One of those daily habits is a short reading in the morning at breakfast and, since I was reading a bit from C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain while Lynne was visiting, that's what was for breakfast. I revisited a passage that is worth sharing this morning:
. . . . We therefore agree with Aristotle that what is intrinsically right may well be agreeable, and that the better a man is the more he will like it; but we agree with Kant so far as to say that there is one right act -- that of self-surrender -- which cannot be willed to the height by fallen creatures unless it is unpleasant.
Such an act may be described as a 'test' of the creature's return to God: hence our fathers said that troubles were 'sent to try us'.
A familiar example is Abraham's 'trial' when he was ordered to sacrifice Isaac. [I am here concerned] with the obvious question, 'If God is omniscient He must have known what Abraham would do, without any experiment; why, then, this needless torture?'
But as St. Augustine points out [De Civitate Dei, xvi, xxxii]
whatever God knew, Abraham at any rate did not know that his obedience could endure such a command until the event taught him: and the obedience which he did not know that he would choose, he cannot be said to have chosen.
I needed to be reminded of this, in the face of suffering and questioning, that the refinement of spirit is sharpest in adversity. We learn so much more from battling through the hardships than resting on our status quo. Not that I can ever learn to like it. But, then, neither did Lewis.
But what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already: they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made 'perfect through suffering' (Hebrews 1:10) is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design.
Giambattista Pittoni (1720) |
0 comments:
Post a Comment