing; he will not recognize
the value of finality of the eye. Yet, if he feels that he is losing his sight,
he goes to the oculist like the rest of men, and that is at any rate a
practical recognition of the fact that eyes were made to see with.
For those who are
willing to see, there is light enough in spite of obscurities and shadows. The
finality of nature is an evident fact, not for our senses of course,—for these
get no farther than the sensible phenomena—but for our intellect, which is made
to grasp the raison d’être of things. For the intellect, obviously the eye is
for seeing, the ear for hearing.
A means cannot be
directed to an end except by an intelligent designer
From the fact that there
is order in the world, how are we to ascend to the certain truth of God’s
existence? By means of the principle that beings without intelligence can tend
to an end only when directed to it by an intelligent cause, as the arrow is
directed by the archer. More simply, a means cannot be directed to an end
except by an intelligent designer.
Why is this? Because the
end, which determines the tendency and the means, is none other than the effect
to be realized in the future. But a future effect, which as yet has no actual
existence, must, to determine the tendency, be in some way already present, and
this is possible only in a cognitive being.
If nobody has ever known
the purpose of the eye, we cannot say that it is made to see with. If nobody
has ever known the purpose of the bee’s activity, we cannot say that it is for
making honey. If nobody has ever known the purpose of the lung’s action, we
cannot say that it is for the renewal of the blood by contact with the oxygen
of the air.
But why must there be an
intelligent designer? Why does not the imagination suffice? Because only the
intellect knows the raison d’être of things and consequently the purpose, which
is the raison d’être of the means. Only an intellect can see that the wings of
a bird are made for flying and the foot for walking; only an intellect could
have designed wings for flying, the foot for walking, the ear for hearing, etc.
The swallow collecting
straws to make its nest does so without perceiving that the building of the
nest is the raison d’être of the action it performs. The bee, as it gathers the
nectar from the flower, does not know that the honey is the raison d’être of
its gathering. It is the intellect alone that reaches beyond mere color or
sound down to the being and the raison d’être of things.
Only an intelligent
designer can have directed means to an end; otherwise we would have to say that
the greater comes from the less, order from disorder.
But why is an infinite
intellect necessary, one strictly divine? Why, asks Kant, should not a limited
intellect, like that of the angels, be sufficient to explain the order in the
universe?
It is because a finite
or limited intellect would not be thought itself, intellection itself, truth
itself. Now an intellect that is not truth itself always known is merely
directed to the knowledge of the truth; and this passive presupposes an active
direction, which can come only from the supreme intellect, who is thought and
truth itself. It is in this sense that our Lord declares Himself to be God,
when He says: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He does not say merely, ““I
have received truth, “ but, “I am the truth and the life” (John 14: 6).
This, therefore, is the
conclusion to which our proof leads us: a transcendently perfect intelligent
designer, who is truth itself and consequently being itself, since the true is
being that is known. It is the God of the Scriptures: I am who am. It is
providence or the supreme reason of the order in things, by which every
creature has been directed to its own particular end and finally to the
ultimate end of the universe, which is the manifestation of the divine
goodness. This is the way St. Thomas puts it (Ia, q. 22, a. 1) :
We must necessarily
suppose a providence in God; for, as was pointed out above, whatever goodness
there is in things has been created by Him. Now in created things not only in
their substance is goodness to be found, but also in their order to some end,
and in particular to the ultimate end, which, as we concluded above, is the
divine goodness. Hence this goodness in order apparent in created things has
also been created by God. Now since God is the cause of all things through His
intellect, in which therefore the conception of everyone of His effects must
pre-exist, there must also pre-exist in the divine mind the conception of this
ordering of things to an end. But the conception of the order of things to an
end is strictly providence.
Providence is the
conception in the divine intellect of the order of all things to their end; and
the divine governance, as St. Thomas observes (ibid., ad 2um), is the execution
of that order.
We now understand more
fully the significance of those words of the psalm: “The heavens show forth the
glory of God” (Ps. 18:2). The wonderful order of the starry skies proclaims and
extols the glory of God, and reveals to us His infinite intelligence. The
harmony of the universe is like a marvelous symphony, the sweetest and most
effective chant of the Creator. Blessed are they who listen to it.
Is there not a great
moral lesson in this proof for the existence of God from the order prevailing
in the world? Yes, an important one that is taught us in the Book of Job and
more clearly later on in the Sermon on the Mount.
It is this lesson that,
if there is such order in the physical world, much more must it be so in the
moral world, in spite of all the wickedness human justice allows to go
unpunished, as it also leaves unrewarded many a heroic act giving proof of God’s
intervention in the world.
It is the Lord’s answer
to Job and his friends. As we shall insist later on, the purpose of the Book of
Job is to answer this question: Why so often in this world are the just made to
suffer more than the wicked? Is it always in expiation of their sins, their
secret sins at any rate?
Job’s friends declare
that it is, and they blame this poor stricken soul for complaining. Job denies
that the trials and tribulations of the just are in every case the result of
their sins, even their secret sins, and he wonders why so much suffering should
have befallen him.
In the latter part of
the book (chaps. 32-42), the Lord replies by pointing out the wonderful order
prevailing in the physical world with all its splendors, from the life of the
insect to the eagle’s flight, as if to say: If there exists such order as this
in the things of sense, much more so must there be order in the dispositions of
my providence concerning the just, even in their most terrible afflictions.
There is in this a secret and a mystery which it is not given to men to fathom
in this world.
Later on, in the Sermon
on the Mount, our Lord speaks more plainly (Matt. 6: 25) : “Therefore I say to
you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat.... Behold the birds
of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap... and your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?... Consider the lilies
of the field:... they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you that
not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. And if the grass
of the field... God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith.”
If there is order in the world of sense, a providence for the birds of the air,
much more so will there be order in the spiritual world and a providence for
the immortal souls of men.
And lastly, to the
question put in the Book of Job, our Lord gives the final answer when He says
(John 15: I-2) : ‘“I am the true vine: and My Father is the husbandman... and
everyone that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”
God proves a man as He proved Job, that the man may bring forth the splendid
fruits of patience, humility, self-abandonment, love of God and one’s
neighbor—the splendid fruits of charity, which is the beginning of eternal
life.
This, then, is the important
moral lesson taught us in this sublime proof for the existence of God: If in
the world of sense such wonderful order exists, much more must it be so in the
moral and spiritual world, in spite of trials and tribulations. There is light
enough for those who are willing to see and march on accordingly to the true
light of eternity.
3. God, The Supreme
Being And Supreme Truth
The proof for the
existence of a first mover of corporeal and spiritual beings, and of a supreme
intelligence, the author of the harmony prevailing in the universe, will
prepare the way for a better understanding of three other traditional proofs
for the existence of God. They are those of (1) God, the supreme being and
supreme truth, (2) the sovereign good who is the source of all happiness, and
(3) the ultimate foundation of our obligations. These we must touch upon if we
would have a right idea of providence.
Following in the steps
of Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine, St. Thomas develops the first of these
proofs, called the proof from the degrees of perfection, in the Summa
Theologica, Ia, q. 2, a. 3, 4a via. Its point of departure lies in the more or
less of perfection to be found in the beings that compose the universe, a
perfection always limited, from which our minds are led on to affirm the
existence of a supreme perfection, a supreme truth, a supreme beauty.
Let us closely examine
the starting-point of the proof, the fact upon which the proof is based, and
then the principle by which the proof rises from the fact to the existence of
God.
The fact: the degrees of
perfection
The proof starts with
the fact that there are in the universe beings more or less good, more or less
true, more or less noble. In other words, in the universe of corporeal and
spiritual beings, goodness, truth, nobility exist in varying degrees, from the
lowest mineral such as iron with its strength and resistance up to the higher
degrees of the intellectual and moral life apparent in the great geniuses and
the great saints.
Of these degrees of
goodness in things we have daily experience. We say that a stone is good when
it has solidity and does not crumble away; a fruit is good if it provides
nourishment and refreshment; a horse is good if with it we can go on a long
journey. In a higher way a teacher is good if he has knowledge and knows how to
impart it; the virtuous man is good because he wills and does what is good; far
more so is the saint, in whom the desire for good has become an ardent passion.
And yet, however great a saint may be, he has his limitations; no matter how
much good he has accomplished, like the Cure of Ars he will experience hours of
intense sadness coupled with a sense of his own helplessness at the thought of
all the good that remains to be done. Indeed, the saints realize most of all
their own nothingness.
It is an established
fact, then, that goodness is realized in varying degrees. It is the same with
nobility: the vegetable is nobler than the mineral, the animal is nobler than
the vegetable, man is nobler than the animal. One man is nobler in mind and
heart than a certain other; yet he too has his limitations, his temptations,
his weaknesses, his very imperfections. Nobility has its degrees, but even the
most exalted in our experience are still very imperfect.
Similarly, truth has
degrees, for that which is richer in being, as a reality, is richer also in
truth. True gold is superior to spurious gold alloyed with copper, the true
diamond is superior to the artificial, the upright mind is superior to the
false. Surpassing the mind that possesses a knowledge of but one science,
physics for example, is the mind that ascends to the sciences of the spiritual
world, to psychology and the moral and political sciences. Yet how very limited
is the truth of even these higher sciences!
The more we know, say
the great thinkers, the more we realize all that still remains to be known, and
how little we do know. So, too, with the great saints: the more good they do,
the more keenly they realize the amount of good that still remains to be done.
What, then, is the
explanation of these various degrees of goodness, nobility, and truth, or of
beauty? Does this ascending gradation remain stunted, incomplete, without a
culminating point, a summit? Must the progressive ascent of our minds toward
the true halt at a limited and impoverished truth, as in the case of our
psychology and our moral and political sciences? Must the progressive ascent of
our will to the good halt at one that is imperfect, mingled always with some
defect, some impotence? Must our enthusiasm at the sight of the ideal be
forever followed by a certain disillusionment and, if there is no summit, by a
disillusionment for which there is no remedy?
The principle: the more
and the less perfect presuppose perfection itself
Following in the steps
of Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine, St. Thomas explains the fact of the
various degrees of the good and the true by means of the following principle: “Different
beings are said to be more or less perfect in the measure of their approach to
that being which is perfection itself.”
By this sovereign
perfection does St. Thomas mean ideal sovereign perfection, one existing solely
in the mind, or one that is real? He means a real perfection, for that alone
can be the cause of the various degrees of perfection which, as we have seen,
do exist and which demand a cause.
The meaning of the
principle invoked by St. Thomas is that, when a perfection (such as goodness,
truth, or beauty), the conception of which does not imply any imperfection, is
found in various degrees in different beings, none of those which possess it
imperfectly contains a sufficient explanation for it, and hence its cause must
be sought in a being of a higher order, which is this very perfection.
For a clearer
understanding of this principle let us pause to consider its terms. When an
absolute perfection is found in various degrees in different beings, none of
those possessing it as yet imperfectly contains a sufficient explanation for
it. Here we must consider (1) the multiple and (2) the imperfect.
1) The multiple
presupposes the one. In fact, as Plato says in the Phaedo, his disciple Phaedo
is handsome; yet beauty is not peculiar to Phaedo, for Phaedrus, too, is
handsome.” The beauty found in some finite being is sister to the beauty found
in similar beings. None of them is beauty; each merely participates, has a part
in or is a reflection of beauty.” (Cf. Phaedo, 101, A.)
It is not in Phaedo,
then, any more than in Phaedrus, that we are to find the raison d’être of the
principle of their beauty. If neither can account for the limited beauty that
is his, he must have received it from some higher principle, namely, from
Beauty itself. In a word, every multiplicity of beings more or less alike
presupposes a higher unity. The multiple presupposes the one.
2) The imperfect
presupposes the perfect. The principle we are explaining is brought home to us
even more forcibly when we consider that the perfection of the beings we see
around us is always mingled with its contrary, imperfection. A man’s nobility
and goodness cannot be said to be unlimited, mingled as it is with so much
infirmity, with its trouble and errors. So also ignorance and even error
constitute a great part of human knowledge; this merely participates in truth,
has no more than a part and that a humble part in it. And if it is not truth,
that is because it has received truth from some higher source.
Briefly, an imperfect
being is a compound, and every compound requires a cause uniting its
constituent elements. The diverse presupposes the identical, the compound
presupposes the simple. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 3, a. 7.)
The truth of our
principle will impress itself more forcibly upon us if we observe that a
perfection such as goodness, truth, or beauty, which of itself implies no imperfection,
is not in fact limited except by the restricted capacity of its recipient. Thus
knowledge in us is limited by our restricted capacity for it, goodness by our
restricted capacity for doing good.
Hence it is clear that,
when a perfection of this kind, that as yet is in an imperfect state, is found
in some being, such a being merely participates or has a part in it, and has
therefore received it from a higher cause, which must be the unlimited
perfection itself, being itself, truth itself, goodness itself, if this cause
is to be capable of imparting to others a certain reflection of that truth and
goodness.
Among the philosophers
of antiquity Plato has emphasized this truth in one of the finest pages to be
found in the writings of the Greek thinkers. (Cf. Symposium, 211, C) We must
learn, he says in substance, to love beautiful colors, the beauty of a sunrise
or sunset, of the mountains, seas, and skies, the beauty of a noble
countenance. But we must rise above mere material beauty to beauty of soul as
displayed in its actions; thence from the beauty of these actions to the
principles that govern them—to the beauty of the sciences, and from science to
science ascending even to wisdom, the most exalted of them all: the science of
being, of the true and the beautiful. Afterward there will arise in us the
desire to have knowledge of the beautiful itself and as it is in itself—the
desire to contemplate, says Plato, that beauty which grows not nor decays; is
not fair in one part, uncomely in another; fair at one time, uncomely at
another; fair in one place and not in another; fair to some, uncomely to
others... a beauty residing in no being other than itself, in an animal, in the
earth or skies or elsewhere, but existing eternally and absolutely, of itself and
in itself; in which all other beauties participate, without inducing in it by
their birth or destruction the least diminution or increase, or any change
whatsoever.
The disillusionments
that we meet with here on earth are permitted precisely in order to direct our
thoughts more and more to this supreme beauty and impel us to love it.
What Plato says of
beauty applies equally to truth. Transcending particular, contingent truths,
which possibly might not be so (as that my body exists at this moment, to die perhaps
tomorrow), there are the universal, necessary truths (as that man is by nature
a rational being, with the capacity to reason, without which he would be
undistinguishable from the brute beast) ; or again the truth, that it is
impossible for something at once to exist and not exist. These truths never
began to be true and will continue to be true always.
Where have these
eternal, necessary truths their foundation? Not in perishable realities, for
the latter are governed by these truths as by absolute laws, from which nothing
can escape. Nor is their foundation in our finite intellects, for these
eternal, necessary truths govern and regulate our intellect as higher
principles.
Where, then, are we to
look for the foundation of these eternal, necessary truths, governing all
finite reality and every finite intellect? Where is that foundation if not in
the supreme being, the supreme truth always known by the first intellect,
which, far from having received truth, is the truth, pure truth, without any
admixture of error or ignorance, without any limitation or imperfection
whatever?
In a word, the truths
which govern all perishable reality and every finite intellect, like necessary
and eternal laws, must have their foundation in a supreme truth which is being
and wisdom itself. But it is God who is being itself, truth itself, wisdom
itself.
Such is this further
proof for the existence of God proposed by Plato, St. Augustine, and St.
Thomas.
We now see more clearly
the significance and scope of the principle on which this proof is based: “Different
beings are said to be more or less perfect according to the measure of their
approach to that being which is perfection itself.” In other words, when a
perfection such as goodness, truth, or beauty, the concept of which implies no
imperfection, is found in varying degrees in different beings, this cannot be
accounted for by any of those beings in which it is found in as yet an
imperfect degree; the being merely participates in it, and has received it
according to the measure of its capacity—has received it, too, from a higher
being who is this very perfection.
What practical
conclusion are we to draw from this ascent? It is expressed in that saying of
our Lord: “None is good but God alone”—good, that is, with goodness unalloyed.
God alone is true, with a truth and wisdom untrammeled by ignorance; God alone
is beautiful with that infinite beauty which we are called upon to contemplate
some day face to face, that beauty which even here on earth the human intellect
of Jesus contemplated as He conversed with His disciples.” God alone is great”:
that was St. Michael’s answer to Satan’s pride. The thought of this makes us
humble.
Ours is but a borrowed
existence, freely given us by God, and He keeps us in existence because indeed
He wills it so. Ours is but a goodness in which there is so much infirmity and
even degradation; there is so much error in our knowledge. This thought, while
serving to make us humble, brings home to us by contrast the infinite majesty
of God.
And then if it is a
question of others and no longer of ourselves, if we have suffered
disillusionment about our neighbor whom we had believed to be better and wiser,
let us remember that he too has suffered disillusionment about us; let us
remember that he too is perhaps better than we are, and that whatever is our
own as coming from ourselves-our deficiencies and failings—is inferior to
everything our neighbor has from God. This is the foundation of humility in our
relations with others.
Lastly, we must admit
that the disillusionments we ourselves experience, or which others experience
through us, in view of the radical imperfection of the creature, are permitted
that we may aspire more ardently to a knowledge and love of Him who is the
truth and the life, whom we shall some day see as He sees Himself. We shall
then understand the meaning of those words of St. Catherine of Siena: “The
living, practical knowledge of our own wretchedness and the knowledge of God’s
majesty are inseparable in their increase. They are like the lowest and highest
points on a circle that is ever expanding.” And the more we realize our own
imperfections and limitations, the more we realize, too, that God has a right
to be loved above all things by reason of His infinite wisdom and His infinite
goodness.
Our final observation is
this: the supreme truth has Himself spoken to us: He has revealed Himself to
us, as yet in an obscure manner, but it is the foundation of our Christian
faith. It is in the name of this supreme truth that Jesus speaks, when He says:
“In truth, in truth, I say to you.” He is Himself the truth and the life, and
by His help from day to day we must gradually live a better life. This far
surpasses Plato’s ideal; no longer is it an abstract, philosophic ascent to the
supreme truth, but the supreme truth which condescends to reach down to us in
order to raise us up to Himself.
4. God The Sovereign
Good And The Desire For Happiness [4]
When speaking of God as
supreme being and supreme truth we saw that a multiplicity of beings resembling
one another in one and the same perfection, such as goodness, is insufficient
to account for the unity of likeness thus existing in that multiplicity; as
Plato said, the multiple cannot account for the one. Moreover, none of the
beings possessing the perfection in an imperfect degree is sufficient to
account for it; for each is a compound of the perfection and the restricted
capacity limiting it, and like all compounds it demands a cause: “Things in
themselves different cannot possess an element in common except through a cause
uniting them.” [5] This compound participates or has a part in the perfection;
it has therefore received the perfection, and can have received it only from
Him who is perfection itself, which in its notion implies no imperfection.
From the moral point of
view this doctrine becomes of vital importance in reminding us that the more we
realize our limitations in wisdom and goodness, the more our minds should dwell
on Him who is wisdom and goodness itself. The multiple finds its explanation
only in the one, the diverse in the identical, the compound in the simple, the
imperfect mingled with imperfection only in the perfect that is free from all
imperfection.
This proof for the
existence of God contains implicitly another which St. Thomas develops
elsewhere, Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 8. He shows that beatitude or true happiness, the
desire for which is natural to man, cannot be found in any limited or
restricted good, but only in God who is known at least with a natural knowledge
and loved with an efficacious love above all things. He proves that man’s
beatitude cannot consist in wealth, honors, or glory, or in any bodily good;
nor does it consist in some good of the soul, such as virtue, nor in any
limited good. His argument for this last is based on the very nature of our
intellect and will. [6]
Let us consider (1) the
fact which is the starting-point of the proof, (2) the principle on which the
proof rests, (3) the culminating point of the proof, and (4) what the proof
cannot extend to.
1) The fact of
experience: true, substantial, and enduring happiness cannot be found in any
passing good
We can ascend to the
sovereign good, the source of perfect and unalloyed happiness, by starting
either from the notion of imperfect subordinate goods or from the natural
desire which such goods never succeed in satisfying.
If we begin with those
finite limited goods which man is naturally inclined to desire, we very soon
realize their imperfection. Whether it be health or the pleasures of the body,
riches or honors, glory or power, or a knowledge of the sciences, we are forced
to acknowledge that these are but transitory goods, extremely limited and
imperfect. But, as we have said repeatedly, the imperfect, or the good mingled
with imperfection, is no more than a good participated in by the restricted
capacity of the recipient, and it presupposes the pure good completely
excluding its contrary. Thus a wisdom associated with ignorance and error is no
more than a participated wisdom, presupposing wisdom itself. This is the
metaphysical aspect of the argument, the dialectic of the intellect proceeding
by way of both exemplary and efficient causality.
But the proof we are
here speaking of becomes more vital, more convincing, more telling, if we begin
with that natural desire for happiness which everyone feels so keenly within
him. This is the psychological and moral aspect of the argument, the dialectic
of love founded on that of the intellect and proceeding by way of efficient
(productive, regulative) causality or final causality. [7] These, the efficient
and final, are the two extrinsic causes, each as necessary as the other. Indeed
the final is the first of the causes, so that Aristotle (Metaphysics, Bk. XII,
chap. 7) saw more clearly the final causality of God the pure act than His
efficient causality, whether productive or regulative. [8]
Following in the wake of
Aristotle and St. Augustine, St. Thomas (Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 7, 8) insists on the
fact that man by his very nature desires to be happy. Now man’s intellect,
transcending as it does the sense and the imagination of the brute, has
knowledge not merely of this or that particular good, whether delectable or
useful—a particular food or a particular medicine, for instance—but of good in
general (universal in predication), constituting it as such, as the desirable
wherever it is to be found. Since this is so, and since man’s inclination is
directed to the real good to be found in things, and not simply to the abstract
idea of the good, it follows that he cannot find his true happiness in any
finite limited good, but in the sovereign good alone (universal in being and
causation). [9]
It is impossible for man
to find in any limited good that true happiness which by his very nature he
desires, for his intellect, becoming immediately aware of the limitation,
conceives forthwith the idea of a higher good, and the will naturally desires
it.
This fact is expressed
in the profound sentence of St. Augustine’s Confessions (Bk. I, chap. 1): “Our
heart, O Lord, is restless, until it finds its rest in Thee” (irrequietum est
cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te, Domine).
Who of us has not
experienced this fact in his intimate life? In sickness we have the natural
desire to recover our health as a great good. But, however happy we are in our
recovery, no sooner are we cured than we realize that health alone cannot bring
happiness: a man may be in perfect health and yet be overwhelmed with sadness.
It is the same with the pleasures of the senses: far from being sufficient to
give us happiness, let them be abused ever so little and they bring only
disillusion and disgust; for our intellect, with its conception of a universal
unlimited good, straightway tells us: “Now that you have obtained this sensible
enjoyment which just now had such an attraction for you, you see that it is
sheer emptiness incapable of filling the deep void in your heart, of satisfying
your desire for happiness.”
It is the same with
wealth and honors, which many desire eagerly. We no sooner possess them than we
realize how ephemeral and superficial is the satisfaction they give, how
inadequate they, too, are to fill the void in our hearts. And intellect tells
us that all these riches and honors are still but a poor finite good that is
dissipated by a breath of wind.
The same must be said of
power and glory. One who is lifted up on the wheel of fortune has scarcely
reached the top when he begins to descend; he must give place to others, and
soon he will be as a star whose light is extinguished. Even if the more fortunate
retain their power and glory for a time, they never find real happiness in it;
often they experience such anxiety and weariness of mind that they long to
withdraw from it all.
The same applies to the
knowledge of the sciences. Here it is a case of only an extremely limited good;
for the true, even when complete and without admixture of error, is still the
good of the intellect, not of man as a whole. Besides the intellect, the heart
and will have also their profound spiritual needs, and so long as these remain
unsatisfied there can be no true happiness.
Shall we find it in a
most pure and exalted form of friend ship? Such a friendship will doubtless
bring us intense joy, sometimes affecting our inmost being. But we have an
intellect that conceives universal and unlimited good, and here again it will
not be long in perceiving that this most pure and exalted form of friendship is
still but a finite good. This reminds us of those words of St. Catherine of
Siena: “Would you continue long to slake your thirst with the cup of true
friendship? Leave it, then, beneath the fountain of living water; otherwise it
will speedily be drained and no longer satisfy your thirst.” If the thirst is
satisfied, it is because the person loved is made better, and in order to be
made better he needs to receive a new goodness from a higher source.
Suppose we could look
upon an angel and see his suprasensible, purely spiritual beauty. Once. the
first sense of wondering amazement had passed, our intellect, with its
conception of the universal, unlimited good, would immediately remind us that
even this was no more than a finite good and thereby exceedingly poor in
comparison with the unlimited and perfect good itself. Two finite goods,
however unequal they may be, are equally remote from the infinite; in this
respect the angel is as insignificant as the grain of sand.
2) The principle by
which we ascend to God
Can it be that this
natural desire for happiness, which we all have within us, must forever remain
unsatisfied? Is it possible for a natural desire to be of no effect,
chimerical, without meaning or purpose?
That a desire born of a
fantasy of the imagination or of an error of reason, such as the desire to have
wings, may be chimerical, can well be understood. But surely it could not be so
with a desire which has its immediate foundation in nature without the
intervention of any conditional judgment. The desire for happiness is not a
mere hypothetical wish; it is innate, with its immediate foundation in nature
itself; and nature again is stable and constant, being found in all men, in all
places, and at all times. Furthermore, this desire is of the very nature of the
will, which, prior to any act, is an appetitive faculty having universal good
as its object. The nature of our will can no more be the result of chance, of a
fortuitous encounter, than can the nature of our intellect; because, like the
intellect, the will is a principle of operation wholly simple, in no way
compounded of different elements that chance might have brought together. Can
this natural desire of the will be chimerical?
In answer to this
question we say, first, that natural desire in beings inferior to ourselves is
not ineffectual, as the naturalists have shown from the experimental point of
view. In herbiverous animals the natural desire is for herbaceous food, and
this they find; in carnivores the desire is to find flesh to eat, and they find
it. Man’s natural desire is for happiness, and with him true happiness is not
and cannot be found in any limited good. Is this true happiness nowhere to be
found? Is man’s natural desire, then, to remain a deception and without
finality when the natural desire of inferior beings is not in vain?
And this is not purely a
naturalist’s argument based on experience and the analogy of our own natural
desire with that of inferior beings. It is a metaphysical argument based on the
certitude of the absolute validity of the principle of finality.
If the natural desire
for true happiness is chimerical, then all human activity, inspired as it is by
that desire, is without finality, without a raison d’être, and thus contrary to
the necessary and evident principle that every agent acts for an end. To grasp
the truth of this principle, thus formulated by Aristotle, it is enough to
understand the terms of the proposition. Any agent whatsoever, conscious or
unconscious, has an inclination to something determinate which is appropriate
to it. Now the end is precisely that determinate good to which the act of the
agent or the motion of the mobile object is directed.
This principle,
self-evident to one who understands the meaning of the words agent and end, may
be further demonstrated by a reductio ad absurdum; for otherwise, says St.
Thomas (Ia IIae, q. 1, a. 2), “there would be no reason why the agent should
act rather than not act, no reason why it should act in this way rather than in
another, “ why it should desire this object rather than some other.
If there were no
finality in nature, if no natural agent acted for some end, there would be no
reason why the eye should see and not hear or taste, no reason why the wings of
the bird should be for flying and not for walking or swimming, no reason for
the intellect to know rather than desire. Everything would then be for no
purpose, and be unintelligible. There would be no reason why the stone should
fall instead of rising, no reason why bodies should attract rather than repel
one another and be dispersed, thus destroying the harmony of the universe.
The principle of
finality has an absolute necessity and value. It is no less certain than the
principle of efficient causality, that everything that happens and every
contingent being demands an efficient cause, and that in the last analysis
everything that happens demands an efficient cause itself uncaused, a cause
that is its own activity, its own action, and is therefore its existence, since
action follows being and the mode of action the mode of being.
These two principles of
efficient and final causality are equally certain, the certitude being metaphysical
and not merely physical, antecedent to a demonstration of the existence of God.
Indeed, without finality, efficient causality is inconceivable: as we have just
seen, it would be without a purpose and consequently unintelligible.
3) The term of this
ascent
There is, then, a
purpose in our natural desire for happiness; its Inclination is for some good.
But is this inclination for a good that is wholly unreal, or, though real, yet
unattainable?
In the first place, the
good to which our natural desire tends is not simply an idea in the mind, for,
as Aristotle more than once pointed out, whereas truth is formally in the mind
enunciating a judgment, the good is formally in things. When we desire food, it
is not enough for us to have the idea: it is not the idea of bread that
nourishes, but the bread itself. Hence the natural desire of the will, founded
as it is in the very nature of the intellect and the will and not merely in the
imagination or the vagaries of reason, tends to a real good, not merely to the
idea of the good; otherwise it is no longer a desire and certainly not a
natural one.
It will perhaps be said
that our universal idea of good leads us to seek happiness in the simultaneous
or successive enjoyment of all those finite goods that have an attraction for
us, such as health and bodily pleasures, riches and honors, the delight in
scientific knowledge, art and friendship. Those who in their mad career wish to
enjoy every finite good, one after another, if not all at once, seem for the
moment to think that herein lies true happiness.
But experience and
reason undeceive us. That empty void in the heart always remains, making itself
felt in weariness of spirit; and intelligence tells us that not even the
simultaneous possession of all these goods, finite and imperfect as they are,
can constitute the good itself which is conceived and desired by us, any more
than an innumerable multitude of idiots can equal a man of genius.
Quantity has nothing to
say in the matter; it is quality of good that counts here. Even if the whole
sum of created goods were multiplied to infinity they would not constitute that
pure and perfect good which the intellect conceives and the will desires. Here
is the profound reason for that weariness of spirit which the worldly experience
and which they take with them wherever they go. They pursue one thing after
another, yet never find any real satisfaction or true happiness.
Now if our intellect is
able to conceive a universal, unlimited good, the will also, awakened as it is
by the intellect, has a range and depth that is limitless. Is it possible,
therefore, for its natural desire—which calls for a real good and not merely
the idea of good—to be chimerical and of no effect?
This natural desire,
which has its foundation not in the imagination but in our very nature, is,
like that nature, something fixed and unchangeable. It can no more be
ineffectual than the desire of the herbivora or that of the carnivora; it can
no more be ineffective than is the natural ordering of the eye for seeing, the
ear for hearing, the intellect for knowing. If therefore this natural desire
for happiness cannot be ineffective, if it cannot find its satisfaction in any
finite goods or in the sum total of them, we are necessarily compelled to
affirm the existence of a pure and perfect good. That is, the good itself or
the sovereign good, which alone is capable of responding to our aspirations.
Otherwise the universal range of our will would be a psychological absurdity,
something radically unintelligible and without a purpose.
4) What does not come
within the exigencies of our nature
Does it follow that this
natural desire for happiness in us demands that we attain to the intuitive
vision of God, the sovereign good?
By no means; for the
intuitive vision of the divine essence is essentially supernatural and
therefore gratuitous, in no way due to our nature or to the nature of angels.
This is the meaning of
St. Paul’s words: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; neither hath it entered
into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.
But to us God hath revealed them by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God” (I Cor. 2: 9).
But far inferior to the
intuitive vision of the divine essence and to Christian faith, is a natural
knowledge of God as the author of nature, which is the knowledge given us by
the proofs of His existence.
If original sin had not
enfeebled our moral strength, this natural knowledge would have enabled us to
attain to a naturally efficacious love for God as the author of nature, who is
the sovereign good known in a natural way.
Now had man been created
in a purely natural state, he would have found in this natural knowledge and
naturally efficacious love for God his true happiness. Of course it would not
have been that absolutely perfect and supernatural beatitude, which is the
immediate vision of God, but a true happiness, nevertheless, one solid and
lasting; for in the natural order, at any rate, the order embracing everything
our nature demands, this natural love for God, if efficacious, does really
direct our life to Him and in a true sense enables us to find our rest in Him.
Such in the state of pure nature would have been the destiny of the immortal
souls of the just after the probation of this life. The soul naturally desires
to live forever, and a natural desire of this kind cannot be ineffective. (Cf.
St. Thomas, Ia, q. 75, a. 6, c, end.)
But gratuitously we have
received far more than this: we have received grace which is the seed of glory,
and with it t supernatural faith and a supernatural love for God, who is no
longer the author merely of nature but also of grace.
And so, for us
Christians, the proof we have been discussing receives strong confirmation in
the happiness and peace to be found even here on earth through union with God.
In a realm far beyond
any glimpse that philosophical reason might obtain, though not yet the
attainment of the perfect beatitude of heaven, true happiness is ours to the
extent that we love the sovereign good with a sincere, efficacious, generous
love, and above all things, more than ourselves or any creature, and to the
extent that we direct our whole life daily more and more to Him.
In spite of the
occasional overwhelming sorrows of this present life, we shall have found true
happiness and peace, at least in the summit of the soul, if we love God above
all things; for peace is the tranquillity that comes with order, and here we
are united to the very principle of all order and of all life.
Our proof thus receives
strong confirmation from the profound experiences of the spiritual life, in
which are realized the words of our Lord: “Peace I leave with you: My peace I
give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you” (John 14:27). It is
not in the accumulation of pleasures, riches, honors, glory, and power, but in
union with God, that the Savior has given us peace. So solid and enduring is
the peace He has given us that He can and actually does preserve it within us,
as He predicted that He would, even in the midst of persecutions: “Blessed are
the poor.... Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice.... Blessed
are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven” (Matt. 5: 10). Already the kingdom of heaven is theirs in the sense
that in union with God they possess through charity the beginnings of eternal
life, inchoatio vitae aeternae (IIa IIae, q. 24, a. 3 ad 2um).
Epicurus boasted that
his teaching would bring happiness to his disciples even in the red-hot brazen
bull of Phalaris in which men were roasted to death. Jesus alone has been able
to accomplish such a thing by giving to the martyrs in the very midst of their
torments peace and true happiness through union with God.
According to the degree
of this union with God, the proof we have been discussing is thereby very much
confirmed by reason of the profound spiritual experience; for, through the gift
of wisdom, God makes Himself felt within us as the life of our life: “For the
Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God”
(Rom. 8: 16). God makes Himself felt within us as the principle of that filial
love for Him which He Himself inspires in us.
5. God, The Ultimate
Foundation Of Duty
We have been considering
the proof for the existence of the sovereign good based on our natural desire
for happiness. It may be summed up, we said, in this way: A natural desire, one
that has its foundation not in the imagination or the vagaries of reason but in
our very nature, which we have in common with all men, cannot possibly be
ineffective, chimerical, deceptive; this means that it cannot be for a good
that is either unreal or unattainable.
Now every man has a
natural desire for happiness, and true happiness is not to be found in any
finite or limited good, for our intellect, with its conception of universal,
unlimited good, naturally constrains us to desire it.
There must, then, be an
unlimited good, pure and simple, without any admixture of non-good or
imperfection; without it the universal range of our will would be a
psychological absurdity and without any meaning whatever.
If the herbivora find
the grass they need and the carnivora the prey necessary for their sustenance,
then the natural desire in man cannot be to no purpose. The natural desire for
true happiness must be possible of attainment and, since it is to be found only
in the knowledge and love of the sovereign good, and this is God, then God must
exist.
There is another proof
for God’s existence, the starting point of which is not in our desire for
happiness but in moral obligation or the direction of our will to moral good.
This proof leads up to the sovereign good, not considered as simply the supreme
desirable but as possessing the right to be loved, as having a claim on our
love, and as the foundation of duty.
1) The ordering of our
will to moral good
This proof has its
starting-point in human conscience. All men, including even those who doubt the
existence of God, realize, at least vaguely, that one must do good and avoid
evil. To recognize this truth it is enough to have a notion of “good” and to
distinguish, as common sense does, between (1) sensible or purely delectable
goods, (2) good that is useful in view of some end, and (3) honorable or moral
good (bonum honestum), which is good in itself independently of the enjoyment
or utility it may afford. The animal finds its complete satisfaction in
delectable good of the senses; by instinct it makes use of sensible good that
it finds to be useful, but without perceiving that the raison d’être of the
useful lies in the end for which it is employed. The swallow picks up a piece
of straw with which to make its nest without knowing that the straw is of use
in building it. Man alone, through his reason, recognizes that the utility or
raison d’être of the means lies in the end they subserve.
Again, he alone
recognizes and can love the honorable good; he alone can understand this moral
truth: that one must do good and avoid evil. The imagination of the brute may
be trained and continually perfected in its own order, but never will it
succeed in grasping this truth.
But, on the other hand,
every man, however uncultured he may be, will grasp this truth as soon as he
comes to the age of reason. Everyone who has come to the full use of reason
will recognize this threefold distinction in the good, even though he may not
always be able to put it into words. It is obvious to anyone that a tasty fruit
is a delectable good of the sensible order, a physical good having nothing to do
with moral good, since the use it is put to may be either morally good or
morally bad: the delectable is not therefore in itself moral.
Again, all are aware
that a bitter medicine is not a delectable good, but one that is useful in view
of some end, as a possible means of recovering their health. In this way money
is useful and, from the moral point of view, the use it is put to may be either
good or bad. Here is one of the most elementary principles of common sense.
Lastly, everyone who has
come to the age of reason sees that transcending the delectable and the useful
there is the honorable good, the rational or moral good, which is good in
itself independently of any pleasure or advantage or convenience resulting from
it.
In this sense virtue is
a good, such as patience, courage, justice. That justice is a spiritual good
and not a sensible one is obvious to everybody. Though it may bring joy to the
person practicing it, it is good regardless of this enjoyment; it is good
because it is reasonable or in conformity with right reason. We are fully aware
that justice must be practiced for its own sake and not merely for the
advantage to be gained, let us say, in avoiding the evil consequences of
injustice. Thus, even though it should mean certain death to us, we are bound
to do justice and avoid injustice, especially where the injustice is grave.
This is a perfection
belonging to man as man, to man as a rational being, and not as an animal.
To know truth, to love
it above all things, to act in all things in accordance with right reason, is
likewise good in itself apart from the pleasure we may find in it or the
advantages to be gained thereby.
Furthermore, this
honorable or rational good is presented to us as the necessary end of our
activity and hence as of obligation. Everyone is aware that a rational being
must behave in conformity with right reason, even as reason itself is in
conformity with the absolute principles of being or reality: “That which is,
is, and cannot at the same time be and not be.” The honest man who is beaten
unmercifully by some scamp proves to him the superiority of the intelligible
world over that of sense when he exclaims: “You may be the stronger, but that
does not prove that you are right.” Justice is justice.
“Do your duty, come what
may, “ “one must do good and avoid evil.” In these or equivalent formulas the
idea of duty finds expression among all peoples. Pleasure and self-interest
must be subordinated to duty, the delectable and the useful to the moral. Here
we have an eternal truth, which has always been true and will ever be so.
What is the proximate
basis of duty or moral obligation? As St. Thomas (Ia IIae, q. 94, a. 2) says,
this basis is the principle of finality, evident to our intellect, according to
which every being acts in view of some end and must tend to that end which is
proportionate to it. Whence it follows that in rational beings the will must
tend to the honorable or rational good, to which it has been ordered. The
faculty to will and act rationally is for the rational act as the eye is for
seeing, the ear for hearing, the foot for walking, the wings of the bird for
flying, the cognitive faculty for knowing. A potency is for its correlative
act; if it fails to tend to that act it ceases to have a raison d’être. It is
not merely better for the faculty to tend to its act, it is its intrinsic
primordial law.
Since over and above the
sensible, the delectable, and the useful good, the will from its very nature is
capable of desiring the honorable or rational good (and this is equivalent to
saying that it is essentially ordered to that good), it cannot refuse to desire
that good without ceasing to have a raison d’être. The will is for the purpose
of loving and desiring rational good; this good must therefore be realized by
it—by man, that is, who is capable of realizing this good and who exists for
such purpose. This is the proximate basis of moral obligation. But is there not
also a far nobler and ultimate basis?
The voice of conscience
is peculiarly insistent at times in commanding or forbidding the performance of
certain acts—in forbidding perjury or treason, for instance—or again in
rebuking and condemning when a grave offense has been committed. Is not the
murderer tormented by his conscience after his crime, even when the deed is
perpetrated in complete secrecy? The crime is unknown to men, yet conscience
never ceases to upbraid him even though he chooses to doubt God’s existence.
Where does this voice of
conscience come from? Is it simply the result of a logical process? Does it
come simply from our own reason? No, for it makes itself heard in each and
every human being; it dominates them all.
Is it the result of
human legislation? No, for it is above human legislation, above the legislation
of any one nation, of every nation and of the League of Nations. It is this
voice which tells us that an unjust law is not binding in conscience; those who
enact unjust laws are themselves rebuked in the secrecy of their hearts by the
persistent voice of right reason.
2) The ordering of our
will to moral good presupposes a divine intelligent designer
Whence, then, comes this
voice of conscience, so insistent at times? We take for granted that a means
cannot be ordered to an end except by an intelligent designer, who alone can
recognize in the end to be attained the raison d’être of the means, and
therefore can alone determine the means to the end. We take for granted also,
as was seen above (chap. 2), that the order in the physical universe
presupposes a divine intelligent designer. Then with much greater reason must
such an intellect be presupposed in the ordering of our will to moral good.
There is no passive direction without a corresponding active direction, which
in this case must be from the very Author of our nature.
Again, if from the
eternal speculative truths (such as, that the same thing cannot at the same
time be and not be), we pass by a necessary transition to the existence of a
supreme Truth, the fountain of all other truths, why should we not ascend from
the first principle of the moral law (it is necessary to do good and avoid
evil) up to the eternal law?
Here we begin with the
practical instead of the speculative principles; the obligatory character of
the good merely gives a new aspect to the proof, and this characteristic,
evident already in the proximate basis of moral obligation, leads us on to seek
its ultimate basis.
If honorable good, to
which our rational nature is ordered, must be desired apart from the
satisfaction or advantages we derive from it; if that being which is capable of
desiring it must do so under pain of ceasing to have a raison d’être; if our
conscience loudly proclaims this duty and thereafter approves or condemns
without our being able to stifle remorse of conscience; if, in a word, the
right to be loved and practiced inherent in the good dominates the whole of our
moral activity and that of every society, actual or possible, as the principle
of contradiction dominates all reality, actual or possible: then of necessity
there must exist from all eternity some basis on which these absolute rights
inherent in the good are founded.
These claims inherent in
justice dominate our individual, family, social, and political lives, and
dominate the international life of nations, past, present, and to come. These necessary
and predominating rights cannot have their raison d’être in the contingent,
transient realities which they dominate, nor even in those manifold and
subordinate goods or duties which are imposed upon us as rational beings.
Transcending as they do everything that is not the Good itself, the rights of
justice can have none but that Good as their foundation, their ultimate reason.
If, then, the proximate
basis of moral obligation lies in the essential order of things, or, to be more
precise, in the rational good to which our nature and activity are essentially
ordered, its ultimate basis is to be found in the sovereign good, our objective
last end. This moral obligation could only have been established by a law of
the same order as the sovereign good—by the divine wisdom, whose eternal law
orders and directs all creatures to their end. Agent and end are in
corresponding orders. The passive direction on the part of our will to the good
presupposes an active direction on the part of Him who created it for the good.
In other words, in rational beings the will must tend to the honorable or
rational good, since this is the purpose for which it was created by a higher
efficient cause, who Himself had in view the realization of this good.
This is why, according
to common sense or natural reason, duty is in the last resort founded on the
being, intelligence, and will of God, who has created us to know, love, and
serve Him and thereby obtain eternal bliss.
And so, common sense has
respect for duty, while at the same time it regards as legitimate our search
after happiness. It rejects utilitarian morality on the one hand, and on the
other Kantian morality, which consists in pure duty to the exclusion of all
objective good. To common sense this latter is like an arid waste where the sun
never shines.
Against this
demonstration of God’s existence, the objection is sometimes advanced that it
is a begging of the question, that it involves a vicious circle. Strictly
speaking, there is no moral obligation, so it is said, without a supreme
lawgiver, and it is impossible to regard ourselves as subject to a categorical
moral obligation unless this supreme lawgiver is first recognized. Hence the
proof put forward presupposes what it seeks to prove; at the most it brings out
more explicitly what is presumed to be already implicitly admitted.
To this we may reply,
and rightly so, that it is sufficient first of all to show the passive
direction of our will to moral good and then go on to prove the further truth
that, since there can be no passive direction without an active direction,
there must exist a first cause who has so given this tendency to the will. Thus
we have seen that the order in the world presupposes a supreme intelligent
designer, and that the eternal truths governing all contingent reality and
every finite intelligence themselves require an eternal foundation.
Moreover, this passive
direction of our will to moral good is not the only starting-point from which
we may argue. We may also begin with moral obligation as evidenced in its
effects, in the remorse felt by the murderer, for instance. Whence comes this
terrible voice of remorse of conscience which the criminal never succeeds in
silencing in the depths of his soul?
Right reason within us
commands us to do good, that rational good to which our rational nature is
directed. Nevertheless it does not command as a first and eternal cause; for in
each of us reason first of all begins to command, then it slumbers, and is
awakened again; it has many imperfections, many limitations. It is not the
principle of all order, but is itself ordered. We must therefore ascend higher
to that divine wisdom by which everything is directed to the supreme good.
There alone do we find
the ultimate basis of moral obligation or duty. There is no vicious circle;
from the feeling of remorse or from its contrary, peace of mind, we ascend to
conscience. In the approval or disapproval of conscience lies the explanation
of these feelings. We then look for the source of this voice of conscience. The
ultimate source is not in our imperfect reason, for reason in its commanding
had a beginning. It commands only as secondary cause, presupposing a first
cause that is eternal, simple, and perfect—wisdom itself, by which everything
is directed to the good.
The sovereign good is
now no longer presented simply as the supreme desirable, wherein alone we may
find true happiness, if we love it above all things; it is further presented as
the sovereign good which must be loved above all things, which demands our love
and is the foundation of duty.
From all this it is
plain that, if the primary duty toward God the last end of man is denied, then
every other duty is deprived of its ultimate foundation. If we deny that we are
morally bound to love before all else the good as such and God the sovereign
good, what proof have we that we are bound to love that far less compelling
good, the general welfare of humanity, which is the main object of the League
of Nations? What proof have we that we are bound to love our country and family
more than our life; or that we are bound to go on living and avoid suicide,
even in the most overwhelming afflictions? If the sovereign good has not an
inalienable right to be loved above all things, then a fortiori inferior goods
have no such right. If we are not morally bound by a last end, then no end or
means whatever is morally binding. If the foundation for moral obligation is
not in a supreme lawgiver, then every human law is deprived of its ultimate
foundation.
Such is the proof for
the existence of God as supreme lawgiver and the sovereign good, who is the
foundation of duty. Such is the eminent origin of the imperious voice of
conscience, that voice which torments the criminal after his crime and gives to
the conscientious who have done their utmost, that peace which comes from duty
accomplished.
The moral sanction
In conclusion we shall
say a few words about another proof for the existence of God, a proof closely
related to the preceding: that based on moral sanction.
The consideration of
heroic acts unrequited here on earth and of crimes that go unpunished shows us
the necessity of a sovereign judge, a rewarder and vindicator.
The existence of this
sovereign judge and of an eternal sanction may be proved from the insufficiency
of all other sanctions. Kant himself chose to attach some importance to this
argument, but in itself it is far more convincing than he made it out to be. It
may be summed up in this way:
By perseverance in
virtue the just man merits happiness since he has persevered in doing good. Now
the harmony prevailing between virtue and happiness, in another and better
life, is accomplished by God alone. Therefore God and that other life exist.
The more exalted a man’s
moral life is, the firmer and livelier is his conviction resulting from this
proof. In reality it presupposes the preceding proof and is a confirmation of
it. If, in fact, the voice of conscience comes from the supreme lawgiver, then
He must also be the sovereign judge who rewards and vindicates. Because He is
intelligent and good, He owes it to Himself to give to every being what is
necessary for it to attain the end for which He has destined it, and hence to
give to the just that knowledge of truth and that beatitude which they deserve.
(Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 21, a. 1.) Furthermore, since the supreme lawgiver must
of necessity love the good above all things, He owes it to Himself also to
compel respect for its absolute rights and repress their violation (Ia IIae, q.
87, a. 1, 3).
In other words, if there
is order in the physical world and if that order demands an intelligent
designer, much more must there be order in the moral world, which is on an
infinitely higher plane.
Herein is the answer to
the complaints of the just who are persecuted and unjustly condemned by men.
How often in this world do the wicked and indifferent triumph, while upright
and high-minded souls, like Joan of Are, are condemned? Barabbas was even
preferred to Jesus; Barabbas was set free and Jesus was crucified. Injustice
cannot have the last word, especially when it is so flagrant as this. There is
a higher justice; its voice makes itself heard in our conscience and it will
one day restore all things to the true order. Then will be clearly made
manifest the two aspects of the Sovereign Good: His right to be loved above all
things, which is the principle of justice, and His being essentially
self-diffusive, which is the principle of mercy.
These moral proofs for
the existence of God are of a nature to convince any mind that does not try to
stifle the interior voice of conscience. Such a mind will have little
difficulty in discovering the deeper source of this voice directing us to the
good, because it comes from Him who is the good itself.
6. On The Nature Of God
We have seen how the classical
proofs for the existence of God as presented by St. Thomas demonstrate the
existence of a first mover of spiritual and corporeal beings, of a first cause
of everything that comes into existence, of a necessary being on which all
contingent and perishable things depend, of a supreme being, the first truth
and sovereign good, and of an intelligent designer, the cause of order in the
universe, to which we rightly give the name providence.
Now it is through these
five attributes (first mover, first cause, etc.) that we have our conception of
God. We have thus proved His existence. We must now go on to state what He is,
what formally constitutes His nature. We cannot otherwise form a right idea of
providence.
The problem
Here on earth, of
course, we can have no knowledge of the divine essence as it is really in
itself; for this we must have an intuitive vision of it as the blessed see it
in heaven. Our knowledge of God here on earth is obtained solely through the
reflection of His perfections in the mirror of created things. Since these are
on a plane far inferior to His, they do not enable us to know Him as He is in
Himself. As Plato tells us in his allegory of the cave, where God is concerned
we are to some extent like men who have never seen the sun but simply a
reflection of its rays in the things it illuminates; or like men who have never
seen white light but only the seven colors of the rainbow: violet, indigo,
blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. For such men a right conception of white
light would be impossible; they could have only a negative or relative
conception of it as an inaccessible source of light. It is the same with the
divine nature: we cannot form a proper and positive conception of it through
creatures, for the perfections which in God form an absolute unity are in
creatures multiple and divided.
Here on earth,
therefore, it is impossible for us to know the divine nature as it is in
itself. If this were possible, we should see how all the divine perfections
contained in it-such as infinite being, wisdom, love, justice, mercy—are really
identified, yet without destroying one another. As it is, we are reduced to
spelling out, as it were, and enumerating these divine perfections one after
another, always with the reservation that they are identified in one
transcendent simplicity, in the higher unity of the Deity or Divinity. But the
Deity or the very essence of God—that which makes God to be God—we do not see,
nor shall we ever be able to do so until we reach heaven. It is as though we were
gazing at the sides of a pyramid the summit of which remains ever invisible.
But, without knowing the
divine nature as it is in itself, can we not determine, so far as our imperfect
mode of knowing permits, what it is that formally constitutes that nature? In
other words, among all the perfections we attribute to God is there not one
that is fundamental, the source as it were of all the divine attributes and
likewise the principle distinguishing God from the world?
Is there not in God some
radical perfection having the same function in Him as rationality in man? Man
is defined as a rational being; this, distinguishing him from inferior beings,
is the principle of his distinctive human characteristics. Because man is
rational, he is free, he is morally responsible for his actions, he is social
and religious, he has the faculty of speech and intelligent laughter. These
characteristics do not exist in the brute beast. We deduce man’s
characteristics as we deduce the properties of the triangle or the circle.
Is there in God some
radical perfection also that allows of our defining Him, according to our
imperfect mode of knowledge, in some such way as we define man, or again as we
define a circle or a pyramid? In other words, is there not a certain order in
the divine perfections, so that from one primary perfection all the rest may be
deduced? This is the statement of the problem.
The various solutions
To the question thus
stated various solutions have been given. Beginning with the least
satisfactory, we shall proceed by degrees to the most profound.
1) Some (Nominalists)
have held that in God there is no fundamental perfection from which the rest
may be logically deduced. According to their view, the divine essence is merely
the sum of all the perfections; there can be no question of seeking a logical
order among them, since they are simply different names for the same
transcendent reality.
This doctrine of
Nominalism leads to the conclusion that God is unknowable, because His
attributes cannot be deduced from one fundamental divine perfection; and, since
we can give no reason why He must be wise or just or merciful, we should simply
be asserting the fact without knowing why.
2) Others, inspired by
Descartes, have held that what constitutes the divine nature is liberty: God is
pre-eminently a will transcendently free. Descartes claimed that, if God so
willed, He could make the circle square, mountains without valleys, or beings
that at one and the same time would exist and not exist, or effects without a
cause. Ockham in the Middle Ages declared that, had God so willed, He could
have commanded us not to love but to hate both ourselves and Him. That is, the
principle of contradiction and the distinction between moral good and evil are
dependent for their truth on the free will of God. First and foremost God is
said to be absolute liberty.
In the opinion of some
modern philosophers (Secretan in Switzerland, for instance), the correct
definition of God is I am what I will, I am what I would freely be.
In reply to this view,
it has been pointed out that liberty cannot be conceived as anterior to
intellect. Liberty without intellect is impossible; it would be confounded with
mere chance. Liberty is inconceivable without an intellect to direct it; it
would be liberty without standard of any kind, without truth, without true
goodness. As Leibniz remarked, to say that God, if He had wished, could have
commanded us to hate Him, is to deny that He is of necessity the sovereign
good; in that case, had He wished, He might well have been the Manichean
principle of evil. A man would have be out of his senses to maintain such a
position. To claim that God has established the distinction between good and
evil by a purely arbitrary decree, to claim that He is absolute liberty without
standard of any kind, is, as Leibniz again says, “to dishonor God.”
Clearly, then, liberty
cannot be conceived without an intellect and wisdom to direct it, and
conversely intellect is conceived as anterior to the liberty it directs. The
knowledge of true good, indeed, is anterior to the love of that good, which
would not be so loved were it not already known.
Intellect, therefore, is
prior to and the cause of liberty. Shall we say, then, that what formally
constitutes the divine nature is intellect, the ever actual thought or eternal
knowledge of the true in all its fullness? This, of course, is a divine
perfection, but is it the fundamental perfection?
A number of philosophers
and theologians thought so. They conceived of God as pre-eminently a pure
intellectual flash subsisting eternally. During a storm at night, an immense
streak of lightning may sometimes be seen, flashing from one extremity of the
sky to the other; this, they would say, is a faint image of God. We also speak
of “flashes of genius, “ as in the case of Newton’s discovery of the great laws
of nature. These are transitory and very confined flashes, revealing what after
all is only a partial truth, like the law of universal gravitation. God, on the
other hand, is a pure intellectual flash subsisting eternally, who is infinite
truth and sees in one glance all actual and possible worlds, with all their
laws. God is, indeed, eternally subsistent thought itself, truth itself ever
actually known. And why is this? Because intellectual life is the highest form
of life, transcending vegetative plant life and sensitive animal life; because,
too, intellect is anterior to will and liberty, which it directs by pointing
out the good to be desired and loved.
This is all quite true.
But is subsistent thought or intellection the absolutely primary perfection in
God? However lofty this way of conceiving the divine nature may be, it does not
seem to be the highest. [10]
Holy Scripture provides
us with a more profound conception of the divine nature. It tells us that God
is being itself; He Himself has revealed His name to us as “He who is.”
God is the eternally
subsisting being
In the Book of Exodus
(3: 14), we are told how God, speaking to Moses from the burning bush, revealed
His name. He did not say, “I am absolute liberty, I am what I will”; nor did He
say, “I am intellect itself, thought eternally subsistent.” He said, “I am who
am, “ that is, the eternally subsistent being
Let us call to mind this
passage from Exodus: “Moses said to God: Lo, I shall go to the children of
Israel, and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they
should say to me: What is His name? what shall I say to them? God said to
Moses: I am who am. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He
who is hath sent me to you.” He who is: in Hebrew, Yahweh, from which the word
Jehovah has been formed.” This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto
all generations” (ibid., 15).
Again, in the last book
of the New Testament (Apocalypse, 1:8), we read: “I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to
come, the Almighty.” (Cf. 1: 4.)
Under this title God has
frequently revealed Himself to His saints, to St. Catherine of Siena, for
instance: “I am He who is, thou art that which is not.”
God, then, is not only
pure spirit, He is being itself subsisting immaterial at the summit of all
things and transcending any limits imposed by either space or matter or a
finite spiritual essence.
In our imperfect mode of
knowledge, must we not say that subsistent being is the formal constituent of
the divine nature?
It would not seem a
difficult matter to establish the truth of this. In fact, what formally
constitutes the divine nature is that which in God we conceive to be the
fundamental perfection distinguishing Him from creatures and the source from
which His attributes are deduced.
Now, because God is the
self-subsisting being, the infinite ocean of spiritual being, unlimited,
unmaterialized, He is distinguished from every material or spiritual creature.
The divine essence alone is existence itself, it alone of necessity exists. No
creature is self-existent; none can say: I am being, truth, life, etc. Jesus
alone among men said, “I am the truth and the life, “ which was equivalent to
saying, “I am God.”
Upon this culminating
point, namely, the self-subsisting being, converge the five proofs for the
existence of God, as developed by St. Thomas: the first mover, the first cause,
the necessary being, the supreme being, the intelligent designer of order in
the universe. All these attributes must be predicated of the self-subsisting
and immaterial being who is at the summit of all things. Again, from this
culminating point are deduced all the divine attributes, as the characteristics
of man are deduced from his rationality.
As will be seen more
clearly in what follows, the self-subsisting and immaterial being who is at the
summit of all things must be absolutely one and simple, must be truth itself
ever actually known, the good itself ever actually loved. By reason of His
perfect and unique immateriality He must be intelligence itself, thought itself
eternally subsistent, wisdom itself; subsistent will and love; hence justice
and mercy.
Conversely, we see that
justice and mercy presuppose the love of the good; that love presupposes an
intellect which enlightens it; that intellect presupposes an intelligent being
and at the same time an intelligible being which it contemplates.
It remains true,
therefore, that of all the names of God, the primary and most distinctive is “He
who is, “ Yahweh. It is pre-eminently His name, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 13 a.
11), and that for three reasons:
1) Because it expresses
not one form of being or one particular essence, but being itself; and God alone
is being itself, He alone is self-existent.
2) It is the most
universal name, embracing being in all its fullness, with all its
perfections—the boundless, shoreless, ocean, as it were, of omnipotent,
omniscient, spiritual substance.
3) This name, “He who
is, “ signifies not only being, but the ever-present being, for whom there is
neither past nor future.
Here, then, is what
formally constitutes the divine nature according to our imperfect manner of
understanding, which consists in deducing from this formal constituent the
divine attributes, enumerating them one after another: unity, wisdom, love,
justice, mercy and the rest, yet without ever perceiving how they are fused
together and identified in the intimate life of God, which is the Deity.
The Deity
In this life we can have
no knowledge of the Deity, of the divine nature, such as it really is; for this
we should need to have an intuitive vision of it as the blessed have in heaven,
without the intervention of any created image. Only in heaven shall we see how
wisdom is identical with God’s utterly free good pleasure; how, for all its
freedom, this good pleasure is by no means a caprice, since it is penetrated
through and through by wisdom. Then only shall we see how infinite justice and
mercy are identified in the love of the sovereign good, which has the right to
be loved above all else and which tends to communicate itself to us for our
happiness.
The Deity, as it really
is, remains for us a secret, a profound mystery. Indeed, the mystics have
called it the Great Darkness, a light-transcending darkness; it is the “light
inaccessible” spoken of in Scripture.
Although we cannot have
knowledge of the Deity as it really is, we are permitted to participate in it
through sanctifying grace, which is in very truth a participation in the divine
nature as it really is, [11] preparing us in this present life to see and love
God some day as He sees and loves Himself. From this we see the value of
sanctifying grace, which far surpasses the natural life of the intellect,
whether in us or even in the angels. This truth leads St. Thomas to remark that
the least degree of sanctifying grace in the soul of a little child just
baptized is of more value than all corporeal and spiritual natures taken
together: “The good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the
whole universe” (Ia IIae, q. 113, a. 9 ad 2um).
Pascal expresses this
well in one of the finest pages of his Pensees: “The least of minds is greater
than all material objects, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its
kingdoms; for the mind has knowledge of all these things and of itself; whereas
things material have no knowledge at all. Bodies and minds, all these taken
together and the effects produced by them, do not equal the least act of
charity. This latter is of an infinitely higher order. From the sum total of
material things there could not possibly issue one little thought, because
thought is of another order. From bodies and minds we cannot possibly have an
act of true charity, for the latter, too, is of another order, pertaining to
the supernatural. The saints have their realm, their glory, their luster, and
have no need of temporal or spiritual aggrandizement, which in no way affects
them, neither increasing nor decreasing their greatness. The saints are seen by
God and the angels, not by bodies or by curious minds. God suffices for them.”
[12] This sums up the value of the hidden life.
In the present life this
holiness reveals most clearly, though in the obscurity of faith, what
constitutes the intimate life of God, the Deity. This it does because holiness,
which is the life of grace in its perfection, is a real, living participation
in this same intimate life of God, preparing us to behold it some future day.
Hence those words of the psalmist (Ps. 67: 36) : “God is wonderful in His
saints.”
PART II :THE PERFECTIONS
OF GOD WHICH
HIS PROVIDENCE
PRESUPPOSES
7. The Divine Simplicity
We have seen that the
formal constituent of the divine nature according to our imperfect mode of
knowledge is subsistent being, for this distinguishes Him from every other
being and is the source from which all His attributes may be deduced, as man’s
characteristics are deduced from the fact that he is a rational being. And now,
in order to have a right idea of providence, we must consider those divine
perfections which it presupposes. A full consideration of these perfections
helps us to a true notion of providence and gradually leads us to a more exact
understanding of it.
We distinguish between
the attributes relative to God’s being (His simplicity, infinity, eternity,
incomprehensibility) and those relating to the divine operations (in the
intellect, wisdom and providence; in the will, love with its two great virtues,
mercy and justice; and finally omnipotence).
All these attributes are
absolute perfections, implying no imperfection, and they may be deduced from
what we conceive to be the formal constituent of the divine nature. [13]
Our Lord said: “Be ye
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Perfect, not merely like the
angels, but as our heavenly Father is perfect; because we have received
sanctifying grace, which should be constantly increasing in us and which is a
participation, not in the angelic nature, but in the divine nature itself.
Since, then, every passing day ought to see in our lives a gradually increasing
participation in these infinite perfections of God, we should frequently make
them the subject of contemplation in our prayer, by slowly meditating, for
instance, on the Our Father.
We shall speak first of
God’s simplicity, which is so marked a feature in the ways of divine
providence.
The divine simplicity
and its reflections
What is simplicity in
general? As unity is the non-division of being, so simplicity is the opposite
of composition, complexity, and complication. The simple is opposed to what is
compounded of different parts, opposed therefore to what is complicated,
pretentious, or tainted with affectation. From the moral point of view
simplicity or integrity is opposed to duplicity.
We speak of a child’s
outlook as simple because it goes straight to the point; it has no concealed
motives; its inclination is not in several directions at once. When a child
says a thing, it is not thinking of something else; when it says “yes, “ it
does not mean “no”; it is not two-faced or deceitful. Our Lord tells us: “If
thy eye be single [simple], thy whole body will be lightsome.” That is, if our
intention is straightforward and simple, then there will be a unity, truth, and
transparency in our whole life, instead of its being divided as it is with
those who seek to serve two masters, God and wealth. And when we consider the
complexity of motive, the insincerity we find in the world and the
complications arising from lying and deceit, we cannot help feeling that the
moral virtue of simplicity, of candor and uprightness, is the reflection of a
divine perfection. As St. Thomas says, “Simplicity makes the intention right by
excluding duplicity” (IIa IIae, q. 109, a. 2 ad 4um).
But what is divine
simplicity? It is the absence of all compounding of different parts, the
absence of all division.
1) There cannot be in
God a distinction of quantitative parts as in matter. Every material thing has
extended parts that are contiguous, whether these parts are similar as in the
diamond, or different, like the members and the organs of a living being: the
eyes, ears, and the rest.
The simplicity of God,
on the contrary, is the simplicity of pure spirit, incomparably superior to
that of the purest diamond, or to the unity of the most perfect organism. In
God we do not find a distinction of two parts as soul and body, the one giving
life to the other: the latter would be less perfect; it would not be life
itself, but would merely participate in life; it would not be the principle of
all order, but would itself be ordered. No imperfection or composition of any
kind exists in God. Every compound requires a cause uniting the elements
composing it, whereas God is the supreme cause uncaused. His simplicity
therefore is absolute.
2) The simplicity of God
far surpasses that of the angels. Of course an angel is pure spirit, but his
essence is not self-existent: it is merely susceptible or capable of existence;
it is not existence itself. An angel is a compound of finite essence and
limited existence, whereas, as we have seen, God is self-subsisting, purely
immaterial being.
An angel can acquire
knowledge only by means of an intellectual faculty; he can desire only through
another faculty, the will. These two faculties with their successive acts of
thought and desire are accidents distinct from the angel’s substance; his
substance remains always the same while his thoughts succeed one another. In
God, on the other hand, there can be no question of composition of substance
and accidents, because the divine substance is the fullness of being, the
fullness also of truth ever apprehended and of goodness ever loved. In Him no
succession of thoughts takes place: there is but one unchanging, subsistent
thought, embracing all truth. In Him no successive acts of will occur; there is
but one subsistent, unchanging act of will, which is directed to all that He
wills.
Therefore divine
simplicity or divine unity, is the absence of all composition and division in
being, thought, and volition.
3) The simplicity of God’s
intellect is that of the intuitive glance, excluding all error and ignorance,
and directed from above and unchangingly upon all knowable truth.
The simplicity of His
will or intention is that of a transcendently pure intention, disposing all
things admirably and permitting evil only in view of a greater good.
But the most beautiful
feature of God’s simplicity is that it unites within itself perfections that
are apparently at opposite extremes: absolute immutability and absolute
liberty, infinite wisdom and a good pleasure so free as to seem at times to be
arbitrariness; or again, infinite justice inexorable toward unrepented sin, and
infinite mercy. All these infinite perfections are fused together and
identified in God’s simplicity, yet without destroying one another. In this
especially consists the transcendence and splendor of this divine attribute.
We have a reflection of
this exalted simplicity in a child’s simplicity of outlook, and to a greater
degree in that of the saints, rising above the frequently deceitful
entanglements of the world and all sorts of duplicity.
Let us now come down
once more to creatures. We find a vast difference between the simplicity of
God, with the holiness it reflects, and the seeming simplicity which consists
in giving vent to everything that comes into our heart and mind at the risk of
contradicting ourselves from one day to the next when impressions have altered
and people with whom we live have ceased to please us. This seeming simplicity
is sheer fickleness and contradiction, a complication therefore and a more or
less conscious lie. God’s simplicity, on the other hand, is an unalterable
unity, the simplicity of unchanging supreme wisdom and of the purest and
strongest love of the good, remaining ever the same and infinitely surpassing
our susceptibility and unstable opinions.
We have a glimpse of
this divine simplicity when we consider the soul that has acquired a simple
outlook, so that it is now able to judge of all things wisely in the light of
God and to desire nothing but for His sake. The complex soul, on the other
hand, is one that bases all its judgments on the varying impressions caused by
the emotions and that desires things from motives of self-interest with its
changing caprices, now clinging to them obstinately, now changing with every
mood or with time and circumstances. And whereas the complex soul is agitated
by mere trifles, the soul that has acquired simplicity of purpose, by reason of
its wisdom and unselfish love, is always at rest. The gift of wisdom brings
peace, that tranquillity which comes from order, together with that unity and
harmony which characterize the simplified life united with God.
The souls of such men as
St. Joseph, St. John, St. Francis, St. Dominic, the Cure of Ars give us some
idea of this simplicity of God; but still more the soul of Mary, and especially
the holy soul of Jesus, who said: “If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall
be lightsome.” That is, if your soul is simple in its outlook, it will be in
all things enlightened, steadfast, loyal, sincere, and free from all duplicity.”
Be ye wise as serpents [so as not to be seduced by the world], and simple as
doves, “ so as to remain always in God’s truth.” I confess to Thee, O
Father,... because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them to little ones.” “Let your speech be yea, yea: no, no”
(Matt. 10: 16; 11: 25; 5: 37)
In the Old Testament we
read: “Seek the Lord in simplicity of heart” (Wis. 1: 1) ; “Better is the poor
man that walketh in his simplicity, than a rich man that is perverse in his
lips and unwise” (Prov. 19:1). “Let us all die in our innocency,” cried the
Machabees amid the injustices that oppressed them (I Mach. 2:37). “Obey... in
simplicity of heart,” said St. Paul (Col. 3: 22) ; and he admonishes the
Corinthians not to lose “the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11: 3).
This simplicity, says
Bossuet, enables an introverted soul to comprehend even the heights of God, the
ways of Providence, the unfathomable mysteries which to a complex soul are a
scandal, the mysteries of infinite justice and mercy, and the supreme liberty
of the divine good pleasure. All these mysteries, in spite of their
transcendence and obscurity, are simple for those of simple vision.
The reason is that, in
divine matters, the simplest things, such as the Our Father, are also the most
profound. On the other hand, in the things of this world, containing both good
and evil closely intermingled and thereby exceedingly complex, anybody who is simple
is lacking in penetration and will remain naive, unsuspecting, and shallow. In
the things of God simplicity is combined with depth and loftiness; for the
sublimest of divine things as also the deepest things of our heart, are
simplicity itself.
The perfect image of God’s
simplicity
The purest and most
exalted image that has been given us of the divine simplicity is the holiness
of Jesus, which embraces, as it were fused together, virtues to all appearances
at opposite extremes. Let us call to mind the simplicity He displayed in His
relations with His adversaries, with His heavenly Father, and with souls.
To the Pharisees,
wishing to put Him to death, He says without fear of contradiction: “Which of
you shall convince me of sin?” (John 8:46.) Their duplicity aroused His holy
indignation: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut
the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and
those that are going in, you suffer not to enter.... Woe to you, blind
guides... you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men
beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness”
(Matt. 23: 13, 25, 27).
Referring to His
heavenly Father, He says: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.... I
do always the things that please Him.... I honor my Father.... I seek not my
own glory” (John 4: 34; 8: 29, 49, 50).” My Father, if it be possible, let this
chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” “Father,
into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” “It is consummated” (Matt. 26:39; Luke 23:
46; John 19: 30).
And lastly, with regard
to the faithful, He says: “Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart;
and you shall find rest to your souls” (Matt. 11: 29). Such is this simplicity
of His that He alone can speak of His own humility without losing it.
He is the good shepherd
of souls, who prefers the company of the poor and the weak, the afflicted and
little children, and of sinners too, in order to win them back. He is the good
shepherd, who in all simplicity gives His life for His sheep, praying for His
executioners and saying to the good thief: “This day thou shalt be with Me in
paradise” (Luke 23: 43).
But the most astonishing
feature of our Lord’s simplicity is that it unites in itself virtues that to
all appearances are at opposite extremes, and each virtue carried to its
highest degree of perfection.
In Him are reconciled in
a simple unity that holy severity of justice He metes out to the hypocritical
Pharisees and the abounding mercy He displays toward all those souls whose
shepherd He is; and the rigor of His justice is always subordinate to the love
of the good from which it proceeds.
In Him are reconciled in
the greatest simplicity the most profound humility and the loftiest dignity,
magnanimity or grandeur of soul. He lived for thirty years the hidden life of a
poor artisan, saying that He came not to be ministered unto but to minister. He
fled to the mountain when they would have made Him king, washed the feet of His
disciples on Holy Thursday, and for our sake accepted the final humiliations of
the passion. On the other hand, during the same passion with lofty dignity He
proclaimed the universality of His kingdom.” Pilate said to Him: Art Thou the
king of the Jews?... What hast Thou done?... Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I
am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I
should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth, heareth My
voice” (John 18: 33 ff.). With simplicity and noble majesty He answered
Caiphas, who adjured Him to declare whether He was the son of God: “Thou hast
said it. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man
sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of
heaven” (Matt. 26: 64).
This profound humility
and lofty dignity are found reconciled in Jesus’ simplicity. Yet He, the
humblest of men, was condemned for an alleged crime of blasphemy and pride.
In Him likewise are
reconciled the most perfect gentleness, which constrained Him to pray for His
executioners, and the most heroic fortitude in martyrdom, abandoned as He was
by His own people and by all but a few of His disciples in the saddest hours of
the passion and crucifixion. This simplicity of His had such nobility about it
that the centurion, witnessing His death, could not help but glorify God,
saying that “indeed this was a just man” (Luke 23: 47).
Great and wondrously
sublime is simplicity when it thus reconciles in itself these apparently
opposite virtues. It is the highest expression of the beautiful. For the
beautiful is harmony, the splendor arising out of unity and diversity; and the
greater the diversity, the more profound is the unity, the more extraordinary
is the beauty. It then is rightly called sublime. In very truth it is the image
of that divine simplicity which reconciles within itself infinite wisdom and
the freest good pleasure, infinite justice, inexorable at times, and infinite
mercy, all the energy of love combined with all its tenderness.
For this reason God
alone can produce in the soul this surpassing simplicity, which is the image of
His own. In us temperament is determined in one particular direction, inclining
us either to indulgence or to severity, to a broad and comprehensive view of
things, or to practical details, but not both ways at once. If, then, a soul
with perfect simplicity practices at one and the same time virtues that are
apparently extreme opposites, it is because almighty God is very intimately
present in the soul, impressing His likeness upon it.
Bossuet (discours sur l’histoire
universelle, Part II, chap. 19) expresses this thought beautifully when he
says: “Who would not admire the condescension with which Jesus tempers His
doctrine? It is milk for babes and, taken as a whole, is bread also for the
strong. We see Him abounding in the secrets of God, yet He is not astonished
thereby, as other mortals are with whom God holds communion. He speaks of these
things as one born to these secrets and to this glory. And what He possesses
without measure (John 3:34), He dispenses with moderation so as to adapt it to
our infirmities.”
Pascal in his Pensees
gives similar expression to our Lord’s simplicity, the purest image of the
simplicity of God:
Jesus Christ, without
wealth or fortune or display of scientific knowledge, is in an order of
holiness all His own. He was neither an inventor nor a monarch; but He was
humble, patient, holy, holy to God, free from all sin. To those loving eyes
that perceive the wisdom in Him, with what stupendous magnificence He came!...
Never had man such repute, never did man incur greater ignominy.... From whom
did the Evangelists learn the qualities of a supremely heroic soul, that they
picture it so perfectly in Jesus Christ? Why did they make Him weak in His
agony? Did they not know how to picture a death borne with constancy? Yes
indeed, for the same St. Luke pictures the death of St. Stephen as more bravely
born than that of Jesus Christ. They make Him susceptible of fear before the
necessity of dying arose, but full of fortitude thereafter. When therefore they
portray Him as being so sorrowful, it is because in that hour His sorrow is
self-inflicted (desiring to experience the crushing burden of anguish in order
to suffer even that for us) ; but, when He is afflicted by men, it is then His
fortitude is supreme, with that strength which is their salvation.
This simplicity of
Jesus, purest image of God’s simplicity, is apparent in every detail of His
life. Pere Grou remarks: “It is impossible to speak of things so exalted, so
divine, in a simpler way. The prophets appear to be struck with amazement at
the great truths they proclaim.... Jesus is self-possessed in all that He says,
because He is drawing on His own resources... the treasury of His knowledge is
within Him and in communicating it He does not exhaust it” (L’interieur de
Jesus, chap. 29).
Thus we are able to form
some faint idea of the simplicity of God, the simplicity of His being, thought,
and love. It is a simplicity uniting in its transcendence such apparently
opposite attributes as justice and mercy, uniting without destroying them, but,
on the other hand, containing them in their pure state without any imperfection
or diminution. It will be granted us to behold this simplicity in eternal life,
if gradually each day we draw nigh to it in simplicity of heart, without which
there can be no contemplation of God and no true love.
8. The Infinity Of God
We have seen how the
simplicity of God, the simplicity of pure spirit, of being itself, unites
within itself, to the exclusion of all real distinction, such apparently
opposite perfections as justice and mercy. We have seen, too, how this divine
simplicity is reflected in the outlook of a child, in that of the saints. But
it is seen especially in the exalted simplicity of our Lord’s holy soul, which,
like the divine simplicity, unites within itself such seemingly opposite
virtues as the most profound humility and the most grandiose magnanimity, the
most compassionate gentleness and the most heroic fortitude, a rigorous justice
and a most tender mercy.
We must now consider
another attribute of the divine Being, His infinity: without it we can have no
conception of divine wisdom or providence.
This attribute at first
sight appears to be opposed to the preceding; for our intellect, always more or
less a slave to the imagination, represents the divine simplicity as a point
like the apex of a pyramid. Now a point is indivisible and without extension,
and hence is not infinite. How can God be both supremely simple and infinite?
The reason is that the
divine simplicity is not that of a point in space; it is a spiritual
simplicity, far transcending space and the point. Again, the infinity of God is
an infinity of perfection, far transcending what might be the material infinity
of a world that would have no limits.
Many errors about the
divine infinity are the result of confusing the quantitative infinity of
unlimited extension or of time without beginning, with the qualitative infinity
of, say, infinite wisdom and infinite love. But the difference between them is
enormous; it is the same as the difference between corporeal beings and the
infinitely perfect pure Spirit.
Nor must we confuse this
infinity of perfection, in the highest degree determinate and so complete as to
admit of no increase, with the indetermination of matter, which is capable of
receiving forms of every kind. These are at opposite poles: on the one hand, we
have the absolutely imperfect indetermination of matter, and on the other, the
supremely perfect infinity of the pure Spirit, who is being itself.
The a priori proof of
the divine infinity
How do we prove the
divine infinity thus conceived as an infinity of perfection?
A beautiful proof is
given us by St. Thomas (Ia, q. 7, a. 1). It is a proof that will appeal to the
artist. St. Thomas notes that the artistic ideal, the ideal form as conceived
by the artist—the form, for instance, of the statue of Moses in the mind of
Michelangelo—possesses a certain infinity of perfection before it is
materialized or limited to a particular portion of matter and localized in
space. For in the mind of Michelangelo this ideal form of the Moses is
independent of any material limitation, and may be produced indefinitely in
marble, clay, or bronze. The same applies to any ideal form whatever, even the
specific form of things in nature: the specific form of a lily, for instance,
or of a rose, a lion, or an eagle.
Before being
materialized or limited to a particular portion of matter and localized in space,
these specific forms have a certain formal infinity or infinity of perfection,
which consists in their being independent of all material limitation. Thus the
idea of a lily transcends all particular lilies, the idea of an eagle
transcends all those eagles whose essence it expresses. It is a principle that “every
form, before being received into matter, possesses a certain infinity of
perfection.”
Now, as St. Thomas
notes, it is a simple matter to apply this principle to God; for of all formal
perfections the most perfect is not that of a lily or an eagle or the ideal
man, but that of being or existence, which is the ultimate actuality of all
things. Every perfection in the universe is something susceptible of existence,
but none is existence itself; it can receive existence as matter receives the
form of a lily or a rose.
If, therefore, God is
self-existent, St. Thomas concludes, if He is being, existence itself, He is
also infinite, not in quantity but in quality or perfection. If the ideal lily
is independent of every individual material limitation, the self-subsisting
being will transcend every limitation whatsoever, not only of space and matter
but of essence also. Even the most perfect angel has no more than a finite
existence conditioned by the limitations of his spiritual essence; whereas in
God existence is not received into an essence susceptible of existence: He is
the unreceived and eternally subsistent existence.
God is thus in the
highest degree determinate, perfect, complete: He is absolutely incapable of
receiving additions. He is at the same time infinite with an unlimited
perfection, and incomprehensible, “the infinite ocean of being, “ says St. John
Damascene, but a spiritual ocean, boundless, shoreless, far transcending space
and the point and infinitely surpassing a material world supposedly infinite or
limitless in quantity.
It is at once the
infinity of being, of pure spirit, of wisdom, goodness, love and power; for
infinity is a mode of all the attributes.
Such is the a priori
proof as given by St. Thomas. It proceeds from the principle that every form,
like that of a lily, before being received into matter, possesses a certain
infinity of perfection. Now the most formal element, the ultimate actuality in
all things is existence. Therefore God, who is being, existence itself, is
infinite with an infinity of perfection transcending every limitation, whether
of space or of matter or even of essence. He thus infinitely surpasses every
material thing and every created pure spirit.
The a posteriori proof
of the divine infinity
There is another, an a
posteriori proof of the divine infinity, which shows that the production of
finite things ex nihilo, their creation from nothing, presupposes an infinitely
active power which can belong only to an infinitely perfect cause. (Cf. St.
Thomas, Ia, q. 45, a. 5.)
In fact the only way a
finite cause can produce its effect is by transforming an already existing
object capable of such transformation. Thus a sculptor, in order to carve his
statue, requires a material; so also a teacher gradually forms the intelligence
of his pupil, but he did not give him intelligence.
The greater the poverty
of the object to be transformed, the greater must be the wealth and fecundity
of the transforming active power. The poorer the soil, the more it must be
cultivated, good seed sown in it and fertilized. But what if the soil is so
poor as to be altogether worthless? It would then require an active power, not
only exceedingly rich and fruitful, but infinitely perfect; and this is
creative power.
Created agents are
transformative, not creative. To produce the entire being of any finite thing
whatever, no matter how minute—to produce the total entity of a grain of sand,
for instance, to produce it from nothing—an infinite power is required, a power
that can belong only to infinitely perfect Being. It follows, therefore, that
the first cause of everything that comes into existence must be infinitely
perfect.
Not only was it
impossible for even the most exalted angel to create the physical universe, but
he cannot create so much as a speck of dust; and it will ever be so. To create
anything out of nothing—that is, without any pre-existing subject whatever—an
infinite power is required.
Against this traditional
and revealed teaching, pantheism urges a somewhat trivial objection. To the
infinite, it says, nothing can be added; if therefore the universe is added to
the being of God, as a new reality, the being of God is not infinite.
It is easy to answer
this. There can be no addition made to the infinite in the same order: that is,
no addition can be made to its being, its wisdom, its goodness, its power. But
there is no repugnance whatever in something being added in a lower order, as
an effect is added to the transcendent cause producing it. To deny this would
be to refuse to the infinite Being the power of producing an effect distinct
from Himself; He would then no longer be infinite.
But if this is so, the
pantheist insists, more being and perfection will exist after the production of
created things than before, which is equivalent to saying that the greater
comes from the less.
The traditional answer
given in theology is, that after creation many beings exist, but there is not
more being or more perfection than before. Similarly, when a great teacher like
St. Thomas has trained several pupils, there are many that are learned, but
there is no more learning than before unless the pupils excel their master in
knowledge. This being so, we can with even greater truth say that after creation
the world has many beings but not more being, many living beings but not more
life, many intellects but not more wisdom. He who is infinite being, infinite
life, infinite wisdom, already existed before creation, containing in Himself
in an eminent degree the limited perfections of created beings.
Such is the infinity of
God, an infinity of perfection which is the plenitude not of quantity or
extension, but of being, life, wisdom, holiness, and love.
We are made for the
Infinite
In this mystery of the
divine infinity we find the practical and important lesson that we are made for
the Infinite; to know infinite truth and to love the infinite good, which is
God.
The proof of this truth
lies in the fact that the two higher faculties in us, intellect and will, have
an infinite range.
Whereas our senses
apprehend only a sensible mode of being, whereas the eye apprehends only color
and our ear perceives only sound, the intellect grasps the being or reality of
things, their existence. It perceives that being, subject to varying degrees of
limitation, in the stone, the plant, the brute, and in man, does not of itself
involve limitations. And so our intellect, far surpassing sense and
imagination, aspires to a knowledge of finite beings and also of the infinite
being, so far, at any rate, as such a knowledge is possible for us. Our
intellect aspires to a knowledge not merely of the multiple and restricted
truths of physics, mathematics, or psychology, but of the supreme and infinite
truth, the transcendent source of all other truths. What we tell children in
the catechism is this: “Why did God make you? God made me to know Him.” And we
add: “To love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him
forever in the next.”
As our intellect has an
unlimited range, and is able to have knowledge of being in all its universality
and hence of the supreme Being, so also our will has an unlimited range. The
will is directed by the intellect, which conceives not merely a particular
sensible good that is delectable or useful, such as a fruit or a tool, but it
conceives good as such, moral good, virtues such as justice and courage. It
even reaches out beyond some special moral good, such as the object of justice
or temperance, and apprehends universal good, good of whatever kind, everything
in fact that is capable of perfecting us. Lastly, our intellect, far superior
to the senses, ascends to a knowledge of the supreme and infinite good, in
which every other good has its source; then the will, illumined by the
intellect, desires this supreme and infinite good. The will has a range and
unlimited capacity, which can be satisfied in God alone, as we explained at
some length in Part I, chapter 4, where we spoke of the sovereign good and the
natural desire for happiness.
Nevertheless our
intellect and will are not destined naturally to know and love God in His
intimate life. In that God is the author of nature, they can attain to Him in
the natural order only because His perfections are reflected in created things.
In baptism a supernatural
life and inclination were given to us, far surpassing our natural faculties of
intellect and will. We received sanctifying grace, which is a participation in
the divine nature and the intimate life of God; and with grace we received
faith, hope, and charity, which give a vaster and more exalted range to our
higher faculties.
We now gradually obtain
a better grasp of the meaning and import of those words of the catechism: “Why
did God make you? God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in
this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”
The purpose of our
existence, therefore, is to acquire not a merely natural knowledge and love of
the infinite God as the author of nature, but a supernatural knowledge and
love, the beginning of that eternal life in which we shall see and love God
even as He sees and loves Himself.
We shall then have an
intuitive vision of that spiritual infinite, which is God, a light infinitely
strong and soft. Its brightness we shall be able to bear because our intellect
will be elevated and fortified by the light of glory. We shall have an
intuitive vision of that God who is infinite goodness, combining all the
strength of justice with all the tenderness of mercy. And this supernatural
elevation to the immediate vision and love of infinite truth and goodness will
be ours forever; it will be a continuous vision and love that nothing
henceforth will interrupt or diminish.
Yet in one sense the
infinite will still surpass us; because our vision of the divine essence will
never be the same as the vision God has of Himself, which is completely
comprehensive. In heaven each one of the blessed has this intuitive vision of
God, but with a power of penetration in proportion to their merits and the
intensity of their charity. Similarly here on earth we all have direct vision
of a landscape stretching out before us, but we see it better if our sight is
keener. In heaven our vision of the infinite God will be immediate, but
proportionate to the intensity of our charity and the light of glory. Great
saints like the Apostles will see Him better, and their vision will be more
penetrating than ours; but they, too, will be surpassed by St. Joseph, and St.
Joseph by the Blessed Virgin; and surpassing her, the holy soul of Christ
united to the person of the Word. It is pleasant to think that the Blessed
Virgin, whose intellect is naturally inferior to that of the angels, has
nevertheless a better vision of the divine essence than even the most exalted
of them. Since her charity surpasses theirs, she has received the light of
glory in a higher degree, inferior only to that of the human intellect of
Jesus.
Such is the spiritual
lesson we receive in this mystery of the divine infinity. We are made for the
Infinite: to know God in His intimate life and to love Him above all things.
That is why nothing in this world can really satisfy us and why we are free to
respond or not to the attraction offered by finite good. Each time we
experience within ourselves the limitations and the poverty of these perishable
things, we should give thanks to God; for it gives us the opportunity,
amounting sometimes to an urgent necessity, of pondering on the infinite
riches, the infinite fullness of truth and goodness that are in Him.
9. The Immensity Of God
God, we have said, is
infinite: not in quantity, as though He were an unlimited material body, but in
quality or perfection, the only kind of infinity possible with Him who is
purest spirit, who is being itself subsisting in His immateriality at the
summit of all things. This infinity is a mode of all His attributes, and thus
we speak of His infinite wisdom, His infinite goodness, His infinite power.
And now, if we are to
have a right idea of providence and its universal scope including every age and
every place, we must consider the divine immensity and eternity in their
relation to space and time, which are on an infinitely lower plane.
If we consider the
perfect being of God as related to space, we attribute to Him immensity and
ubiquity. When we say He is immense, we mean that He is immeasurable and able
to be in every place. In attributing ubiquity to Him, we affirm that He is
actually present everywhere. Before creation God was immense, but He was not
actually present in all things, since things as yet did not exist.
It would be a gross
error to picture the divine immensity as unlimited space, and it is equally
false to conceive the divine eternity as unlimited time, as we shall see later
on.
God is pure spirit:
there cannot be parts in Him as there are in what is extended; we cannot
distinguish in Him the three spatial dimensions, length, breadth, and height or
depth. When we apply these terms occasionally to the divine intellect, we do so
purely by way of metaphor. In reality, God infinitely transcends space, even
unlimited space, as the divine eternity infinitely transcends time, even
unlimited time.
It was in attributing
this spatial immensity to God that Spinoza erred. Were it so, God would no
longer be pure spirit but would have a body, and thus one part of Him would be
less perfect than another; He would not be perfection itself. Hence the divine
immensity is not something material, but spiritual, and in an order infinitely
transcending space.
If we would have some
idea of the majesty of this divine perfection, three quite distinct modes of
divine presence must be considered:
1) The general presence
of God in all things by His immensity.
2) The special presence
of God in the souls of the just.
3) The unique presence
of the Word in the humanity of our Savior, and the reflection of this presence
in the Church and in the vicar of Christ.
The general presence of
God by His immensity
God is everywhere. What
meaning are we to give to this phrase which so often occurs in Holy Scripture?
First, God is everywhere by His power, to which all things are subjected,
through which also He sets every being in motion, and directs it to action.
Secondly, God is everywhere by His presence, in that all things are known to
Him. All things are laid bare to His sight, even to the minutest detail, to the
most profound secrets of our hearts and the innermost recesses of conscience.
Lastly, God is present by His essence, in that by His preservative action,
which is identical with His very being, He maintains every creature in
existence.
Moreover, as in creation
God’s action is immediate without any creature or instrument intervening, so
too His preservative action, which is the continuation of His creative act, is
exercized immediately in every creature and upon what is most intimate in them,
their very being. He is thus present even to those far distant nebulae which
our telescopes barely succeed in bringing to view.
Therefore God, though
not corporeal, is everywhere, not as a material body is in place, but by a
simple virtual contact of His creative and preservative power, wherever in fact
there are bodies to be maintained in existence. Besides this, in a sphere of
being transcending space, He is present to every spirit, whom He maintains in
being as He does the rest of creatures.
And so God as pure
spirit is in every being, in every soul, of which He is the transcendent center
as the apex of the pyramid contains in a transcendent manner all its sides. God
is that spiritual force which maintains everything in existence. As the liturgy
has it: Rerum Deus tenax vigor Immotus in te permanens. (God powerful sustainer
of all things Thou who dost remain permanently unmoved.)
The special presence of
God in the just
There is another
presence of God, which is peculiar to the soul in the state of grace whether on
earth, in purgatory, or in heaven. God is no longer present simply as
conserving cause—as such He is within even inanimate bodies—but He dwells in
the souls of the just as in a temple, the object of a quasi-experimental knowledge
and love.
Our Lord said: “If any
man love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him: and we will
come to him and will make our abode with him” (John 14: 23). What is meant by “We
will come”? Who will come? Is it simply created grace? No, in the souls of the
just the three divine Persons come to take up their abode: the Father and the
Son, and with them the Holy Ghost, whom the Son has promised.
This is what the Apostle
St. John understood it to mean when he said: “God is charity: and he that
abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him” (I John 4: 16).
However great the
earthly distance separating souls that are in the state of grace, be it from
Rome to Japan, it is the same God who dwells in them all, enlightening,
strengthening, and drawing them to Himself.
The same is brought out
by St. Paul (I Cor. 3: 16) : “Know you not that you are the temple of God and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” “Know you not that your members are
the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God: and you
are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God
in your body” (ibid., 6: 19-20), that is, by comporting yourselves in a manner
worthy of Him. And St. Paul says to the Romans (5:5) : “The charity of God is
poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.”
This sublime doctrine
was a commonplace in the early Church: the martyrs proclaimed it openly before
their judges. Thus St. Lucy of Syracuse answers the judge Paschasius: “Words
can never be wanting to those who bear within them the Holy Ghost.” “Is the
Holy Ghost within thee, then?” “Yes, all who lead a chaste and upright life are
the temples of the Holy Ghost.”
The creeds and councils
of the Church, the Council of Trent, for instance, affirm that the Blessed
Trinity dwells in the souls of the just as in a temple and from time to time
makes its presence felt by a more luminous inspiration, a more profound peace,
like that which the disciples experienced as they conversed with our Lord on
the way to Emmaus (Luke 24: 42) : “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst
He spoke in the way, and opened to us the Scripture?” In fine, as St. Paul says
to the Romans (8: 16), “the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that
we are the sons of God.”
God makes this special
presence of His felt in us by that filial love for Him with which He himself
inspires us and which, like the peace it brings us, can come only from Him.
(Cf. St. Thomas, Comment. in Ep. ad Rom., 8: 16.)
The unique presence of
God in the humanity of Jesus
Surpassing the general
presence of God in all things, even His special presence in the souls of the
just, is that unique and quite exceptional presence of the Word in the humanity
of Jesus.
This presence of the
Word in the sacred humanity of Jesus is not, as in the saints, a purely
accidental union of knowledge and love. It is a union that is substantial in
the sense that the Word assumed and made His own forever the humanity of Jesus
which consisted of His holy soul and His body virginally conceived. There is
thus in Jesus Christ but one Person, possessing both the divine nature and a
human nature without mutual confusion, in some such way as each one of us
possesses his soul and body unconfused.
Obviously this
substantial union of Christ’s humanity with the Word of God immeasurably
surpasses both the general presence of God in all things by immensity and even
that special presence of His in the souls of the just on earth, in purgatory,
or in heaven.
Moreover, in the sacred
humanity of Jesus there is a wonderful participation in the divine immensity,
since by Eucharistic consecration His body is made present throughout the world
on every altar where the consecrated host is reserved. His body is present
there not as localized in space, but after the manner of substance. Substance
is not of itself extended; in certain respects it transcends extension and
space; and this helps us to understand how the selfsame body of Christ
remaining present in heaven can, without being multiplied, become really
present throughout the world in every tabernacle where there are consecrated
hosts. We have here a remote likeness to that presence by which God Himself is
in every material being, maintaining it in existence; it is a reflection of the
divine immensity.
A further reflection of
this divine perfection is seen in that universal sway exerted by the Church
simultaneously in every quarter of the globe. In a certain sense we can say
that the Church is everywhere present upon the face of the earth, for the soul
of the Church includes all who are in the state of grace. Moreover, the Church,
being both one and catholic, exercises the same supernatural influence wherever
the Gospel is preached.
In spite of the
diversity of nations, races, manners, customs, and institutions, the Church,
wheresoever her influence extends, effects a unity of faith and hierarchical
obedience; unity of worship, especially in the Mass; one common nourishment in
communion; unity of life, since all must find their nourishment in Jesus
Christ; unity of Christian dispositions, of hope and charity. Since grace here
on earth and glory hereafter are the principle of life for all, they have in
the merits of Christ the same resources and a common inheritance in eternal
life.
Now the Church thus
present among the nations for nearly two thousand years would not be able to
exercise this influence of hers without the supreme pastor appointed by our
lord to be His vicar. The exercise of papal and episcopal jurisdiction
preserves intact the doctrines of the Gospel in the bosom of the Church through
an infallible teaching office, and safeguards Christian morality and Christian
perfection by maintaining the divine law and imposing ecclesiastical laws, and
safeguards Christian worship also through the various forms of the liturgy.
Christ Jesus promised to
St. Peter and his successors and conferred on them the primacy of jurisdiction
over the universal Church (Matt. 16: 16; John 21: 15). He also said to them: “I
am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
To sum up, then: God,
pure spirit, is immense and everywhere present inasmuch as through His creative
power He maintains in existence and sets in motion every creature, corporeal
and spiritual, and all things are laid bare to His sight, even the most
intimate secrets of the heart, secrets that not even the angels can discern by
their natural knowledge.
Besides this universal
presence in every creature, there is that special presence of God in the souls
of the just, who are in the state of grace. He is within them as in a temple,
to be known and loved by them, and He makes His presence felt there from time
to time in that filial love for Him which He alone can inspire.
In a manner still more
distinctive the Word of God is present in the humanity of Christ, with which He
is united not merely in an accidental way through knowledge and love, but
substantially, forming with it but one Person, one being, yet without confusion
of the two natures.
As a wonderful
reflection of the divine immensity, our Savior’s sacred humanity is really and
substantially present throughout the world in every tabernacle where the
consecrated host is reserved. Everywhere it is the same body of the Savior,
unmultiplied yet really present, after the manner of substance—a remote
resemblance to that presence by which God is within all creatures as pure
spirit and unmultiplied, maintaining them in existence.
And lastly, there is
that other reflection of the divine immensity in the vicar of Christ. As
visible head of the Church, through the influence of his teaching and
jurisdiction he is present to the entire Church. In a certain sense he reaches
out to each one of the faithful in every clime and nation, preserving them all
in the unity of faith, obedience, and worship, of hope and charity, and as
supreme shepherd leading them on to the eternal pastures.
As in God this
space-transcending immensity is united with an eternity that transcends time,
so is it with the power of the pastoral office in the Church. It extends to all
the faithful in space, and also extends to them all as they succeed one another
in time, from the foundation of the Church until the end of the world.
The majesty of the
Church is most clearly seen when viewed in the higher light of the divine perfections
reflected in her: the divine immensity in her catholicity, the divine eternity
in her indefectibility, the divine unity and holiness in her own unity and
holiness.
Dominating the various
dioceses and religious orders, the majesty of the Church is already a
participation in the majesty of Christ and of God Himself. In spite of human
shortcomings, which creep in wherever men are to be found, this supernatural
beauty of the Church is clearly the beauty of God’s own kingdom.
We should rid ourselves
of the habit of viewing things horizontally and superficially, as if all had
the same value and importance. This is a materialist point of view, a leveling
conception that blots out all elevation and depth. We should accustom ourselves
rather to look down upon things vertically, so to speak, or in their depth.
Above all is God, pure spirit, unchangeable, eternal, immense, conserving and
giving life to all things. Then comes the humanity of our Savior, the channel
through which every grace is transmitted to us and which is present in all the
tabernacles of the world. Lower still is our Lady, the mediatrix and
coredemptrix; and after her the saints; then come the supreme pastor of the
Church and the bishops. After them the faithful who are in the state of grace and
those Christians also who, though not in the state of grace, yet as Catholics,
keep the faith as revealed by God. And last of all are those souls who are
seeking for the truth and those, too, who are still wandering astray, who yet
at certain moments receive from God and our Lord graces of illumination and
inspiration.
This way of looking at
things as it were perpendicularly or, if you will, in their height and depth
rather than superficially, is precisely that contemplation which proceeds from
faith illumined by the gifts of understanding and wisdom. It should normally be
accompanied by a prayer that is catholic, or universal—a prayer ascending to
the eternity and immensity of God through the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the
intercession of Mary. Such a prayer begs God to pour out the abundance of His
mercy upon the supreme pastor of the Church, upon the bishops and generals of
orders, and upon all the faithful, that they may be loyal to the vocation to
which they have been called, responding to whatever God demands of them, and so
walk in the path of holiness that leads to Him.
10. The Eternity Of God
Having discussed the
divine immensity in its relation to space, we must now consider God’s eternity
in relation to time. Without it we can have no conception of Providence, whose
decrees are eternal.
Let us examine the wrong
notion people sometimes have of this divine eternity, and then we shall better
understand the true definition of it, which is likewise a very beautiful.
What is eternity?
There is a partially
erroneous conception of the divine eternity current among those who are content
to define it as a duration without beginning and without end, thinking of it
vaguely as time without limit either in the past or in the future.
Such a notion of
eternity is inadequate: because a time that had no beginning, no first day,
would always be, nevertheless, a succession of days and years and centuries, a
succession embracing a past, a present, and a future. That is not eternity at
all. We might go back in the past and number the centuries without ever coming
to an end, just as in thinking of the time to come we picture to ourselves the
future acts of immortal souls as an endless series. Even if time had no
beginning, there would still have been a succession of varying moments.
The present instant,
which constitutes the reality of time, is an instant fleeting between the past
and the future (“nunc fluens, “ says St. Thomas), an instant fleeting like the
waters of a river, or like the apparent movement of the sun by which we count
the days and the hours. What, then, is time? As Aristotle says, it is the
measure of motion, more especially of the sun’s motion, or rather that of the
earth around the sun, the rotation of the earth on its axis constituting one
day as its revolution around the sun constitutes one year. If the earth and the
sun had been created by God from all eternity and the regular motion of the
earth around the sun had been without beginning, there would not have been a
first day or a first year, but there would always have been a succession of
years and centuries. Such a succession would then have been a duration without
either beginning or end, but a duration, nevertheless, infinitely inferior to
eternity; for there would always have been the distinction between past,
present, and future. In other words, multiply the centuries by thousands and
thousands, and it will always be time; however long drawn out, it will never be
eternity.
If, then, to define the
divine eternity as a duration without either beginning or end is inadequate,
what is it? The answer of theology is that it is a duration without either
beginning or end, but with this very distinctive characteristic, that in it
there is no succession either past or future, but an everlasting present. It is
not a fleeting instant, like the passing of time, but an immobile instant which
never passes, an unchanging instant. It is “the now that stands, not that flows
away, “ says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 10, a. 2, obj. Ia), like a perpetual morning
that had no dawn and will know no evening.
How are we to conceive
this unique instant of an unchanging eternity? Whereas time, this succession of
days and years, is the measure of the apparent motion of the sun or the real
motion of the earth, eternity is the measure or duration of the being, thought,
and love of God. Now these are absolutely immutable, without either change or
variation or vicissitude. Since God is of necessity the infinite fullness of
being, there is nothing for Him to gain or to lose. God can never increase or
diminish in perfection; He is perfection itself unchangeable.
This absolute fixity of
the divine being necessarily extends to His wisdom and His will; any change or
progress in the divine knowledge and love would argue imperfection.
The unchangeableness,
however, is not the unchangeableness of inertia or death; it is that of supreme
life, possessing once and for all everything it is possible and right that it
should possess, neither having to acquire it nor being able to lose it.
Thus we come to the true
definition of eternity: an exceedingly profound and beautiful definition, one
full of spiritual instruction for us.
Boethius, in his
Consolations of Philosophy, formulated what has continued to be the classical
definition: Aeternitas est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta
possessio (“eternity is the simultaneous possession in all its perfection of
endless life”). It is the uniformity of changeless life, without either
beginning or end, and possessed wholly at once. The principal phrase in the
definition is tota simul (“wholly at once”). The unique distinction of the
divine eternity is not that it is without beginning or end, but that it is
without change, so that God possesses His infinite life wholly at once.
Plato says that time is
the mobile image of an immobile eternity, so far, at any rate, as it is
possible for a passing instant to be the image of an instant that does not
pass.
Time, too, with its
succession of moments has often been compared to the foot of a lofty mountain
the summit of which represents the unique instant of eternity. From the summit
of this eternity of His, God sees in a single glance the whole series of
generations succeeding one another in time, as a man from the top of a mountain
can see in one glance all who pass on their way in the valley below. Thus the
unique, unvarying instant of eternity corresponds to each successive moment of
time, the moments of our birth and death included. Time is thus, as it were,
the small change in the currency of eternity.
What characterizes time
is change or motion, which is measured by time. The distinctive characteristic
of eternity is that unchangeable instant in which God possesses His infinite,
endless life wholly at once. [14]
Here on earth we have
not, when born, the fullness of life. In childhood we have not yet the vigor of
youth or the experience that comes with age; and then, when we reach maturity,
we no longer possess the freshness of childhood or the readiness of youth. Not
only is this true of our life as a whole, but we do not possess one year of it
all at once. The year has its changing seasons, so that what summer brings,
winter denies. The same must be said of the weeks and the days. Our life is
distributed: hours of prayer are distinct from hours of work, and these again
from hours of rest and recreation. Just as we do not hear the whole of a melody
at once, so it is with our life: its events happen in succession.
On the other hand, it is
said of Mozart that he was eventually able to hear a melody not as something
continuous, in the way other listeners do, but all at once, in the law that
gave it birth. In composing the opening bars of a melody, he foresaw and in
some way heard its finale. To hear a melody all at once is a faint image of
that divine eternity in which God possesses His infinite life of thought and
love simultaneously and without any succession. In the life and thought of God
it is impossible for Him to distinguish between a before and an after, a past
and a future, a childhood, youth, and maturer age.
We have another faint
image of the divine eternity in a great scholar who spends long years in
studying successively all the branches of a particular science, and eventually
is able to view them all in the general principles governing the science, in
the master idea from which the other ideas are successive developments. Thus
Newton must have seen the various laws of physics as consequences of one
supreme law; and at the end of his life St. Thomas saw somewhat at a glance the
whole of theology as contained in a few general principles.
Another and closer image
of the divine eternity is to be found in the soul of a saint who has reached a
life of almost continuous union with God; he has now risen beyond the
vicissitudes and flight of time. The saint, too, has his hours of work as well
as of prayer, but even his work is a prayer; and because in the summit of his
soul he remains in almost continuous union with God, he possesses his life in a
manner “all at once”; instead of dividing and dissipating his life, he unifies
it.
The eternity of God,
then, is the duration of a life that not only had no beginning and will have no
end, but that is absolutely unchangeable and consequently wholly present to
itself in an instant that never passes. In one absolute unfleeting “now” it
condenses in a transcendent manner all the varying moments that succeed one
another in time.
With men, captivated as
they are by sense, an unchangeable eternity has the appearance of death; for
their idea of immobility is that of inertia and nothing more; it does not
extend to that immobility which comes from a fullness of life so perfect that
any progress in it is unthinkable.
It follows that the
divine thought, since its measure is eternity, embraces in a single glance all
time, every succeeding generation, every age. In a single glance it sees the
centuries preparing for the coming of Christ and thereafter reaping the
benefits of that coming. In that same unique glance, the divine thought sees
where our souls will be in a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years to come,
and forever. If only this truth were kept in mind, many objections against
providence would vanish. The true notion of providence is, as it were, the
resultant of the contemplation of those divine perfections which it
presupposes.
As the thought of God is
unchangeable, so also is His love. With no shadow of change in itself, it
summons souls into existence at the moment it has fixed from all eternity. From
all eternity love pronounces a free fiat to be freely realized in time. At the
appointed time the soul is created, justified in baptism or by conversion,
receives a multitude of graces and in the end, if no resistance is offered,
that grace of a happy death by which it is saved. The created effect is new,
not so the divine act producing it: Est novitas effectus absque novitate
actionis, says St. Thomas. The divine action is eternal, but produces its
effect in time and when it wills.
On the heights of
eternity God remains unchanging; but beneath Him all is change, save only those
souls who cleave unalterably to Him and so share in His eternity.
Eternity and the value
of time
What is the spiritual
lesson for us in this divine perfection of eternity? The great lesson to be
learnt is that union with God on earth brings us near to eternity. It also
makes clearer to us the full value of the time allotted us for our journey: a
bare sixty or eighty years, an exceedingly short span on which depends an
eternity, the briefest of prefaces to an endless volume.
The thought of eternity
brings home to us especially the high value we should place on the grace of the
present moment. For the proper performance of our duty at any given instant we
require a particular grace, the grace we ask for in the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Pray for us sinners now. Here we beg for those special graces, varying with
each moment, which enable us to cope with our duties in the course of the day
and reveal to us the importance of all those trivial things that bear some
relation to eternity. Although, as we utter the word “now, “ we are often full
of distractions, Mary as she listens is all attention. She receives our prayer
gladly, and forthwith the grace we need at the moment to persevere in our
prayer, in suffering, in whatever we are doing, comes down to us, even as the
air we breathe enters our breast. As the present minute is passing, let us
remember that the body and its sensibilities, alternating between joy and
sadness, are not the only realities; there is also our spiritual soul, with the
influence Christ has upon it, and the indwelling of the three Persons of the
Blessed Trinity. Whereas the superficial and light-minded have a horizontal
view of things, seeing material things and the life of the soul from the same
plane of every fleeting time, the saints have unceasingly a perpendicular view
of things; they see them from above and penetrate their depths, contemplating
God at the summit of them all. The thought of eternity is the standard by which
they estimate the value of time, past, present, and to come, and thus their
judgments are gradually brought to the true focus.
Following their example,
let us abandon to infinite mercy the whole of our life, both past and future.
In a very practical way, inspired by faith, let us live the life of the present
moment. In this fleeting now, be it dull or joyful or fraught with pain, let us
see a faint image of the unique instant of changeless eternity; and because of
the actual grace it brings us, let us see in it also a living proof of the
fatherly kindness of God.
In this spirit let us go
forward in the power of our Lord who in the sacrifice of the mass never ceases
to offer Himself for us by an ever-living interior oblation in His heart, an
oblation that transcends time as does the vision that hallows His holy soul.
Walking thus, we draw
close to that eternity which we are some day to enter. In what will this entry
into glory consist? We shall receive eternal life, which will consist in seeing
God as He sees Himself. It will be an intuitive vision, never interrupted by
either slumber or distraction, an unchanging vision of the self-same infinite
object, which will be of inexhaustible profundity for us. This vision will be
succeeded by a love for God equally changeless, which nothing can ever destroy
or diminish. This vision and love will no longer be measured by time, but by a
participated eternity. Although they are to have a beginning, they will
henceforth be without end, without change of any kind, without before or after;
the instant which is to be the measure of our beatific vision will be the
unique instant of changeless eternity.
We are given an inkling
of what this means, when, in the contemplation of some lofty truth or at
prayer, we are so absorbed at times that we no longer take account of the
passing hours. If such is our occasional experience, what will it be in the
future life, which is not only future but is rightly called eternal, since it
will no longer be measured by time but by eternity, which is the measure of the
simultaneous being and life of God? Then we, too, shall possess all our love at
once instead of seeing it languish, wavering between luke-warmness and a
passing fervor, all our knowledge at once and no longer piecemeal.
Let us end with this
thought from St. Augustine: “Unite thy heart to God’s eternity and thou, too,
shalt be eternal; be thou united to God’s eternity and there await with Him the
things that pass beneath thee” (Comm. in Psalm. 91).
It is only to us that
eternity is obscure; in itself it is far more luminous than fleeting time, for
it is the unchangeableness of the supremely luminous knowledge and love of God.
11. The Divine
Incomprehensibility
The light and shade in
the mysteries of God’s life
As we have seen, the attributes
of God relative to His being are simplicity, infinity, immensity, and eternity.
Before passing on to treat of those which, like wisdom and providence, relate
to His operations, it will be well to say something of the divine
incomprehensibility, which is so marked a feature of the divine governance in
certain of its ways.
Therein will be found an
important lesson for our own spiritual life. The point we shall particularly
stress is that, although from certain angles God is presented to us in the clearest
light, in other respects He remains in the deepest shadow. As in paintings we
have light and shade, so also in the teachings of revelation we find lights and
shadows, which are incomparably more beautiful than those we admire in the
great masters. And the same lights and shadows in which God is represented to
us will be found reproduced to some extent in our own spiritual life; for grace
is a participation in the divine nature, or in the intimate life of God.
The high lights in the
Divinity
Let us speak first of
God’s features that are quite clear to us. By the natural exercise of our
reason, apart even from faith, we are able here on earth to demonstrate the
existence of God, the first mover of spiritual and corporeal beings, the first
cause of everything that exists, the necessary being, the sovereign good, and
the source of order in the world.
In the mirror of created
things we discover a reflection of God’s absolute perfections and thus acquire
a positive knowledge of whatever is similar or analogically common in God and
His works: His reality, His actuality, His goodness, wisdom, and power.
When we wish to point
out His distinctive characteristics, we do so by way of negation or by relating
Him to the object of our experience. Thus we speak of God as the infinite or
non-finite Being, as unchangeable, or again as the supreme good.
These rational
convictions, already of themselves firmly established, receive further
confirmation from divine revelation accepted through faith. These convictions
are adamantine and unassailable. To us it is quite clear that God cannot exist
without being infinitely perfect, that He can neither be deceived Himself nor
deceive us, that He cannot will what is evil or be in any way the cause of sin.
Indeed we are incomparably more certain of the rectitude of God’s intentions
than we are of even the best of our own. From this angle God stands out before
our minds in a light almost dazzlingly clear. Again, it is quite evident to us
that on the one hand God is the author of all good, including also the good
contained in our meritorious consent, and that on the other hand He never
demands the impossible. Nothing can prevail against these supremely evident
truths, which have the force of conviction for every right mind that is open to
truth. Obviously God cannot exist without being at once supremely just and
supremely merciful, supremely wise and at the same time supremely free.
And yet, with all this
dazzling clarity, there is in God that which for us is very obscure. What is
the cause of this?
The light-transcending
darkness in God
The obscurity
confronting us in God is owing to the fact that He is far too luminous for the
feeble sight of our intellect, which is unable to endure His infinite splendor.
To us God is invisible
and incomprehensible for the reason that, as Scripture says, “He inhabiteth
light inaccessible” (I Tim. 6:16), which has for us the same effect as
darkness. To the owl, in the order of sense perception, darkness appears to
begin at sunrise, because its feeble sight can perceive only the faint glimmer
that comes with the twilight or just before the dawn, and is dazzled by the
excessive brilliance of the sun. Where God, the Sun of the spirit world, is
concerned, our intellect is in much the same condition. Its intellectuality is
of the lowest degree, being inferior to that of the angel; it sees intelligible
truths only dimly and in a half-light, as it were, as reflected in a mirror of
a lower order, the things of sense. [15]
As St. Thomas notes (Ia,
q. 76, a. 5), our intellect requires to be united with the senses so as to be
presented with its proper object. This lowest degree of intellectuality attains
first of all in cognition its proper object, the being of sensible things,
which is the lowest degree of the intelligible; and in that object it acquires
a very imperfect knowledge of God’s existence, and sees the reflection of His
divine perfections.
Whereas, then, many
things are invisible through not being sufficiently luminous or not
sufficiently illuminating, God is invisible because for us He is far too
luminous. [16]
That God, who is pure
spirit, cannot be seen by bodily eyes, is quite evident, since these perceive
only what is sensible. But neither can He be seen by a created intellect when
this is left to its purely natural resources. Not even the highest among the
angels can directly see God through the purely natural power of their
intellect; for them, too, God is a light overpowering in its intensity, a
naturally inaccessible light. For the angels, the sole natural means of knowing
God is in the mirror of spiritual creatures which are their proper object, this
mirror being their own essence or that of other angels. They have a natural
knowledge of God as the author of their nature, but they cannot have a natural
knowledge of Him in His intimate life or see Him face to face.
To see God, the angels,
like human souls, must have received the light of glory, that supernatural
light to which their nature has no claim whatever, but which is infused in
order to fortify their intellects and enable them to endure the brightness of
Him who is light itself. [17] God Himself cannot give us a created idea capable
of representing His divine essence as it is in itself. Such an idea must always
be imperfect, intelligible only by participation, and hence wholly inadequate
to represent, as it really is, that eternally subsistent, purely intellectual
flash, the essence of God with its infinite truth.
If God wishes to reveal
Himself as He really is, this can be only by direct vision with no created idea
intervening, unfolding to our gaze the divine essence in all its splendor, and
at the same time sustaining and fortifying our intellect, which when left to
itself is too feeble to behold it. [18]
It is in this way the
blessed in heaven see God. We, too, desire to attain to this same vision, in
which our everlasting happiness will consist. [19]
God is therefore
invisible to our mental as well as to our bodily sight because of the exceeding
intensity of His radiance.
But how is it that in
this invisible God there is so much that is transparently clear to us and at
the same time so much that is profoundly obscure? What is the source of this
fascinating, mysterious light and shade?
Evidently God cannot
exist without being supremely wise, supremely good, and supremely just; He is
the author of all good and never commands what is impossible. Then how is it
that side by side with this dazzling radiance there is so much obscurity?
It is due to the fact
that our knowledge of the divine perfections is obtained solely from their
reflection in creatures. Although we can enumerate them one after another, we
are unable naturally to perceive how they are united in the intimate life of
God, in the eminence of the Deity. This intimate mode of their union is
entirely hidden from us; its radiance is too overpowering, it is too exalted to
be reflected in any created mirror. As we said above, where the Deity is
concerned, we are like men who have never seen white light but only the seven
colors of the rainbow in the clear waters of a lake.
Doubtless in the divine
rainbow we see its various colors: that God, for example, is infinitely wise
and supremely free. But we cannot see how infinite wisdom is intimately
reconciled with a good pleasure so free as to appear to us at certain times
sheer caprice. And yet, however surprising it may seem, this good pleasure is
still supremely wise. We accept it in the obscurity of faith, but only in
heaven will it be clearly seen.
Again, we are certain
that God is infinitely merciful, that He is also infinitely just, and that He
exercises both His mercy and His justice with a sovereign freedom in which
wisdom is never wanting. If, says St. Augustine, to the good thief was granted
the grace of a happy death, it was through mercy; if it was denied to the
other, it was through justice. Here we have a mystery: we cannot see how
infinite mercy, infinite justice, and a sovereign liberty are intimately
reconciled. For this we must have a direct intuition of the divine essence, of
the Deity, in the eminence of which these perfections are reconciled, and that
far more profoundly, more perfectly, than the seven colors are contained in
white light.
In God truths that
relate to each attribute considered apart are quite clear. But so soon as we consider
their intimate reconciliation, there descends a darkness that transcends the
light.
Once again, we see quite
distinctly that in His exceeding goodness and power God cannot permit evil
unless for some greater good, as He permits persecution for the glory of the
martyrs. But for us this greater good is often very obscure, to be seen clearly
only in heaven. This truth is eloquently brought out in the Book of Job. [20]
There is enough light for our Lord to have said: “He that followeth me walketh
not in darkness.” [21] Thus, however obscure in itself our cross may be, we are
able to bear it, all being made clear to us when we reflect that it is ordained
for the good of our souls and the glory of God.
Our life is frequently
cast in this mysterious light and shade, which appears in our very existence
when this is viewed in its relations with Him who, without fully revealing
Himself as yet, is ever drawing us to Him.
Hence arises that ardent
desire to see God, that supernatural, efficacious desire proceeding from
infused hope and charity. Hence, too, in every man arises a natural and
inefficacious desire, a natural velleity, to behold God face to face, if only
to solve the enigma how attributes so apparently opposed as infinite justice
and infinite mercy are reconciled in Him. [22]
From this it follows
that what is obscure and incomprehensible for us in God transcends what is
clearly seen. Here, in fact, the darkness is light-transcending. What the
mystics call the great darkness is the Deity, the intimate life of God, the “light
inaccessible” mentioned by St. Paul (I Tim. 6: 6).
We now understand what
St. Teresa means when she says: “The more obscure the mysteries of God, the
greater is my devotion to them.” She indeed realized that this obscurity is not
that of absurdity or incoherence, but the obscurity of a light that is too
intense for our feeble vision.
In this divine light and
shade, then, the shadows transcend the light. Faith tells us that this
impenetrable obscurity is the sovereign good in its more intimate
characteristics, so that it is to this absolutely eminent Goodness, though
still a mystery incomprehensible to the intellect, that our charity cleaves;
the food of love in this life is mystery, which it adores. Here on earth love
is superior to the intellect. As St. Thomas says, so long as we have not
attained to the beatific vision of the divine essence, our intellect, with its
very imperfect conception of God, brings Him down in some sort to our level,
imposing upon Him as it were the limitations of our own restricted ideas;
whereas love does not bring God down to our level, but uplifts us and unites us
to Him (Ia, q. 82, a. 3; IIa IIae, q. 23, a. 5; q. 27, a. 4).
Therefore in this divine
light and shade the shadows transcend the light and, for the saints here on
earth, this light-transcending darkness exerts such an attraction on the love
uniting them to God.” The just man lives by faith” (Rom. 1:17) and finds his
support not only in its light but also in the divine darkness which corresponds
to all that is most intimate in God. It is upon the incomprehensibility of the
divine life that the contemplative is reared; he grasps the full meaning of
that phrase of St. Thomas: “Faith is of things unseen” (IIa IIae, q. 1, a. 4,
5).
Finally, even for the blessed
in heaven God remains in a certain sense incomprehensible, although they see
Him face to face. No creature, no idea intervenes between Him and them in their
vision of Him, and yet that vision can never be comprehensive like the vision
God alone naturally has of Himself. Why is this?
St. Thomas provides a
simple explanation: To comprehend a thing in the true sense of the word, is to
know it as far as it can be known. A person can know a proposition of geometry
without comprehending it, as is the case with anyone who accepts it on the word
of the learned; he knows all the elements in the proposition (subject, verb,
predicate) but he does not grasp the proof, and hence does not know it as far
as it can be known (cf. Ia, q. 12, a. 7). Thus the pupil who knows his master’s
teaching in all its parts does not penetrate so deeply as his master, for he
has only a confused grasp of the radical connection of each part with the
fundamental principles. Or again, a shortsighted person will see the whole of a
landscape, but not so distinctly as one whose eyesight is good.
So also in heaven each
one of the blessed sees the whole of the divine essence, for it is indivisible.
But, since it is the infinite truth, infinitely knowable, they cannot penetrate
it so deeply as God. The degree of penetration is according to the intensity of
the light of glory they have received, and this again is in proportion to their
merits and their love for God acquired here on earth. Consequently they cannot
take in at a glance, as God does, the countless possible beings His divine
essence virtually contains, and which He could create if He chose.
The divine light and
shade of which we have just been speaking contain much that will enlighten our
own spiritual life. Our Lord thus expresses it: “He that followeth me walketh
not in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8: 12).
Since the life of grace
within us is a participation in the intimate life of God, it, too, will be for
us a mysterious light and shade, which we must be careful not to distort or
confuse. Grace brings us enlightenment, consolation, and peace, that tranquility
which comes from order. These are the high lights; we are no longer in the “shadow
of death.” On the other hand, it is on a plane so exalted that it is beyond the
reach of reason; we can never have absolute certitude that we are in the state
of grace, though we may have sufficient indications of its presence to permit
our approaching the holy table.
Moreover, along the path
we have to pursue through life are lights and shadows of another sort. The
precepts of God and His Church, the orders of superiors, the advice of
spiritual directors—these are rays of light. But we find shadows, too, lurking
in the depths of conscience. Not always can we easily distinguish true humility
from false, dignity from pride, confidence from presumption, fortitude from
temerity. Lastly—and it is here especially that the interior drama lies—in this
obscurity characteristic of our life there is the darkness descending from
above, the obscurity of grace with its overpowering radiance, and that other
darkness from below, arising from the lower elements in our disordered nature.
Let us often ask the
good God to enlighten us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that we may walk
aright amid this interior light and shadow. To deny the light because of the
shadows and thus substitute the absurd for the mystery, would result in error
and discouragement. Let us leave the mystery its rightful place. Let us ask of
God the grace to distinguish between the light-transcending darkness from above
and that lower darkness which is the darkness of death. And, that we may the
more surely obtain this grace, let us often repeat this prayer: “Grant me, O
Lord, to know the obstacles that I am more or less conscious of placing in the
way of grace and its working in me, and give me the strength to remove them, no
matter what it may cost me.” In this way we shall discover the true light, and
if darkness persists it will be the darkness from on high, that which enables
the just man to live; for to our poor intellect it is but an aspect of the
light of life and of the sovereign good. This is what is meant by these words: “He
that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
[23] He who follows me walks neither in the darkness of religious ignorance nor
in the darkness of sin and condemnation, but in the light, for “I am the way,
the truth, and the life”; therefore “he shall have the light of life, “ which
shall never be extinguished.
12. The Wisdom Of God
Hitherto we have been
considering the attributes relative to God’s being itself: such as His
simplicity, eternity, incomprehensibility. We must now treat of those relating
to the divine operations.
God, the self-subsisting
Being, is by definition immaterial and therefore intelligent. The two great
attributes of His intellect are wisdom and providence.
On the other hand, free
will is an absolute perfection resulting from intellect. The act of the divine
will is love, and its two great virtues are justice and mercy. As for the
external works of God, they have their source in omnipotence.
And so by degrees what
may be called the spiritual features of God stand out more clearly. Just as
with us, wisdom and prudence are found in the intellect, and in the will are
found justice and the other virtues regarding our neighbor, so also in God’s
intellect are wisdom and providence, and in His will are justice and mercy.
These are the divine virtues, as it were, but with this difference, that
obviously in God there can be no virtue regarding one who is superior to Him.
First of all we shall
speak of the divine wisdom. All that revelation and theology tell us about it,
illumines their teaching on providence.
What are we to
understand by wisdom?
Before we can attribute
wisdom to God, we must know the meaning of the word, or what people usually
understand by it. This will help us further to distinguish between two very
different kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. That
they know what wisdom is, is the boastful claim of all, even the skeptic, who
would have it consist in universal doubt.
That wisdom is a
comprehensive view embracing all things, everyone is agreed. But after that,
what divergences there are! We may view things from above, believing that they
all proceed from a holy love, or at least are permitted by it, and that all
things converge upon one supreme good. Or we may view things from below,
considering them the result of a material, blind fatality without any ultimate
purpose. Another divergence is that there is a wisdom characterized by a false
optimism, shutting its eyes to the existence of evil, and there is a
pessimistic, depressing wisdom that sees no good in anything.
St. Paul often speaks of
the wisdom of this world, which, he says, is stupidity or foolishness in the
eyes of God (I Cor. 3:19). Its peculiarity is that it views all things from
below, estimating the whole of human life by the earthly pleasures it brings,
or by the material interests to be safeguarded, or again by the satisfaction
our ambition and pride may derive from it.
To adopt this attitude
in our estimation of things, is to make of self the center of all things,
unwittingly to adore self. Practically it amounts to a denial of God and a
looking upon others as, so to speak, non-existent.
If the worldling feels
himself incapable of playing such a part, he takes as his standard of judgment
the opinion of the world, and sometimes becomes its very slave that he may
obtain its favors. In the opinion of the world wisdom in the conduct of life
usually consists not in the golden mean between two extreme vices, but in an
easy-going mediocrity lying midway between the true good and an excessive
crudeness or perversity in evildoing. In the eyes of the world Christian
perfection is as much an excess in one direction as downright wickedness is in
the other. We must avoid extremes in everything, we are told. And so the
mediocre comes to be called good, whereas it is nothing but an unstable,
confused state lying between the good and the bad. People forget the meaning of
the school marks given to children on their reports: very good, good, fair,
mediocre, bad, very bad. The difference between the mediocre and the good is
lost sight of, the one is confused with the other; instead of rising higher, a
man will remain permanently halfway. Hence the word charity is sometimes
applied to a reprehensible toleration of the worst evils. Calling itself
tolerance and prudent moderation, this “wisdom of the flesh” is equally indulgent
to vice and indifferent to virtue.
It is particularly
severe toward anything of a higher standard and thus seems to rebuke it.
Sometimes it even hates heroic virtue, which is holiness. We have an instance
of this in the age of persecutions, which continued even under Marcus Aurelius.
This emperor, though wise according to this world’s standards, was never able
to perceive the sublimity of Christianity, in spite of the blood of so many
martyrs.
As St. Paul says, this
self-complacent wisdom is simply “foolishness with God” (I Cor. 3:19). Because
of its self-complacency it goes so far as to base all its estimations
concerning even the most sublime things, even salvation, upon what is sheer
mediocrity and emptiness. It completely overturns the scales of values and well
deserves to be called stupidity.
It is clear, therefore,
that true wisdom views things from a higher standpoint, considering them as
dependent on God their supreme cause and directed to God their last end;
whereas stupidity, the opposite of wisdom, is the outlook of the fool, who
considers all things from the lowest standpoint, reducing them to the basest
possible level, a material, blind fatality or the transitory pleasures of this
present life. It was this that made our Lord say: “What doth it profit a man,
if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” And St. Paul
says: “If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a
fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with
God. For it is written: I will catch the wise in their own craftiness. And
again: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Let no
man therefore glory in men” (I Cor. 3:18-21).
In contrast to this let
us see what the wisdom of God is, considering it first in itself and then in
relation to ourselves.
The divine wisdom in
itself
In itself the divine
wisdom is the knowledge God has of Himself and of all things, in so far as He
is their supreme cause and last end: the divine knowledge of all things through
their highest causes.
In other words, it is an
uncreated luminous knowledge, penetrating God’s entire being and from these
heights extending eternally in all its purity and without contamination of any
kind to everything possible as well as to everything that is or has been or
will be, however lowly, however evil, and all this in a single glance and from
the loftiest standpoint conceivable.
Let us pause to consider
each of these terms and so obtain a glimpse of the wonders they seek to
express.
a) Divine wisdom is an
uncreated luminous knowledge. The Book of Wisdom tells us: “She is more
beautiful than the sun... being compared with the light, she is found before
it. For after this cometh night, but no evil can overcome wisdom.... She is a
certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: and therefore no
defiled thing cometh into her. For she is the brightness of eternal light”
(Wis. 7: 25, 26, 29).
b) This uncreated
luminous knowledge penetrates God’s entire being. To His intelligence there is
nothing in Him that is hidden, obscure, mysterious. We, on the other hand, are
a mystery to ourselves, by reason of the thousand and one more or less
unconscious movements of our sensibility influencing our judgments and our
will; by reason, too, of the mysterious graces offered us and often perhaps
indirectly rejected. Not even the most introverted souls can boast of a
complete knowledge of self.” Neither do I judge my own self, “ says St. Paul.”
For I am not conscious to myself of anything. Yet am I not hereby justified:
but He that judgeth me, is the Lord” (I Cor. 4: 3, 4).
God’s self-knowledge is
absolutely complete, extending to all that is knowable in Him. Our knowledge of
God is through creatures, as He is reflected in them; the knowledge God has of
Himself is immediate.
The blessed in heaven
see Him face to face, but this does not thereby exhaust the infinite fullness
of His being and truth. God’s vision of Himself is both immediate and
comprehensive. His infinite knowledge exhausts the infinite depths of truth in
Him.
What is more, so
completely does this luminous thought of His penetrate His wholly immaterial
being, that it is absolutely identified with it. There is no slumber here to
interrupt the spiritual life, no progress from an imperfect to a more perfect
knowledge. He is essentially and from all eternity perfection itself, a pure
intellectual flash subsisting eternally, the uncreated spiritual light
transcending all things. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 14, a. 1-4.)
c) From these heights
God’s knowledge extends instantaneously, in the unique instant of eternity, to
every possible mode of existence, as well as to everything that exists now or
has existed or will exist, however lowly, however evil.
In what way does God
know every possible mode of existence, the innumerable, infinite multitude of
beings that might exist? Through the exhaustive knowledge He has of His own
omnipotence, which is able to produce them. He is like the artist who delights
in contemplating the exquisite works of art he has conceived and might execute,
though they will never see the light of day.
And how does God know
from His high abode the things that exist now, and all that has been or will
be? Whence does He get this knowledge? Does He acquire it as we do from the
things themselves as one after another they come into existence? We ourselves
thus learn from events as they happen, and our knowledge, imperfect to begin
with, becomes more perfect. But can God have anything to learn from facts as
they occur? Obviously not; for His knowledge cannot pass from a less to a more
perfect state: He is perfection itself. What then, must our answer be?
We must say, St. Thomas
remarks (Ia, q. 14, a. 8), that whereas with us knowledge is gauged by the
objects on which it depends, the wisdom of God is the cause of things; wisdom
is their measure, they are not the measure of wisdom. Divine wisdom is the
cause of things as the art of the sculptor is the cause of the statue, as
Beethoven’s art produced his immortal symphonies, as Dante’s art produced the
Divine Comedy.
But the sculptor’s work
is no more than a lifeless statue; the great musician or the great poet can
only weave a harmony of sounds or words to express his thought. God, however,
through His wisdom can create beings that are living, conscious, intelligent:
human souls and myriads of angels.” God’s knowledge in conjunction with His
will is the cause of things as the artist’s art is the cause of the work of art”
(Ia, q. 14, a. 8).
God, in fact, can no
more go a begging to created things for His wisdom than Beethoven could learn
anything new from his own score: that is quite clear. God can have nothing to
learn from events as they occur; on the contrary, it is from the fecundity of
His knowledge that He confers existence upon them. The reason is that His
knowledge extends not only to all that He is Himself, but also to all that He
can do, to all that He actually realizes, whether by His own power exclusively
as when He created in the beginning, or with and through our co-operation as
when He directs us to the free performance of our everyday actions. In the
unique instant of eternity, God already knows all that will come to pass—all
the prayers, for instance, that under His direction we shall freely offer Him
later on in order to obtain the graces we need. We will return to this point
when we come to speak of providence.
Obviously, then, God’s
knowledge, far from being caused by things as it is with us, is itself their
cause; they are the works of the divine art, of God’s genius.
But are these created
things known to God only in a general, vague way, or distinctly and to the last
detail? Revelation tells us that “all the ways of men are open to His eyes”
(Prov. 16: 2), that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, that even the
least of our actions are known to Him.
Why is this? Because in
the production of every least thing God concurs, as to whatever reality and
goodness are in it. Only one thing God cannot produce, and that is sin; for sin
as such is a disorder, and disorder has no being but is simply the absence of
what ought to be. Since, then, the divine causality embraces all things, down
to the least detail, so also must the divine knowledge; for obviously God knows
all that He does Himself and all that He concurs in producing. As for sin, He
merely permits it, tolerates it in view of some greater good. It is through
this permission that He has knowledge of it; and He sees it in its final
overthrow, which in its own way will once more contribute to the manifestation
of the good. We shall see this truth more clearly when we come to speak of God’s
providence.
Therefore, God’s
knowledge of whatever reality and goodness there is in the universe is from
Himself; the source upon which He draws for that knowledge is Himself.
The divine wisdom
compared with the highest human wisdom
With us, the knowledge
of spiritual and divine things is obtained from below, in the mirror of
sensible things. God, on the other hand, views all things from on high, in
Himself and His own eminent causality.
Do what we may, we here
on earth see the spiritual and the divine only through their reflection in
material things. It is owing to this that we attach immense importance to
material happenings, such as the loss of an eye, whereas events of the
spiritual world, with consequences that are incalculable, are allowed to pass
almost unnoticed, such as an act of charity in the order of goodness, or in the
sphere of evil a mortal sin. In other words, we see the spiritual and the
divine as in the twilight, in the shadow of the sensible; to use the expression
of St. Augustine, ours is an evening vision.
With God it is quite the
contrary. In the light of an eternal morning His knowledge is first of all
directed to Himself, and in His own very pure essence He sees from above all
possible creatures, and those that now exist or have existed or will exist. It
is from on high and in spiritual things that He sees the material. To hear a
symphony, He has no need of senses as we have; His knowledge of it is from a
higher source, in the musical law that gave it birth, and thus it far surpasses
the knowledge of the genius who composed it.
It is not through the
body that God views the soul of the just; it is rather through the soul that He
views the body as a sort of radiation of the soul. Hence His sight is not
dazzled by outward show, by wealth and its trappings; what counts with God is
charity. A beggar in rags but with the heart of a saint, is of incomparably
greater worth in the sight of God than a Caesar in all the splendor of his
human glory. Again, to Him there is an immense difference between a little
child before it is baptized and the same child after baptism.
Looked at in the light
of this world our Savior’s passion appears to us enshrouded in gloom, but how
radiant it must be when seen from on high, as the culminating point of history,
that point to which everything in the Old Testament led up and from which
everything in the New descends!
God does not see created
things immediately in themselves, in the dim glimmer of their created
illumination, as though descending to their level and made dependent on them;
He sees them in Himself and His own radiant light. God cannot see created
things except from above: any other mode of knowledge would argue imperfection
and would cease to be divine contemplation. Whatever reality and goodness there
is in creatures is seen by the divine wisdom as a radiation of the glory of “Him
who is.”
Whereas we can hardly
conceive of eternity except by relating it to the particular time period in
which we live, God sees the whole succession of time periods in the light of an
unchanging eternity. As a man standing on the summit of a mountain takes in at
a single glance all who follow one another in the plain below, so also in one
eternal instant God sees the entire succession of time periods; our birth
simultaneously with our death, our trials with the glory they merit, the
sufferings of the just with the endless spiritual profit resulting from them.
He sees the effects in their causes, and the means in the ends they subserve.
The lives of the saints
are very beautiful even in their external aspect as history records them; but
they are incomparably more beautiful in the mind of God, who sees everything in
its true inwardness and from above, who sees directly the grace in the souls of
the just with their actual degree of charity and the degree they will have
reached at the end of their journey. He sees our lives in the light of the
divine idea directing them, an idea that will be fully realized only in heaven.
Between God’s wisdom and ours there is all the difference we observe between a
stained-glass window as seen from within the church and as seen from without.
This infinite wisdom of
God has been revealed to us in the person of our Lord the incarnate Word, in
His life and preaching, His death, resurrection, and ascension. Our Lord has
bestowed upon us a participation in this selfsame divine wisdom through living
faith illumined by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the gifts of wisdom and
understanding, enabling us to penetrate and experience the sweetness of the
mysteries of salvation. Let our practical conclusion be to accustom ourselves
by degrees to see all things from God’s higher point of view, considering them
not as something that may give us pleasure or satisfy our self-love and pride,
but in their relation to God the first cause and last end. In the spirit of
faith and by the dim light it sheds let us accustom ourselves gradually to see
all things in God. Let us see in the pleasant events of our life the tokens of
God’s goodness, and also in the painful and unexpected afflictions a call to a
higher life, as being so many graces sent for our purification, and therefore
often more to be prized than consolations. St. Peter crucified was nearer to
God than on Thabor.
By thus accustoming
ourselves to live by faith and the gift of wisdom we shall become every day
better fitted to enter into that knowledge which is to be ours at the end of
our journey through life. We shall then see God face to face, and in Him all
that emanates from Him, especially those things we have loved on earth with a
supernatural love. St. Francis and St. Dominic thus behold in God the destinies
of their orders, and a Christian mother on entering heaven sees in Him the
spiritual needs of the son she has left on earth and the prayers she must offer
for him.
This wisdom corresponds
to the beatitude promised to peacemakers. In heaven, of course, it will be the
source of unchanging peace as well as perfect joy; here on earth, even when the
joy is absent, it brings us peace, that tranquillity which comes from order
through union with God.
13. The Will And Holy
Love Of God
Now that we have spoken
of God’s intellect and wisdom, a right conception of providence requires
further that we consider the nature of His holy will and the love He has both
for Himself and for us. Providence in God, like prudence in us, presupposes the
love of the supreme good, to which it directs all things.
No word is so much
profaned as love. There is a carnal wisdom which St. Paul calls stupidity and
foolishness, and there is also a baser sort of love which is simply the
grossest egoism and which often through jealousy is instantly transformed into
a raging hatred. But however low a soul may sink, it can never quite forget
that in true love we have a perfection so exalted and so pure that we should
look in vain for any trace of imperfection in it.
If we were asked whether
God can be sad, we at once see that this cannot be. If we were asked whether He
can be angry, we promptly understand that the term can be attributed to Him
only by way of metaphor to express His justice. If we were asked whether love
is to be found formally in Him, without the least hesitation we say that He
loves us in the strict and fullest sense of the term.
Let us see, then, (1) in
what way love is in God, in what way He loves Himself, and (2) the nature of
His love for us. We will follow St. Thomas throughout (Ia, q. 19, 20), and
while we are speaking of God’s love for us we shall see with him what is meant
by the will of expression in God and the will of His good pleasure. This
distinction is of the first importance for a right understanding of what
self-abandonment to Providence must be.
The love of God for
Himself
Love as it is in God
cannot consist in a sensible passion or emotion, however well regulated. There
can be no sensibility in God, because He is pure spirit.
But there can be no
divine intellect, with its knowledge of the good, unless there is a divine will
to will that good. This will cannot be a simple faculty of willing. It would be
imperfect, were it not of itself always in act. The first act of the will is
love for the good, a love entirely spiritual as is the intellect which directs
it. The other acts of the will (desiring, willing, consenting, choosing,
utilizing, and even hating) all proceed from love, that is the very awakening
of the will in its contact with the good which is its object (Ia, q. 20, a. 1).
In God, then, a wholly
spiritual and eternal act of love for the good necessarily exists, and this
good loved from all eternity is God Himself, His infinite perfection, which is
the fullness of being. God loves Himself as much as He is capable of being
loved, that is, infinitely. This necessary act is not inferior to liberty but transcends
it. Indeed this love is identified with the sovereign good, the supreme object
of love. From its ardor it is rightly termed a zealous love; it is like an
eternally subsisting burning flame, ignis ardens. As the Scripture says, “God
is a consuming fire” (Deut. 4: 24).
We do well to
contemplate this burning love for the good which exists from all eternity in
God, especially when we consider the amount of injustice and jealousy that is
in the world and feel in our hearts how feeble at times is our own love for the
good, how lacking in constancy and perseverance.
We read in the Gospel: “Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill”
(Matt. 5: 6). This is that burning love for the good which is mightier than all
contradictions, than all weariness and temptations to discouragement we may
meet with, a love mighty as death, even mightier than death, as seen in our
Lord and the martyrs. Yet this mighty, ardent love for the good, which must
eventually dominate everything in our hearts, is but a spark springing from
that spiritual furnace in God, the uncreated love for the sovereign good.
The characteristics of
this love
In the first place, it
is supremely holy, or rather it is holiness itself; that is to say, it is absolutely
pure, and in its purity unchangeable. Absolutely pure, for obviously it cannot
in any way be sullied or debased by sin or imperfection, since sin consists in
turning one’s back on God and His commands, and imperfection is a refusal to
follow His counsels.
And in its purity it is
unchangeable. God can never cease to be the sovereign good. He can never cease
to know and hence to love Himself. He necessarily loves Himself, and His love
not only cleaves unalterably to the sovereign good, but is identified with it,
loving it above all things. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. 3, 7.)
Certain philosophers,
such as Kant, have gone so far astray as to see in this love of God preferring
Himself to all else, not the absolute holiness it is, but the very height of egoism.
They have also maintained that God cannot love Himself above all things, that
He could not have created us for His own glory, but for ourselves alone, and
that consequently it is not He but our own personal dignity that should hold
the supreme place in our love.
On the plea of absolving
God of egoism, this novel aberration places egoism before us as the ideal we
should aim at. It confounds the two extremes, holiness and egoism, because it
neglects to define what egoism is.
Egoism is an inordinate
self-love in which self is preferred to God the sovereign good, or to one’s
family or country. But how can God prefer Himself to the sovereign good, since
He is identified with it?
Hence God in preferring
Himself to all things is preferring the sovereign good. For Him to do otherwise
would be an intolerable disorder; He would be like the miser who prefers his
gold to his own personal dignity. For God to prefer any creature to Himself
would amount to a mortal sin in Him, and that is the final absurdity.
When God creates,
therefore, it is not out of egoism at all; on the contrary, it is to manifest
His goodness externally. In subordinating everything to Himself He is
subordinating us to the sovereign good, and this He does for our greater
happiness. Our beatitude is incomparably greater in the possession and love of
God through praise than if it were a mere complacency in our own personal
dignity. The more we give glory to God, the greater will be our own glory.” Not
to us, O Lord, not to us: but to Thy name give glory” (Ps. 113: 1). Our
greatest glory, O Lord, is to give glory to Thee.
God’s love for Himself
has no taint of egoism; rather it is holiness itself. And not only is it
absolutely pure and incapable of sin, but it has as its inevitable sequel a
holy hatred of everything that is evil. In fact, no true love of the good can
exist without a detestation of evil; we cannot love the sovereign good above
all things without a sovereign detestation of sin. God cannot have that holy
zeal for His own glory, which is the manifestation of His goodness, without an
equally ardent detestation of sin. This is quite evident. With Him there can be
no bargaining or compromising with evil. This, in the divine light and shade,
stands out in clear relief. Nevertheless—and here is the shadow—sin does occur.
Where sin is willfully persisted in, the love of God, which is gentleness
itself, becomes a thing of terror.” Love is as strong as death, jealousy as
hard as hell” (Cant. 8: 6). God detests sin with a burning hatred, which is simply
the obverse of His ardent love for the good.
God’s love for Himself
is at once an alluring holiness and a thing of dread, gentle yet terrible, like
the house of God which Jacob speaks of (Gen. 28: 17).
This holiness implies
all perfections, even those so apparently opposed as infinite justice and
infinite mercy, the two great virtues of divine love.
In this holy love of God
for Himself is contained a twofold lesson. In the first place, since God is
infinitely better than we are, we must love Him more than ourselves, at least
in preference to ourselves with a love based on a right estimation of values,
with a love, too, that is efficacious and orients our whole life to Him.
Secondly, as God loves Himself with a holy love, so ought we to love with a holy
love our own soul and its destiny, for it has been created to give glory to God
eternally. Let us love ourselves with this holy love, in God and for His sake;
this is the way to overcome that inordinate love of self in which egoism
consists. With the egoist, self-love is in one sense excessive, since he
devotes too much love to the lower element in him; but in another sense it
falls short of what it should be: he does not love sufficiently the spiritual
element in his soul, that element which was created to hymn the glories of God.
(Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 29, a. 4; IIa IIae, q. 25, a. 7.)
God’s love for us
Such being the love God
has for Himself, how can it be directed to anything else besides? Some
unbelievers, as also the deists, hold that God cannot possibly love us in the
true sense of the term: the use of the word “love” in this connection is purely
metaphorical. To love some other being, they say, is to be attracted by it. But
God, the plenitude of all good, can find nothing in us to attract Him; He
cannot be passive to an attraction exerted by so paltry a good as we are.
The answer to this deist
objection is that in the love God has for us there is no passivity whatever; it
is essentially active, creative, life-giving: it is sheer generosity and is
supremely free. It is true love in the strictest and highest sense of the word.
No passivity is possible
in the love God has for us. Obviously He cannot be attracted by a created good,
or be passive under the attraction of a good so paltry, or be captivated by it.
He loves us, not because He found us worthy of love; on the contrary, in His
sight we are made worthy of His love because He has first loved us.” What hast
thou that thou hast not received?” says St. Paul (I Cor. 4: 7) ; and St. Thomas
says: “The love of God is the cause infusing and creating goodness in things”
(Ia, q. 20, a. 2).
Any good in us, whether
natural or supernatural, can come only from God, the source of all good, can
come only from His creative, life-giving love. This love of His does not
presuppose anything worthy of love in us, but is the very source of that
worthiness, creating, conserving, increasing it in us, yet without violence to
our liberty.
For what reason, then,
has God loved us with this creative love? Why has He given us existence, life,
intellect, and will? Out of sheer generosity. Is it not characteristic of
goodness to be diffusive of itself and to give itself in generous abundance?
Since goodness tends naturally to communicate itself, it is essentially
diffusive of itself. In the physical order the sun gives out light and genial
heat; plants and animals, upon reaching maturity, tend to reproduce themselves.
In the moral and spiritual order a person who, like the saints, has a passion
for goodness will know no rest until he has aroused in others the same
aspirations, the same love. Since God is the sovereign good and the fullness of
all being, the eternal love of the good having all the zeal and ardor of love,
it is most fitting that He should give of the riches that are in Him, even as a
singer delights in re-echoing abroad the rich melodies of his song. It is in
the highest degree fitting, therefore, that God should love us with this
creative love by giving us existence and life.
But does it follow that
creation is not a free act; that, unless He created, God would be neither good
nor wise? By no means. Scripture tells us that “God worketh all things
according to the counsel of His will” (Ephes. 1: 11), and the Church proclaims
the absolute liberty of creative love. It is indeed highly appropriate that God
should create, but also that He should be altogether free in creating, so that
there would have been nothing derogatory to Him in not creating: in His own
intimate life God would have none the less been infinitely good and infinitely
wise. As Bossuet says, God is no greater for having created the universe. The
fact of His conferring existence on us cannot bring the smallest increase to
His infinite perfection. Creation is an absolutely free act of love. In this
sense even the natural gifts we have received are gratuitous.
But in God there is a
still greater and freer act of love, by which He has bestowed on us the even
more gratuitous gift of grace, that participation in His intimate life, a gift
to which our nature has no claim whatever. By this life-saving love He has made
us worthy to be loved in His sight, and that not merely as creatures but as His
children, thus fitting us to behold Him and love Him for eternity.
We are loved by God far
more than we think. To realize the extent of His love for us, we should have to
know fully the value of grace when it has reached its final development in the
glory of heaven; we would have to see God, if only for an instant.
In the incarnation, the
redemption, and the Eucharist, God’s love for us reaches its consummation. To
realize how intense is this love, we should have to appreciate to the full the
infinite value of the redemptive part of the incarnation and the merits our
Lord gained for us, and hence the value of all the spiritual graces that flow
from them. In giving birth to Mary, St. Anne was far more loved by God than she
knew, for she could not have foreseen that the child God had given her would be
the mother of the Savior and of all mankind. So, too, is it with us, though with
due reserves: God loves us far more than we think, especially in times of trial
when He appears to desert us; for it is then He bestows upon us His most
precious, most profound, most life-giving graces. At such times as these, let
us say with St. Teresa: “Lord, Thou knowest all things, canst do all things,
and Thou dost love me.”
Such in essence is the
love God has for us, a creative and life-giving love; supremely generous and
supremely free.
The characteristics of
this love
They are principally four:
It is universal; yet it has its free preferences; and these are wholly actuated
by wisdom; and it is invincible.
It is universal,
extending to the very least of creatures. God loves them as a farm owner loves
his fields, his house, and the animals that serve his needs. But first and
foremost this love is directed to the souls of human beings: to the soul of a
sinner that it may be converted, to the soul of a just man that it may
persevere, to the soul tried by temptation that it may not faint, and to the
soul in its last hour on earth before it comes before God’s judgment seat (Ia,
q. 20, a. 2, 3).
Nevertheless, for all
its universality, this love has its free preferences. If to every soul it gives
the graces sufficient and necessary for salvation, upon some—St. Joseph, for
instance, St. Peter, St. John, St. Paul, the founders of religious orders-it
confers graces of predilection. And every one of these saints will confess with
St. Paul (I Cor. 4:7), “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” and again,
“It is God who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to His
good will” (Phil. 2: 13). As the singer imparts at will a greater resonance to
certain notes, so also God in the bestowal of His graces shows His predilection
for some over others. The divine seed that God casts into souls depends for its
degree of beauty entirely upon His good pleasure.
Yet this supreme liberty
in His preferences preserves always that admirable order which wisdom and
charity demand.” It is always the best that God prefers, “ says St. Thomas, “for,
since He is the source of all goodness, one thing would not be better than
another, did He not love it with a greater love” (Ia, q. 20, a. 3).
God prefers spiritual to
corporeal beings, the latter being created for the former. The Mother of the
incarnate Word is preferred before every other created being; and God’s only
Son is preferred before His Virgin Mother. Christ was delivered up on our
behalf, not because He was loved less by God than we are, but that by saving us
He might emerge gloriously triumphant over the devil, sin, and death (Ia, q.
20, a. 4 ad Ium).
In the love of God
everything is subordinated to the manifestation of His goodness. This is the
constant refrain of the psalm: “Praise the Lord for He is good; for His mercy
endureth forever” (Ps. 135).
One last perfection of
divine love: in its strength it is invincible, in the sense that without its
divine permission nothing can resist it and that by its power everything is
made to conspire to the eventual fulfilment of the good. In this sense the love
of God is mightier than death: mightier than physical death, since it raised up
Christ Jesus and will raise us up at the last day; mightier than spiritual
death, for it is able to convert the most hardened sinner, raising to life
again the soul that is dead, and that not once, but many times, in the course
of its earthly existence.
The will of expression
and the will of good pleasure in God
That our will should be
made to conform to the divine will and its holy love is of course obvious; for,
as St. Thomas says, [24] any goodness in our voluntary acts and in the will
itself depends on the end to which they are directed. Now the ultimate end of
the human will is the sovereign good, which is also the primary object of the
divine will, that object in view of which all other things are willed by it.
Here, however, we must
distinguish with the whole of tradition between the divine will of good
pleasure and the divine will of expression. [25] By the divine will of expression
we mean all those external signs that reveal God’s will-commands, prohibitions,
the spirit underlying the counsels, and everything that happens by His will or
permission. The divine will thus expressed, especially in commands, comes
within the domain of obedience, and, as St. Thomas remarks, [26] is what we
refer to when we say in the Our Father, “Thy will be done.”
The divine will of good
pleasure is the interior act of God’s will, which often is not yet revealed or
expressed externally. Upon it depends our still uncertain future—future events,
future joys and trials, whether of long or short duration, the hour and
circumstances of our death, and so on. As St. Francis of Sales remarks [27] and
Bossuet after him, [28] whereas the expressed will of God is the domain of
obedience, the will of His good pleasure is the domain of trusting surrender.
As we will explain at some length later on, in making our will conform daily to
the divine will as expressed, we must for the rest abandon ourselves in all
confidence to the divine will of good pleasure, for we are certain beforehand
that it wills nothing, permits nothing, unless for the spiritual and eternal
welfare of those who love God and persevere in that love.
Such is God’s holy will
and His love for us. It is this love that has been revealed to us in our Lord,
whose heart is a glowing furnace of charity.
Christ’s love for us,
like that of His heavenly Father, is absolutely holy and inspired by sheer
generosity: He has not been drawn to us, but we to Him: “You have not chosen
me, “ He says, “but I have chosen you” (John 15: 16). Again, the love of Jesus
for His Father and for us has ever been invincible: it constrained Him to
submit to death, and by His death he raises up souls to a new life, once again
directing upon them the stream of the divine mercies.
As a practical
conclusion, we must allow ourselves to be loved by this exceedingly holy,
purifying, life-giving love, and submit to its purifications, however painful
they may be at times. And it should be met with a generous response, according
to these words of St. John: “Let us love God: because He hath first loved us”
(I John 4: 10). We must love the Lord for His own sake, with a purity of
intention rising above the promptings of vainglory and pride and that
self-seeking which is induced by jealousy and the desire for the esteem of men.
The beginning in us of a
pure love for God will then be some participation in that love which God has
for Himself, a spark from that divine furnace of His own self-love. And as our
love grows purer daily, it will increase in holiness, generosity, and strength.
Indeed it will make us invincible, according to the phrase of St. Paul (Rom. 8:
1), “If God be with us, who is against us?” And finally, our love thus
gradually purified will enable us to triumph over death itself and will open
the gates of paradise to us. When we enter into glory, we shall be established
forever in a supernatural love for God that can nevermore be lost or lessened.
PART III : PROVIDENCE
ACCORDING TO REVELATION
14. The Notion Of
Providence
Having spoken of those
divine perfections which the notion of providence presupposes, we must go on to
consider in what this providence consists. What revelation has told us about
God’s wisdom and His love will give us a clearer insight into its teaching
concerning the divine governance. This teaching far surpasses that of the
philosophers, many of whom maintain that providence does not extend beyond the
general laws governing the universe; that it does not reach down to individuals
and the details of their existence, to future free actions and the secrets of
the heart. On the other hand, certain heretics have held that since providence
extends infallibly to the least of our actions, there can be no such thing as liberty.
The revealed teaching is the golden mean lying between these two extreme
positions and transcending them.
Providence, as we shall
see, is a sort of extension of God’s wisdom, which “reacheth from end to end
mightily and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wis. 8: I; 14: 3).” Since, “ says
St. Thomas, “God is the cause of all things by His intellect (in conjunction
with His will), it is necessary that the type of the order of things toward
their end should pre-exist in the divine mind; and the type of things ordered
toward an end is, properly speaking, providence” (Ia, q. 22, a. 1). [29] As for
the divine governance, though the expression is generally used as synonymous
with providence, it is, strictly speaking, the execution of the providential
plan (ibid., ad 2um).
St. Thomas (ibid.) also
points out that providence in God corresponds to the virtue of prudence in us,
which regulates the means with a view to the attainment of some end, which
exercises foresight in anticipation of the future. We have, besides a purely
personal prudence, that higher prudence which a father must exercise to provide
for his family’s needs, and higher still, the prudence demanded in the head of
the state that should be found in our law makers and other government officials
for the promotion of the common interests of the nation. Likewise in God there
is a providence directing all things to the good of the universe, the
manifestation of the divine goodness in every order, from the inanimate
creation even to the angels and saints in heaven.
And so by a comparison
with the virtue of prudence is formed the analogical notion of providence, a
notion accessible to commonsense reason and abundantly confirmed by revelation.
A prudent person will first desire the end and then, having decided on the
means to be employed, will begin using them; thus the end, which held first
place in his desire, is the last in actual attainment. So we look upon God as
intending from all eternity first the end and purpose of the universe and then
the means necessary for the realization or attainment of that end. This
commonsense view is expressed by the philosophers when they say that the end is
first in the order of intention but last in order of execution. This point is
of paramount importance when we are considering the end and purpose of the
universe of material and spiritual beings.
From this general notion
of providence we deduce its characteristics. We will briefly indicate them here
before looking for a more vivid and detailed account of them in Scripture.
1) The absolute
universality of providence is deduced from the absolute universality of divine
causality, which in this case is the causality of an intellectual agent.” The
causality of God, “ says St. Thomas, “extends to all beings, not only as to the
constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing
principles (for these also belong to the realm of being) ; it extends not only
to things incorruptible but also to those corruptible. Hence all things that
exist in whatsoever manner are necessarily directed by God toward some end”
(Ia, q. 22, a. 2). This is demanded by the principle of finality, which states
that every agent acts for some end and the supreme agent for the supreme end
known to Him, to which He subordinates all else. That end, as we saw when
speaking of the love of God, is the manifestation of His goodness, His infinite
perfection, and His various attributes.
As we shall see, it is
constantly asserted in the Old and New Testaments that the plan of providence
has been fixed immediately by God Himself down to the last detail. His
practical knowledge would be imperfect, were it not as far reaching as His
causality, and without that causality nothing comes into existence. Obviously,
therefore, as was stated above, any reality or goodness in creatures and their
actions is caused by God. This means that with the exception of evil (that
privation and disorder in which sin consists), all things have God as their
first if not exclusive cause. [30] As for physical evil and suffering, God wills
them only in an accidental way, in view of a higher good. [31] From the
absolute universality of providence we deduce a second characteristic.
2) This universal and
immediate sway exerted by providence, does not destroy, but safeguards the
freedom of our actions. Not only does it safeguard liberty, but actuates it,
[32] for the precise reason that providence extends even to the free mode of
our actions, which it produces in us with our co-operation; for this free mode
in our choice, this indifference dominating our desire, is still within the
realm of being, and nothing exists unless it be from God. [33] The slightest
idiosyncrasy of temperament and character, the consequences of heredity, the
influence exerted on our actions by the emotions —all are known to providence;
it penetrates into the innermost recesses of conscience, and has at its
disposal every sort of grace to enlighten, attract, and strengthen us. There is
thus a gentleness in its control that yields nothing to strength. Suaviter et
fortiter it produces and preserves the divine seed in the heart and watches
over its development (Ia, q. 22, a. 4).
3) Although providence,
as the divine ordinance, extends immediately to all reality and goodness, to
the last and least fiber of every being, nevertheless in the execution of the
plan of providence, God governs the lower creation through the higher, to which
He thus communicates the dignity of causality (Ia, q. 22, a. 3).
These various
characteristics of providence we will now consider as they are presented to us
in the Old and New Testaments. No better way can be found to make our knowledge
of them not merely abstract and theoretical, but living and spiritually
fruitful.
15. The Characteristics
Of Providence According To The Old Testament
In many passages of the
Old Testament (e. g., Wis. 6: 8; 8: I; 11: 21; 12: 13; 17: 2), the doctrine
about providence is expressed in terms that are formal and explicit, and
implicitly it is indicated in a multitude of other texts. Indeed the Book of
Job is devoted entirely to the consideration of providence in relation to the
trials the just endure; and wherever we find mention of prayer, we have an
equivalent affirmation of providence, for prayer presupposes it.
The Old Testament
teaching on this subject may be summed up in these two fundamental points:
1) A universal and
infallible providence directs all things to a good purpose.
2) For us providence is
an evident fact, sometimes even a startling fact, though in certain of its ways
it remains absolutely unfathomable.
We have chosen an
abundant array of Scriptural texts, and grouped them in such a way that they
explain one another. The words of the texts are more beautiful than any
commentary can make them.
A universal and
infallible providence directs all things to a good purpose
1) The universality of
providence, reaching down to the minutest things, is clearly taught in the Old
Testament. The Book of Wisdom declares it repeatedly: “God made the little and
the great, and He hath equally care of all” (6: 8) ; “Wisdom reacheth from end
to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly” (8: 1) ; “Thou hast ordered
all things in number, measure, and weight” (11: 21) ; “There is no other God
but Thou, who hast care of all, that Thou shouldst show that Thou dost not give
judgment unjustly” (12: 13). The author then gives this striking example:
Again, another,
designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging
waves.... The wood that carrieth him the desire of gain devised, and the
workman built it by his skill. But Thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for
Thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path even among the
waves, showing that Thou art able to save out of all things.... Therefore men
also trust their lives even to a little wood, and passing over the sea by ship
are saved (14: 1-5).
This simple description
of the confidence shown by those who sail the seas on a “little wood” proclaims
more clearly than all the writings of Plato and Aristotle the existence of a
providence extending to the minutest things. We find the same explicit
declarations in certain beautiful prayers of the Old Testament: for instance,
in Judith’s prayer before she set out for the camp of Holofernes:
Assist, I beseech Thee,
O Lord God, me a widow. For Thou hast done the things of old, and hast devised
one thing after another: and what Thou hast designed hath been done. For all
Thy ways are prepared, and in Thy providence Thou hast placed Thy judgments.
Look upon the camp of the Assyrians now, as Thou wast pleased to look upon the
camp of the Egyptians... and the waters overwhelmed them. So may it be with
these also, O Lord, who trust in their multitude, and in their chariots, and in
their pikes, and in their shields, and in their arrows, and glory in their
spears: and know not that Thou art our God, who destroyest wars from the
beginning. And the Lord is Thy name.... The prayer of the humble and the meek
have always pleased Thee. O God of the heavens, Creator of the waters, and Lord
of the whole creation, hear me a poor wretch, making supplication to Thee, and
presuming of Thy mercy (Judith 9: 3-17).
Here, besides the
existence of an all-embracing providence and the rectitude of its ways, there
is also brought out the freedom of the divine election regarding the nation
from which the Savior was to be born.
But what is the manner
of this divine ordinance?
2) The infallibility of
providence touching everything that happens, including even our present and
future free actions, is stressed in the Old Testament no less clearly than its
universal extent. In this connection we must cite especially the prayer of
Mardochai (Esther 13: 9-17), in which he implores God’s help against Aman and
the enemies of the chosen people:
O Lord, Lord almighty
King, for all things are in Thy power, and there is none that can resist Thy
will, if Thou determine to save Israel. Thou hast made heaven and earth, and
all things that are under the cope of heaven. Thou art the Lord of all, and
there is none that can resist Thy majesty. Thou knowest all things, and Thou
knowest that it was not out of pride and contempt or any desire of glory that I
refused to worship the proud Aman.... But I feared lest I should transfer the
honor of my God to a man.... And now, O Lord, O King, O God of Abraham, have mercy
on Thy people, because our enemies resolve to destroy us.... Hear my
supplication.... And turn our mourning into joy, that we may live and praise
Thy name.
Not less touching is
Queen Esther’s prayer in those same circumstances (14: 12-19), bringing out even
more clearly the infallibility of providence regarding even the free acts of
men; for she asks that the heart of King Assuerus be changed, and her prayer is
answered: “Remember, O Lord, and show Thyself to us in the time of our
tribulation, and give me boldness, O Lord, King of gods, and of all power. Give
me a well ordered speech in my mouth in the presence of the lion: and turn his
heart to the hatred of our enemy; that both he himself may perish, and the rest
that consent to him. But deliver us by Thy hand: and help me who hath no
helper, but Thee, O Lord, who hast the knowledge of all things. And Thou
knowest that I hate the glory of the wicked.... Deliver us from the hand of the
wicked. And deliver me from my fear.” In fact, as we read a little later on
(15: 11), “God changed the king’s spirit into mildness; and all in haste and in
fear [seeing Esther faint before him], he leaped from his throne and held her
in his arms till she came to herself.” Thereupon, after speedily assuring
himself of Aman’s treachery, he sent him to his punishment, and leant all the
weight of his power to the Jews in defending themselves against their enemies.
[34]
From this it is plain
that divine providence extends infallibly not only to the least external
happening but also to the most intimate secrets of the heart and every free
action; for, in answer to the prayer of the just, it brings about a change in
the interior dispositions of the will of kings. Socrates and Plato never rose
to such lofty conceptions, to such firm convictions on this matter of the
divine governance.
Many other texts in the
Bible to the same effect are repeatedly insisted upon by both St. Augustine and
St. Thomas.
In Proverbs, for
instance, we read (21: 1) : “As the division of the waters, so the heart of the
king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever He will He shall turn it. Every
way of man seemeth right to himself: but the Lord weigheth the hearts.” Again,
in Ecclesiasticus (33: 13) we read: “As the potter’s clay is in his hand, to
fashion and order it: all his ways are according to his ordering. So man is in
the hand of Him who made Him: and He will render to him according to His
judgment.” Again, Isaias in his prophecies against the heathen (14:24) says: “The
Lord of hosts hath sworn, saving: Surely as I have thought, so shall it be. And
as I have purposed, so shall it fall out: that I will destroy the Assyrian in
My land... and his yoke shall be taken away from them.” “This is the hand, “
the prophet adds, “that is stretched out upon all nations. For the Lord of
hosts hath decreed, and who can disannul it? And His hand is stretched out, and
who shall turn it away?” Always there is the same insistence on the liberty of
the divine election, on a universal and infallible providence reaching down to
the minutest detail and to the free actions of men.
3) For what end has this
universal and infallible providence directed all things? Though the psalms do
not bring that full light to bear which comes with the Gospel, they frequently
answer this question when they declare that God directs all things to good, for
the manifestation of His goodness, His mercy, and His justice, and that He is
in no way the cause of sin, but permits it in view of a greater good Providence
is thus presented as a divine virtue inseparably united with mercy and justice,
just as true prudence in the man of virtue can never be at variance with the
moral virtues of justice, fortitude, and moderation which are intimately
connected with it. Only in God, however, can this connection of the virtues
reach its supreme perfection.
Again and again we find
in the psalms such expressions as these: “All the ways of the Lord are mercy
and truth” (24:10) ; “All His works are done with faithfulness. He loveth mercy
and judgment [Heb., justice and right] ; the earth is full of the mercy of the
Lord” (32: 4-5) ; “Show, O Lord, Thy ways to me, and teach me Thy paths. Direct
me in Thy truth, and teach me; for Thou art God my Savior, and on Thee I have
waited all the day long. Remember, O Lord, Thy bowels of compassion; and Thy
mercies that are from the beginning of the world. The sins of my youth and my
ignorances do not remember. According to Thy mercy remember me: for Thy
goodness’ sake, O Lord” (24: 4-7).” The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want
nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up on the
water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of
justice, for His name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy
staff: they have comforted me” (22: 1-5).” In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let
me never be confounded.... My lots are in Thy hands. Deliver me out of the
hands of my enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make Thy face to shine on
Thy servant: save me in Thy mercy.... O how great is the multitude of Thy
sweetness, O Lord, which Thou has hidden from them that fear Thee! Which Thou
has wrought for them that hope in Thee, in the sight of the sons of men. Thou
shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face from the disturbance of men. Thou
shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues” (30: I,
16, 17, 20).
Here we have the twofold
foundation of our hope and trust in God: His providence, with its individual
care for each one of the just, and His omnipotence. All these passages in the
psalms may be summed up in St. Teresa’s words already quoted: “Lord, Thou
knowest all things, canst do all things, and Thou lovest me.”
Since providence is of
such absolute universality, extending to the minutest details, and since at the
same time it is infallible and directs all things to good, surely it ought to
be quite evident to those who are willing to see it. How, then, in its ways is
it so often impenetrable even to the just? The Old Testament more than once
touches on this great problem.
Providence is for us an
evident fact, yet in certain of its ways it remains absolutely unfathomable
According to the Bible,
the evidence that providence in general exists, is obtained either from the
order apparent in the world or from the history of the chosen people or again
from the main features of the lives of the just and of the wicked.
The order apparent in
the world, declare the psalms, proclaims the existence of an intelligent
designer: “The heavens show forth the glory of God: and the firmament declareth
the work of His hands” (18: 2) ; “Sing ye to the Lord with praise: sing to our
God upon the harp; who covereth the heavens with clouds, and prepareth rain for
the earth; who maketh grass to grow on the mountains, and herbs for the service
of men, who giveth to beasts their food, and to the young ravens that call upon
Him” (146: 7; cf. Job 38: 41) ; “All men are vain, in whom there is not the
knowledge of God: and who by these good things that are seen could not
understand Him that He is. Neither by attending to the works have acknowledged
who was the workman.... They are not to be pardoned. For if they were able to
know so much as to make a judgment of the world, how did not they more easily
find out the Lord thereof?” (Wis. 13: I, 4, 8.)
Providence is no less
clearly seen in the history of the chosen people, as the psalms again remind
us, especially PS. 113, In exitu Israel de Aegypto:
When Israel went out of
Egypt... the sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back.... What ailed thee, O
thou sea, that thou didst flee? and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back?
Ye mountains that skipped like rams, and ye hills like lambs of the flock? At
the presence of the God of Jacob: who turned the rock into pools of water, and
the stony hill into fountains of waters. Not to us, O Lord, not to us: but to
Thy name give glory. For Thy mercy and for Thy truth’s sake.... The Lord hath
been mindful of us and hath blessed us. He hath blessed the house of Israel....
He hath blessed all that fear the Lord, both little and great.... But we that
live bless the Lord: from this time now and forever.
Lastly, providence is
clearly shown in the general life of the just, in the often perceptible happiness
with which it rewards them. As we read in psalm 111:
Blessed is the man that
feareth the Lord: he shall delight exceedingly in His commandments. His seed
shall be mighty on the earth: the generation of the righteous shall be blessed.
Glory and wealth shall be in his house: and his justice remaineth forever and
ever. To the righteous a light hath risen up in darkness: He is merciful,
compassionate and just.... His heart is ready to hope in the Lord, his heart is
strengthened: he shall not be moved until he look over his enemies. He hath
given to the poor: His justice remaineth forever and ever.
The providence of God is
especially to be seen in the case of those in tribulation, “raising up the
needy from the earth and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill. That He may
place him with the princes of His people” (Ps. 112: 7).
On the other hand, the
malice of the wicked receives its chastisement even in this world, often in a
most striking way, another sign of the divine governance: “Be not delighted in
the paths of the wicked.... Flee from it, pass not by it.... They eat the bread
of wickedness.... But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forward
and increaseth even to a perfect day. The way of the wicked is darksome: they
know not where they fall” (Prov., chap. 4). [35] God withdraws His blessing
from the wicked and delivers them up to their own blindness; but to His
servants He lends His aid, sometimes in marvelous ways, as when He said to
Elias (III Kings 17: 3) : “Get thee hence and go towards the east and hide
thyself by the torrent Carith.... I have commanded the ravens to feed thee
there.” In obedience to the word of the Lord he departed and took up his abode
by the torrent of Carith; and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the
morning and eventide, and he drank water from the torrent.
Although providence is
thus evident in the life of the just taken as a whole, nevertheless in some of
its ways it remains inscrutable. Especially is this so in its more advanced
stages, where the obscurity is due solely to an overpowering radiance dazzling
our feeble sight. An outstanding example is that passage from Isaias which
predicts the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, or the Savior.
Again in psalm 33: 20,
we read: “Many are the tribulations of the just; but out of them all will the
Lord deliver them.” Judith says:
Our fathers were tempted
that they might be proved, whether they worshiped their God truly.... Abraham
was tempted and, being proved by many tribulations, was made the friend of God.
So Isaac, so Jacob, so Moses, and all that have pleased God, have passed
through many tribulations, remaining faithful.... Let us not revenge ourselves
for these things which we suffer. But esteeming these very punishments to be
less than our sins deserve, let us believe that these scourges of the Lord,
with which like servants we are chastised, have happened for our amendment, and
not for our destruction (Judith 8: 21-27).
The prophets often spoke
of the mysterious character of certain ways of providence, especially when,
like Jeremias, they realized the comparative futility of their efforts. Isaias
(55:6) writes:
Seek ye the Lord while
He may be found: call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way
and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord; and He will
have mercy on him: and to our God; for He is bountiful to forgive. For my
thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as
the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your
ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.
We find the same
expressed in psalm 35: 7: “Thy justice, O Lord, is as the mountains of God: Thy
judgments are a great deep.”
Nevertheless, in this
higher darkness, so different from the lower darkness of sin and death, the
just man discovers which way his true path lies: he learns to distinguish more
and more clearly these two kinds of darkness, which are at opposite extremes.
[36] Let us say with the just Tobias (13: 1) after the trials he had endured:
Thou art great, O Lord,
forever, and Thy kingdom is unto all ages. For Thou scourgest and Thou savest:
Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again: and there is none that can
escape Thy hand. Give glory to the Lord, ye children of Israel: and praise Him
in the sight of the Gentiles. Because He has therefore scattered you among the
Gentiles, who know not Him, that you may declare His wonderful works: and make
them know that there is no other almighty God besides Him. He hath chastised us
for our iniquities: and He will save us for His own mercy. [37] Be converted,
therefore, ye sinners: and do justice before God, believing that He will show
His mercy to you.
These, then, are the
principal statements in the Old Testament concerning providence. It is
universal, extending to the minutest detail, to the secrets of the heart. It is
infallible, regarding everything that happens, even our free actions. It
directs all things to good, and at the prayer of the just will change the heart
of the sinner. For those who will but see, it is an evident fact, yet in
certain of its ways it remains inscrutable. This teaching shows us what
confidence we should have in God and with what wholehearted abandonment we
should surrender ourselves to Him in times of trial by perfect conformity to
His divine will; then will He direct all things to our sanctification and
salvation. And so the Gospel proclaims: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His justice: and all these things shall be added unto you” (Luke 12: 31).
16. The Hidden Ways Of Providence
And The Book Of Job
We cannot speak of the
Old Testament witness to providence without pausing to consider the Book of
Job. It will be well to pass in review the general ideas it contains, with
particular stress on the meaning and significance of the conclusion to which
they lead.
The book treats of the
mystery of suffering or the distribution of happiness and misfortune in this
present life. Why is it that here on earth even the just must at times endure
so many evils? What is the purpose of this in the plan of divine providence? We
shall see that the general answer to this question is made more precise in
numerous other passages of the Bible which point out that these trials of God’s
servants are ordained for a greater good.
There is now practically
unanimous agreement with the Church Fathers that Job was a real person. The
conversation between Job and his friends must have been substantially that
attributed to them by the inspired writer, who then gave to the book the form
of a didactic poem, its main purpose being to instruct. From the literary point
of view it is unusually rich in style. Its purpose is to give the reason for
the ills of this present life. Let us see first of all how the problem is
presented, and then what solution is given to it. [38]
A review of the more
important of these texts will be of particular profit to those souls who find
themselves unable to look upon the question of pure love as just a theoretical
problem, but who view it as a question in which they are deeply and passionately
interested. God’s love is concerned more with their griefs than with their
words or their writings; it is because, as with Job, their words are the fruit
of their griefs that they are the source at times of so much good.
Let us obtain light on this
point by consulting St. Thomas’ commentary on the Book of Job, which
anticipates some of the most sublime pages of St. John of the Cross in The Dark
Night of the Soul, concerning the passive purifications that distinguish the
night of the spirit. [39]
Is it always on account
of sin that misfortune befalls us in this life?
Is even the innocent man
struck down, and if so, why? This is the question Job asks himself, afflicted
as he is by the loathsome disease. The very beginning of the book (1: 1) says of
him that he was “simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil, “ that
he had great possessions, and that he frequently reminded his sons of their
duties toward God, offering holocausts for each one of them.
The Most High God
Himself declares of him: “There is none like him in the earth, a simple and
upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil” (1:8) ; to which Satan
replies: “Doth Job fear God in vain?... His possession hath increased on the
earth.... But stretch forth Thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath: and
see if he blesseth Thee not to Thy face (1:9-11).
“Then the Lord said to
Satan: Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand.... And Satan went forth from
the presence of the Lord.” These words recall those our Lord addressed to St.
Peter before His passion: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you,
that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail
not” (Luke 22: 31).
The best always are the
ones who must undergo this winnowing. This first and most important chapter of
the whole book throws light on all that follows, the conclusion especially. But
Job is not himself aware of what the Lord has said to Satan or of what he has
permitted him to do. Such are, indeed, the hidden ways of providence, whose
secret is here revealed to us in the opening chapter of the book, while for the
one afflicted they remain a profound mystery.
In point of fact, Job is
deprived of all his possessions, and his sons and daughters meet their death in
a tempest. Yet the patriarch is resigned to God’s will, saying: “The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away.... Blessed be the name of the Lord” (1: 21). Then
Satan obtains leave from God to afflict the holy man “with a very grievous
ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of the head” (2: 7). But
still, in spite of the insults of his wife, who bids him “bless God and die, “
Job continues faithful to God.
At this point three of
his friends arrive to console him: the aged Eliphaz, the middle-aged Baldad,
and a young man named Sophar. They remain for a long time weeping, unable to
utter a word at the sight of the intense affliction of their unfortunate
friend.
After the coming of his
friends, for seven days and nights of suffering, Job himself remains silent.
Then, having reached the limit of endurance, he opens his lips and says: “Let
the day perish wherein I was born. Why is light given to him that is in misery,
and life to them that are in bitterness of soul?... That look for death, and it
cometh not, as they that dig for a treasure.... I am not at ease, neither am I
quiet, neither have I rest” [40] (3:3, 20, 21, 26).
Thereupon Job’s friends
address him thus: “Behold thou hast taught many.... Thy words have confirmed
many that were staggering.... But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou
faintest” (4: I-5). Eliphaz, the eldest, anxious to preserve his reputation for
wisdom, is astonished that Job should let himself be so deeply discouraged: the
innocent, he says, cannot perish: it is only the wicked who are consumed by the
divine wrath. Then he relates how it was revealed to him one night that no man
is just in the sight of God. Job, therefore, must cease complaining so bitterly
unless he wishes to share the fate of the wicked; let him confess his guilt and
implore God’s mercy, for God chastises as a father, and the wounds He inflicts
He will also heal (chaps. 4, 5)
Job replies that his
complaints fall far short of the sufferings he endures: death itself would be
more welcome. He hoped to receive some consolation from his friends, but he was
deceived in his expectations; and yet, all that his friends can reproach him
with is, that he spoke somewhat hastily (6:24-30). Then, turning to God, he
lays before Him his misfortune, imploring Him to put an end to it by death (7:
I-21).” I have had empty months, and have numbered to myself wearisome
nights.... So that my soul rather chooseth hanging, and my bones death.... How
long wilt Thou not spare me?... I have sinned. What shall I do to Thee, O
Keeper of men? Why dost Thou not remove my sin?”
It is Baldad,
middle-aged, opulent, self-confident, who, instead of consoling his friend,
replies by insisting that God is not unjust; such misfortunes as these He
inflicts only on those who have sinned grievously. He then exhorts Job to
return to God (chap. 8). Job acknowledges that God is wise and just; but, he
adds, “if any man is innocent, surely it is I.” And he continues to give free
vent to his complaining (chaps. 9, 10).
Sophar, the third and
youngest of his friends, a passionate, hot-headed youth, takes the theme from
the other two: in his opinion Job’s wickedness far outweighs the severity of
his chastisement, and he, too, exhorts him to return to God.
In chapters 12, 13, and
14, Job acknowledges once again the infinite wisdom of God, His justice, and
His power, sounding the praises of the divine perfections even more loudly than
his friends. Then, in chapter 13, he continues: “Although He should kill me, I
will trust in Him. But yet I will prove my ways in His sight: and He shall be
my savior.... I shall be found just. How many are my iniquities and sins? Make
me know my crimes and offenses.” Finally he becomes less vehement, excuses
himself, and implores His judge to have pity on him.
But he does not succeed
in convincing his friends. In the harshest terms Eliphaz continues to maintain
that Job does wrong to complain, seeing that before God all men are guilty
(chap. 15).
Job answers (chap. 16) :
“I have often heard such things as these: you are all troublesome
comforters.... I also could speak like you: and would God your soul were for my
soul.” Once again he testifies to his innocence, calling upon God Himself to
judge between him and his friends.” Behold my witness is in heaven: and He that
knoweth my conscience is on high. My friends are full of words: my eye poureth
out tears to God.”
As St. Thomas says in
his commentary, Job’s friends have no thought for the future life; they believe
that the just must be rewarded and the wicked punished even in this world.
Baldad repeats what he
has already said, that here on earth misfortune is always the lot of the
wicked. But this time he adds neither consolation nor promise: to him Job is
now a hardened sinner, and he treats him accordingly. We see, therefore, that
of all the trials Job had to endure, one of the severest comes from his own
friends. Losing sight of the future life, they repeat insistently that all
accounts must be settled here on earth, and thus they oppress him with their
arguments.
It is then that Job, who
is a figure of the Christ to come, is uplifted by an inspiration from on high
to that mystery of the after-life which was hinted at in the prologue. He
answers (chap. 19) :
Behold these ten times
you confound me, and are not ashamed to oppress me. For I have been ignorant,
my ignorance shall be with me. But you set yourselves up against me, and
reprove me with my reproaches. At least now understand that God hath not
afflicted me with an equal judgment.... He hath hedged in my path round about,
and I cannot pass: and in my way He hath set darkness.... He hath taken away my
hope, as from a tree that is plucked up.... He hath counted me as His enemy....
He hath put my brethren far from me: and my acquaintance like strangers have
departed from me.... Even fools despised me.... Have pity on me, have pity on
me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me....
Who will grant that my words may be written... graven with an instrument in
flint stone? For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall
rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin: and in my
flesh I shall see God. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes behold: and not
another. This my hope is laid up in my bosom. Why then do you say now: Let us
persecute him. Know ye that there is judgment.
In spite of this sublime
cry of hope, the young Sophar returns to his original theme, insisting that the
misfortunes of this present life can be explained only as a chastisement of
sin.
Job, on the contrary,
proves from experience that this is a false principle (chap. 21). Doubtless, in
many cases the wicked do receive signal punishment, but there are cases also in
which outwardly they are successful up to the very moment of their death,
whereas occasionally the just have much to suffer.
Eliphaz comes back
persistently to his point; he even goes so far as to give a long list of the
sins Job must have committed: “Thou hast withdrawn bread from the hungry....
Thou hast sent widows away empty” (chap. 22).
In chapters 28-31 Job
maintains that misfortune in this world is not always a chastisement for a
sinful life. He does not know, he confesses, why he should suffer, but this God
knows in His great wisdom, which to man is unfathomable. Chapter 31 concludes
the first Part of the book. and with it the colloquies of Job, “who ends by
reducing his opponents to silence, but without himself discovering the clue to
the enigma.” [41]
With the second part
there enters a young man, Eliu by name, who gives proof of some degree of
intelligence, “but apparently is not altogether free from over-confidence.”
[42] He maintains that Job is being punished not for any serious crime, but for
not having been sufficiently humble before God; the bitter complaints to which
he gave way are themselves an indication of his interior feelings. Let him
repent, therefore, and God will reinstate him in his former happiness (chaps.
32-37). To this Job has no answer, for what Eliu has said is quite possible and
is to a great extent true. Thus every aspect of the problem of suffering has
now been presented; yet still there is something lacking.
The meaning and
significance of the Lord’s reply
Finally, in the third
part, the Lord Himself intervenes in response to Job’s petition to plead his
cause before Him (13:22).
It is contrary to God’s
dignity to enter into discussion with men. He answers by unrolling before the
eyes of Job a magnificent panorama of the wonders of creation, from the stars
in the heavens to the wondrous effects of animal instinct (chaps 38, 39).
Shalt thou be able to
join the shining stars, the Pleiades, or canst thou stop the turning about of
Arcturus? Can’st thou bring forth the day star in its time?... Dost thou know
the order of heaven? And canst thou set down the reason thereof on the
earth?... Wilt thou take the prey for the lioness, and satisfy the appetite of
her whelps?... Wilt thou give strength to the horse?... Will the eagle mount up
at thy command, and make her nest in high places?
All these works reveal a
wisdom, a providence, a perfect adaptation of means to ends that bear witness
to the absolute goodness of their author, and they should teach men to accept
humbly and without murmuring whatever the Almighty may direct or permit. As we
read these words uttered by “Him who is, “ we realize intuitively almost that
He is the author and conserver of our being, that He has knit together, as it
were, our essence and existence, which He continues to conserve, and that He is
the cause of all that is real and good in creation. It has been said that this
divine answer does not touch the philosophical aspect of the question under
discussion. As a matter of fact, it shows that God does nothing but for a good
purpose, and that if already in the things of sense there is this wonderful
order, much more sublime must be the order in the spiritual world, even though
it must at times be obscure to us on account of its transcendence. Later on we
shall see our Lord making use of a more striking similitude: “Behold the birds
of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap... and your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?” (Matt. 6: 26.) And so
the divine answer arouses in the heart of Job sentiments of humility and
resignation.
In conclusion, God
ironically invites Job to take over the government of the world and maintain
there the reign of order and of justice (41: 1-9). Would he be able to do so,
powerless and unarmed as he was, in face of the two monsters He names? Yet
these are no more than a plaything in the hands of God. [43] In His description
(chap. 40) of the mighty strength with which He has endowed Behemoth and
Leviathan (the hippopotamus and the crocodile), the Lord suggests the parallel
that if, like these monsters, the devil has sometimes extraordinary power in
afflicting men, nevertheless he cannot exercise that power without the
permission of God, who can make its very fury subserve His own good purpose.
[44]
And so in the end (chap.
42) Job makes his humble confession: “I know that Thou canst do all things....
I have spoken unwisely, and things that above measure exceed my knowledge.” He
thus acknowledges that his complaining was excessive and his words sometimes
unconsidered. Nevertheless the Lord tells Eliphaz: “My wrath is kindled against
thee, and against thy two friends, because you have not spoken the thing that
is right before Me, as My servant Job hath.... Offer for yourselves a
holocaust. And My servant Job shall pray for you. His face I will accept, that
folly may not be imputed to you.” And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job
with even greater blessings than before, and he died in peace very advanced in
years.
The clue to the whole
book is to be found in the first chapter, where we are told how the Lord
permitted the devil to try His servant Job. The conclusion, then, is obvious:
If men are visited by God with tribulation, He does so not exclusively as a
chastisement for their sins, but to prove them as gold is proved in the furnace
and make them advance in virtue. It is the purification of love, as the great Christian
mystics call it. In the prologue Satan asked (1:9) : “Doth Job fear God in
vain?... His possessions have increased on the earth.” Now we see how even in
the greatest adversity Job still remained faithful to God. That this is the
meaning of the trials sent upon the just is shown in many other passages of the
Old Testament.
The trials of the just
serve a higher purpose
This teaching receives
its confirmation in the two great trials recorded in Genesis: Abraham
preparing, at God’s command, to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen., chap. 22) and
Joseph sold in captivity by his brethren (Gen., chap. 37).
God tried Abraham by
commanding him to offer as a holocaust his son Isaac, the son of promise. As
St. Paul tells the Hebrews (11: 17) : “By faith Abraham, when he was tried,
offered Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only
begotten son (to whom it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called),
accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Whereupon also He
received him for a parable.” The angel of the Lord stayed the hand of the
patriarch, who heard a voice from heaven saying: “Because thou hast done this
thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for My sake: I will bless
thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven.... And in thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed: because thou has t obeyed My
voice” (Gen. 22: 16).
Joseph was tried when,
through envy of him, and his dreams and inspirations, his brethren sold him
into captivity. Calumniated by his master’s wife, the innocent Joseph was cast
into prison, subsequently to be raised to the first rank by Pharaoh, who
recognized in him the spirit of the Lord (Gen. 41: 38). Later still, when under
the stress of famine his brethren came seeking corn in Egypt, he said to them:
I am Joseph. Is my
father yet living?... I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Be
not afraid, and let it not seem to you a hard case that you sold me into these
countries: for God sent me before you into Egypt for your preservation.... Not
by your counsel was I sent hither, but by the will of God: who hath made me...
lord of his [Pharaoh’s] whole house, and governor in all the land of Egypt....
And falling upon the neck of his brother Benjamin, he embraced him and wept”
(Gen. 45: 3-14).
What more eloquent
declaration than this of providence, of the divine governance, which turns to
good account the trials of the just, sometimes even to the welfare of their
persecutors, when their eyes at last are opened?
The same is repeatedly
brought out by the psalms, notably 90:11-16, from which the gradual and tract
for the first Sunday in Lent are taken:
He hath given His angels
charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. [45] In their hands they shall
bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the
asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt tramp under foot the lion and the
dragon.... He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High shall abide under the
protection of heaven. He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector and my
refuge: my God in whom I trust. For He hath delivered me from the snare of the
hunters: and from the sharp word. He will overshadow thee with his shoulders:
and under his wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall compass thee with a
shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrow that
flieth in the day.... A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at
thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee.... For He [the Lord] hath
given His angels charge over Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways.... [He will
say] : Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he
hath known my name. He shall cry to me and I will hear him: I am with him in
tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. I will fill him with
length of days: and I will show him my salvation.
In these admirable
verses, full of a sublime poetry and a forceful spiritual realism, we are given
a glimpse of the future life.
It is true, doubtless,
that the Old Testament rarely mentions this future life except in a veiled way
and usually in symbols. Yet Isaias (60: 19), describing the glories of the New
Jerusalem, wrote: “The Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and
thy God for thy glory. The sun shall go down no more.... For the Lord shall be
unto thee for an everlasting light: and the days of thy mourning shall be
ended.” And again (65: 19) : “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in My people,
saith the Lord, and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the
voice of crying.”
Still more clearly in
the Book of Wisdom (3: 1) we read:
The souls of the just
are in the hands of God: and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the
sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for
misery, and their going away from us, for utter destruction: but they are in
peace....
Their hope is full of
immortality. [469 Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be rewarded:
because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of Himself. As gold is tried
in the furnace He hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust He hath
received them: and in time there shall be respect had to them. The just shall
shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge
nations, and rule over people: and their Lord shall reign forever... for grace
and peace is to His elect.... Then shall the just stand with great constancy
against those that have afflicted them and taken away their labors.... [These
shall say] within themselves:... These are they whom we had some time in
derision and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their lives madness
and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the children of
God, and their lot is among the saints. Therefore we have erred from the way of
truth.... What hath pride profited us? But the just shall live for evermore:
and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High.
Therefore they shall receive a kingdom of glory and a crown of beauty, at the hand
of the Lord: for with His right hand He will cover them (5: 1).
These words, “But the
just shall live for evermore: and their reward is with the Lord, “ can refer
only to eternal life. The psalmist had already declared: “But as for me, I will
appear before Thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall
appear” (Ps. 16:15). Daniel declares (12:13) : “They that are learned [in the
things of God, and keep His law] shall shine as the stars for all eternity.”
Finally, in his martyrdom, one of the seven Machabees thus addresses his
executioner: “Thou indeed, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present
life: but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for His laws, in the
resurrection of eternal life” (II Mach. 7: 9). Tobias had declared: “Thou art
great, O Lord, forever, and Thy kingdom is unto all ages. For Thou scourgest,
and Thou savest: Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again.... He hath
chastised us for our iniquities: and He will save us for His own mercy” (Tob.
13: 1-2, 5)
Many other texts of the
Old Testament give us an insight into the meaning of the trials sent by God and
hint clearly at the higher purpose He has in view. Judith exhorts the ancients
of Israel to wait patiently for help from the Lord:
They must remember how
our father Abraham was tempted, and being proved by many tribulations, was made
the friend of God. So Isaac, so Jacob, so Moses, and all that have pleased God,
passed through many tribulations, remaining faithful.... As for us... let us believe
that these scourges of the Lord, with which like servants we are chastised,
have happened for our amendment, and not for our destruction (Judith 8: 22-23,
26-27).
The advantages to be
gained by suffering are thus declared by Ecclesiasticus (2: I-10) :
Son, when thou comest to
the service of God... prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble thy heart, and
endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not
haste in the time of clouds. Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God and
endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end. Take all that shall
be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep
patience. For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the
furnace of tribulation. Believe God, and He will recover thee and direct thy
way.... Ye that fear the Lord, hope in Him: and mercy shall come to you for
your delight.
The Book of Wisdom
(chaps. 15-17) contrasts the trials of the good with those of the wicked, and
shows their gradation. The Egyptians are scourged with extraordinary plagues,
but the Israelites by looking upon the brazen serpent are healed of the
serpents’ bite; they are fed with manna from heaven, are led forward by the
pillar of fire, and find a passage through the Red Sea, in which the Egyptians
are swallowed up. And in Isaias we read: “I have blotted out thy iniquities as
a cloud and thy sins as a mist: return to Me, for I have redeemed thee” (45:22;
cf. 46:2-6).
Micheas foretells how
God will have mercy on His people (7: 14-20) : “He will send His fury in no
more, because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again and have mercy on us:
He will put away our iniquities and He will cast all our sins into the bottom
of the sea. Thou wilt perform... the mercy to Abraham: which Thou hast sworn to
our fathers from the days of old.”
All these Old Testament
texts setting forth the reason why trials are sent upon the just throw light on
the final conclusion of the Book of Job. But it is the Gospel that brings full
light to bear upon the last things; only Christianity can provide the final
solution. That solution, however, is foreshadowed in the Book of Wisdom
(245-250 B. C.). What the Book of Job declares is that the justice of God,
which, as Job himself recognizes, must some day have effect, is infinitely
beyond our restricted view, and again that in this world virtue, instead of
having as its inseparable accompaniment what men commonly call happiness, is
often seen to be subjected to the severest trials.
With the Christian
saints, in fact, the love of the cross is seen to increase as they grow in the
love of God and likeness to Christ crucified, of whom holy Job was a figure.
When misfortune overtakes us, whether the affliction is a trial or a
chastisement, this remains obscure for each of us. Usually it is both, but then
what is the measure of each? Only God knows. St. Paul, writing to the Hebrews,
gives the solution when he speaks of perseverance in the midst of trial after
the example of Christ (chap. 12) :
Let us run by patience
to the fight proposed to us: looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of
faith, who, having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame,
and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. For think diligently
upon Him that endured such opposition from sinners against Himself: that you be
not wearied, fainting in your minds. For you have not resisted unto blood,
striving against sin.... Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth: and He scourgeth
every son whom He receiveth.... For what son is there, whom the father doth not
correct?... [God chastises us] for our profit, that we might receive His
sanctification.
It remains true,
therefore, that, as Job says (chap. 7), “the life of man upon earth is a
warfare and his days are like the days of a hireling.” But upon His servants
the Lord bestows His grace; although, as St. Paul says (Rom. 8: 38), “to them
that love God all things work together unto good, “ to the very end. All
things—graces, natural qualities, contradictions, sickness, and, as St.
Augustine says, even sin. For God permits sin in the lives of His servants, as
He permitted Peter’s denial, that He may lead them to a deeper humility and
thereby to a purer love.
17. Providence According
To The Gospel
The existence of providence,
its absolute universality extending to the smallest detail, and its
infallibility regarding everything that comes to pass, not excepting our future
free actions—all this the New Testament again brings out, even more clearly
than the Old. Much more explicit, too, than in the Old Testament is the
conception given us here of that higher good to which all things have been
directed by providence, though in certain of its more advanced ways it still
remains unfathomable. These fundamental points we shall examine one by one,
giving prominence to the Gospel texts that most clearly express them.
The higher good to which
all things are directed by providence
Our Lord in the Gospels
raises our minds to the contemplation of the divine governance by directing our
attention to the admirable order prevailing in the things of sense, and giving
us some idea of how much more so this order of providence is to be found in
spiritual things, an order more sublime, more bountiful, more salutary, and
imperishable. We have seen that a similar order is to be found, though less
clearly, in God’s answer at the end of the Book of Job; if there are such
extraordinary marvels to be met with in the world of sense, what wonderful
order ought we not to expect in the spiritual world.
In the Gospel of St.
Matthew we read (6: 25-34) :
Be not solicitous for
your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not
the life more than the meat and the body more than the raiment? Behold the
birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap nor gather into barns:
and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of more value than they? And
which of you by taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? And for your
raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you that not even
Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. And if the grass of the
field, which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how
much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous therefore, saying: What
shall we eat: or, what shall we drink: or, wherewith shall we be clothed? For
after all these things do the heathens seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of
God and His justice: and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not
therefore solicitous for tomorrow: for the morrow will be solicitous for
itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
These examples serve to
show that providence extends to all things, and gives to all beings what is
suitable to their nature. God provides the birds of the air with their food and
also has endowed them with instinct which directs them to seek out what is
necessary and no more. If this is His way of dealing with the lower creation,
surely He will have a care for us.
If providence provides
what is needful for the birds of the air, how much more attentive will it be to
the needs of such as we, who have a spiritual, immortal soul, with a destiny
incomparably more sublime than that of the animal creation. The heavenly Father
knows what we stand in need of. What, then, must our attitude be? First of all
we must seek the kingdom of God and His justice, and then whatever is necessary
for our bodily subsistence will be given us over and above. Those who make it
their principal aim to pursue their final destiny (God the sovereign good who
should be loved above all things), will be given whatever is necessary to attain
that end, not only what is necessary for the life of the body, but also the
graces to obtain life eternal. [47]
Our Lord refers to
providence again in St. Matthew (10: 28) : “Fear ye not them that kill the body
and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both
soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of
them shall fall to the ground with. out your Father. But the very hairs of your
head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: better are you than many; sparrows.”
So again in St. Luke (12: 6-7).
Always it is the same a
fortiori argument from the care the Lord has for the lower creation and thence
leading us to form some idea of what the divine governance must be in the order
of spiritual things.
As St. Thomas points out
in his commentary on St. Matthew, what our Lord wishes to convey is this: It is
not the persecutor we should fear; he can do no more than hurt our bodies, and
what little harm he is capable of he cannot actually inflict without the
permission of providence, which only allows these evils to befall us in view of
a greater good. If it is true that not a single sparrow falls to the ground
without our heavenly Father’s permission, surely we shall not fall without His
permission, no, nor one single hair of our head. This is equivalent to saying
that providence extends to the smallest detail, to the least of our actions,
every one of which may and indeed must be directed to our final end.
Besides the universality
of providence, the New Testament brings out in terms no less clear its
infallibility regarding everything that comes to pass. It is pointed out in the
text just mentioned: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” This
infallibility extends even to the secrets of the heart and to our future free
actions. In St. John (6: 64) we read: “The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life. But there are some of you that believe not”; and the
Evangelist adds: “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not
believe and who he was that would betray Him.” Again (13: 11) during the last
supper Jesus told those who were present: “You are clean, but not all”; for,
continues St. John, “He knew who he was who would betray Him; and therefore He
said: You are not all clean.” St. Matthew also records the words, “One of you
is about to betray me.” Now if Jesus thus has certain knowledge of the secrets
of hearts and, as His prediction of persecutions shows, of future free actions,
they must surely be infallibly known to the eternal Father.
In St. Matthew (6: 4-6),
we are told: “When thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber and, having shut the
door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will
repay thee.” And later we find St. Paul saying to the Hebrews (4:13) : “Neither
is there any creature invisible in His sight: but all things are naked and open
to His eyes, to whom our speech is.”
The teaching on the
necessity of prayer, to which the Gospel is constantly returning, obviously
presupposes a providence extending to the very least of our actions. In St.
Matthew (7: 7-11) our Lord tells us: “If you then being evil, know how to give
good things to your children: how much more will your heavenly Father who is in
heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” Here is another and stronger
argument for divine providence based on the attentive care shown by a human
father for his children. If he watches over them, much more will our heavenly
Father watch over us.
Likewise, the parable of
the wicked judge and the widow in St. Luke (18: I-8) is an incentive to us to
pray with perseverance. Annoyed by the persistent entreaties of the widow, the
judge finally yields to her just demands so that she may cease to be
troublesome to him.” And the Lord said: Hear what the unjust judge saith. And
will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night: and will he have
patience in their regard?”
Our Lord proclaims the
same truth in St. John (10:27) : “My sheep hear My voice. And I know them: and
they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting: and they shall not perish
forever. And no man shall pluck them out of My hand. That which My Father hath
given Me is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of My
Father. I and the Father are one.” These words point out emphatically the
infallibility of providence concerning everything that comes to pass, including
even our future free actions.
But what the Gospel
message declares even more clearly is whether there is not after all some
higher, some eternal purpose to which the divine governance directs all things,
and further, that if it permits evil and sin—it cannot in any way be its
cause—it does so only in view of some greater good.
In St. Matthew we read
(5: 44) : “Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them
that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father
who is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad and raineth
upon the just and the unjust.” And again in St. Luke (6: 36) : “Be ye therefore
merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.” Persecution itself is turned to
the good of those who endure it for the love of God: “Blessed are they that
suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that
is evil against you, untruly, for My name’s sake: be glad and rejoice, for your
reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were
before you” (Matt. 5: 10).
Here is the full light
heralded from afar in the Book of Job and more distinctly in this passage from
the Book of Wisdom (3: I-8) : “The souls of the just are in the hand of God...
in time they shall shine... they shall judge nations: and their Lord shall
reign forever.”
Here is the full light
of which we were given a glimpse in the Book of Machabees (11: 7-9), where, as
we have seen, one of the martyrs, on the point of expiring, thus addresses his
persecutor: “Thou, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life:
but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for His laws, in the
resurrection of eternal life.”
In the light of this
revealed teaching, St. Paul writes to the Romans (5: 3) : “We glory also in
tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience: and patience trial;
and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not; because the charity of God is poured
forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us.” And again (8: 28) :
“We know that to them that love God all things work unto good: to such as
according to His purpose are called to be saints.” This last text sums up all
the rest, revealing how this universal and infallible providence directs all
things to a good purpose, not excluding evil, which it permits without in any
way causing it. And now there remains the question as to the sort of knowledge
we can have of the plan pursued by the divine governance.
The light and shade in
the providential plan
We have found clearly
expressed in the Old Testament the truth that for us divine providence is an
evident fact, yet that certain of its ways are unfathomable. This truth is
brought out in still greater relief in the New Testament in connection with
sanctification and eternal life.
Providence is an evident
fact from the order prevailing in the universe, from the general working of the
Church’s life, and again from the life of the just taken as a whole. This is
affirmed in the words of our Lord just quoted: “Behold the birds of the air,
for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?” (Matt.
6: 26.) So again St. Paul (Rom. 1: 20) : “The invisible things of Him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, His eternal power and divinity.”
In the parables of the
prodigal son, the lost sheep, the good shepherd, and the talents, our Lord also
illustrates how providence is concerned with the souls of men. All that
tenderness of heart shown by the father of the prodigal is already in an
infinitely more perfect way possessed by God, whose providence watches over the
souls of men more than any other earthly creature, in the lives of the just
especially, in which everything is made to concur in their final end.
Jesus also proclaims how
with His Father He will watch over the Church, and we now find verified these
words of His: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church. And
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16: 18) ; “Going therefore,
teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of
the world” (Matt. 28: 1920). We are now witnessing in the spread of the Gospel
in the nations throughout the five continents the realization of this
providential plan, which in its general lines stands out quite distinctly.
In this plan of
providence, however, there are also elements of profound mystery, and our Lord
will have us to understand that to the humble and childlike, however, these
mysterious elements will appear quite simple; their humility will enable them
to penetrate even to the heights of God. First and foremost there is the
mystery of the redemption, of the sorrowful passion and all that followed, a
mystery which Jesus only reveals to His disciples little by little as they are
able to bear it, a mystery that at the moment of its accomplishment will be a
cause of confusion to them.
There is also the whole
mystery of salvation: “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast
revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father: for so hath it seemed good in Thy
sight” (Matt. 11: 25) ; “My sheep hear my voice. And I know them: and they
follow me. And I give them life everlasting: and they shall not perish forever”
(John 10: 27).
“There shall arise false
christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as
to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Matt. 24:24) ; “Of that day and hour
[the last] no one knoweth: no, not the angels in heaven, but the Father alone.
[And the same must be said of the hour of our death.] Watch ye therefore,
because you know not what hour your Lord will come” (Matt. 24: 36, 42). The
Apocalypse, which foretells these events in obscure and symbolic language,
remains still a book sealed with seven seals (Apoc. 5: 1).
Later on St. Paul lays
stress on these mysterious ways of Providence.” The foolish things of the world
hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise: and the weak things of the
world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that
are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are; that no flesh
should glory in His sight” (I Cor. 1: 27). It was through the Apostles, some of
whom were chosen from the poor fisherfolk of Galilee, that Jesus triumphed over
paganism and converted the world to the Gospel, at the very moment when Israel
in great part proved itself unfaithful. God can choose whomsoever He will
without injustice to anyone.
Freely He made choice in
former times of the people of Israel, one among the various nations; from the
sons of Adam He chose Seth in preference to Cain, then Noe and afterwards Sem
He preferred to his brothers, then Abraham; He preferred Isaac to Ismael, and
last of all Jacob. And now, freely He calls the Gentiles and permits Israel in
great part to fall away. Here is one of the most striking examples of the light
and shade in the plan of providence; [48] it may be summed up in this way. On
the one hand God never commands the impossible, but, to use St. Paul’s words,
will have all men to be saved (I Tim. 2: 4). On the other hand, as St. Paul
says again, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4: 7.) One
person would not be better than another, were he not loved by God more than the
other, since His love for us is the source of all our good. [49] These two
truths are as luminous and certain when considered apart as their intimate
reconciliation is obscure, for it is no less than the intimate reconciliation
of infinite justice, infinite mercy, and supreme liberty. They are reconciled
in the Deity, the intimate life of God; but for us this is an inaccessible
mystery, as white light would be to someone who had never perceived it, but had
seen only the seven colors of the rainbow.
This profound mystery
prompts St. Paul’s words to the Romans (11: 25-34) :
Blindness in part has happened
in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in.... But as touching
the election, they [the children of Israel] are most dear for the sake of their
fathers... that they also may obtain mercy.... O the depths of the riches of
the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments,
and how unsearchable His ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who
hath been His counsellor?... Of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to
Him be glory forever.
But the only reason why
these unfathomable ways of providence are obscure to us is that they are too
luminous for the feeble eyes of our minds. Simple and humble souls easily
recognize that, for all their obscurity and austerity, these exalted ways are
ways of goodness and love. St. Paul points this out when he writes to the
Ephesians (3: 18) : “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named... that you may be able to
comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge: that
you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.”
Amplitude in the ways of
providence consists in their reaching to every part of the universe, to all the
souls of men, to every secret of the heart. In their length they extend through
every period of time, from the creation down to the end of time and on to the
eternal life of the elect. Their depth lies in the permission of evil, sometimes
terrible evil, and in view of some higher purpose which will be seen clearly
only in heaven. Their height is measured by the sublimity of God’s glory and
the glory of the elect, the splendor of God’s reign finally and completely
established in the souls of men.
Thus providence is made
manifest in the general outlines of the plan it pursues, but its more exalted
ways remain for us a mystery. Nevertheless, little by little “to the righteous
a light rises in the darkness” (Ps. 111: 4). Every day we can get a clearer
insight into these words of Isaias (9: 2) : “The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of
death, light is risen.” And gradually, if we are faithful, we learn more and
more each day to abandon ourselves to that divine providence. which, as the
canticle Benedictus says, “directs our steps into the way of peace” (Luke 1:
79).
Abandonment to the
divine will is thus one of the fairest expressions of hope combined with
charity or love of God. Indeed, it involves the exercise to an eminent degree
of all the theological virtues, because perfect self-abandonment to providence
is pervaded by a deep spirit of faith, of confidence, and love for God. And
when this self-abandonment, far from inducing us to fold our arms and do
nothing as is the case with the Quietists, is accompanied by a humble, generous
fulfilment of our daily duties, it is one of the surest ways of arriving at
union with God and of preserving it unbroken even in the severest trials. Once
we have done our utmost to accomplish the will of God day after day, we can and
we must abandon ourselves to Him in all else. In this way we shall find peace
even in tribulation. We shall see how God takes upon Himself the guidance of
souls that, while continuing to perform their daily duties, abandon themselves
completely to Him; and the more He seems to blind their eyes, the saints tell
us, the more surely does He lead them, urging them on in their upward course
into a land where, as St. John of the Cross says, the beaten track has
disappeared, where the Holy Ghost alone can direct them by His divine
inspirations.
