Is My Guru Really Showing Me the Truth, Or Just Lying? - An Overview of Socratic Epistemology

One cool bit of trivia Socrates and I share is that our mothers were both midwives. But it wasn't only his mother that was a midwife. Socrates claims in Plato's Theaetetus that he is a midwife as well; a midwife of the soul. For him, a midwife of the soul is responsible for helping a "pregnant mind" to give birth to ideas. So, while the medical midwife helps pregnant bodies to give birth to physical babies, the soul's midwife helps pregnant minds to give birth to ideas. To perform this task well, in any case, the spiritual midwife is firstly to make the pregnant soul realize that it has the potential, "dunamis," within itself to conceive and bear ideas. This realization is important for the individual soul to have because many people do not believe that there is a spark of truth existing within each and every one of us. They do not understand that God would not otherwise enjoin us to "let our light shine," (Matt 5:16) if we possessed no light sparks in us to fan into flames. Clearly then, the initial duty of the soul's midwife is to allay any doubt in the soul of its possession of the capacity for truth. In the Theaetetus, this is what Socrates first does with his young interlocutor.

 

In addition to their task of encouraging the individual soul to realize its potential, the characteristics and duties of the spiritual midwife are as follows: To begin with, the midwife claims to be barren of ideas. In Ancient Greece during the time of Socrates, the women who practiced midwifery were typically past child-bearing-age themselves. Similarly, Socrates as a spiritual midwife claims to be past being able to conceive of any ideas in his soul. This attitude of positive ignorance was typical of Socrates, such that even when the Oracle of Delphi called him the wisest person alive, Socrates replied that it was so only because his wisdom derived from his knowing that he did not know. And so, quite like the traditionally barren medical midwife, Socrates the ideal spiritual midwife was barren of ideas in his own soul. Another characteristic of the spiritual midwife was their ability to induce the birth of ideas in a pregnant soul, by means of the Socratic Method. The Socratic method proceeded by questioning and dialog. Socrates, typically feigning ignorance, would systematically question an interlocutor on a given subject. By repeatedly asking questions of such an interlocutor and evaluating their responses, Socrates tried to analyze philosophical concepts and critique the intellect of his interlocutor.

 

Still another attribute of the soul's midwife is to examine the ideas birthed by the soul to see if they are cogent ideas or erroneous thoughts. In the Theaetetus for example, we see Socrates thrash literally all of the young man's ideas. In response to the question "What is Knowledge?" the young mathematician Theaetetus, after whom the book is named, seemingly cannot give a valid answer. After examining all the answers Theaetetus gives, Socrates discards them as erroneous. Knowledge is not perception; it is not opinion (doxa), and it is not opinion with explanation (logos). At the end of the book, we do not end up knowing what knowledge is, but only that we know we do not know what it is. And all this because Socrates, astute spiritual midwife that he is, examines and discards all of Theaetetus' answers. After mulling over such answers and engaging in back-and-forth dialog, Socrates finds them unsound. And so, the chief attributes of a spiritual midwife, analogical with the medical midwife's, are: the ability to recognize the potential of ideas in a soul and encourage such a soul to realize it; the barrenness of ideas in the spiritual midwife themselves; the ability to induce the birth of ideas from a pregnant soul, and the ability to test whether the ideas so birthed are valid or erroneous. The foregoing serves as background to our discourse today about guru selection, and the nature of guru-disciple relationships.

 

For most of us, the way we find truth is by becoming disciples of gurus, or teachers, or pastors, or priests, or preachers - whatever we call them. We see these people as wise, as possessing divine wisdom; as knowledgeable of the word and will of God, and able to explain them to us. The situation of our need for preachers is captured beautifully in Romans 10: 13-15: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how will they call on the one in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in the one whom they have not heard of? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will the preacher preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news about good things!'" And so we need gurus. We need preachers to show us the truth; to bring us to the knowledge of "good things." This is why people still go to church and other places of worship. They go there to listen to the guru explain the truth about the will and mind of the divine.

 

But are our gurus showing us the truth? How can we know if what we get when we disciple ourselves to preachers is the truth? Indeed it were better that we did not know at all, than to know error and falsehood. Remember the case of Reverend Jim Jones and the Jonestown Guyana Kool-Aid Massacre of over a thousand people on November 18, 1978. There are many other cases, though not quite as horrendous as this. What I'm saying is that the demerits of listening for truth to the wrong persons cannot be overemphasized. In his book, The Teacher, St Augustine cautions in this regard: "After all, who is so foolishly curious as to send his child to school to learn what the teacher thinks? When the teachers have explained by means of words all the disciplines they profess to teach, even disciplines of virtue and wisdom, then those who are called 'students' consider within themselves whether truths have been stated." And so for Augustine, listening to the opinions of a so-called teacher will not lead to knowledge, but only observing whether the teacher's words correspond with the actualization of the potential for truth that already exists inside of us will. St John in this regard would not ask us to test each explanation (logos) given by every teacher, if he did not believe we have a yardstick within us (our own potential for truth) for conducting such test. He says in 1 John 4:1: "Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world."

 

Socratic epistemology in this regard helps us to understand the difference between persuasion and demonstration. Persuasion is when a person uses fine words and beautiful expressions to convince the audience of their opinion. The opinion need not be true. The focus is on the use of language. Just look at history and see how many very gifted speakers have used the power of public speaking - a skill I taught for a living, by the way - to sway large audiences to do the wrong thing. Does the Holocaust come to mind, for example? Effective public speaking that is unethical can do enormous harm. It was Quintilian, noted philosopher and rhetorician, who said in this regard, "Good speaking is a good person speaking well." In any case, in preference to persuasion is demonstration. With demonstration, the focus is not on the use of language or effective oratory. The focus rather is on truth. Philosophers have defined truth as that which is self-evident and clearly seen. And so, properly speaking, we do not tell truth, we show it. In other words, we demonstrate it.

Do you recall saying something to someone and the person goes, "aha!"? Aha moments are just so cool. In these moments, the truth strikes a person like a luminous vision. The person sees ever so clearly the brightness and glory of such truth. Like in R Kelly's The Storm is Over Now, the person may have been in a tunnel of error and falsehood, but with the power of truth, the darkness of falsity is removed and such a soul can witness the sunshine, or even the "heaven over me." That is the power of demonstration over and above mere persuasion. The science and philosophy of demonstration is explained thus: You see, there is something called the agent intellect. This intellect is universally shared. There is one agent intellect that everyone can access with their own potential intellect. The agent intellect is perfect and is never wrong. Objectively speaking, it is the mind of God. When the potential intellect in each one of us is activated say, by thinking or reading or listening to a guru - by any cogitative endeavor whatsoever - our activated intellect may align with the agent intellect; that is if what we get via the cogitative endeavor is the truth as contained in the agent intellect. And once such alignment takes place, of the agent intellect with an individual's activated intellect, a beatific vision of truth is acquired. Remember Archimedes from a previous post? He had been engaging in cogitative activity for a while, thinking about a difficult problem, until while at the public baths his activated intellect aligned perfectly with the agent intellect in a split second and he shouted, "I got it!" He then ran home happily.

 

We all can access the agent intellect. In other words, we all can access the mind of God. For Augustine, this mind of God resides inside of us. That's why in The Teacher he says, "those who are called 'students' consider within themselves whether truths have been stated." For Aquinas, like for Aristotle, this mind of God to which all things are adequated can illumine the mind of a virtuous person. For Socrates, the mind of God which contains all truth is dormant within us because we have forgotten all the truth we glimpsed of it before our spirits became enfleshed. This Socratic theory is called Recollection Theory, and is found chiefly in the classic book, Meno. In other words, for Socrates, before our spirits took flesh, they sojourned in a previous life and there became possessed of the knowledge of everything about everything. But upon taking flesh and thus becoming corrupted by materiality, our souls forget all the truth we previously possessed, but with the help of a guru we can begin to recollect. This guru, the one guiding the individual soul along its path to recollecting the knowledge it forgot by participation in the body, in any case must demonstrate the truth so we can again see it in much the same way as we saw it in a previous life. Only then can it ring true for us.

 

In short, we can know truth, but only if we engage in the proper cogitative activity. And when that cogitative activity is listening to a guru, we have to make sure that such a guru is demonstrating truth to us, and not merely persuading us of their opinions. The former is by far preferred to the latter, and is the only way we can perennially align our individual intellects with the agent one, God's own mind. We must seek out adequate teachers, teachers able to demonstrate and not simply persuade with good speaking skills. Avicenna, eminent scholar and scientist, recommended that there be a class of individuals within society, possessed with the highest form of wisdom, Sophia, set apart to teach people by means of demonstration. These individuals would occupy the highest echelon of society, similar to the position occupied by Plato's philosopher-kings; Ancient Egyptian priests, and Pythagoras' spectators at the Olympic Games. They alone would be entrusted with the sacred duty of popular education.

 

In our day, Catholic priests for me best perform this role. They are set apart through celibacy, simplicity and obedience to focus solely on the task of spiritual education of the many people that God entrusts them with. Disciplined as they are, and guided by Holy Mother Church, Catholic priests do not adulterate the word of God with their personal opinions. Rather they endeavor to demonstrate the truth as contained in the Gospels, so that we all can bear witness within ourselves to such truth and come to believe unto salvation. Our pregnant souls bear acts of faith, hope and love, assisted by the midwifery of these servants of God, preachers sent by the divine to induce the birth of faith within us, the actualization of the dunamis in our souls. But even when we are not Catholic, we should not despair. Even when we become disciples of other sorts of teachers, we should question and test the explanations (logos) they afford us, so as not to be deceived. We should always wait anxiously for the moment when it definitely "looks like we can see the light somewhere beyond the clouds," when the storms of our desperate seeking progressively give way to the brightness of a new day of knowledge and understanding.

 

"I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain is Gone": A Brief Introduction to Practical Epistemology

Heavy rains that bring stormy winds with them sometimes interrupt electric power supply to homes in the vicinities where they fall. People in those homes grope in the dark and cannot see their way about. Floods, downpours, fogs and strong winds sometimes affect visibility on motor roads as well, making it difficult for drivers to see their way ahead. All this is physical talk. At the spiritual level, the waters, waves and floods of negative human emotions which sometimes wrack the soul often make it difficult to clearly interpret situations that we experience. When we respond to situations based on negative emotions rather than with proper insight and reason, our spiritual vision is compromised. In the same way that a driver is prone to crashing when they drive in foggy, windy or rainy weather due to poor visibility, so is a soul that reacts emotionally to situations rather than from the informed intellect. The grand design of epistemology in this regard is to supply the individual with the knowledge to deal with "the waters of a river" of the soul, especially when they "encamp like a flood" and make it hard to make spiritual progress. When the darkness of ignorance threatens, practical epistemology makes it possible for the soul to declare like Jimmy Cliff: "I can see clearly now." The power of knowledge drives out the rains of troublesome feelings, leaving only "bright-blue skies." It makes us see the "obstacles in our way" to spiritual progress, and dispels "the dark clouds" of ignorance that obfuscate our vision, rendering it all around a "bright and sunshiny day" instead.

Epistemology so described is the first of two steps to happiness, as we've previously said. It refers to everything we do in the search for truth, and it explains such truth. Epistemology gives us an option to acting solely on unreliable human emotions. It suggests to us that we can act based on reliable information instead. With the truth obtained via epistemology, we can face life situations rationally and soundly, and act in ways that guarantee success and joy. We can live more fully, especially as Socrates declares that a life without reflection is worthless. In this post therefore, we shall attempt a brief introduction to practical epistemology; to help you see the situations in your life more clearly; to hasten you from the dark experience of pouring rain to the bright occasion of seeing the "rainbow you've been waiting for," and subsequently to embracing the clarity and warmth of the "bright and sunshiny day" that is sure to come. With epistemology, you will be able to say in your own life: "Oh yes, I can make it now the pain is gone. All of the bad feelings have disappeared." And the bad feelings, like the stormy weather, will have disappeared because the power of knowledge and insight obtained via epistemology, like the warming rays of bright sunshine, will have removed them completely from your soul. You would then be well on your way to happiness.

Epistemology starts with a desire to know. As you read this, say to yourself, "I want to know." Experience a thirst for knowledge in your soul. Visualize yourself longing for truth. Desire to see your life-path more clearly. Wish for the dark clouds and the storms to fade away. Hope for the bright and sunshiny day ahead. The desire to know that epistemology begins with leads to the gathering and piecing together of bits of information. This may simply be called any of four activities: research, experience, devotion or discipleship. Research or experimentation is one of the ways by which we gather bits of information, and it proceeds by scientific testing. Personal experience is another way to gather information, and it proceeds by picking up sensations through the use of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Devotion or habit is a third way of gathering information, and it consists in holding on to attitudes and behaviors that we have practiced for a long time. And discipleship or submission to authority is a fourth way to gather information, and it consists in listening to a guru or teacher.

Different individuals are disposed to conducting epistemology in different ways. Some people may prefer to research. These may be individuals that love to read. Those of you who have seen the movie Matilda, directed by Danny DeVito, recall the scene where the young protagonist responds to her teacher, Miss Honey, "I love to read." People who love to read may feel the need to gather information by themselves from various secondary sources, such as books, magazines, journals and the Internet. They may prefer to work on their own rather than sit at the feet of a guru. These people also conduct scientific tests to verify the information they obtain through critical observation. This method of gathering data is best suited to the physical sciences, but it can also help in the field of natural religion and new thought. Some other people prefer to experience things personally. The saying goes that experience is the best teacher. These individuals, like researchers, also do not like to be told stuff by any guru; they rather want to experience things themselves. When for example the disciples told Thomas they had seen Jesus after the resurrection, he said, "Unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe" (Jn 20:25b).

Still other people prefer to hold on tenaciously to the habits they grew up with. Because age-old experiences seem to be "new every morning" one practices them, we can always gather seemingly new information from habituation, and indeed some tasks are best suited to learning by habit, such as driving a car better, mowing a lawn, shopping at Wal-Mart, and many other tasks which Aristotle places in the realm of Phronesis, or practical wisdom. And some individuals like to learn from teachers or authority figures. They find someone who is wise and accomplished, and become a disciple to such a guru. They listen to and learn from these authority figures. In this regard, remember Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. These four methods of conducting epistemology need not all have universal appeal. And so, as you read this, ask yourself which method of conducting epistemology appeals to you the most. It doesn't have to be just one. It could be a combination of two or three methods; indeed, it could even be all of them. Personally, I have been lucky to develop a competency in all four methods of learning: I read as often as I can. Only yesterday for example, I read a hagiography in paperback. I also love to listen to my professors at school, and my pastors at mass, and indeed to spiritual authorities like Iyanla Vanzant and so on. I also crave to learn via personal experience, and this is how I sometimes test the information I obtain from authority; and of course I, like everyone else, have my habits and idiosyncrasies.

There is something called triangulation. What this means is that we can use other methods to verify information obtained from any one of them. For example, if you learn something from a guru, you could proceed to test it out in your own life. This is triangulation of personal experience on discipleship. Or, you could take information obtained from a science lab and run it by a teacher. This is triangulation of authority on research. You could even take information obtained from a teacher and consult with a textbook to see if it is correct. This is triangulation of research on authority, and so on. Triangulation is like asking: "Is it true, really?" Or, "Does it work?" And to benefit from triangulation, we should develop our skills in all four methods of epistemology. Even while obtaining information from the source we are most comfortable with, we should try to break out of our comfort zones and embrace other methods of seeking truth. People who love to apprentice themselves to gurus should also develop their capacity to read and do private research. People who thrive at reading or lab experiments should also pay more attention to gurus and habitual experiences, and so forth. But whatever method or combination of methods used in the conduct of epistemology, the crucial attitude to have is thirst for knowledge; the important posture to adopt is the contemplative one.

In addition to the four methods of data gathering, there is as well the very process itself of thinking, also called reasoning and argumentation. Or, in modern parlance, logic. Aristotle created formal logic so as to help us to think properly. Standard logic is called syllogism, and it usually has three declarative components: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The two premises lead to the conclusion. If they are both true, and the syllogism structure is sound, the conclusion will definitely be also true. For example: All people are mortal. Clara is a person. Therefore, Clara is mortal. This is a categorical syllogism. There are also hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms. Logical thinking may also be either inductive or deductive. If inductive, we reason from particulars to a universal. If deductive, we reason from a universal to particulars. Logic supports our efforts in epistemology, and is a valuable skill to master, especially because it helps us to avoid the many errors there are in reasoning. These errors are known as fallacies. Fallacies may be formal, if they result from the faulty construction of syllogisms. They may also be material, if they result from the very truth or falsity of premises used in syllogisms. A few examples of material fallacies are: slippery slope, bandwagon, ad hominem, hasty generalization, and so on. There are many books on logic. You might want to check with your local library or bookstore.

In any case, the utility of epistemology is the acquisition of truth. We need truth on which to build happiness. People everywhere have always sought truth for the same reason. It will continue to be so. The human quest for knowledge and understanding is insatiable, and epistemology offers significant relief in this regard. It has led to schools of thought and approaches to understanding reality, such as: empiricism, realism, idealism, positivism, pragmatism, rationalism, subjectivism, and so on. Believe me, the number of "isms" there are in philosophy is alarming. If you are a philosophy major, like I kind of am right now, you would appreciate what I'm saying. But if your interest is not to play scholar and pass semester exams, you would best go with a practical approach to epistemology. Read books you love; listen to gurus you admire; watch Oprah's Lifeclass, and listen to authority figures like Iyanla Vanzant, Deepak Chopra, TD Jakes and so on; attend your local church. If you are Catholic and have since lapsed in your faith, resume going to church and listening to priests' homilies. Attend workshops and seminars too. Read the bible. It is the one book that has sold the most number of copies in the history of humanity. No other book comes close. Watch movies. You may want to maintain a Netflix subscription. I know I do. There are many spiritual documentaries on there. I know watching movies may not seem like research or real epistemology, but it is. It sure as hell is. So, watch not only documentaries, but also full length feature films. You can learn a bunch.

In short, practical epistemology is not about cramming tons of textbook stuff. I took theoretical epistemology last semester, and I know how tough it was. Even though I managed to pull off an A on it, I know it wasn't easy. Practical epistemology, conversely, can be cool: You do it at your own pace. You develop your skills in any or preferably all of the four methods of gathering information; you sharpen your reasoning skills, and you expose yourself to sources of information you love and are most comfortable with. In doing all this, you become more astute and more knowledgeable. You begin to build for yourself a practical foundation for happiness. But remember, in addition to all this, that you need to put into practice what you've learned. You don't just acquire knowledge for its own sake. You don't just fill your intellectual bag with brainy stuff; the bag would be heavy that way. Rather, you learn so you can apply what you've learned in your everyday life. Which makes me think that, after the next two posts that are also going to deal with epistemology, we need to have a brief foray into the realm of ethics. We definitely need to learn how to apply the knowledge we pick up along our life-path.

So far today, we have offered a brief introduction to practical epistemology. We have cursorily treated the four methods of data collection, and afforded a brief overview of logic. We have also distinguished between theoretical and practical epistemology and recommended the latter. Above all, we have shown how our conduct of epistemology can deliver us from the raging storms of negative emotions and the behavioral cage they lock us in, by availing us with knowledge tools with which to make sound decisions and deal with the challenges we encounter in our daily lives. We have seen that epistemology helps us to dispel "the dark clouds" that prevent us from spiritual progress, and enables us to "see clearly now the rain is gone." I hope that in reading this post today you do in fact begin to see more clearly the path your soul must take to salvation. But even while you see more clearly the path ahead of you, you must walk it. You cannot know, and then fail to act. You cannot be like the Pharisees who said to Jesus: "We are not blind; we do see clearly," to whom Jesus replied, "If you were indeed blind, you would have no guilt, but since you say you see, your guilt remains" (Jn 9:39-41). And so, we who are blessed with the gift of epistemology should act on what we learn in its conduct, lest we be guilty of the greater sin of negligence, and not only the error of ignorance.

A House Built on Solid Rock: Continuing our Discussion on Happiness

In the last few posts, we've been talking about happiness. There's more to say on the matter. Today, we shall examine happiness from a biblical perspective. We shall take a look at Matthew 7:24-27. It contains an allegory about two men. Jesus describes one of them as wise and the other as foolish. The short passage reads thus: "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." This allegory fits in neatly with what we've been saying so far about happiness. And in the next few paragraphs, we shall explain the passage thoroughly.

 

Let's start with the words: "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice." We earlier defined happiness as the condition of courageously doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right, regardless of the challenges that arise along the way. We also said that it consists of two parts: finding the certain truth, and then putting what we've found into practice. In other words, epistemology and ethics. Hearing Jesus' words and putting them into practice means exactly what we've said. Jesus exhorts us to first "hear these words of mine." Hearing Jesus words means nothing other than looking for the truth. Because Jesus is God, the one who knows everything about everything, his words are absolutely true. So, to listen to the words of Jesus is to find truth, and much faster too than by doing extensive research. Listening to Jesus' words is epistemology. But Jesus does not simply ask us to listen to his words; he also asks us to "put them into practice." This is the ethics we've been talking about, the one that follows after epistemology. We hear Jesus' words and we put them into practice.

 

We've used several images to describe the foregoing: a person finding a priceless pearl and going to great trouble to obtain it - not simply finding it, but also endeavoring to obtain it; also, carrying a food load on a journey - not just carrying the load, but taking out of it to eat. The deal with all of this is that our search for knowledge has value chiefly in our applying the knowledge found to our own life situations. If we are unwilling to apply the fruits of our epistemology in the course of our lives, then we need not have bothered to find truth in the first place. It is a two-part injunction: search for truth, and then use the truth. And what is the reward? Happiness. Practical epistemology and practical ethics bring about happiness. And Aristotle as we saw yesterday has defined happiness as the condition of the soul such that it cannot be taken away. This happiness cannot be taken away because it is not founded on transient materiality. It is not excitement. It is founded on the things which last forever, things that are not of this temporal world.

 

Jesus is creative in his description of this state of happiness. He says it is "like a wise man who built his house on the rock." In an earlier post, we said happiness is a species of wisdom, and so it is no wonder that Jesus describes happiness as a wise man's activity. Aristotle sees happiness as the teleological end of all humanity. In other words, for Aristotle, all people are to have happiness as an end-goal. Now, think of a house; of the concept of shelter. When we're out and about: at the mall, at our places of work; at school - anywhere we are, our homes remain in the corner of our minds. We know that, after all the day's work, we'll return to our house and sleep. It is our end-goal of the day. Whether we succeed or we fail at what we're doing for the day, we return to a house and end our day within its sheltering providence. As the teleological end of all humanity, happiness is like that, a house. But not just any house; it is a house built on solid rock. It is a house built on firm foundation. Happiness is not built on the fleeting material things of this world, but instead on transcendent, spiritual reality. In other words, it is a reliable end-goal.

 

Jesus goes further to say: "The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall." In the search for truth, such as in listening to the words of Jesus, and in putting such words into practice, we shall always encounter difficulty. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33). Nothing good comes easy, as they say. We cannot expect to find truth easily. Truth is like a flower guarded by thorns; we may get pricked in trying to find it. Recall the difficulty for example that Mary faced when she sat at Jesus' feet to listen to him. Her sister Martha tried to guilt her into abandoning her quest for truth with a proposal of shared responsibility for chores around the house. In our day, people who spend long hours searching for truth in books are called nerds or geeks, and are often ridiculed. And what about when we try to put into practice what we've learned? Putting truth into practice is even more challenging. We are sometimes persecuted and called names, such as "goodie-two-shoes" or "Mr. Nice-guy," and so on. And so it is not easy to embrace practical epistemology and ethics. In our quest for true happiness, the sort that is built on solid foundation, we encounter challenges along the way. "The rain does come down and the winds do blow, and they do beat against the house."

 

In other words, people, things, trials and tribulations threaten to steal the happiness that we've glimpsed. Recall we've earlier said that the symbol for emotions is water, and so it is no wonder that Jesus uses the imagery of water, as in rain and watery winds, and streams, in describing the emotional hardships we endure in our quest for practical epistemology and ethics.  But Jesus does not just say we will face difficulties. There's hope. He also says: "yet it did not fall." In other words, in spite of the trials and tempests, the house built on solid rock, on solid foundation, did not fall. Similarly, in spite of the hardships we experience in our daily lives, our happiness, founded as it is on eternal truths, does not go away. It does not fail us. No matter how hard people and things and situations try to steal our happiness away, we get to keep it because it is a situation of our souls that exists such that it cannot be taken away, because of the solid foundation it has.

 

Let's briefly examine the nature of epistemology. Jesus said that the reason the house built on rock did not fall was "because it had its foundation on the rock." In other words, its epistemological foundation was sure. But, in building our house of happiness on possible truths, how can we know that the opinions we acquire as we progress in life are true knowledge? There are four principal ways by which we know something: by habit, from authority, through research, and through personal experience. Different schools of thought advocate different approaches. In religion, we know through habit and authority. In science, conversely, we know through research and personal experience. Each of these methods of knowing has merits and demerits. There are also deductive and inductive approaches to reasoning and argumentation, and these too have their advantages and disadvantages. We will have to take at least two posts to talk a bit more about epistemology, because the space here is limited. Our focus for today is the passage, Matt 7:24-27. Let's get back to that. Tomorrow, we'll begin a crash course in epistemology, which may take the next two or three posts to summarily treat.

 

Jesus went on to say, in the passage we're dealing with: "But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand." There are many people out there today who do not know what happiness really is. They mistake it for excitement; and so, instead of finding happiness by listening to Jesus' words, or searching for truth, or conducting epistemology, they search only for material pleasures. In other words, rather than concentrate on knowledge, they turn their attention to mundane delights like food, wealth, status, and numerous other diversions and dissipations. Jesus calls people like these "foolish." They are foolish because they do not pay attention to Jesus, distracted as they are with the passing things of this material world. And because they do not know Jesus' will, God's will, owing to having not listened to the divine words, they do not put it into practice, naturally. And so the best they get is excitement, not happiness. This excitement derives from the dissipations and the physical pleasures they indulge in. This excitement is their own end, their own house. However, unlike the house of happiness, the house of excitement is built on sand, which is not a solid foundation.

 

"The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." Because the foolish individuals who mistake their excitement for happiness also live in this world like the rest of us, and Jesus has already said concerning this world, "You will have trouble," they also do have trouble. But the reason their own situation is much worse is that the excitement they have, like the house built on sand, cannot withstand the vicissitudes and tempests that beset them, and their excitement gives way quickly to depression. All the silicon boobs and nose jobs; all the wine and booze; all the I-pads and I-everything; all the money and cars; all the clothes and status; all the fancy vacations and luxury spa treatments - all of it cannot stand up against the emotional pangs we all are tempted with. Whatever temporary relief excitement gives leaves more to be desired. And so, many foolish people are crashing everyday. I recall a movie star - name withheld - that once came on the Oprah Show. In popular culture, this star was seen by all to have the perfect life: successful movie roles; outrageous sums of money in the bank; fancy clothes, and so on. But on that unforgettable Oprah Show episode, she confessed to being a regular visitor to the psychiatric hospital, where she gets a depression "treatment" so powerful that she passes out any time it is administered.

 

This psychiatric treatment, which is called electroconvulsive therapy, consists of touching the skull with nodes bearing such powerful electric voltage that the patient begins to convulse and pass out as soon as they feel the nodes press against their head. This treatment was used on cows in the medieval era, when such cows were sick - recall the appellation, mad cow disease. Because the cows were hysterical and unruly, the farmer in charge of them would typically get them subdued and tied down and then, with powerful volts of electricity, administer shock to the cows, causing them to convulse and summarily pass out. Some even died. This form of therapy does not actually treat the depression in humans; it only makes the patient temporarily forget that they have depression. It's like the old technique of hurting your arm to forget you have a pain in your leg. As soon as the pain in the arm goes, the one in the leg reminds you of its presence. This is why the celebrity that confessed on Oprah, and others like her who engage in psychiatric treatments, keep going back to the mental clinic over and over again for help. Only recently as well, a star on the celebrated TV show, Glee, was found dead, owing to overdose of heroin and alcohol. He is of course not the only star to have been found dead in this way. Hundreds more have died due to their desperate need for the excitement that physical stimulation provides. And this is a serious matter.

 

These individuals are supposed to be our role models. We see them on television; we watch them in the movie theaters. To many of us, they appear to be living the good life: with their "money, power, respect," and all. We try to be like them; we adore them. But little do we know that some of them are so depressed and afraid that they don't get to sleep at night. Some are so depressed, they need to keep pumping themselves with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain inside. Some are so screwed that they attempt suicide over and over again, as another popular - and very young star we know, but name withheld - tried to do recently. These people are suffering! They have refused to listen to truth, to the word of God; they have refused to embrace epistemology, and then ethics, and so they live life inside a house built on sand. It is a sad situation indeed. We must not be like them. The money, power and respect are not worth the cost of happiness. We should seek to build our house on solid rock, so that when the winds and waves come, our house will stand.

 

There's a delightful old lady I met while I was at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish participating at Vacation Bible School earlier this summer. This lady must have been at least 90 years old, if I'm not mistaken. But in spite of her old age, she was full of happiness. You could tell. She never missed going to daily morning mass and receiving the Eucharist. She never missed reading her bible and going to confession. And whenever the priest called for prayer, she always joined in. She prayed for her family, her friends and the world. She has never touched a drop of alcohol in her life, nor has she ever used drugs. She doesn't need any form of physical stimulation. She probably doesn't even need coffee. She just gets up and goes about her business with peace and joy. She is a truly happy woman. She is the sort of person Jesus refers to when he talks about wise people building their house on solid rock. We should emulate the good old ladies in our lives. We should seek for happiness that lasts, and that can withstand the trials and tribulations of life. We should not settle for wishy-washy excitement. Our house should be built on solid rock instead.

The Difference Between Excitement and Happiness

Except for death and taxes, nothing else is sure. It was so Benjamin Franklin said, and he was a wise man. Let's take taxes away and say that, except for death, nothing else is sure. Much better. Life as we know it is always changing. No condition is permanent, as they say. Medieval Persian Sufi priests put it beautifully when they said, "This too shall pass," in reference to each thing on earth. The things we value, treasure, hold dear to our hearts - all of them "too shall pass." Only what transcends the material world lasts forever. All of this serves as background to our understanding of the difference between excitement and happiness. The good feeling we get about material pleasure is excitement. Whenever anything pleasing happens to us, like: winning the lottery; winning an election; getting a promotion; marrying a sweetheart; acing an exam; birthing a cuddly kid - any delightful thing at all, the good and positive feeling we get because of it is excitement. It is not happiness. Nothing in this material world can make us happy. Let me repeat that: Nothing existing in this physical world can properly make us happy. 

Aristotle sees happiness as the condition of the soul such that it cannot be taken away. Because every material thing can and does change; is definitely taken away at some point, nothing material can properly cause happiness. Happiness is transcendent of the physical world. A person can be happy when their situation is awful and shitty. You see someone. They are poor, destitute, alone, unemployed, unmarried, crippled, terminally ill, imprisoned - beset with every misfortune you can think of. And you ask them, "Are you happy?" You would expect the answer to be negative, but if they told you they were in fact happy, you need not doubt them. Happiness transcends the material world. Now, notice that all the bad conditions I mentioned were strictly physical. I said for example poor, not mean; alone, not lonely; destitute, not despondent. These physical conditions need not translate to emotional (soulful) ones. Two people may be alone, one feels lonely because of it; the other does not. Two people may be poor and destitute, and unemployed. One feels depressed and dejected because of it; the other does not. Two people may be slapped across the face such that the five fingers of the slapper imprint themselves on their faces; one feels angry and vengeful, the other does not. All this reminds me of what Jesus said concerning the last day, as contained in Matthew 24:40-41: "Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left."

It is not the physical situation we're in that determines our soulful or spiritual state. We can refuse to allow the physical, or material, or bodily, or cosmic, or earthly conditions we face dictate our emotional state. Our bodily hunger does not have to make us feel bitter or crappy; our loss of a loved one does not mean we have to feel mournful or sad; that we live alone does not have to make us feel lonely; that we lost a job does not have to make us feel dejected or depressed, and so on. If we separate our emotions from the material situations we encounter in our everyday life, we can be happy in spite of material misfortune. But even worse than the state of our emotions is the state of our intellect. If a person lets their physical or material condition dictate their emotions so often and so much so that they unwittingly adopt a mindset that is negative, such a person is really in trouble. At the emotional or soulful level, a person may feel sad or lonely, or experience any of the many negative emotions there are, in response to a bad physical situation. Such a person may recover emotionally when the bad physical situation they are responding to, by means of the bad emotion they're feeling, goes away. The worst that can happen with such a person is that they become emotionally unstable, with their feelings swaying like pendulums set in motion by the physical experiences they encounter as they go along their life's journey. But the one whose intellect is corrupted never recovers from negative emotions, but actually stays negative perpetually. Because not just their souls (emotions) are corrupted, but also their spirits (intellects), they actually bring about negative physical situations consistently, and definitely subject their emotions to negative responses perpetually. For these individuals, reality is a vicious cycle: Because they are always thinking negatively, they bring about negative material situations, and respond in emotionally negative ways, which confirm them in their negative thoughts that create even more negative material conditions to which they respond in emotionally negative ways, on and on and on. All this reminds me of what Jesus says in Mark 3:29: "But whoever sins against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an everlasting sin."

So we see that there are gradations of experience: positive material experiences can make us excited, but happiness takes place only at the level of the soul and the spirit. Happiness at the level of the spirit or intellect is the highest and the ideal form of happiness. It is the condition of the soul such that it can never be taken away. So, when a person is rich and beautiful and awesome in every material way, don't necessarily expect them to be happy. Indeed, they may not even feel excited; they may already be bored with their material blessings. And when someone is poor or ugly or a loser, as they say, don't necessarily expect them to be sad. They very well could be happy. I recall the case of a Mexican immigrant to our country. He came with his wife and three children. He said that, when he first came here, he suffered so much: His dream was to open a restaurant and make Mexican-style cuisine. He and his family would get up very early every morning and prepare the food, and set it out for their customers. They did this everyday for many years, until eventually the business took off and the immigrant became rich. But when he was asked by a journalist what his happiest days in our country were, he said it was the days of the struggle; the days when the sheer toughness of the challenge made him even more excited. 

Or think of Charles Lwanga and companions, the twenty-five martyrs of Uganda. They suffered the fury of the flames because they were Christians and their king was a pagan. The story had it that these courageous Christian boys were smiling from ear to ear like Cheshire cats, even while the flames slowly burnt them to ashes. In spite of all that extreme pain, they were happy. Their souls and spirits were removed from the material experience of their bodies, and so they were truly happy even while enduring unimaginable bodily pain. Let me give you another example. I remember that when I was in high school, one day I was late for assembly. I would have been early, but a wicked senior - I was a freshman then - had made me do chores I wasn't supposed to. Now, the punishment for being late to assembly back then was to endure the crack of the whip on your bare palms. As I walked toward the teacher to receive the strokes of the cane, I prayed to God in my heart. I said, "O God, you know I was not supposed to be late; I don't deserve this whipping." All at once, my soul seemed to leave my body, and I didn't even feel anything in the next few seconds or minutes or whatever. All I knew was that I presented my palm to the teacher, and moments later I walked past him, so that the next latecomer could present his palm as well. I did not feel a thing! Or think of Socrates, or Boetius, or St Paul - all these men, and many others like them, including Nelson Mandela, were at some point in their lives unjustly imprisoned. And each of these men, in spite of the material misfortune they experienced, remained joyful, hopeful, optimistic - in short, remained happy. I am told that Mandela, while he was in prison, was sometimes offered material gifts if he could abandon his vision of peace and freedom, but he repeatedly said no. The material misfortune he experienced was nothing compared to the beatific vision he had glimpsed, and which he was resolutely committed to in soul and spirit. Boetius in particular said he was comforted in his prison cell by Lady Philosophy, who visited and consoled him, reminding him of the freedom his intellect and emotions could experience in spite of the pain his body was enduring at the time. For Boetius, God, the beginning and the end, for whom time was nonexistent, was able to preserve his emotions and his thoughts from the painful physical sensations of his body.

Even when the physical sensations we experience are positive instead of negative, the excitement we feel because of them is still not happiness. If someone should ask you why you are happy, please do not be an idiot and begin to say you are happy because of one material thing or the other: your cousin gave you a present; your lover gave you a valentine; you got laid yesterday; you aced an exam - do not say you are happy because of anything material. They do not last! Take me for example; there are many things I am excited about, but I never mistake this material-experience-driven state of excitement for happiness. No senor! I'm not that stupid. For example, I am excited to be a boy. I like having a penis rather than a vagina. I have already said that this is one of the things I love the most about myself. Yet, even though I am very excited to be a boy, and would like to be a boy forever, I know it doesn't make me happy. When I die, I will stop being a boy, but my soul will go on. Also, through gender reassignment surgery, some boys have changed into girls. Crazy, right? You don't even know the last of it. 

Another thing I am excited about is the fact that I'm in the seminary, since I'm a boy. Oh, how I would love to be a priest soon! Ah! Someone asked me sometime ago what I consider my sweetest moment will be, and I quickly said, "My sweetest moment will be my first mass." Oh, the homilies I shall give! You don't even know. And yet, even though I am excited about the prospect of being a charismatic priest, I realize this possibility can be taken away from me. What if something happens and I am sent away from the seminary? What if one day my rector sends for me and says, "Samuel, I know you desperately want to be a priest; I know you already are fantasizing about the awesome masses you will say, but sorry we cannot keep you in the seminary. So sorry, Samuel." It can happen. And so the prospect of being a priest makes me excited, but not happy. Yet another thing I am excited about is that I live in the greatest nation ever in the history of humanity. What I mean is that I live in the greatest country to have ever been made in the billions of years that humans have inhabited planet earth. There has never been, there currently isn't, and there will never be a country like the one in which I live. I wasn't born here, but if I had my way I would live here, work here, die here and be buried here, and my spirit be entrusted to another soul here as well - in short, I would love to live here forever. But what if something happened that made me have to leave? What if I lost my opportunity to be here? So, even though I am exceptionally excited to live here, it doesn't make me happy.

Still another thing I am excited about is belonging to my religious community. So, I'm not just a priest-to-be, I'm also a religious-to-be. As a religious, rather than a secular, priest-to-be, I get all my needs taken care of. I need not worry about anything: food, insurance, transport - anything. It makes life easier and, for someone like me that loves to read and write, it means I have time to devote myself to spiritual and soulful things, rather than physical or material ones. And so I am lucky; I am excited. But again, it is a situation of life that can be taken away from me. What if my superior, my priest-friend-benefactor, suddenly says, "Samuel, we are so sorry, but we cannot keep you anymore. So sorry, Samuel." It can happen. And so, even though I am very excited to be a religious, it doesn't make me happy. One more thing I am excited about is the fact that my biological brothers are doing well. Two of them work in two of the largest financial institutions in Africa, especially my younger one, Chima. I am so proud of this young man - you don't even know! This guy has endured some shit, I tell you. Remember I said I lost my dad when I was five? Chima lost dad when he was zero (0). My dad died some hours before Chima was brought out of our mother's womb. So Chima didn't even get to see our dad. And even though I lost our mom when I was eleven, Chima was only six. And yet, he struggled through high school, college, Service; and now works in a very large bank. Isn't that just the coolest of the cool! And when you meet this young man, this my brother Chima, of whom I am so proud, you won't even know that he has been through some serious stuff. He remains optimistic, faithful and focused on moving forward with his life. Every Sunday, you can find him in church saying his prayers and thanking God for everything the divine has done in his life. And so each time I think of Chima and my other biological brothers, I am grateful and excited because they are doing well. But what if - and God must surely forbid this - they lose their bank jobs? What if they stop doing well? I would then stop being excited, but I could still be happy, with hope and faith and love in my soul. 

So you see. The material conditions of this life are fleeting. They do not last forever. Happiness on the other hand is a condition of the soul (and spirit) such that it cannot be taken away, regardless of our physical, or material, or bodily situations. We may be excited about our material conditions, but they do not make us happy. We may even endure terrible material conditions, but they need not make us sad. It would be very foolish for someone to reply, in response to the question, "What makes you happy?" that the good fortunes experienced in this world are responsible for the so-called happiness the person claims to have. No. True happiness is transcendent of the physical world, and lies in the soul and in the spirit. Synonymous with heaven as it is, happiness as we've previously defined is the situation of courageously doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right in spite of challenging material conditions. This sort of happiness is what we all should strive for, especially since we know that, once we find it, we get to keep it forever. Because no one, however powerful, will take it away from us.

I Dare Say I'm a Pretty Happy Guy Myself

Let it not appear that I seize every opportunity I can to talk about myself. Think of this post rather as a continuation of our discussion on happiness. I dare say I'm a pretty happy guy myself. And I'll tell you why. I'll share with you why it is that I look forward to waking up in the morning everyday, why it is I'm glad to be alive. I hope this post inspires somebody. I hope that someone reading this will appreciate life better because of my example. I hope that the message of hope it contains makes someone realize that they can be happy in spite of the hassles and challenges of life. If my story encourages one soul to embrace epistemology and ethics, then this post would have done its job well. So let us begin. How is it that I'm so happy?

 

Everybody has a background story. Some are better than others. Mine is probably somewhere in the middle, perhaps a bit more to the bad side than the good. I didn't have the ideal childhood, and my teenage years weren't so swell either. I lost my dad too early. He died when I was five. My mom died when I was eleven. I lived with a few relatives here and there, and I tasted a bit of poverty, a bit of destitution, and a bit of frustration. I endured significant emotional hardships and had to work on myself. My early life was not easy by any standard. Any. All this, however, is background material. Spiritual writers have called background stories the "so-what." As in, "So what if you suffered a lot?" "So what if you had a crappy childhood?" "So what if you endured rare emotional hardships?" It's all a bunch of so-whats. The real deal is the "now-what."

 

What are you going to do now? What are you going to do in spite or because of what you've been through? What are you going to learn and do owing to or regardless of your background story? Now-what is the bee's knees. It's where it's at, as they say. When I was younger, I used to focus on the so-what. I used to obsess over what had happened to me. I used to play the victim's role, telling stories of deprivation and sorrow: "Poor me" became a mantra. "Oh, look what happened to me" became a song. "This person did this to me, and that person did that to me; and please don't forget that the other fellow did some other thing to me as well." "Oh, sad, sad me." Who cares! Really, who cares! The people I was blaming for doing this and that to me were moving on with their lives, and I was drowning in self-pity. I once had an aunt that said to me: "Look, the people you keep complaining about - are you sure they haven't already made their peace with God?" I took some time to reflect on that. The people whom I blamed for all the bad stuff that had happened to me could very well have knelt down in prayer to God and asked for mercy, and God might already have forgiven them. They could then go to heaven, while I stewed in the hell of my resentment. I have never forgotten this bit of counseling my aunt gave me all those years ago. It clearly opened my eyes.

 

Today, I can happily say that there is no individual I hate. I have yet to meet a person whom I can truly say I hate. What could they do to me to make me refuse to forgive them? How can I keep grudges against individuals God may already have forgiven? Pointless. And I discover that, in forgiving everyone readily, I easily transition from my so-what days to my now-what ones. Refusing to stew in regret, I take only the lessons and not the pains deriving from my background story and apply them to my now-what living process. I mature, and I change for the better. And life definitely becomes easier. Yet all of this is not what makes me happy; it's only the preamble. So far, I've simply shared the path I've taken to reach where I'm at today, a situation of considerable happiness; a situation where I can look at my life and, in spite of all I've been through and what pain there's still out there in the world, truthfully say, "I am happy." And mean it. It is a path of forgiveness, of transitioning from dwelling on the pains of the past to embracing the lessons and hopes of the present and the future. Remember what Oprah reports is the meaning of forgiveness: "letting go of the hope that the past could be any different."

 

So what makes me happy? How is it I dare say I'm a pretty happy guy? It is because I embrace epistemology and ethics in my everyday life. Practically. I relentlessly seek truth by always keeping a philosophical posture, a contemplative bent. I hunger to know, to discover, to learn, to examine my life and the lives of those around me. I search for lessons, for certain truths, for knowledge. I never tire of the hunger and thirst for understanding God's will. But I don't just seek to know and understand, I also try to practice in my own life what lessons I learn, what truths I discover. What I shared with you yesterday, I actually do it. I didn't just think up a fancy title and then dream up a bunch of paragraphs and put them down in prose for you to read and clap hands for me. I shared with you what I was doing in my own life. It is true that many years of schooling have shaped my intellect, but whenever I post on my blog, I always write from the heart for the heart; for the generality of people who seek not an intellectual formula or a fantastic fix-it recipe, but only an easy-to-read explanation of life as lived by a fellow earthling, a fellow sojourner on this planet.

 

To begin with, what have I learned? What is the epistemological foundation for my current happiness? Throughout my life, I have learned many things, as you must have yourself. You see, the things we learn as we go through life are arranged in a pile. Our purpose acts as pile stacker. The things that will help us live out our destiny as planned by God are stacked in a to-keep pile by our purpose. When conversely our life-path observes a needless lesson, it discards such lesson. All of this is largely unconscious. It becomes partly conscious for us when we try to know what our purpose is, what it is God wants us to do with the gifts the divine has entrusted us with. Because I have an idea of what my purpose is, I'm conscious of some of the purposeful truths I've picked up along the way. These truths are correlated and neatly ordered - you know, like the pile we've described. Some of them are more important than others and so are placed toward the bottom of the truth pile, to prop the others up and serve as foundation for relatively less important truths. Truth begets truth, and the more I learn, the more my truth pile increases, geometrically. I can consciously take stock of a number of the elements in that pile.

 

One of the foundational truths I've learned is Descartes' three-step method of dealing with negative emotions. Believe me when I say I use this formula each day. Each. I've got to repeat it. I mean, I have never lived a day in my life since I learned of the three-step method without applying it. As in, I'm walking down the street and a negative emotion creeps up on me - call it say, insecurity. Rather than stew in it and entertain its baggage, I promptly become conscious of the emotion. I call it by name. I say, "Hey you there, insecurity; what's up?" "Where've you come from?" Having become conscious of the emotion, I let it make the trip from where I felt it, my heart, all the way to my head, where I tear it apart. I think about it through and through: I examine its weight, its import, the behaviors it tempts me with, the possible outcomes of such behaviors, and so on. Then I reason with the emotion. I speak positive words to it, mollify it, rationalize it, intellectualize it, and observe it simply fizzle away. Believe me, Descartes' three-step method is a foundational truth for me. I am ever so grateful I learned it.

 

Another truth I picked up along my life-path is sacrifices. This is also a way by which I deal with negative emotions, especially loss. Equipped with the truth concerning sacrifices, rather than see losses - be they of things or people - as actual losses, I see them as sacrifices, things and people that I have let go from my life because of a greater end-goal. So, instead of mourning - which is what people do when they experience loss - I find myself consoled by the prospect of a greater good, which minimizes the impact of the sacrifice. The concept of sacrifices can save millions of people millions of dollars at therapists' offices around the world. It is a concept I hope to teach to as many people as I can, for their own benefit. It may be that some day I will write a thick book on sacrifices: its philosophy, psychology, theology, and spirituality. I really cannot do the concept justice in a blog post. I cannot even begin to explain how this concept has helped me and saved me from crying many tears. We all need to embrace this powerful idea.

 

One more truth I've absorbed is attraction, which is synonymous with positive thinking. I got this truth from Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, and I've shared it with you in a previous post, and so I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say that the law of attraction, which guides the universe, is able to bring you all the good you think of, especially when you believe in - feel positively about - what you desire, and work toward obtaining it. I apply this principle in my own life as well. There are other spiritual truths I've learned, such as forgiveness, sympathy, charity, humility - especially as manifested in sensitivity, selflessness, simplicity and sanctity - and many more. I'm not sure I can itemize and explain all the truths I've picked up along the journey of my life. Plus, I keep picking more up as I go along. It's like in the nursery song: "picking up the paw-paws, put them in your pocket; way down yonder in a paw-paw patch." My paw-paw patch must be pretty scanty by now, while my pocket is bulging. But by far the biggest truth I've learned, my largest and ripest paw-paw, is the concept of the afterlife, my certainty that this material world is not the end. There is something that lies ahead, and we have to prepare for it - which reminds me: I will have to explain the parable of the dishonest steward (Luke 16:1-15) soon. Oh, when will I come round to doing this!

 

All the truths I've picked up are indeed too large for my intellectual pocket. I fancy I have rather a mental knapsack. You recall the song, "I love to go a-wandering along the mountain track, and as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back!" It is a happy song indeed. But one cool thing to note is that carrying this knapsack of knowledge is not a chore, because the bag is not heavy. The knapsack of truth is actually so light that it is practically weightless. It is the knapsack of despair, of evil, of want, of pain - of every bad thing - that is heavy. No, the bag of knowledge on my back is light. Jesus says of this load, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt 11:30). Let me tell you a story to further explain what I mean. You see, a master and his servants once went on a journey and there were several bags to carry. Each of the servants had to carry a bag. The youngest carried the largest bag of all. When the master saw this he said, "You are the youngest and smallest - why do you carry the largest bag?" The young servant said, "Please don't worry. I know what I'm doing." The master said nothing more, and he with his servants began the journey. As they went along, they came to a resting spot and they all put their loads down awhile. In the largest bag, the one the youngest servant carried, was the food for the journey, and they all took of it and ate. The load was consequently lighter, and it got lighter and lighter each time they all stopped to rest and eat, so that by the end of their journey the youngest servant was carrying nothing at all, whereas all the other servants still bore the weight of intact bags.

 

The knapsack of knowledge is like that. It is so light that is feels empty, and it feels empty because we don't just acquire knowledge to store. We acquire knowledge only so that we can apply it in our daily lives. We take of the truth in our bag and eat. We are like Ezekiel, whom God commanded to eat knowledge (Ezek 3:1). Also, God promised to write the truth of the Law in the hearts of the people, rather than on stone tablets (Jer 31:33). Another image, which Catholics will understand, is that of the Eucharist, which is Truth in the form of food that we eat at mass, food that becomes for us a via-ti-cum, which in Latin means accompaniment for the road. And so, the lessons I acquire on my life's journey, I don't just acquire for knowledge sake, but I always apply them. I act on them. I live them out. And because I live them out, I act ethically. I act justly; I love tenderly, and I walk humbly with my God (Micah 6:8). And I become a model and an inspiration to others.

 

So, in spite of the so-what of my life, I am observing a now-what formula based on forgiveness and transcendence that is propelling me to embrace a rigorous epistemology. I seek after truth everyday by maintaining a contemplative posture. With this truth, I am inspired to act virtuously, in other words to embrace ethics. Practical epistemology plus practical ethics result in happiness, as visible in my case. Obviously, I don't know everything about everything; I don't even know everything about anything. I don't even claim that what I have in my knowledge sack is sufficient. But I'm learning each and everyday. I'm still walking along that paw-paw patch and picking up the fruits; I'm still going a-wandering along the mountain track, bearing my knapsack on my back. But the knapsack is so light that it feels empty, and it feels empty because I don't just acquire knowledge for knowledge sake, but I actually put into practice every truth I learn.

The Secret to Happiness

People have always needed some sort of "problem-free philosophy," something to guide them in their daily tasks and keep them feeling good; some version of Lion King's Hakuna Matata, which means "No Worries." As far back as Ancient Greece, people relied on signs in order to discern the will of the gods. It was important to know such will if one was not to disregard it and suffer the comeuppances. Ancient Greeks were scrupulous in this regard, and promptly offered sacrifices to show remorse whenever they were guilty of transgressions. Ancient Romans were the same way, as were most other ancient cultures. In Medieval Europe, the focus gradually became monotheism. Judaism first gave to the world the concept of one God, without origin and without demise. This God created everything, and supervised universal affairs with a circumspect eye. Disobeying such a divinity's will was tantamount to enduring despair. God was omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything. Anselm, Aquinas, Augustine, Bonaventure, Scotus and scholars like them of the medieval era made sure we never forgot the immensity of God.

In the modern era, the focus shifted from religion to any of two broad schools of thought: rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists such as Descartes believed that reason was the way by which humans could know the purpose for their lives and live by it. Through rigorous thought, people could come to understand the meaning of life. Cogito ergo sum was Descartes' mantra, and it means: "I think, therefore I am." Radical rationalists have stretched Descartes' stance as far as to imply that all humans can be summarily reduced to the thinking or intellectual aspect of themselves. This dualism aims at separating the spirit from the body; affirming the former, and denying the latter. Empiricists on the other hand deny whatever information that is not sourced from the physical senses. Empiricists such as Hume and Locke are of the view that all we can know are sense-perceived data. For them, when we see or feel or taste or hear or smell anything, we know that thing as best we can. The rational processes that aim at intellectualizing images derived from sense perception are, in the view of empiricists, not to be trusted at all. For example, I flip a switch and the light comes on. A rationalist would easily say that flipping the switch caused the light to come on. An empiricist on the other hand would say that there seemed to be a correlation existing between the flipping of the switch and the light coming on. But owing to the impossibility of physically sensing the concept of causation, such an empiricist could not say for sure that any causation existed between the two seemingly correlated events of switch-flipping and light coming on.

In Post-modernism, there seems to be a return to aspects of the ancient era, in addition to critical approaches to epistemology. Henry Newman for example presents us with a Grammar of Assent, a true discourse on epistemology. In it, he talks about inference and assent. The former is based on rational argumentation, whereas the latter is based on devotion. The bridge between inference and assent is the illative sense, which in the best of humans justifies certitude and ratifies true knowledge. When we have certainty and assent to it, we are wise. A parallel in this regard is the alignment of the acquired intellect with the agent one. Aristotle, Averroes and Avicenna are agreed in this regard. The beatific vision of certitude is the unmistakable state of intellectual or spiritual perfection, a situation of meta-cognition; a situation wherein an individual can exclaim: "I know that I know." This is secondary, reflexive assent. Herein lies the background to our further discourse on the nature of happiness and the secret to its attainment.

Happiness, which ordinarily means the circumstance of feeling good all the time, is the situation of courageous persistence in doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right regardless of the challenges that may arise along the way. We started out our discussion today by saying that humans of all eras have sought to live by some guiding principle, a philosophy that would give life some meaning so that it doesn't feel like a meaningless rollercoaster ride to nowhere. They searched for this guiding principle in a reality outside themselves; a reality that caused natural disasters; poor and rich harvests; sicknesses and deaths - a reality that was obviously too powerful to be crossed. In fearfully wanting to please this reality, people of the ancient era groped for signs to reveal the divine will hoping that, in knowing what that will was, they could live by it and so escape pain and disaster for themselves and their loved ones. Over time, sign-searching gave way to organized religions based on the concept of a monotheistic God, but the end-goal was the same: seeking to know the divine will so as to live by it and escape doom. After religion came schools of philosophy and methods of understanding - and still the aim was the same: finding a "problem-free philosophy" by which to live, in order to escape pain and destruction; in order to be happy.

Against the backdrop of the following, we have therefore defined happiness as the situation of courageous persistence in doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right regardless of the challenges that may arise along the way. Remember when Archimedes was given a difficult problem by his king to solve? Archimedes thought deeply about the riddle, but could seemingly find no answer. He thought for a very long time about the issue, until one day he went to the public baths and, as he lay in one, the truth finally came to him; his acquired intellect, born from the activity of his potential mind, became aligned in that instant with the agent intellect, and he knew that he knew. He knew he had found the answer, and so he ran briskly home, shouting at the top of his voice, "Eureka! Eureka!" "I've got it! I've got it!" The beatific vision Archimedes experienced, which sourced from his eventual knowledge of the problem he had been dealing with for so long, caused him to be happy. To finally know that he knew, and to subsequently act on his knowledge in the surety of that vision; to popularize the knowledge and give it as heirloom to posterity - this was the crux of his enduring happiness. "You shall know that truth, and it shall set you free" (Jn 8:32).

Knowledge, which is of the truth, makes us free from pain and suffering; from want and despair; from sickness and deprivation; from poverty and destitution; from loneliness and need; from ostracism and disgrace; from dejection and depression - from every bad thing. Our knowledge of the truth, our certitude, will lead us to pleasure and liberty. When we are free from pain, we begin to experience only pleasure. It's not rocket science: Imagine for a moment that you had a headache or any illness whatsoever, and then imagine that you knew what exact medicine or potion or spiritual formula to apply to make the ailment go away, and then imagine that you actually applied what you knew and the pain did go away - would you not feel pleasure? Would you not be happy? And the happiness would have come because you knew for sure what to do, and you went ahead and did it, regardless of how hard it might have been for you to do it. I  mean, you might have had to walk miles to fetch the medicine or the potion; you might have had to study or to learn about mixing potions - there might have been a thousand and one things for you to do in order to solve your problem, but after solving it you hardly recalled the struggles at all.

Or think of a pregnant woman. When she is carrying the child within her, it is heavy and painful. When she is birthing the baby, it is even more painful. She has to push and claw and scream and cry through it all - hours of unimaginable pain and suffering. But when she eventually holds the baby in her arms, the feeling of happiness she experiences makes all the pain go away. Happiness is like that. In seeking out knowledge, and in applying the knowledge sought out, challenges abound. But when we apply the knowledge successfully and solve our problem, we experience happiness - all the hardship is summarily forgotten. Hence we see that happiness is the application of discovered knowledge; a true species of wisdom; the experience of heaven on earth. Jesus says in this regard that happiness is "like a treasure hidden in a field, which a person finds and hides again; and from joy over it goes and sells all that they have and buys that field" (Matt 13:44). Again, Jesus declares that happiness is "like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, goes and sells all that they have and buys it" (Ibid.v45-46). Happiness is the perpetual feeling of pleasure. It is heaven on earth.

A happy person is never depressed; a happy person is never short-tempered. A happy person is hardly ever sick, especially as we now know that most illnesses are psychosomatic. A happy person is a blessing to be around. When we're with a happy person, life feels good, because the joy radiating from the person is infectious. Happiness is infectious - it lights up and energizes the atmosphere. It excites the people we come across in the course of our day. Happiness for Aristotle (in his Nicomachean Ethics book) is the teleological end of all humanity. A happy person responds to situations differently than an unhappy person does. A happy person is optimistic, always seeing the glass as half full, while the unhappy person sees it as half empty. A happy person is trusting and trustworthy. A happy person always smiles from the heart and is like a child. Jesus says in this regard: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never become happy" (Matt 18:3). A child acts with confidence, as if it was sure (has certitude) about everything. A child is not overburdened with worry; does not stay upset when accosted with unexpected misfortune; does not sweat the small stuff; does not fret over mundane matters. A child does not worry about the future, where the next meal will come from; a child is not paranoid or schizophrenic or beset with mental maladies. A happy person, like a child, is weaned and at peace, and unconcerned about grand matters (Psalm 131); a happy person rests snugly in the divine embrace.

So far, we've been describing what happiness is. Now, let us explore how to attain it. There are two aspects to happiness, as we've seen. The first is searching out and finding certain knowledge. The second is going ahead to apply what knowledge we've found in our daily lives. Both tasks can be challenging. To begin with, we have to search for truth, for certitude, for knowledge. We have to know the will of God. We have to engage in epistemology. Like people of all eras, we have to seek out the truth wherever it is hidden. Steve Jobs used to say: "Remain hungry for the truth." We should always be hungry. This use of the word "hungry" for the search for truth makes me recall what Caesar said concerning Cassius: "Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks very much." Apparently, Cassius was hungry for knowledge, and perhaps that was why he thought very much. We should, like hungry people, seek after knowledge. The psalmist exclaims in Psalm 42:1: "Like the deer that thirsts for running streams, so my soul is thirsting for you my God"; and who else is truth but God himself? Jesus, true God, said of himself, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6). So, seeking truth also means seeking God; seeking that treasure Jesus spoke of, which the fellow that found it went off and sold everything else they had just to buy it. This truth we find is the will of God. It is a holistic truth. It is a compendium of aha moments. It becomes for us a "problem-free philosophy," an object of assent; an alignment of our intellect with the agent one; a beatific vision of truth; an illative-sense-sanctioned meta-cognition; a reflexive assent; a certainty.

Finding truth is challenging. Lies abound. But we all have reason and conscience, and so we can find truth. We have to perennially adopt a posture of contemplation. Whenever we wake up in the morning, we should say to ourselves: "I am going to continue my search for truth today." As long as we are always searching, we will find. Jesus says that "everyone who searches finds" (Matt 7:8a2). The search for truth is a lifelong process. No one can say, "I know everything about everything." We may know everything about something, or something about everything, but no human being can know everything about everything. Only God can know that. But we can know a bunch, and if we hold on to God, we can benefit from the divine knowledge too. Whatever the case, our task is not to know everything about everything, but only to make sure that we remain searching. In the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30), the master condemned the servant for not at least putting his talent in the bank, even if he refused to invest it. We must keep searching for truth; maintain a hungry, philosophic posture; we must always be alert to truth.

A story was once told of a dog that saw a rabbit. It began to chase after the rabbit. Other dogs saw it chasing something. They did not know what, but they joined in. The dogs chased and chased. After a while, the dogs who did not see the rabbit to begin with started to drop by the wayside. Eventually, only the dog that had seen the rabbit continued on the chase. In the same way, when we've glimpsed of the truth, we have to apply it. In the example of Matt 13:45-46, after the person discovered the treasure, they went off, sold everything else and bought it. Similarly, the truth we have found is precious. We have to go to all lengths to apply it in our lives. We cannot stop at finding truth; we must use it. We cannot fall by the wayside as if we never tasted of the sweet nectar of truth. No senor! We have to keep at it. The bible says, "So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left of it" (Deut 5:32). In other words, once we know the truth, especially if revealed to us by God, we must pursue it to the end. We must live by it, "deviating neither to the left not to the right of it." Again, Jesus says: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will become happy, but only the one who does the will of God who is in heaven" (Matt 7:21).

Acting on, living by, pursuing the truth we've glimpsed through search and intellectual disposition is the second leg of the struggle for happiness. It is ethics after epistemology. It is putting into practice what we've learned. It consists in good deeds. Truth can never inspire us to live immorally. Indeed, our actions are a test of what sort of truth we claim to have glimpsed. If we are inspired to behave badly or wantonly or selfishly, then it cannot have been truth that we glimpsed. If we are found cheating and lying and stealing and doing bad things - how can we claim to have truth; how can we claim to have tasted of the beatific vision? If, on the other hand, we are found doing good all the time; acting justly; loving tenderly, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8), then we have glimpsed the truth. Aquinas in his lifetime was favored with a vision of the truth in a trance he had, and after the trance, he refused to write any more philosophy. He simply began to live the life of a saint. At his last confession, the priest on leaving the confessional said, "Ah, the sins of a five-year-old!" This is what the beatific vision does; it makes us live till ripe-old age with the nonexistent sins of a five-year-old.

So there you have it. True happiness is courageous persistence in doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right regardless of the challenges that may arise along the way. It consists in thirsting after truth (epistemology), and applying the fruits of such thirst (ethics). It is the situation wherein we align our acquired intellect with the agent one, and subsequently act in accordance with the beatific vision derivable therefrom, adopting such vision as a "problem-free philosophy," an object of real assent; a certainty. It is synonymous with heaven. People of all ages around the world have sought happiness, what Aristotle avers is the teleological end of humanity. The greatest saints and leaders of all ages have lived according to the secret of happiness which I reveal to you today. Nelson Mandela for example, great leader that he is, exudes lasting happiness. He was courageous enough to act on his vision of equality, in spite of the hardships he faced, including 27 years in prison. Today, he continues to live the vision of freedom he glimpsed many years ago as a young man. We all, like him, are called to thirst for a glimpse of the beatific vision, and when we have found such treasure, we are exhorted to live by it, deviating neither to the left nor to the right of it. Always.

The Three Types of Love

Virtue is its own reward, as moral philosophers tell us. The mere fact that we do good is recompense in itself because it confirms the presence of reason in us, and makes us feel more human. People of conscience appreciate this reality and rejoice in it. They deserve to experience the happiness that true virtue informs. And love is true virtue. It's not just a "secondhand emotion," as Tina Turner says in her hit song, What's Love Got to do With it? Rather, it is a good we are commanded to do by God. The bible instructs, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself" (Lk 10:27). Viewed this way, we don't even have to feel like loving; it doesn't have to be convenient; we don't even have to like the object of our love - we just need to go ahead and love.

True love is at its best when we feel like not loving, find it hard to love, endure pain and sacrifice in loving, but go ahead and love anyway because of God. True love is selfless and longsuffering. It seeks to serve and to give. It is the greatest Christian duty. It is a human attribute founded in reason, and it is through love that we best resemble God. In a previous post, we talked about love in the example of the Good Samaritan. In today's post, we shall look at the three kinds of love there are: agape (or worship), philia (or charity) and eros (or romance), all contained in the past two Sundays' First Readings and their continuation, as found in Genesis, chapters 18 and 19. We should start out by saying that these three forms of love are good in themselves. We can match them up with Plato's three aspects of the self: spirit, soul and body. Agape matches up with the intellectual or spiritual aspect; philia matches up with the animated or soulful aspect, and eros belongs with the appetitive or bodily aspect.

But before we proceed with today's material, let's briefly recall what we said about love when we treated the Good Samaritan story in a previous post. We said that love is the starting point for faith, and that it consists in optimal interpersonal perception, ihunaya in Ibo, which literally means "to see someone." We said true love is the situation of seeing a person for who they are, a brother or sister in Christ. This optimal interpersonal perception consequently moves us to act charitably toward them. It makes us respond to everyone we meet in ways that are congruent with the characteristics of true love as found in 1 Cor 13. Seeing people optimally makes us love them truly. Now that we've recalled the central idea in the previous post on love, let us proceed with today's charity message. Using as background material the 18th and 19th chapters of the book of Genesis, we shall explain the three basic forms of love there are: worship, charity and romance, all of which we have said are good in themselves when properly used and appreciated as the virtues they were made to be by God.

To begin with, we encounter Abraham in Genesis 18 accosted by three men. These three men were actually angels in human form. The bible says that "Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground" (Genesis 18:2). In other words, Abraham did not just see the men; images of the men did not simply fix themselves on Abraham's retina, but Abraham consciously, optimally, saw these men, and recognized them to be children of God to whom he owed a measure of charity, and so he first "bowed low to the ground" before them. In other words, he worshiped before them. Abraham's starting act of love to the three men that accosted him was worship (agape). He showed love by initially recognizing the presence of God dwelling inside the bodies of the three men. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor 6:19a). Again, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High" (Psalm 82:6).

Another way of explaining Abraham's behavior is by saying that he performed a profound Namaste to the three men. Namaste is a Hindu traditional greeting that means "I bow to the presence of the divinity inside of you." In Indian cultures, when you visit with a neighbor, you reverently clasp both your hands together and bow your head, and say, "Namaste." It is the customary form of greeting developed over the years, owing to the insight of the Hindi people that were able to recognize the presence of God in others. In our own day, people have borrowed this ancient culture and use it among themselves as a cool way of saluting one another. A celebrity famous for her culture of Namaste is my sweet and dearly beloved Oprah. I recall once when she welcomed the great spiritual writer Iyanla Vanzant on stage at a Lifeclass event in St Louis and, as Vanzant drew closer to Oprah, the billionaire talk sensation clasped her hands together and bowed reverently to Iyanla, recognizing the presence of the divinity in Vanzant, who reciprocated the gesture. Isn't Oprah simply the coolest! I love this woman, I tell you. Anyway, we're still talking of Abraham.

Once Abraham had worshiped before the three men (agape), he proceeded to show them charity (philia). He pleaded with them not to pass on by, but to stop awhile so he could entertain them. He had water brought for the washing of their feet, and he instructed his wife Sarah to make bread; his servants to prepare meat, and he himself brought curds and milk and stood beside the men as they ate. He selflessly served the men. Similarly, true love moves us to compassionate and selfless service. Remember that when we were treating the story of the Good Samaritan we showed how the Samaritan - in spite of the fact that his people were not on speaking terms with Jews - saw the wounded Jew on the roadside, disembarked from his mule, and took the poor fellow to an inn for treatment. Emulating this charitable Samaritan, we all are encouraged in our own lives to selflessly serve one another. Galatians 5:13 commands us to "serve one another selflessly in love."

Serving one another selflessly in love means that we serve without seeking anything in return. In the Abraham story we are dealing with, Abraham was not expecting any recompense from the three men for his service to them. This is why when they proceeded to prophesy the birth of a son to him from Sarah his hitherto barren wife, neither he nor Sarah actually believed the three men. Their attitude toward the men was like, "Yeah right, a child indeed. Please, just eat your bread, meat, curds and milk in peace and stop this nonsense about a child." In the same way, we should not do things for other people only because we secretly want them to do something for us in return. Jesus said in this regard: "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Lk 14:12-14). Besides, if we do good expecting good to be done us in return and our expectations are not met, we may feel angry and vindictive.

Abraham also showed selfless charity when he prayed for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is charitable to pray for others, rather than for ourselves alone. This sort of prayer is intercessory. When the three men said that God had sent them to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham boldly interceded for the people there, even if he did not know them. He repeatedly bargained with God and struck a deal with the divine such that if ten righteous individuals were found in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities would be spared because of the ten. In the same way, we should always pray for the sick, the suffering, and indeed everyone in the world. We should not pray to God like to some Santa Claus, with a catalog of needs: "Dear God, I want this, and this, and that, and that also - oh, and by the way, I want that, and that other thing and - you remember last summer when I asked you for that other thing; you know, that thing? Yes, I want that." True charity instead prays for the needs of others and the world. True charity seeks the other's good.

When the three men had finished their meal of bread, meat, curds and milk, they stood up to leave. Abraham bid them goodbye, and they continued on their way to Sodom and Gomorrah. When they arrived, they went to the house of Lot, pretty much the only righteous man living in Sodom and Gomorrah at the time. The bible says that as soon as Lot saw the three men he, like Abraham, "bowed down with his face to the ground" (Genesis 19:1b). He also said, "Please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." Lot also baked them some bread from yeast (v3b). In other words, Lot wholeheartedly welcomed the three men to his home. His hospitality toward them knew no bounds. He, like Abraham, wanted to provide for and protect the three men, and make them feel completely welcome. He, like Abraham, showed agape and philia to the three visiting men.

However, Lot's neighbors had different plans. "Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, 'Where are the gorgeous men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them'" (v4-5). Here was Lot, a newcomer to the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He was a good guy, who wanted no trouble. Three men had come to his house. He had taken them under his wing; had fed them, and was providing them shelter for the night. Courtesy demanded he protect them while they stayed with him, but his neighbors seemingly would have none of it. He was distressed indeed. "Lot went outside to meet his neighbors and shut the door behind him and said, 'No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof'" (v6-8).

"'Get out of our way,' the neighbors replied. 'This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.' The neighbors kept pressuring Lot and moved forward to break down the door of his house" (v9). At this point, the three men inside the house became infuriated. They reached out and pulled Lot back into the house, and then went outside to confront the mob. They struck all the men outside blind. Now, let us reflect on this awhile. We have already said that true love is optimal perception, properly seeing everyone as a sibling and child of God. Lot's neighbors however refused to see the three handsome men as children of God. Unlike Abraham and Lot, they failed to see the presence of God inside of the three men. All they saw were the gorgeous bodies of the men, and they lusted after these. And so the attitude of the three men was, "Well, since you refuse to see properly, you really don't need eyes." This is why the three men struck the lustful neighbors blind. Similarly, we have eyes. We're supposed to "use them or lose them."

The love that Lot's neighbors had for the three beautiful men was eros, or sexual love. They observed the three men come to visit Lot, and they said to themselves, "Woo-hoo, here come three sexy men!" They then waited till dusk, and surprised Lot and his guests. This was improper. Forget the fact that Lot even offered to give them his virgin daughters in his bid to protect the three men, but the neighbors actually intended to rape the three men, to force their will on the innocent visitors! The bible says they pressured Lot and stormed the door. They were insistent. Their attitude was like, "Look Lot, give us those three men so that we can love them (romantically) whether you or they like it or not. We won't take no for an answer. Bring them out to us right now, or else we will break your door and fetch them out by ourselves." Dreadful, simply dreadful! And when matters got to a head, the three men, who really weren't men at all but angels - but of course the lewd neighbors didn't know that - had no choice but to strike the aggressive neighbors stark blind.

And once they had done this, the three men hastened Lot and his family out of the cities, cautioning them not to look back. It was time to completely destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Enough was more than enough already. Lot and his family had to be quick. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them toward the hills on the outskirts of the cities. They had no time to take all their stuff with them, and the three men, or angels, did not let them take anything. Their lives were more important  than their possessions. All human life is worth more than material possessions. And we all are called to love people more than physical things, because people have souls. But Lot's wife was concerned with physical stuff. She loved physical and material things more than soulful and spiritual things. She was concerned with the appetitive aspect, rather than the soulful and spiritual aspects of herself, and so she looked back with regret at the stuff she was leaving behind. She wanted to see, to perceive, to grieve over, to love her physical and material possessions, and she too was consequently struck blind. Her eyes ossified and became like stone - but not just her eyes, all of her body became a pillar of solid salt. Incredible! She was punished, like were Lot's lustful neighbors, for focusing solely on physical, material or bodily love; love for individual bodies or for material possessions; appetitive love, eros. Conversely, Lot and Abraham were gratified in the worship (agape) and charity (philia) they displayed to the angels that came visiting in human form.

In all, we have today considered the three kinds of love, and they are: worship (agape), charity (philia), and romance (eros). Worship is the highest of the three; charity is next in value, and the lowest of the three is romance. We find the three at play in the passage, Genesis 18-19. True love, or optimal seeing, is observable in the profoundly worshipful obeisance Abraham and Lot paid to the three angels that visited them in the form of men, and in the charitable hospitality they showed to these visiting men. Conversely, Lot's lustful neighbors and his own wife were respectively punished for preferring in the first instance the bodies of the visiting men to their souls and spirits, and in the second instance material possessions to her own life. Lot's neighbors and his wife showed appetitive or sexual love in the wrong manner and at the wrong time, and were punished for it. Indeed, Jesus says, "What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?" (Matt 16:26). Like the rich fool (Lk 12:13-21), what life are we to use in enjoying the whole world we've gained when we lose our soul? Let us therefore be wise. Of the three types of love there are - agape, philia, and eros - let us rank them in that order, in terms of their value.