LOVE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL

Search Results

God's Greatest Gift is the Freedom of the Will ~ Dante Alighieri

The greatest gift of the bountiful grace of God;

Written into our creation and freely given,

Is a gift characteristic of His goodness,

A precious prize, the freedom of the will.[i]

God’s greatest gift is indeed the freedom of the will; that gift alone makes love possible, for there is no love without the freedom to choose love, or to deny it. That freedom and the possibility of love finds its essential meaning in His love for us and in our glad response to Him. 

It is a wonderful gift to have the freedom to love and be loved. That freedom also implies that we are also able to say “No!” to love, and centre our love on ourselves alone, or even on the very act of loving instead of on the source of love who is God himself.

While some people do consciously say, “No!” to love, the majority of those who fail to connect with the God of Love do so for other, more subtle, reasons. People frequently feel that they are fundamentally unlovable, and in that fear assume that they will be rejected. Jesus speaks for the Father, as well as for Himself, when he says, “He who comes to me I will never cast out.”[ii]

Others, rightly assessing that Love has its costs, delay in making a decision.  In our too affluent society that is the heart of the claim of so many who give voice to their sense of entitlement. That’s not a new theme, but a very old one featured in a Shirley Temple Song that Disney picked up in The Grasshopper and the Ant,

Oh the world owes me a living…

If I worked hard all day

I might sleep better when in bed at night,

I sleep all day so that's alright.[iii] 

The world and God, it seems, owes them not only a living, but the slightest desires of their hearts. It doesn’t take much living to discover that while God provides for the needs of His children, he doesn’t always provide all their wants.

That freedom of the will also makes possible our free choice to love each other. Love is a decision and an action. That decision bears with it the risk of rejection, but love once discovered is worth the risks and losses that we experience as we venture ourselves in love. This is as true in the forming of healthy relationships in the Church as it is in romance. Love cannot be lazy.[iv] Love is an active verb rather than a passive emotion. Love by its very nature must actively reach out.  Love is always worth the costs.

---

[i] Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, “Paradisio”, Canto V 19-30, RPS

[ii] John 6:37b

[iii] Shirley Temple’s version

[iv] Jan Van Ruysbroeck, The Sparkling Stone

Creeping Christians

 

What is it that makes us such creeping Christians?  Where is the courage to step out boldly in complete surrender?  In reflecting on his struggle to surrender to the grace of God, Augustine says, “But I was pitiable then, . . . at youth’s outset, when I used to pray for chastity, saying, “Give me chastity and self-control, but not just yet.”  I was afraid you would hear me too soon, heal me too soon, from my sick urges which I wanted intensified rather than terminated.”[i]

It is easy to be mildly amused at Augustine’s youthful prayer, but see what lies behind it.  As he approaches the moment of surrender he says, “But where I was going no ship or carriage or walking could take me, though where I was going was not even as far as I had come from the house.  Not only going but arriving there was simply a matter of willing it—but willing it with a strong and unified will, not a partial and wounded will, one jerking and lunging, part sinking.”[ii]  The problem that he was facing was half-hearted surrender, and until he made a whole-hearted of surrender of his  will there was no stepping forward.  Yet the surrender of the will is in itself is an impossibility apart from grace.

What holds us back from stepping out in faith if not the very things to which we have long been accustomed? He says, “The triflingest of things, the very hollowest things of the hollow-headed, had stalled me . . . they no longer flaunted themselves before me on my way, but were tittering behind me, as if furtively picking at me while I pulled away from them, trying to make me look back.  And held back in some measure I was, not willing to break off, to reject them finally, to cast myself forward to what was calling me.”[iii]

We are sown among thorns.  In our culture the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.  The inimitable Archie Bunker, as he so often does, nails American culture, “There’s about three great moments in a man’s life: when he buys a house, a car, and a new color TV.  That’s what America is all about.”  Do we really believe that people are more important than things, or even that God himself is more important than these trifling things, these hollow things?  It is often a matter of the re-adjustment of priorities.  Augustine confesses to God, “For no one loves you well who loves anything else except because of you.  You, my love, who burn forever without consuming, set me on fire, for the charity of God.  You impose self-discipline, require anything, granting what you require.”[iv] You know that saying in a more popular form, “Give what You command, command what You will.”

This surrender of the will is not a surrender once for all time.  There are always fresh surrenders.  The Dominican preacher Henry Suso tells us “no matter how much one abandons oneself, one repeatedly finds more of oneself to abandon.”[v] It is only those who have discovered by vivid experience that they cannot surrender by the force of their own unaided will who are in the place to receive that grace to make their surrenders complete.

Each of today’s surrenders is built upon all of our past surrenders.  While it is true that if our past surrenders have only been half-hearted, we may have much work to do; on the other hand the probability is that each of us has made significant surrenders in the past, and surrender is not new to us.  Often these surrenders have come in such fashion that our essential helplessness, apart from grace, has become abundantly clear.  Those moments may not have been comfortable, but they are no bad thing.  They are in fact a gift.  Augustine, in exploring the relationship between grace and free will, tells us, “We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or co-working when we will.[vi]  There are two sides to this.  It is only the discovery of our need that releases His grace in our lives, but at the very moment of that discovery grace is offered; and not only so, but His  grace co-works with our will when we will do the thing that needs to be done.

Not all surrenders are earth shaking surrenders, but rather the small surrenders in everyday living, in the care for others, and even in the necessary care for ourselves in matters of diet and exercise; not just chocolate bars and jogging, but our spiritual and intellectual diets and our willingness to think through the sometimes difficult and challenging things that are necessary to spiritual growth. 

There are three kinds of grace, initiatory grace, infused grace, and acquired grace.  Initiatory grace is that first sweet touch of grace that comes unbidden to many at the beginning of their walk with Christ.  Infused grace is the grace that often comes as a gift not consciously sought, perhaps even unexpected, in prayer and worship.  Acquired grace, while purely gratuitous, is that grace that comes in answer to the exercise of our will in spiritual discipline.  An old hymn testifies to this gift of acquired grace, “I sought the Lord and afterword I knew, that it was He who sought me seeking Him.”[vii]

One of the difficulties that is often faced is that we are tempted to rely on highly charged spiritual experiences to keep us in the Presence of God. For some that may be our initial experience of God’s grace and love, for others a Retreat or a Conference with a gifted teacher, or a sparkling very conscious moment of worship, or for others even a period of significant challenge in life. 

Diadochus of Photiki tells us of this initiatory and acquired grace saying, “If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at the outset gives the soul a full conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of spiritual life consists.  But later he often conceals this precious and life-creating gift.  He does this so that, even if we acquire other virtues, we should still regard ourselves as nothing because we have not acquired divine love in a lasting form . . . It is therefore necessary to work upon the soul forcefully for a while, so that we may come to taste divine love fully and consciously . . . Those who have advanced to perfection are able to taste this love continually, but no one can experience it completely until ‘what is mortal in us is swallowed up by life.’ (2 Cor. 2:4)’”[viii]

Many of the Collects  confess at once our responsibility to will to do the things that God calls us to do, and at the same time our continual need of His grace in both the willing and the doing.

A Collect for Grace:

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.[ix]

---

[i] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Garry Wills, (New York: Penguin, 2006), Book 8, IV, 17

[ii] Ibid. Book 8, V, 19

[iii] Ibid. Book 8, V, 26

[iv] Ibid. Book 10, IV, 40

[v] Henry Suso, The Exemplar, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), p. 372

[vi] Augustine, On Grace and Free Will  Kindle Highlight Loc. 527-28 

[vii] I may have paraphrased the hymn, but you get the idea.

[viii] A Reflection on St. Diadochus of Photiki- Philokalia, Vol. 1, pg. 289

[ix] The Book of Common Prayer, p. 234

  

Copyright 2016 © Robin P. Smith

THE CHALLENGE OF THE INCARNATION

Just what is it that has happened? The God of Gods, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, as made flesh, made one of us in completeness. Fully God, fully and completely man. There is something about the Incarnation that runs cross grain to man’s desire to be as God. We didn’t bargain on God becoming one of us. That is not what humankind wanted. What we wanted, what we still want, is to be our own Lord, to be in control, to be the boss of us, and of course when we can to be the boss of others.

That was the temptation of Eve and Adam:

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate [Genesis 3:5-6].

The temptation to be as God is immediately followed by the desire to satisfy the appetites, “For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions- is not from the Father but is from the world” [1 John 2:16].

When God became the man Christ Jesus it posed a strong challenge to those who were in control, to the religious leaders and the political leaders. It was the common people, the people who were not in control, that opened their hearts to him.

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners [Matthew 9:11-13].  

The solution of those in power was to kill the God-Man. His existence was intolerable. They killed Him, but they couldn’t keep Him down. He rose physically from the dead and over a period of forty days showed himself to his disciples with many proofs, then ascended bodily into heaven. That is indeed the witness of St. Peter,

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses [Acts 3:13-15].

The One who is killed is Himself the Author of Life of whom John speaks in the beginning of his Gospel. It is God Incarnate who is put to death.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men [John 1:1-4].

The Incarnate Christ still poses the same challenge to those in power today; to some of those within organized religion who still want to be lord, and to those within the political structures who thirst for more power. That challenge was heard by the high priest and the council in Peter’s day, and the challenge remains the same today,

But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him." When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them [Acts 5:29-33].

When renewal comes, and I pray that it will, it will be the common people, and not the “authorities” who will again open their hearts to Him.

Here is the Challenge; you cannot have Jesus the Christ merely as sacrifice. You cannot have Him only as Teacher. “He will never be a Priest to Save any who take Him not as well for their Prophet to Teach them, and as their King to Rule them” [The Whole Duty of Man, 1687]. It is the Lordship of Christ, the Sovereignty of the God-Man Jesus Christ of Nazareth that poses the ultimate Challenge.

When God became the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth everything changed. God was no longer merely “out there”, not that He was at any time only transcendent. He has always been willing to walk in the Garden with those who truly desired His company. Enoch walked with God, and God took him bodily to heaven [Genesis 5:24]. Moses was blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” [Genesis 6:9]. But when God the Son became incarnate in human flesh he walked the fields of Galilee with quite a number of people, and now we are told,

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live [John 14:16-19].

The challenge of His Kingship is not academic, but personal. It is Jesus, the Author of life, who says to each of us, “Will you walk with me?” 

St. Melito of Sardis: An Sermon on the Passion of Christ

Excerpts from the Sermon on the Passion of Christ

Pay attention, all families of the nations, and observe! An extraordinary murder has taken place in the center of Jerusalem, in the city devoted to God's law, in the city of the Hebrews, in the city of the prophets, in the city thought of as just. And who has been murdered? And who is the murderer? I am ashamed to give the answer, but give it I must. For if this murder had taken place at night, or if he had been slain in a desert place, it would be well to keep silent; but it was in the middle of the main street, even in the center of the city, while all were looking on, that the unjust murder of this just person took place. And thus he was lifted up upon the tree, and an inscription was affixed identifying the one who had been murdered. Who was he? It is painful to tell, but it is more dreadful not to tell. Therefore, hear and tremble because of him for whom the earth trembled.

The one who hung the earth in space, is himself hanged; the one who fixed the heavens in place, is himself impaled; the one who firmly fixed all things, is himself firmly fixed to the tree. The Lord is insulted, God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been destroyed by the right hand of Israel. O frightful murder! O unheard of injustice! The Lord is disfigured and he is not deemed worthy of a cloak for his naked body, so that he might not be seen exposed. For this reason the stars turned and fled, and the day grew quite dark, in order to hide the naked person hanging on the tree, darkening not the body of the Lord, but the eyes of men.

Yes, even though the people did not tremble, the earth trembled instead; although the people were not afraid, the heavens grew frightened; although the people did not tear their garments, the angels tore theirs; although the people did not lament, the Lord thundered from heaven, and the most high uttered his voice. Why was it like this, O Israel? You did not tremble for the Lord. You did not fear for the Lord. You did not lament for the Lord, yet you lamented for your firstborn. You did not tear your garments at the crucifixion of the Lord, yet you tore your garments for your own who were murdered. You forsook the Lord; you were not found by him. You dashed the Lord to the ground; you, too, were dashed to the ground, and lie quite dead.

But he arose from the dead and mounted up to the heights of heaven. When the Lord had clothed himself with humanity, and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer, and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned, and had been judged for the sake of the condemned, and buried for the sake of the one who was buried, he rose up from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: Who is he who contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I set the condemned man free; I gave the dead man life; I raised up the one who had been entombed.

Who is my opponent? I, he says, am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven, I, he says, am the Christ. Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness, I am the passover of your salvation, I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you, I am your ransom, I am your light, I am your saviour, I am your resurrection, I am your king, I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by my right hand.

This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, who became human via the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from the dead, and who ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, through whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age.

This is the alpha and the omega. This is the beginning and the end–an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who rose up from the dead. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.