The Right Order of Knowledge to Love is Based on the Right Order between God's Initiative and Our Effort
COMMENT: Could you say something about knowledge and understanding; knowledge and a realization of the thing itself?
In a way that you can understand best, contrast our knowledge with the knowledge of the Trinity. Whatever we know we know through the medium of a concept. So the concept by which we know is at once a kind of medium and in a certain sense a limitation. Whereas in the Trinity, the knowledge that the Father has is the Person of the Son; the Word is a Person distinct from Himself. So for God knowledge and union with the principle are identical, whereas for us, knowledge and union with the object are distinct, because we’re united with the object but we’re not united with it simply; we have an image of the object. And since the mind is made to know being and being as universal, which is ultimately God, if we were not fallen, knowledge would always lead us to God, which means that knowledge would always come from love and move us to love because the knowledge of the thing you desire leaves you without the possession of it; that's why the cult of knowledge is a perversion. To God, knowledge is always knowledge-in-love, because the knowledge of the Father and the Son is in the love of the Holy Spirit, but because, we're creatures, we can do one without the other we, can have knowledge without loving the object, and when you do that, you really love yourself, because you love your possession of the object rather than the object itself.
I tell you to use your thoughts to convince yourself that you're loved, but what's wrong is to make thinking the end, whereas God is the end. In the heavenly vision of God, we’ll be united with the object itself. Just as God knows us in knowing Himself, we’ll know God in Himself and not in the making of a correlation: that is heaven. We should use our minds in this life in order to love and to realize that we're loved, and also to know God. in Himself as object and end.
If we're going to make knowledge the end, perfect knowledge would be the concepts which we produce. And since the logical concepts are in our minds and the very product of the mind, we will also substitute the contemplation of the things our minds produce in the place of the contemplation of being, including God. Then all the emphasis on success implemented by logic glorifies the concepts man produces, whereas the fundamental things that are given: motion, numbers, etc., are suppressed. Like Bertrand Russell's definition of numbers: a class of all classes similar to a given class. But from that definition you can't tell me the difference between two and three. Aristotle had the fundamental grasp of the science of nature, but in comparison with what Aristotle knew, the way we control nature with the application of logic makes what Aristotle knew look childish. We have performed logical operations on the things that God gave us, so we suppress everything God made, and man is glorified in his knowledge. Science is justified by its achievements and by its control of nature; God gives man a share in His creation by giving him these logical classes. But then man turns around and uses this gift in order to become god.
It is exactly the same principle in the history of science and philosophy and in what goes on in your own soul. We have that lust to remain in ourselves; we think about God and yet the end is really ourselves. The way to God is to believe that you're loved as is. And psychologically that is where the father comes in, because the father communicates that unconditional love. If your father doesn't respect you and love you the way you are, you'll be convinced you have to do something in yourself to prove that you are lovable.
First you love yourself and then you try to get others to love you to convince yourself that you're lovable. You have to get wise to yourself; either you will forget about God because thinking about Him makes you feel guilty, or you will believe that God loves you and takes away your guilt. That is why Jesus died on the Cross: to show you that His love is infinitely more powerful than your sins, because He knows that unless you're convinced of that, there is no way out. That is why people who don't believe in Jesus Christ can't be genuinely religious, because they would be driven away from God by their guilt.
The purpose of meditation is to convince you that no matter what you've done before, in this moment God loves you! That is why there is a good thief in the Gospel. Remember what he did the moment before his conversion? He cursed God.(Cf. Mt 27:44;Mk 15:32) But then the moment he turned to Jesus he was saved. How much do you really believe in your heart that God loves you only because He is good?
When God acts in you, it isn't as though He acts without you, so the hope we talk about is not the extrinsic justification of Luther; the justification is intrinsic. It is true that in the end you will be rewarded by your good acts, as Jesus said (Mt 16:27), because the very faith that you have is the faith that will energize you to do the things that earn the reward. It is not a question of with good works or without good works; the question is the order of faith and works. The only way you can overcome sin in the end is by letting God act through you. You have to act and to know something about what you're doing. But it is a question of whether what you're doing is ordered by God or by yourself. The more you concentrate on God, the more you can concentrate on what you're doing, because you don't expend your energies on self-justification. When you trust in God to move you, you get absorbed in what you're doing. This is the way children act. Remember that Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."(Mk 10:15) When you're not united with Jesus in your work, you'll always have that bitter taste of anxiety in what you do.
The significant thing about sin is not that you sin, but that you love sin, because in the last analysis, you do what you want. God is trying to show you through your experience that you do love sin, so how can you depend on yourself to eradicate it? That is the meaning of the words, "Unless you hate your soul you'll lose it."(Jn 12:25) You hate an enemy, and unless you see yourself as the enemy of your soul, you'll lose it. Yet all the time you're trying to prove to yourself that you're your best fiend.
This also shows you what false charity is, because if you "cast the beam out of your own eye,"(Mt 7:5; Lk 6:42) then you'll know how to heal your neighbor. So you have to communicate that you love him as he is and you only can do that in Jesus. The love of God and the love of your neighbor are not two things. If you love God you love your neighbor, because you know how good God is to you and how filthy rotten you are in yourself. Because you believe that God can love you, you will love your neighbor. When you're around me you feel acceptable as you are. Well, the whole world wants to feel that way, and that is the apostolate.
The root of everything is wanting what's going to happen and so being conformed to God from moment to moment. We should play before God (Prov 8:31) because we are conformed to Him. The concepts have everything, but God frustrates the process because in our concepts we have all the instances, but we don't really have any of them. This is not the way He takes care of us, with universal concepts; He feeds us from moment to moment. That is why Jesus could say of the Father's loving care, "Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God."(Mt 4:4)
In a way that you can understand best, contrast our knowledge with the knowledge of the Trinity. Whatever we know we know through the medium of a concept. So the concept by which we know is at once a kind of medium and in a certain sense a limitation. Whereas in the Trinity, the knowledge that the Father has is the Person of the Son; the Word is a Person distinct from Himself. So for God knowledge and union with the principle are identical, whereas for us, knowledge and union with the object are distinct, because we’re united with the object but we’re not united with it simply; we have an image of the object. And since the mind is made to know being and being as universal, which is ultimately God, if we were not fallen, knowledge would always lead us to God, which means that knowledge would always come from love and move us to love because the knowledge of the thing you desire leaves you without the possession of it; that's why the cult of knowledge is a perversion. To God, knowledge is always knowledge-in-love, because the knowledge of the Father and the Son is in the love of the Holy Spirit, but because, we're creatures, we can do one without the other we, can have knowledge without loving the object, and when you do that, you really love yourself, because you love your possession of the object rather than the object itself.
I tell you to use your thoughts to convince yourself that you're loved, but what's wrong is to make thinking the end, whereas God is the end. In the heavenly vision of God, we’ll be united with the object itself. Just as God knows us in knowing Himself, we’ll know God in Himself and not in the making of a correlation: that is heaven. We should use our minds in this life in order to love and to realize that we're loved, and also to know God. in Himself as object and end.
If we're going to make knowledge the end, perfect knowledge would be the concepts which we produce. And since the logical concepts are in our minds and the very product of the mind, we will also substitute the contemplation of the things our minds produce in the place of the contemplation of being, including God. Then all the emphasis on success implemented by logic glorifies the concepts man produces, whereas the fundamental things that are given: motion, numbers, etc., are suppressed. Like Bertrand Russell's definition of numbers: a class of all classes similar to a given class. But from that definition you can't tell me the difference between two and three. Aristotle had the fundamental grasp of the science of nature, but in comparison with what Aristotle knew, the way we control nature with the application of logic makes what Aristotle knew look childish. We have performed logical operations on the things that God gave us, so we suppress everything God made, and man is glorified in his knowledge. Science is justified by its achievements and by its control of nature; God gives man a share in His creation by giving him these logical classes. But then man turns around and uses this gift in order to become god.
It is exactly the same principle in the history of science and philosophy and in what goes on in your own soul. We have that lust to remain in ourselves; we think about God and yet the end is really ourselves. The way to God is to believe that you're loved as is. And psychologically that is where the father comes in, because the father communicates that unconditional love. If your father doesn't respect you and love you the way you are, you'll be convinced you have to do something in yourself to prove that you are lovable.
First you love yourself and then you try to get others to love you to convince yourself that you're lovable. You have to get wise to yourself; either you will forget about God because thinking about Him makes you feel guilty, or you will believe that God loves you and takes away your guilt. That is why Jesus died on the Cross: to show you that His love is infinitely more powerful than your sins, because He knows that unless you're convinced of that, there is no way out. That is why people who don't believe in Jesus Christ can't be genuinely religious, because they would be driven away from God by their guilt.
The purpose of meditation is to convince you that no matter what you've done before, in this moment God loves you! That is why there is a good thief in the Gospel. Remember what he did the moment before his conversion? He cursed God.(Cf. Mt 27:44;Mk 15:32) But then the moment he turned to Jesus he was saved. How much do you really believe in your heart that God loves you only because He is good?
When God acts in you, it isn't as though He acts without you, so the hope we talk about is not the extrinsic justification of Luther; the justification is intrinsic. It is true that in the end you will be rewarded by your good acts, as Jesus said (Mt 16:27), because the very faith that you have is the faith that will energize you to do the things that earn the reward. It is not a question of with good works or without good works; the question is the order of faith and works. The only way you can overcome sin in the end is by letting God act through you. You have to act and to know something about what you're doing. But it is a question of whether what you're doing is ordered by God or by yourself. The more you concentrate on God, the more you can concentrate on what you're doing, because you don't expend your energies on self-justification. When you trust in God to move you, you get absorbed in what you're doing. This is the way children act. Remember that Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."(Mk 10:15) When you're not united with Jesus in your work, you'll always have that bitter taste of anxiety in what you do.
The significant thing about sin is not that you sin, but that you love sin, because in the last analysis, you do what you want. God is trying to show you through your experience that you do love sin, so how can you depend on yourself to eradicate it? That is the meaning of the words, "Unless you hate your soul you'll lose it."(Jn 12:25) You hate an enemy, and unless you see yourself as the enemy of your soul, you'll lose it. Yet all the time you're trying to prove to yourself that you're your best fiend.
This also shows you what false charity is, because if you "cast the beam out of your own eye,"(Mt 7:5; Lk 6:42) then you'll know how to heal your neighbor. So you have to communicate that you love him as he is and you only can do that in Jesus. The love of God and the love of your neighbor are not two things. If you love God you love your neighbor, because you know how good God is to you and how filthy rotten you are in yourself. Because you believe that God can love you, you will love your neighbor. When you're around me you feel acceptable as you are. Well, the whole world wants to feel that way, and that is the apostolate.
The root of everything is wanting what's going to happen and so being conformed to God from moment to moment. We should play before God (Prov 8:31) because we are conformed to Him. The concepts have everything, but God frustrates the process because in our concepts we have all the instances, but we don't really have any of them. This is not the way He takes care of us, with universal concepts; He feeds us from moment to moment. That is why Jesus could say of the Father's loving care, "Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God."(Mt 4:4)