Adam's pride was a kind of Promethean blindness to the true nature of love. He did not understand that the gifts which had been given to him could only be possessed as long as they were received as gifts. They were not and never could be won by right of conquest for that was impossible. To think otherwise was, in fact, completely to misunderstand the true nature of God.
Remember what we said above about Prometheus: thinking that the fire could be stolen, and not knowing it would be freely given, he unavoidably knew only false gods, not the living God. These false gods were beings only a little more strong that man, only a little more spiritual, only a little more wise. They needed fire, in the end, as much as man. They would resent the theft of fire. They would defend themselves jealously against any invasion of their Olympus. They did not want man to have what was theirs, for they could not afford to see themselves weakened and man strengthened. All these concepts imply a narrow, jealous, weak, fearful kind of god. -Thomas Merton; The New Man (bolding mine)
Sometimes we have problems like this - like poor Prometheus. We do not understand the nature of God. OK, well, "duuuuuh," as the saying goes, but we should, at least to a degree more than we do. He's revealed it to us, to an extent. I know we have to grow in our ability to grasp it, to grasp Who He Is. Some may think, "we can never do this." I'd have to disagree. I don't believe God created us to be eternally ignorant of the fullness of reality, even of His Reality. We're just presently out of sync with it.
But -- Jesus -- the Great Gift of God to us. He gave us Himself. But we want to earn it. We want to steal the fire. We can't get our broken heads around the fact that anything He has given us is pure gift. And let's be honest, those of us who are Catholic, or Wesleyan/Arminian for that matter, have a few problems in this area. The seeming paradox of His Grace mingled with our cooperation, gets confused, often. Far too often we lean on the "our cooperation" part - as if there were "parts" of all that. I know, I know. It really is complicated - not to Him of course, but for us to get hold of.
I certainly believe we can cooperate, that our wills are involved in everything that God does in, for or through us, even if we're not overtly aware of it. I believe that's the way God created us. And I do not believe that short-circuits the concept of "pure gift" when it comes to Jesus, Grace, our ultimate and complete salvation, etc. I never said it passed the "pure logic" test. Does it need to? If so, there are a few other things we need to make God aware of so He can straighten that mess out. Of course, ultimately, even our small, unnoticeable yeses are the result of His Grace giving us the ability to say them. So, here we are, back to HIM. Rely on the Gift. Receive it as gift. Don't count on yourself. His Grace. His Love. His Mercy. His working anything in us, for us, through us.
July 29, 2009
> 9:19 AM
038
Adam's pride was a kind of Promethean blindness to the true nature of love. 
