Posted on 07/06/2018 8:21:59 AM PDT by Salvation
One of the great paradoxes of creation and our existence in God’s world is that many blessings are unlocked by explosive, even violent, forces. The cosmos itself is hurtling outward in a massive explosion. Here we are, living part way through that explosion.
When I consider the fireworks on the Fourth of July, I often think that each of those beautiful, fiery explosions is a miniature replica of the cosmos. Everywhere in the universe, the burning embers we call stars and galaxies glow brightly as they hurtle outward at close to one hundred million miles per hour. Yes, from one great singularity, God sent the power of His fiery, creative love expanding outward, giving life, and seeming almost limitless. The cosmos is unimaginably large, but its creator is infinitely large.
Even here on Earth, a relatively cool and stable bit of dust compared to the Sun, we stand upon a thin crust of land floating over an explosive sea of molten, fiery rock. The Book of Job says,
As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Yet underneath it is turned up as it were by fire (Job 28:5).
This fiery cauldron produces the rich soil in which we grow our very bread. The smoke and gases of the fires provide essential ingredients of the atmosphere that sustains us. The molten fires beneath us also create a magnetic field that envelops Earth and deflects the most harmful of the Sun’s rays.
Yes, all around us there is fire with its explosive violence, yet from it come life and every good gift.
To small creatures like us, God’s expansive love can seem almost violent. Indeed, there are terrifying experiences near volcanos and from solar bursts that remind us that love is both glorious and unnerving. It is an awesome thing to fall into the hands of a living God (Heb 10:31).
In some of our greatest human works, we too use violent means. The blades of our plows cut into the earth, violently overturning it. We raise animals and then lead them to slaughter for food and/or clothing. We break eggs to make omelets. We stoke fires to cook our food and warm our homes. We smelt iron and other ore we violently cut from the earth. Even as we drive about in our cars, the ignition of the fuel/air mixture in the engine causes explosions, the energy from which is ultimately directed toward propelling the vehicle.
Violent though much of this is, we do these things (at least in our best moments) as acts of love and creativeness. By them we bring light, warmth, and food. We build and craft; we move products and people to help and bless.
Yes, there is a paradoxical “violence” that comes from the fiery heat of love and creativity. The following is an excerpt from Bianco da Siena’s 14th century hymn to the Holy Spirit, “Come Down, O Love Divine”:
Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
O let it freely burn,
till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
and let thy glorious light
shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
Fire—can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Let the fire burn; let the seemingly transformative “violence” have its way. It makes a kind of paradoxical sense to us living in a universe that is midway through its fiery, expansive explosion of God’s love and creativity.
Disclaimer: I am not affirming gratuitous violence for selfish and/or merely destructive ends. The term “violence” is used here in a qualified manner, as an analogy to convey the transformative and creative power of love phenomenologically.
To everything...there is a season... and a time to every purpose under heaven.
His “Mere Christianity” thesis was so successful at reaching across the particular theologies of various parts of Christendom that it was well received by both Catholics and Protestants. And at this, Lewis smiled. One amusing phenomenon Lewis noted was being pegged as coming from quite a different viewpoint than a source he was quoting. To him that underscored the commonalities between the various denominational followings of Christendom.
Quite so. Even the things we may not particularly like, are allowed for a reason.
The creative nature of violence is the thesis.
My intent is to contrast this with the RCC’s consistent stance against most any war or violent law enforcement, including the border issues.
Maybe it’s a PINO problem rather than a RCC problem.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a4.htm#2241
2241 "Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens."
`
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2310
2310 Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.
Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.
Clearly, the doctrines of the Church strongly favor non-violent (political, economic, diplomatic) means over violent ones, and peacemaking over warmaking. However, law enforcement and national defense are never anathematized; to the contrary, they are recognized as contributing to the common good.
Note the ongoing problem we have with clergy ignoring the Catechism. Or, to put it another way, Catholic leadership being out of line with Catholic law.
Quite so. Even the things we may not particularly like, are allowed for a reason.
The rain falls upon the just and unjust.
Part of the story here is to illuminate what people will do under various circumstances. God may bring an earthly blessing to a committedly bad man simply to show how bad that man can get. Contrariwise, God may allow curses to fall upon a better man (with righteousness by faith, not absolute) to show how good that man can get.
As the bible says, “I am for peace, but they are for war.”
But that sounds like a pretty common sense way of looking at things. It doesn’t automatically endorse every measure that could possibly be taken (e.g. we generally don’t shoot unarmed intruders on forbidden land on sight) but does endorse taking some measures towards the end of securing the integrity of a country. The whole reason for a wall, if we reference Donald Trump’s vision, is to be able to put what he called “a big beautiful door” in that wall. If nobody can be vetted on the way in, if nobody can be warned about what the rules of the road will be and allowed to either leave and go their way or else assent, then we have an unsustainable chaos.
And the unsustainable chaos would understandably sour an entire everyman population on the idea of letting anybody in at all. A good wall is a must in order to have a good door.
Good walls make good neighbors -—and also good guests.
And it wasn’t without reason that when Nehemiah used his royal contacts to help Jerusalem rebuild its wall (which of course, had gates!) the completion was marked by a very grand party. Now Jerusalem could choose who got in; it wasn’t open for continual plunder but still could transact business.
I don’t know the reputation of the website that has the following, but in general it appears to have an evangelical view.
http://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/References/OT/Historical/Nehemiah/Nehemiah00HistorIntro.html
No, C.S. Lewis never became a Catholic, but was good friends with a number of them. One of his biographers said something to the effect that swimming the Tiber was just too far to go for someone who was a native of Belfast on the Protestant side of the tracks.
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