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Geoff's Open Forum #1
10 years ago
Hey there folks. It's my first open forum. Thank's for reading, even if it's a bit long. This is the first in an ongoing series where I post your questions every two weeks, and do my best to answer them. As you can see below they run a wide gamut of topics. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or flat-out disagree below. If you have anything unrelated you want to ask for next time, feel free to drop me a note. God bless you!
Question #1
Why does trying to be a good person feel so incredibly stressful and difficult, with little to no compensation from others? Everyone says that being good feels good, and it does, to a degree, and yet... It is INCREDIBLY stressful, to the point of overriding that feeling. You have to watch how you talk, what you eat, what you do, how you treat people, what you do to entertain yourself, how much you DO entertain yourself, and in general tend to wind up as a stick in the mud with a little bubble of acceptable activities after you've gotten the important, required, dull stuff out of the way. Isn't being good supposed to be more rewarding? Yes, I know the whole heaven thing, and yes, I know we're supposed to be patient for it, and our life here is a drop in the bucket compared to it... And yet, our life here is also the longest thing we'll ever do while alive. So being stuck with a stressful life and a tiny amount of things one can do sort of... Prolongs the experience and makes it rather worse. Anonymous
A: This is a great set of questions which boil down to a few things:
1) Why do good people suffer?
2) Why are people ungrateful?
3) Why do we not love to do good things?
4) Why is good not instantly rewarding?
I’ll acknowledge that this is something people have struggled with for ages, probably since the Fall. I know Job, for example, struggled with exactly these issues. I’ll answer each in turn.
1) Granted that I am not going to solve this issue (which philosophers and theologians have struggled with since the Fall), here’s what we can learn from the people that have come before us. We have to take into account that:
a. God is love, and wills only good for us.
b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
c. God doesn’t need anything from us, He is self-sufficient.
d. God does no evil.
e. God created all things.
f. All things were created good.
g. Some things are evil. (Either physically evil to cause suffering, or morally evil like Satan.)
h. Thus, if e, f, and g are true; there are things which God created good and became evil afterwards.
i. If a and h are true, then it was by something other than God’s will that such things became evil.
j. If i and f are true, then turning evil couldn’t have been ‘in the plan’ or naturally occurring. The turn requires free will apart from God’s will, which could (and did) choose evil.
k. If j is true and free will exists, then due to e and f God created this free will and it is good.
l. If k and d is true then God would not do evil by violating our free will, which is a good gift He gave us.
m. If l and j are both true, then God allows us to choose evil which would cause us to suffer, and that accounts for some part of it. Likewise, God allows us to choose evil which causes other people to suffer, and that accounts for another significant chunk of it.
n. It can be observed that the free will choices to do evil are as wounds to our soul. We call people who do such ‘wicked’, ‘twisted’, ‘broken’, which all show this.
o. It can also be observed that when one heals, there is often as much or more suffering felt than the actual wound itself.
p. Notably, surgery entails the infliction of suffering or physical harm in order to do a greater good to the body.
q. Similarly, we can observe that athletes punish and discipline their bodies, causing themselves suffering, in order to gain in strength.
r. To achieve the greatest effects and self-mastery, athletes require a trainer to work with them.
s. Our Lord Jesus is the Great Surgeon of Souls.
t. God the Father, like any good Father, teaches us to ‘walk on our own’, so to speak, in the moral life. He instructs us and disciplines us, per the book of Proverbs.
u. If o,p, and s are true, then God may at times send us suffering without violating a, because the suffering is serving the good purpose of healing our souls from moral evil, per n.
v. If q, r, and t are true, then God may send us suffering to build us up and teach us moral virtues.
w. Finally, scripture states that suffering is sometimes given to reveal the glory of God, per the story of the demoniac. The disciples asked who sinned, and Christ answered that there was none, this was allowed to reveal the glory of God.
x. Those in whom the glory of God is revealed are blessed and a sign for all to convert to Christ more fully.
y. All those who receive suffering from God, for any of the good and often mysterious purposes mentioned above rightly ought to consider themselves blessed, forgive those who caused them to suffer, and unite their sufferings to the Cross in gratitude.
Granted, none of the above said it would be easy to take, or to be grateful for. But that’s part of the package deal. If suffering were truly easy to bear, it wouldn’t be suffering. Yet, the suffering is good, because God uses it for good purposes. I hope that helps.
2) Unfortunately a lot of people can’t help being ungrateful. They don’t realize what they’re doing. People can be incredibly short-sighted. Giving folks the best of yourself can seem humdrum to them, or can even feel like you’re upstaging and attacking them. Or they may not even realize what good you’re attempting to do for them. Then again, others can see what you’re doing and take advantage of it, or be mean about it. The broader culture doesn’t have a real way to teach gratitude except through families, which are struggling to teach anything of value, let alone gratitude. That comes from the Fall, and the only things to be done about it are to not rely on gratitude for your emotional wellbeing, and to model gratitude for them. Even that much will help you to be happier and will force people to face their own ingratitude.
3) Just like the fall makes people ungrateful, it also made it so people are somewhat selfish. We’re pretty much born that way. Just look at any baby, they’re constantly trying to please themselves or escape from things they don’t like. This doesn’t mean people are bad, just that they are born without the virtues.
Virtues are ready and joyful habits of doing good, and usually they have to be trained in order to be present in the soul. We literally have to practice loving to do what’s good rather than what merely slakes our desires or quells our fears. Now, this goes radically against the modern culture that says ‘if I feel like I want <x>, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?’ Or, more commonly, ‘feelings aren’t wrong’. We can see that this is a harmful and false way of thinking with by looking at things like cannibalism, greed, or unjust discrimination. “I feel like I want to eat your hand, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?” “I am, because that’s my hand.” “I don’t feel like exploiting my workers to get lots of money is bad, who are you to tell me I can’t?” “I don’t have to be anyone in particular, the truth is that those people have dignity and feeling and exploiting them is wrong.” “I feel like white people are universally unjust and discriminatory against everyone else.” “Your feeling is wrong because it doesn’t take into account the many white people who worked for universal civil rights in our country.”
What does this mean for us? It means we just need to practice loving what ought to be loved and hating what ought to be hated. Love the good, hate evil, with all your strength. Don’t say ‘I’m too weak’, as that’s an excuse. Just be as strong as you can and commit to improving for God’s sake. If you’re a fan of anime, consider the anime where warrior-type characters are forced to face their own limitations. Some skulk, but the ones really worth emulating are the ones that almost blindly push themselves to get better because that’s the only path forward.
4) Good is not instantly rewarding because the world isn’t merely mechanical. The world is a story. In stories the author will allow bad things to happen, sometimes even with no visible hope for the characters. Yet every trial and struggle and all the bad things are used by an author for good. In the best stories things work out in the end, and God is a great author. You can be sure that every single good and every trial you go through are both tallied, considered, and that each part of your life is valuable to God, no matter how insignificant. Every good is seen by God as the baby steps and accomplishments of a young child. I’m certain it makes God smile, which is reward of itself. And one more thing, about eternal life. Your eternal life, your life in Heaven, can and should begin on this Earth. Heaven is a state of blessed unity with God, and so if you’re not starting it on Earth that’s a problem. Focus on that goal, and things will go well.
Question #2
What is the exact nature of the social order instituted by God, in no uncertain terms, and why is it that way rather than another way? – Haimric
A: I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a social theorist, nor am I political theorist. That said, here’s what I understand the basics to be:
1) The Trinitarian God is the King and Lord of all creation.
2) The Trinitarian God raises up and lays low nations according to His will.
3) He established a Church to rule and care for His people on Earth, with a Steward as the visible head and final arbiter of that Kingdom except with respect to the King’s decrees, which are immutable and eternal. This Steward has authority over all nations in matters of faith and morals, even where those matters intersect with laws of that nation.
4) The nations are free to organize themselves lawfully (that is, by ordinances of reason according to the common good, by those who have care of the community, and when such ordinances are duly promulgated), so long as they are obedient to the Church where it has authority as granted by God, and to the Natural Moral Law.
5) There are forms of government which more readily meet the moral demands upon nations (Theocracy, Feudalistic Monarchy, Democratic Republics, Distributist economies), and those which naturally defy such demands (Communism, Fascism, Despotic Tyranny, Autocracy, Sharia Law).
6) Nations, aside from meeting the moral demands of God, may be judged by the degree they promote the four transcendentals: Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Unity.
7) Those nations which uphold the moral order and promote the transcendentals are good nations. Those which violate the moral order and/or suppress the transcendentals are bad nations.
It’s notable that the building block of any good society, Godly or Pagan/Secular, is the family. In the family is where all goods and ills in society begin, and as such the protection of the family is a paramount concern of the state.
Likewise, the state must defend the helpless who rely on it. This is where the ‘preferential option for the poor’ comes in, and is reason #28568728275 why Roe v. Wade was such a terrible case for everyone involved.
As a final note, St. Augustine in the City of God was of the opinion (to quote a paraphrase of Msgr. Charles Pope) “God is less concerned about the political system as he is about politicians.”
Question #3
What was your first favorite Disney movie? – Rio2
A: It was Bambi as a child, before I could remember anything. Used to burst into a little cubby ball of tears at the Meadow Scene. Fantasia was my favorite after that. Though now I’m unsure if I prefer Fantasia or Robin Hood. The latter was what made me furry.
Question #1
Why does trying to be a good person feel so incredibly stressful and difficult, with little to no compensation from others? Everyone says that being good feels good, and it does, to a degree, and yet... It is INCREDIBLY stressful, to the point of overriding that feeling. You have to watch how you talk, what you eat, what you do, how you treat people, what you do to entertain yourself, how much you DO entertain yourself, and in general tend to wind up as a stick in the mud with a little bubble of acceptable activities after you've gotten the important, required, dull stuff out of the way. Isn't being good supposed to be more rewarding? Yes, I know the whole heaven thing, and yes, I know we're supposed to be patient for it, and our life here is a drop in the bucket compared to it... And yet, our life here is also the longest thing we'll ever do while alive. So being stuck with a stressful life and a tiny amount of things one can do sort of... Prolongs the experience and makes it rather worse. Anonymous
A: This is a great set of questions which boil down to a few things:
1) Why do good people suffer?
2) Why are people ungrateful?
3) Why do we not love to do good things?
4) Why is good not instantly rewarding?
I’ll acknowledge that this is something people have struggled with for ages, probably since the Fall. I know Job, for example, struggled with exactly these issues. I’ll answer each in turn.
1) Granted that I am not going to solve this issue (which philosophers and theologians have struggled with since the Fall), here’s what we can learn from the people that have come before us. We have to take into account that:
a. God is love, and wills only good for us.
b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
c. God doesn’t need anything from us, He is self-sufficient.
d. God does no evil.
e. God created all things.
f. All things were created good.
g. Some things are evil. (Either physically evil to cause suffering, or morally evil like Satan.)
h. Thus, if e, f, and g are true; there are things which God created good and became evil afterwards.
i. If a and h are true, then it was by something other than God’s will that such things became evil.
j. If i and f are true, then turning evil couldn’t have been ‘in the plan’ or naturally occurring. The turn requires free will apart from God’s will, which could (and did) choose evil.
k. If j is true and free will exists, then due to e and f God created this free will and it is good.
l. If k and d is true then God would not do evil by violating our free will, which is a good gift He gave us.
m. If l and j are both true, then God allows us to choose evil which would cause us to suffer, and that accounts for some part of it. Likewise, God allows us to choose evil which causes other people to suffer, and that accounts for another significant chunk of it.
n. It can be observed that the free will choices to do evil are as wounds to our soul. We call people who do such ‘wicked’, ‘twisted’, ‘broken’, which all show this.
o. It can also be observed that when one heals, there is often as much or more suffering felt than the actual wound itself.
p. Notably, surgery entails the infliction of suffering or physical harm in order to do a greater good to the body.
q. Similarly, we can observe that athletes punish and discipline their bodies, causing themselves suffering, in order to gain in strength.
r. To achieve the greatest effects and self-mastery, athletes require a trainer to work with them.
s. Our Lord Jesus is the Great Surgeon of Souls.
t. God the Father, like any good Father, teaches us to ‘walk on our own’, so to speak, in the moral life. He instructs us and disciplines us, per the book of Proverbs.
u. If o,p, and s are true, then God may at times send us suffering without violating a, because the suffering is serving the good purpose of healing our souls from moral evil, per n.
v. If q, r, and t are true, then God may send us suffering to build us up and teach us moral virtues.
w. Finally, scripture states that suffering is sometimes given to reveal the glory of God, per the story of the demoniac. The disciples asked who sinned, and Christ answered that there was none, this was allowed to reveal the glory of God.
x. Those in whom the glory of God is revealed are blessed and a sign for all to convert to Christ more fully.
y. All those who receive suffering from God, for any of the good and often mysterious purposes mentioned above rightly ought to consider themselves blessed, forgive those who caused them to suffer, and unite their sufferings to the Cross in gratitude.
Granted, none of the above said it would be easy to take, or to be grateful for. But that’s part of the package deal. If suffering were truly easy to bear, it wouldn’t be suffering. Yet, the suffering is good, because God uses it for good purposes. I hope that helps.
2) Unfortunately a lot of people can’t help being ungrateful. They don’t realize what they’re doing. People can be incredibly short-sighted. Giving folks the best of yourself can seem humdrum to them, or can even feel like you’re upstaging and attacking them. Or they may not even realize what good you’re attempting to do for them. Then again, others can see what you’re doing and take advantage of it, or be mean about it. The broader culture doesn’t have a real way to teach gratitude except through families, which are struggling to teach anything of value, let alone gratitude. That comes from the Fall, and the only things to be done about it are to not rely on gratitude for your emotional wellbeing, and to model gratitude for them. Even that much will help you to be happier and will force people to face their own ingratitude.
3) Just like the fall makes people ungrateful, it also made it so people are somewhat selfish. We’re pretty much born that way. Just look at any baby, they’re constantly trying to please themselves or escape from things they don’t like. This doesn’t mean people are bad, just that they are born without the virtues.
Virtues are ready and joyful habits of doing good, and usually they have to be trained in order to be present in the soul. We literally have to practice loving to do what’s good rather than what merely slakes our desires or quells our fears. Now, this goes radically against the modern culture that says ‘if I feel like I want <x>, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?’ Or, more commonly, ‘feelings aren’t wrong’. We can see that this is a harmful and false way of thinking with by looking at things like cannibalism, greed, or unjust discrimination. “I feel like I want to eat your hand, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?” “I am, because that’s my hand.” “I don’t feel like exploiting my workers to get lots of money is bad, who are you to tell me I can’t?” “I don’t have to be anyone in particular, the truth is that those people have dignity and feeling and exploiting them is wrong.” “I feel like white people are universally unjust and discriminatory against everyone else.” “Your feeling is wrong because it doesn’t take into account the many white people who worked for universal civil rights in our country.”
What does this mean for us? It means we just need to practice loving what ought to be loved and hating what ought to be hated. Love the good, hate evil, with all your strength. Don’t say ‘I’m too weak’, as that’s an excuse. Just be as strong as you can and commit to improving for God’s sake. If you’re a fan of anime, consider the anime where warrior-type characters are forced to face their own limitations. Some skulk, but the ones really worth emulating are the ones that almost blindly push themselves to get better because that’s the only path forward.
4) Good is not instantly rewarding because the world isn’t merely mechanical. The world is a story. In stories the author will allow bad things to happen, sometimes even with no visible hope for the characters. Yet every trial and struggle and all the bad things are used by an author for good. In the best stories things work out in the end, and God is a great author. You can be sure that every single good and every trial you go through are both tallied, considered, and that each part of your life is valuable to God, no matter how insignificant. Every good is seen by God as the baby steps and accomplishments of a young child. I’m certain it makes God smile, which is reward of itself. And one more thing, about eternal life. Your eternal life, your life in Heaven, can and should begin on this Earth. Heaven is a state of blessed unity with God, and so if you’re not starting it on Earth that’s a problem. Focus on that goal, and things will go well.
Question #2
What is the exact nature of the social order instituted by God, in no uncertain terms, and why is it that way rather than another way? – Haimric
A: I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a social theorist, nor am I political theorist. That said, here’s what I understand the basics to be:
1) The Trinitarian God is the King and Lord of all creation.
2) The Trinitarian God raises up and lays low nations according to His will.
3) He established a Church to rule and care for His people on Earth, with a Steward as the visible head and final arbiter of that Kingdom except with respect to the King’s decrees, which are immutable and eternal. This Steward has authority over all nations in matters of faith and morals, even where those matters intersect with laws of that nation.
4) The nations are free to organize themselves lawfully (that is, by ordinances of reason according to the common good, by those who have care of the community, and when such ordinances are duly promulgated), so long as they are obedient to the Church where it has authority as granted by God, and to the Natural Moral Law.
5) There are forms of government which more readily meet the moral demands upon nations (Theocracy, Feudalistic Monarchy, Democratic Republics, Distributist economies), and those which naturally defy such demands (Communism, Fascism, Despotic Tyranny, Autocracy, Sharia Law).
6) Nations, aside from meeting the moral demands of God, may be judged by the degree they promote the four transcendentals: Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Unity.
7) Those nations which uphold the moral order and promote the transcendentals are good nations. Those which violate the moral order and/or suppress the transcendentals are bad nations.
It’s notable that the building block of any good society, Godly or Pagan/Secular, is the family. In the family is where all goods and ills in society begin, and as such the protection of the family is a paramount concern of the state.
Likewise, the state must defend the helpless who rely on it. This is where the ‘preferential option for the poor’ comes in, and is reason #28568728275 why Roe v. Wade was such a terrible case for everyone involved.
As a final note, St. Augustine in the City of God was of the opinion (to quote a paraphrase of Msgr. Charles Pope) “God is less concerned about the political system as he is about politicians.”
Question #3
What was your first favorite Disney movie? – Rio2
A: It was Bambi as a child, before I could remember anything. Used to burst into a little cubby ball of tears at the Meadow Scene. Fantasia was my favorite after that. Though now I’m unsure if I prefer Fantasia or Robin Hood. The latter was what made me furry.
I especially like your detailed answer to the first question. I need to remind myself of that when I'm suffering particularly badly (at least subjectively so). Please pray for me in that regard, and I will pray for you too.
I don't disagree with your answer to my question (and thank you for answering it!) but I would like to add to it: contrary to what some might think, knowing that I am a monarchist (something which I came to based on the Catholic Christian faith, because, as you say, the Trinitarian God is the King and Lord of all creation--not merely a temporary elected "president" subject to term limits or impeachment), I am not against all non-monarchical forms of government. I simply believe that monarchy is the best, the most natural, and the most emulating of God and His order--and that anything in direct opposition to this, like revolution against monarchy (democracy as the result of revolution, in other words), emulates Satan and so is to be rejected. But not every republic that exists today came into existence thus: San Marino, for example, was named for her saintly founder, and that is a republic. It's revolution that I'm against, because that rests on the false claim that it's up to the people to judge a ruler as a bad one and to depose him and replace him with someone else--that inverts the social hierarchy and paves the way for dictatorship. (Indeed, we forget that Adolf Hitler came to power peacefully and legally in a democratic republic and never rescinded the constitution--and that Benito Mussolini had the power he did in Italy because Italy was a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute monarchy in which he couldn't have managed that.) Ideally we'd have a meritocracy, but everyone has free will so the only constant is whether someone has it within him to be a good leader, and you can't tell that from birth--but the best leader is one trained to be so from birth. Besides, the family is natural, and monarchy is simply family on the sovereign level.
I don't blame you for your choices of your favorite Disney animated feature, either.
I can't remember who said that exactly, but I think it is one of the most poignant descriptions of the human will that I have ever heard. Now that I think of it, it does sort of reflect Paul's lament that "What I want to do I do not do, and what I do I hate".