Descartes Proves the Existence of God

Descartes starts out his third meditation by “withdrawing all his senses,” and attempting to possibly “blot out from his thoughts all images of corporeal things.” He does this to reestablish the fact that he is properly a thinking thing. Descartes subsequently denotes the existence of ideas present in himself as a thinking thing. He classifies these ideas as follows: “adventitious (coming from without); factitious (coming from the mind’s constructive power), and innate (coming from the inborn dynamism of the mind).” Collins is of the view that Descartes’ idea of God can be tested by using the aforementioned three-fold classification. For Descartes, the idea of God does not have a factitious origin. Descartes in this regard states thus: “I understand by the name ‘God’ a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful, and that created me along with everything else that exists – if anything else exists.” And since Descartes cannot think of God other than in this way, his idea of God does not have a factitious origin.

Collins, scholar and philosopher, further asserts thus regarding Descartes’ idea of God: “Nor does it come to him suddenly from without. Indeed, the external origin of any idea is doubtful, at this stage of his meditations.” Descartes has yet to attest to the existence of material things and his own body; he has yet to trust as well the veracity of the ideas supposedly sourced via sensory perception. Indeed, “Descartes’ impulse to believe that some ideas are adventitious may well be erroneous, since it may be due to some unknown power unconsciously at work in the mind.”

Clearly hence, it follows by way of elimination that the idea of God falls into the category of innate, what Collins calls “native to the mind.” Nevertheless, the idea of God albeit innate to Descartes’ mind does not satisfy the problem of God’s existence. It is here necessary to identify and distinguish between formal and objective realities. For Suarez, from the formal standpoint, “all ideas are on the same level and are adequately accounted for by the human mind, in which they reside. Representatively or objectively however, they differ vastly and can be arranged in an ascending order, insofar as they refer to different grades of being.”

According to Collins, “Descartes is sure that, even from the standpoint of their representative reality, all ideas (except that of the infinite being) might be accounted for by himself as a thinking being. The crucial question is whether he is also the adequate source of the representative reality of the idea of an infinitely perfect being.” In other words, Descartes already takes for granted that, for all things which do not have a higher formal reality than he does, his ideas of them may be sourced from within himself; in other words are factitious. However, the principle of efficient causality applied in this regard would stipulate that there must be a greater or equal formal reality in a being as there is in the objective reality in Descartes’ idea of such a being. And since the formal reality of God is greater than Descartes’ own formal reality, he cannot have sourced his idea of God from within himself. Descartes underscores the foregoing by asserting the subsequent clearly and distinctly perceived truths: “that a thing cannot give what it does not have; that something cannot come from nothing; that the more perfect cannot come from the less perfect.”

In view of the foregoing, it is pertinent to aver that a finite thinking thing, such as Descartes is, is inadequate to account for the objective reality of the idea of an infinitely perfect being, such as God is. Albeit, the idea of God also does not come from nothing, nor from a being that has less formal reality than God does. “Hence, it must have been implanted in the human mind by a being which possesses as much reality in a formal, actual way as the idea possesses in a representative way.” Therefore, there must exist the infinitely perfect being, which can properly be said to efficiently cause Descartes’ idea of God. This infinitely perfect being is none other than God himself.

Furthermore, Descartes admits that a thinking thing, such as he is, is not independent or the author of his own being “since in that case he would confer upon himself, in the formal order, whatever reality he can conceive representatively through his ideas. Were it self-caused, the human self would confer infinite perfection upon itself, in correspondence with its idea of God.” Descartes realizes that, juxtaposed with the infinite perfection of God, he is finite and imperfect. “The limited and dependent thing which contains the idea of an infinitely perfect being could neither exist nor endure, except as being caused and conserved in being by the infinite being. The idea of God is innate in the thinking self in the sense that it is, as it were, the seal placed upon his product by the divine artisan.” Descartes states in this regard: “To be sure, it is not astonishing that, in creating me, God should have endowed me with this idea (the idea of God), so that it would be like the mark of the craftsman impressed upon his work, although this mark need not be something distinct from the work itself. But the mere fact that God created me makes it highly plausible that I have somehow been made in his image and likeness, in which the idea of God is contained, by means of the same faculty by which I perceive myself.”

An internal summary is here apt. So far, we have stated that Descartes, in his quest to clearly and distinctively perceive reality begins his third meditation by withdrawing as much as possible from sensory perception. Furthermore, he classifies the ideas in his mind as factitious, adventitious and innate. By way of elimination, he identifies his idea of God as innate, since it could neither have sourced from within him nor from the objects of sense experience. This innate idea of God, because of the principle of efficient causality as here applied, must rather be caused by a being with equal or greater formal reality as the objective reality the idea represents or contains. This being is God, who because of his infinite perfection can alone be responsible for the idea of himself that exists in Descartes’ finite and imperfect mind. More so, Descartes, because he is finite and imperfect, depends for sustenance and existence on the infinite and perfect God.

[In any case, the value of attempting to prove the existence of God in his third meditation, occurring as it is after his categorical doubt, is such that Descartes can ground his knowledge of reality on the existence of a God that does not deceive. Descartes states in this regard as follows: “Nor will he one day make it true that I never existed, for it is true now that I do exist. Nor will he even bring it about that perhaps two plus three might equal more or less than five, or similar items in which I recognize an obvious contradiction. And certainly, because I have no reason for thinking that there is a God who is a deceiver (and of course I do not sufficiently know whether there even is a God), the basis for doubting, depending as it does merely on the above hypothesis, is very tenuous and, so to speak, metaphysical. But in order to remove even this basis for doubt, I should at the first opportunity inquire whether there is a God and, if there is, whether or not he can be a deceiver. For if I am ignorant of this, it appears I am never capable of being completely certain about anything else.”]

Furthermore, according to Collins, Descartes exploits a fully guaranteed criterion in the interests of a third approach to proving the existence of God: “that drawn from the perceived connection between essence and existence in the idea of God.” Consequent on the idea of God as an infinitely perfect being, his essence (perfection) contains existence as a property, “just as necessarily as the notion of triangle contains the properties demonstrable of it. The notion of actual and eternal existence is a positive perfection, clearly and distinctly known as belonging to the infinitely perfect essence, and hence it can be affirmed as true of this essence in the actual order. Once existence is seen to be a perfection, I cannot think of God otherwise than as actually existing."

I'm 33 Years Old Today!

Wow! How time flies. Where did all the time go? It was only yesterday, or wasn't it, that I was playing in the sand with other children, and now I am thirty-three years old, practically an old man. Phew! This growing up thing. But we cannot afford not to grow up. Apart from the fact that it is the natural prescription for humans, it is the only way we can keep alive. In metaphysics, we talk about change that sustains existence. The change is consequent on growth, and we need such change to remain the same - human. Because if we do not keep changing, keep growing, we die, and then we are no longer human, but corpse. Lovely thing, metaphysics. It tells you the truth in a cool way. Like how a fetus is a human being, and not a thing. Anyway. Just thought I'd take a swipe at pro-choicers. Pardon me. Anyway.

 

I've come a long way. I was born on October 13, 1980 in a big city called Lagos. Lagos is in Nigeria, and its current population is about 15 million people. Being born in Lagos gives you exposure. You get to meet so very many people from different walks of life as you grow that you learn early on to be accommodating. And so, as I attended primary and secondary schools in and around Lagos, I progressively learned to think in terms of the big picture. I still do - think in terms of the big picture, that is. Which is a good thing. Because I live in a city that is even more diverse than Lagos. Thank God with me. I love living here. Pray that I might live here forever. Anyway.

 

I attended good schools. As a thirty-three year-old, I reflect on the quality of schools I attended and I am grateful. My first school was St Jude's Private School, Festac, Lagos. It was a very good school. I am happy my parents could afford to send me there. It was there I was taught how to speak and write the Queen's English. Many other schools in Nigeria that were cheaper could not afford the same standard of Language acquisition that St Jude's afforded me. An early grasp of the English language has opened many doors for  me. I remain ever thankful. Thanks, dad; thanks, mom - hope you can hear me from the Great Beyond. Thank you for sending me to St Jude's for my early childhood education. I also went to a good secondary school. At the Nigerian Navy Secondary School, I learned discipline and proper conduct. Our teachers were so strict and prim that they made us pick up pieces of paper from off the floor and, if we could not find waste-paper baskets quickly enough, stuff them in our pockets for the time being. Ah, those were the day!

 

My parents died too early. This much is true. By age 11 I was an orphan already. But I survived. I learned to simply keep putting one foot in front of another - it's the easiest thing in the world. Just keep putting one foot in front of another. But it is also the hardest thing. It takes a lot of courage. It takes faith and hope and love as well. And it surely takes sacrifice. To keep putting one foot in front of another - which is what I do; which is what everyone does. Anyway. The point is that I survived. And I moved on to college, where I read communication. Then I worked awhile as a teacher, and then a banker, and then relocated to Wichita, where I got my master's in communication, and then on to Chicago, and ultimately to DC, where I am now in the seminary studying to be a priest hopefully in five and a half years. Okay then.

 

What are some of the lessons I have learned in these 33 years? The biggest one by far is sacrifice. I have learned to choose all the sufferings God sends to me. I have also learned to be humble - at least I'm trying to be humble. This is a big one as well. Also, I am learning to apply Descartes' three step method in mastering negative emotions. Plus I am trying to apply the law of positive thinking, which Rhonda Byrne calls The Secret to the workings of the entire universe. How big is that! What else? I am learning to think critically; to adopt and maintain a contemplative, philosophical pose. I am learning to be practical and understanding, and above all I am learning to forgive; to "let go of the hope that the past could be any different." I am forgiving myself and others at each step along the way. And so, 33 years has come with a lot of positive lessons. And I have yet to stop learning. I pray that when I celebrate 66 years, I will have learned twice as much as I have so far. So help me God.

Between Love and Sacrifice

I am writing this post from the Manor, the retirement community where the elderly members of our religious community retire. I see what the arch of my life will bend toward if I am lucky enough to keep my place in the seminary. I am pleased, and hopeful. But then I also reflect. I try to think of alternate realities. What else could my life be? If I did not have a vocation to the priesthood and religious life, I could get married and have a couple kids. I could send them to school and make sure they were well placed in life. Then when I got old hopefully they could take care of me. They could have me live with them in their own houses just as they lived in mine when they were dependent. Or they could find me a retirement community and come to visit me often to see how I was doing. Either way would be fine. But now that I do have a religious vocation - I do think I have one - I get to retire in a religious retirement community like this manor, with brother religious and other people that attend and help and keep house. Alleluia!

 

But is that all? Is it after two years in the seminary that one immediately begins to think of retirement and the retirement situation that comes with it? Obviously not. Everyone here has put in at least 45 years in the ministry. Some have probably put in 60 or more. Which means that between coming to join the society and eventually returning to the manor, there must be very many years spent pouring the soul away "like a libation" on behalf of the people of God: as a pastor, or a teacher, or something. There are a number of ministries that our religious community is involved in, all in service to the people of God. I sometimes imagine myself as a pastor in one of the parishes down in the south, helping people to find Jesus in their daily lives. I imagine that people will be helped by all the healing and preaching activities I will do as a priest. I want to be a priest because I want to help people.

 

But what does that mean? What does it mean to say that I want to be a priest because I want to help people? Can I not help people as a non-priest, as say, a social worker? Well, being a priest means sacrificing everything to help people, and so it is not just one thing, but two. It is not just helping people, but sacrificing in order to help them. And so a priest does not get married. He does not have children. He does not seek after wealth, and he has to be obedient to his superiors in order to be successful in his ministry. And he does this to be an other Christ, to destroy in his own self, like Christ did, the concomitants of negative emotions due to sin. He does this so that he can allow the people of God to participate through him in the salvation history of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who came and died for us that we all might join him in heaven with the saints and the angels and God in glory. We praise and glorify him.

 

Now, in addition to the sacrifice, and flowing from it, is the call to help people. This is the sense in which the ministry of priesthood is seen to be a helping profession. I can help people as a nurse, or a teacher, or a counselor, or a social worker, but only in a limited way. Take the job of a teacher for example. I can go to school in the morning and teach and then come back home to tend to my own family. But as a priest, I am on call 24/7. After teaching or preaching in the morning, I get to go visit the sick; give marriage counseling; organize for catechism, and do so many other things. I am in perpetual service mode. I live for others and not for myself. My life is always being poured out in service to others. Granted, this is an ideal situation and there is a possibility that the reality of living out the priestly vocation will fall short. But when we think, it is always a pleasure to contemplate the ideal. Good. Anyway.

 

What I am saying is that sacrifice makes the capacity of charity that the priest is capable of to be much more than is possible for most other helpers, those whose helping comes with a paycheck, which they use to take care of their own family. And a priest does not have his own family. His family is the church. So you see. Anyway. What is my own sacrifice? I gave up a relationship with the only girl I ever loved. I used to have a best friend, but I don't have one anymore - all this sounds commonplace. But sometimes in the dark night of the soul, when you hug your pillow and wish you were hugging your beloved; when you are sick and wish your beloved could lean over you and give you soup and words of consolation; when you just want to be held close to some one's breast to feel the rising and falling of their chest and stomach - then you know you really are sacrificing. And for what? God. But surprise! What if there were no God? Then you would have given up your girl friend and your best friend for nothing. You would have given up the life you could have had for a whim. How sad.

 

But the good news is that the sacrifice is worth it. There is in fact a God, and there is a heaven, and there is the potential of reward for good works, in such a fashion that there will be recompense for those that sacrificed relationships or material wealth for the Kingdom. And so I am glad. I bear my sacrifices well. I thank God for giving me the grace to be able to make them, and I hope I keep up the good work the Lord has begun in me. And may it bear fruit in redemption, not just for me, but for the whole world. Amen.

"In the Year Uzziah Died"

The story of the call of Isaiah begins with these words: "In the year Uzziah died, I had a vision of the Lord, and I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high above me" (Isaiah 6:1). Isaiah further describes as part of this vision how the seraphim were singing and calling to each other, announcing the holiness of the Lord. The contemplation of this glory convicted Isaiah of his sinfulness, and he declared: "Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst unclean lips, but my eyes have seen the Lord" (Isaiah 6:5), in response to which God ordered that his tongue be purged clean. The Lord then asked: "Whom shall I send, and who is to go for us?" Isaiah replied, "Here I am Lord, send me" (Isaiah 6:8). The Lord then gave Isaiah a special mission to his people.

 

Why did Isaiah begin his vocation story with the words "in the year Uzziah died"? Who was this Uzziah anyway? Uzziah, King of Judah, was in his time reputed to be one of the greatest kings in the history of Judah. His long reign saw a dramatic increase in prosperity. He was loved, respected and honored all over Judah and beyond. He ruled with astuteness and thrift. He was a pillar of strength and pride for the entire kingdom. People looked to him for direction, guidance and faith. Uzziah was a god among people. Under his rule, the Jews felt a strong sense of security, of national pride, of identity and of direction. Life was good. But eventually Uzziah died. He was not God, just a man. And Isaiah saw it fitting to mention that it was in the year that the great and glorious Uzziah died that he, Isaiah, had the vision from the Lord.

 

It was in the year that the god among people died that Isaiah had a vision from the God of all people. It was in the year that the earthly security of people died that the Heavenly Security of all people shared a vision with Isaiah. It was in the year that the earthly source of Jewish pride died that the Pride of all Nations revealed himself to Isaiah, sitting not on an earthly throne, but on a "throne high above" Isaiah, with the fanfare of seraphim singing and calling to each other, announcing the glory, holiness and majesty of the Lord. In the year when the hope of Judah seemed to be in decline, the Hope of all the Ages reveals himself as a saving God, ready to interact once again in a mighty way with his people. The eyes of the people looking as they were away from the great spectacle of a glorious earthly king would now be trained on the Lord, who purges people clean that they may freely look upon him without "being lost."

 

Uzziah was mentioned in the Genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew. He is there mentioned as the father of Jotham, which is historically accurate, and the son of Jehoram, which is not quite historically factual. There are two people between Jehoram and Uzziah. Scholars say that the reason certain names are omitted in the genealogy of Jesus is in part due to the fact that the genealogy is not meant to be read as a historically factual account of the bloodline of Jesus, but as a didactic piece of Matthew-style evangelism, concerning the message of our collective salvation by a covenant keeping God. Matthew to this end divides the genealogy of Jesus as contained in the first chapter of his Gospel into 3 epochs of 14 generations. Now, in ancient Judah and many parts of the ancient world, and even in traditions we have today sourced from ancient times, numerology was a significant practice. The use of 3 epochs of 14 generations was no mistake.

 

14 multiplied by 3 is 42. Now, 42 is also 7 multiplied by 6. 7 is a perfect number used to represent God, or the Holy Spirit, or the Covenant. 6 on the other hand is an imperfect number, often used to represent humans. Now, 7 multiplied by 6 is analogy for the mingling of the divine (as depicted by 7) with the human (as depicted by 6), resulting in a genealogy that leads ultimately to Jesus the Messiah. The Covenant-keeping Holy Spirit, the creator God, enters into our human situation in order to save us and restore us to himself. He does this by working through generations of ancestors to Jesus, son of God and son of people. The perfection of God, entering the imperfection of our human state, co-opts imperfect humanity and perfects it to such an extent that even individuals who ordinarily seem irredeemable, unclean and profane, like the women mentioned in Matthew's genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, women who were seemingly outside the Covenant, outside the reach of God's saving arm, because they were either non-Jews, or otherwise public sinners with shame-inducing notoriety through their acts of adultery, prostitution or immodesty, ultimately bear fruit in perfection, Jesus Christ, by participating through Grace in the salvation story of God.

 

This sentiment and circumstance is shared by Isaiah, who protests that he is unclean and unworthy to be a recipient of the vision God shares of himself with him. He exclaims: "Woe is me for I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst unclean lips, but my eyes have seen the Lord" (Isaiah 6:5). Many of us feel this same way. We know we are imperfect; we know that, compared to the independence and perfection of God, we are at best insignificant. Yet God stoops down to us and saves us. Psalm 8:4 puts it beautifully: "What is man that you keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him (O Lord)?" And yet, God has charged us with the great responsibility of looking after all of creation. "Yet you have made him little less than the angels; with glory and honor you crowned him; gave him power over the works of your hands, and put all things under his feet; all of them, sheep and cattle, and the savage beats too; birds of the air and fish, which make their way through the waters" (Psalm 8:5-8). Indeed, God is so good to us.

 

So let us lift up our heads and our sights. Let us praise God who comes to us "in the year our own Uzziah dies," in the periods when we seem down and out. Recall the story of the man walking along the beach seeing two sets of footprints, his and the Lord's at every point in time, except at the toughest period, when instead he sees only one set. He complains to Jesus: "How is it that when things were relatively easier you walked beside me and there are obviously two sets of footprints to prove it; but when things get considerably bad there is only one set?" To which Jesus responded: "The one set of footprints you see is mine. When things were considerably bad for you, I carried you." Let us trust this eternal king, who still helps us when earthly security fails. Let us keep faith and trust in Jesus that insists: "In this world you will have trouble, but don't be frazzled, because I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

 

When the Uzziah in our life dies; when the going gets tough; when we question wither to we are bound or whether there still is a "balm in Gilead" (Jer. 8:22), we must recall that it was in the year that Uzziah died that Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord. It was when things were considerably hardest that the fellow walking on the beach saw only one set of footprints. It is just after the darkest night that brightness comes. "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes with dawn" (Psalm 30:5). For those of you that have seen the movie, Annie, you very likely recall the song, Tomorrow: "The sun will come out tomorrow. O you better hang on till tomorrow, come what may. When I'm stuck with a day that's gray and lonely, I just lift up my chin and grin and say: Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow; you're only a day away!"

 

Amen.

I Will Survive

There is a hymn in our Catholic books that goes thus: "I have decided to follow Jesus. Though no one join me, still I will follow." This song sometimes captures how I feel. Many times, it feels as if I have to choose between progressing in my vocation and having friends. Jealousy keeps people estranged from me. I search for companionship, but I find doors closed in my face. It overwhelms me sometimes. Am I the problem? Is there something about me that is grandiose? Is there a way I can tone it down if there is? Or is it the people around me? Is there something about my soul that makes me seek out people that I have nothing in common with; people who would rather envy me than wish me well at all? I wonder if others feel this way.

 

Where lies the path to success for me? For sure, sacrifice will have to play a role. I will have to choose all the separations I endure in my life, rather than accept them as caused by others. When and where I discern that people are avoiding me or disdaining me, I should convince myself that I pushed them away for the greater good of preserving my vocation. Why are some people so jealous! Some people are so jealous that even the air you breathe causes them grief. I mean, why should you be breathing all that good air in your lungs!

 

Weird. My father is dead today because of jealousy. It is because of jealousy, and jealousy alone, that I am an orphan. That is why jealousy scares the heck out of me. What is it you want? My shoes - here, you have them. What else do you want from me? My money - here you have it. Take and go; take and go, and leave me alone! Phew! Jealousy scares me. Jealous, small, mean people. They vex me. The people that annoy me the most are crabby people. They pretend as if they are humble and poor, when in fact they hoard stuff away and fill up their coffers. O God, save us from their hands. Please, do not abandon us to their greed and their malice.

 

Am I grandiose? Am I proud? What is this I hear people say about me? Samuel is this; Samuel is that. Samuel is intense; Samuel is proud; Samuel is arrogant; Samuel is larger than life. Phew! Is it my size? Is it my weight? Is it my height, my broad shoulders, my bulk? What is it about me that makes me larger than life: my orphanage, my poverty, my ethnic heritage, my flab belly? What makes me proud? What makes me intense? Why will my enemies not leave me alone? There are people who would cast spells to destroy themselves in an attempt to destroy me. Why would they not leave me alone? Samuel this and Samuel that. It's very tiring.

 

But I will survive. I insist on it - I will survive. Please God, do help me to survive. I want to survive. And I want to thrive. I want you to use me in your service. A song I learned growing up goes thus: "O dear Jesus, I love you, as you really love me too. I wish to be your dear child, make me always meek and nice; teach me how to watch and pray, on my daily prayer to say. O dear Jesus, when I die, I will go to you on high." Let it be so for me. Save me O God from my haters. Thank you.

Human Experience

When the heart is still, we continue to think, to try to unearth the motifs that lie beneath the padding of experiences. These experiences are of everyday living. They are a constant feature of perception. We live in experience. But are we experience? Yes and no. The way the experience affects us directly is the part of it that makes us who and what we are. But the experience as conceived separately from us is not us. This is because firstly others have the same experience in their own daily living. One experience, like say shopping for groceries at the store, may be encountered by more than one person. The way it affects us would definitely be different from the way it affects someone else.

Experience may be pleasurable or not. There are four elements for pleasurable experience, for Aristotle. The first is that there should be a congruence between the object of pleasure and the faculty for experiencing the pleasure. The second is that the higher the purity or degree of the object of pleasure, the higher the pleasure. The third is that the higher the acuity of the faculty of pleasure, the higher the pleasure, and fourth the higher the inexhaustibility of the object of pleasure, the higher the pleasure. Pleasure is God's actual activity, and the pleasure we humans feel is but a share in God's pleasure. 

God is Understanding understanding understanding. This level of thinking or intellection, of the divine thinking about himself, is the supreme good possible. There is no higher good than this. God allows us to share in this good through what is called rational contemplation. Rational contemplation is human understanding understanding divine understanding, and because it is a pleasure, this activity, rational contemplation, varies directly with the four aforementioned factors. Firstly, the more our intellects are disposed to contemplating the divine, the more pleasure we derive from it. Secondly, the more it is the divine we contemplate and not some erroneous reality, the more we experience pleasure. Thirdly, the more our contemplation is accurate; in other words, the more there is a congruence between the object of our contemplation and the faculty of such contemplation within us, the more pleasure we experience. And fourthly the more we realize how inexhaustible God is, the more we derive pleasure from contemplating him. 

So, as people trained in philosophy or religion or both, we have a higher faculty for rational contemplation. We also are better positioned to experience a congruence between the God we contemplate and the faculty we use in contemplating him. Thirdly, we experience greater joy than most because we more easily appreciate the inexhaustible nature of God. Furthermore, we are better disposed to turn our sights to higher order pleasures, such as the divine intelligence; in other words, we are better disposed to value God. "O God you are my God, for you I long" (Psalm 63:1). The entire 63rd psalm indeed describes how the trained soul longs for God, thirsts for the divine.

God's love is a desire that sets everything in motion. We have already mentioned in this regard how it is that scholars say that God loved us into existence. We are fashioned out of the eternal love of the Father for his son, set in motion by the Spirit. God is a just God, a loving God, a creator spirit. I love God. You should too. God fills us with love and with his spirit. The purpose driven life is a life lived in God as holistically as possible. God is the beginning and end of love.

You May Need to Sit for This

The three Readings for today's Liturgy, Tuesday October 8, all point to one central idea: There is need to sit down patiently before the Lord. Ordinarily speaking, sitting is the opposite of standing. When we stand as bipeds, we position ourselves erect on two legs. When we sit on the other hand, we place our buttocks on a chair or something, and bend our bodies to fit the seat. Standing is a sign that we are active: we know, and we do. It is a form of entelechy. Standing is a form of certainty. Sitting on the other hand is a humbler position than standing. When we sit, we seem to be expecting something; like when we sit to wait for the bus, or to receive news. Especially grave or sad news. Many of you may recall that when someone comes to us and says "you may need to sit for this," the message they bring to us is likely very grave. We sit then because we are afraid, so afraid that we suppose we might faint; and no one wants to faint while standing. Better to be closer to the floor when you drop to it: less injury; less impact; less pain. And so we sit.

 

In the First Reading of today, Jonah eventually went according to the command of the Lord to Nineveh, to preach to the people there. The reading tells us that Nineveh was a large city that took three days to circumference. The reading further tells us that Jonah had gone about the city for only one day preaching repentance when the citizens repented. They sat in sackcloth and ashes. Not just the people neither, but also the king. They sat down in grief, mourning their sins. They were convicted of the gravity and sadness of their iniquity, and so they sat down to listen to Jonah's message of repentance, and also to pray to God in humility for pardon and peace. They sat. They did not stay standing or worse begin walking about, up and down and up and down, as if ignoring Jonah or disdaining his message. No. They sat down in grief, listening and praying. They all sat.

 

I once knew a girl who was semi-illiterate. One day I asked her a question. I said: "Would you rather be a doctor that returns home late from work everyday, having spent the day walking all about attending to stuff, or would you like to be a housewife that sits at home and minds the house?" She looked at me with a supercilious sneer and quipped: "I want to be a doctor that came work late, begin going up and down!" (sic). I laughed, but not just at her terrible - absolutely dreadful in fact - use of the English language. I laughed because she captured the spirit of the day. Young people nowadays are so full of their own importance that they seek opportunities to ensure that everyone else understands how important they are. No one is slow these days; everyone is in a rush - rushing up and down, and left and right, and everywhere. No one is taking things easy. Everyone is interested in the frantic gadding about. Everyone is preoccupied.

 

Like Martha in the Gospel reading of today. Jesus went to Bethany to visit his friends. Mary and Martha were at home. When they welcomed Jesus into their home, Martha remained standing on her two feet and promptly began walking about, doing this and doing that; fixing this and fixing that; making this and making that, like a busy bee. She was the perfect hostess, the perfect busy lady. Mary on the other hand sat down. She sat on her buttocks and bent her frame to fit the seat. She sat humbly and still at the feet of the master, listening to him. And Martha became envious. Which by the way nearly always happens with ambitious people. They never achieve enough to make them satisfied; for them the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake, as they say. For them, the Joneses are always a step ahead. These ambitious folks are always playing catch-up. And so they are always envious. Always agitated. Always driven to do more and more and more.

 

A story was told in this regard of two men who were both woodcutters. They started out by going into the bushes with machetes to cut wood. After cutting wood all day, they would return to their houses and spend the evenings resting. After a while, one of the woodcutters bought a power saw. He saw that with his power saw he could cut more wood in the same amount of time than when he used the machete. He sold his excess and made more money than before. He invested this money in a sophisticated machine that could cut even more wood. And then he decided to tear down his house and build a bigger one. He bought a car and a tractor, and acquired insurance, mortgage and property-tax debts. He needed even more money, and so he decided to work evenings as well, in addition to mornings and afternoons. And the more he cut, the more he sold; and the more he sold, the more money he made; and the more money he made, the more he bought; and the more he bought, the deeper he fell into debt; and the deeper he fell into debt, the longer and longer - deeper into the night - he worked every day, even weekends!

 

One day, he was returning at night from another long day at work and he passed by the house of his old friend. The man was reclining placidly on an easy chair in front of his hut, with pipe in mouth, gazing at the sky and smiling. The one returning from work called out, "Hey, my friend. I see you're still living in this old hut of yours. I own that large house over there at the street corner, and I have a big car as well." The one sitting in the easy chair said to the man standing over him, the one just returning from another long day at work: "Really? What else do you have?" The standing man said: "Oh, I also have a sophisticated woodcutting machine, and tons of business commitments here and there." "How interesting," said the sitting man. "And what will you do next?" The standing man said, "Well, I intend to continue to work very hard, increase my business portfolio, acquire more real estate and sell company shares in due course." "How fascinating," said the sitting man, "and then what will you do?" "Well, I'll turn over dividends for purchased shares and go even more public with company shares, thus increasing the capacity to turn greater profits." "Wonderful. And then what will you do?" "Well then, I guess I'll retire and rest." The sitting man smiled, looked up at the standing man, the one that was just returning from work, and said, "Rest, eh? And what do you think I am doing right now?"

 

Psalm 127 tells us that we labor in vain when we hustle about preoccupied, whereas he blesses his beloved as they rest. Again, in the Parable of the Rich Fool, after the rich man had made plans to do this and that and that, the voice of the Lord addressed him thus: "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" (Lk. 12:20). The rich fool died because he was rich in material things, but was not rich toward God (Lk. 12:21). And indeed, who is rich toward God? Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory." Which brings us to the Psalm of today. The response was: "If you Lord should mark iniquities, who can stand?" In other words, if you being to keep tab of all the occasions when we've sinned, who would be able to remain on his or her two feet, without feeling such a weight of guilt and sadness as to require sitting?

 

Indeed, we all need to sit. We all need to take a time out. Take a time out from the hustle and bustle of life; take a time out from playing Martha, and sit like Mary at the feet of Jesus, listening to him and praying in humility and sorrow for our sins. We need to refrain from an endless, meaningless pursuit of material wealth and endeavor to be rich in the things of God. We cannot stand upright in the face of God's judgment, sinners that we all are. We should allow the gravity of our sinfulness to command our necessary sitting. Let us sit still and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10).