Our Good is not the Goodness Proper to God
There is a difficulty with the word "good"; the word "good” is very equivocal. Why would Jesus say to the woman, "Why do you call Me good?"(Mt 19:17 Mk 10:18; Lk 18:19) when she said He was good? Because she was seeing His goodness as the goodness of a creature, and He replied, "God alone is good."(Ibid.) If we think of good as coming from God, then we think of good as God's good. It is not wrong to want to be good, but to want to be good as though you were God is wrong. If you want to be good by the goodness you’re cultivating in yourself, what good do you want? The good that we should cultivate is our dependence on God because our good is potential in His.
The Pharisees were good by their own goodness and they crucified Christ, just as we do. Jesus said, "Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?”(Mt 6:27; Lk 12:25) The key to this philosophically is that all created goodness is goodness by participation. The only ultimate goodness is God's goodness. When you try to justify yourself, you're trying to make yourself good by your sins. Even your sorrow for sin would be vicious; you would he striving, not to be receptive to the goodness of God, but to make yourself good. You would be sorry because you couldn’t take the delight in yourself that you would like to take.
Look at Jesus on the cross and ask yourself, here is Christ on the cross; how much sorrow do I feel? You can’t feel sorrow for Christ on the cross unless you experience the whole thing as directed to you. When you see Christ on the cross and you see yourself as you are, you see that your lies are crucifying Him. Then you can begin to feel sorrow because you see that His Crucifixion is His frustrated love for you.
Christ died to make you lovable, but the anti-Christ wants to make you think you're lovable in yourself.
The whole purpose of sin in God’s providence is to teach us, if we're truthful, that we can't be good in ourselves. God, if He had wanted to, could have removed all the effects of sin in baptism. He wanted us to realize through the experience of sin that we don't have anything in ourselves, but a false conscience negates the whole redemptive act of Christ; then that act doesn't have any power, because you're trying to make yourself worthy of love. When God shows you your sin, He is showing you: this is what I came to save; this is what I prayed for. In the false conscience you would say, God can’t love me this way; I have to do something about it.
That is why you have all these self-righteous social workers who are trying to combat the ravages done by society. A psychiatrist who says it is not a sin to masturbate says it because he sees the effect of what happens to people who can't believe they are loved. Jesus says, "It is a sin, but come over to Me."(Mt 11:28)
The Pharisees were good by their own goodness and they crucified Christ, just as we do. Jesus said, "Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?”(Mt 6:27; Lk 12:25) The key to this philosophically is that all created goodness is goodness by participation. The only ultimate goodness is God's goodness. When you try to justify yourself, you're trying to make yourself good by your sins. Even your sorrow for sin would be vicious; you would he striving, not to be receptive to the goodness of God, but to make yourself good. You would be sorry because you couldn’t take the delight in yourself that you would like to take.
Look at Jesus on the cross and ask yourself, here is Christ on the cross; how much sorrow do I feel? You can’t feel sorrow for Christ on the cross unless you experience the whole thing as directed to you. When you see Christ on the cross and you see yourself as you are, you see that your lies are crucifying Him. Then you can begin to feel sorrow because you see that His Crucifixion is His frustrated love for you.
Christ died to make you lovable, but the anti-Christ wants to make you think you're lovable in yourself.
The whole purpose of sin in God’s providence is to teach us, if we're truthful, that we can't be good in ourselves. God, if He had wanted to, could have removed all the effects of sin in baptism. He wanted us to realize through the experience of sin that we don't have anything in ourselves, but a false conscience negates the whole redemptive act of Christ; then that act doesn't have any power, because you're trying to make yourself worthy of love. When God shows you your sin, He is showing you: this is what I came to save; this is what I prayed for. In the false conscience you would say, God can’t love me this way; I have to do something about it.
That is why you have all these self-righteous social workers who are trying to combat the ravages done by society. A psychiatrist who says it is not a sin to masturbate says it because he sees the effect of what happens to people who can't believe they are loved. Jesus says, "It is a sin, but come over to Me."(Mt 11:28)