Mistaking Love for Weakness
A reader with the self-consciously illogical name of Glorious USSA writes:
“So you’re saying that I am a being whose choices are so important that the infinite God of the infinite universe takes a keen interest in each one, and my free will is strong enough to frustrate His will.”
Folly. It is not a question of strength. God is love. Love is voluntary.
Involuntary love is not love; it is as best infatuation. At worst, it is the practice of Svengali on Trilby in the novel of the same name.
Voluntary action can only come from a creature with volition. Despite our eagerness to believe otherwise, each Son of Adam is a creature with volition.
What you do or fail to do shapes your character. You are the sculptor. You did not select your raw materials, but you are responsible for what you make of them.
God’s will for you is goodness, and life, and abundant life. But He will allow you to chose pain, death, and hell, if that is your choice. His love for you is based on respect for your volition, your choices, your character. This is not because you are stronger than He. This is because, foolish or not, neurotic or not, illogical or not, you are you.
One of the crosses man must carry in this life is the burden of himself. Can you carry it to the finish line? Not if you are walking the wrong way down the wrong path.
Christ will judge you on doomsday based on your character. If you ask for mercy, He will grant mercy. You have nothing to lose but your pride.
One point of pride that is puzzling you is wondering how, if God loves you, He can tolerate to see you throw yourself into hell. Is He not strong enough to stop this? Can He not use His magnificent powers to make you good, to force you to love goodness, by some sort of divine mesmerism? Can He not lobotomize you and make you into a robot with blank eyes and an empty smile, who always obeys the law?
Only a villain mistakes love for weakness, or thinks an unwillingness to do evil is an incapacity.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
