Mes Pensees Courantes

First part: Misery of man without God.
Second part: Happiness of man with God….

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect.
Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.
Worthy of reverence because it really understand human nature.
Attractive because it promises true good.
(Pascal’s Pensees)

We invariably get the first parts right. We know that man is miserable without God and we believe that our religion is respectable. But how often do we miss out on the second parts? All too often, we do not seem to really believe that man is happy with God. We think he is just “better off” or “will be happy in the end.” In the here and now, he is just slogging through life, obeying the law, going through the motions. He believes that God is powerful and worthy of reverence, but, in his heart of hearts, he doubts His love and goodness. With this as all we have to offer, is it any surprise that people don’t find religion attractive? We are not offering them “true good.” We are offering them something we call good, but at which we grimace and groan. Great witness, that.

Yet how often have I been that man who doubts the goodness of God? It is, I would say, the number one cause for sin in my life. Too often I buy the lie that God does not really want my good – not the way I do – so I’ll do it my way. I’ve been cursed (and blessed) with a heaping dose of what Mansfield would call “recalcitrance” or “naysaying” :
“[A law] cannot be exact because it is addressed to human beings, who are recalcitrant to reason. And their recalcitrance, though by no means simply deplorable, takes the form of a stubborn insistence that no matter how reasonable the law or how wise the lawgiver, I want to be able to say ‘no.’ … Naysaying stems from the brute fact that every human being has a separate body that constitutes his unshareable self-interest. Someone can be wiser than you, but since he cannot care for your body to the extent you can, and also must look out for his own, the suspicion always arises that his wisdom is not applicable to your good, and hence you insistence on a right to veto him.”
So, heading off on my own path, trusting more firmly in my love for myself than God’s, I reserve the right to veto Him. There are, I think, few things in the world more idiotic.

Yet there is one great destroyer of recalcitrance: love. Not love on the part of the recalcitrant – good luck finding that (as Machiavelli noted). This love is that of the Lawmaker for the recalcitrant. Why? “By the fact that anyone loves another, he wills good to that other. Thus he puts the other [Derrida, anyone? ;)], as it were, in the place of himself, and regards the good done to him as done to himself. So far love is a binding force, since it joins another to ourselves, and refers his good to our own. And in this way too the divine love is a binding force, in as much as God wills good to others.” (Aquinas)

This is good enough a definition for two human beings, but God goes a step farther. God and I are not just two people, united by a common good. For I’ve been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That is to say, I am my Beloved’s and He is mine. His mind, spirit, and life are mine. I am a member of his Body. We are inseparably one. Here my recalcitrance is trumped. Here my “fears are stilled and strivings cease.” This is happiness. God help me to live it.