Introduction

THE PHILOSOPHY OF JESUS I: Who Is this Book For?

IT IS FOR BOTH Christians and

non- Christians.

(1) It’s designed to show

Christians a new dimension of Jesus:
Jesus the philosopher.
(2) And it’s designed to show non-
Christians a new dimension of
philosophy, a new philosophy and a
new philosopher. It’s not designed to
convert them.

But I am a Christian as well as a

philosopher; that is, I believe Jesus
is God. And I won’t hide that or fake it.
That’s why I capitalize His name
throughout the book.

But wait! If I just lost your potential

readership by that statement, I challenge
you—as a philosopher, now, not as a
Christian—to ask yourself this question
before you leave, and to give a logical
answer: would you refuse to read a book
about the philosophy of Buddha just
because it was written by a Buddhist?
Or a book explaining the philosophy of
the Qur’an just because it was written
By Peter Kreeft by a Muslim? Wouldn’t it make more
sense to refuse to read it if it wasn't?

What? Jesus, a philosopher? Would He

St.Augustine’s Press South Bend,
give a lecture at Harvard, or engage in a
Indiana 2007
long Socratic dialog in Plato’s
Academy, or write a critique of Kant’s
All rights reserved. No part of this Critique ofPure Reason ?
book may be reproduced, stored in a {1}
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any Obviously not. And everyone knows
form or that. That is “trivially
by any means, electronic, mechanical, true.”
photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior In another sense, Jesus was a
permission of St. Augustine’s Press. philosopher, but this second sense
is
also trivial. Everyone has some B esus was a philosopher in a meaningful
“philosophy of life.” Even Homer u middle sense, the sense in which
Simpson is a philosopher. t Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad,
J
Solomon, Marcus Aurelius, and Pascal Aeschylus.
were philosophers.
Even about the parables . . . the mode
I quote C.S. Lewis as my in which the fable represents its truth is
authority to support this classification, intellectual rather than imaginative—
in a letter to Dom Bede Griffeths like a philosopher’s illustration rather
(Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, volume II. than a poet’s simile. The unjust judge, to
San Francisco: Harper/SF, 2004, p. the imagination, presents no likeness to
191): God—carries into the story no divine
flavour or colour (as the Father of the
I question your account of Our Prodigal Son, for instance, does). His
Lord, when you say “He is essentially a likeness to God is purely for the
poet and not at all a philosopher.” intellect. It is a kind of proportion sum
Surely the “type of mind” —A:B::C:D.
represented in the human nature of
Christ (and in virtue of His humanity But this book is not so much about
we may, I suppose, neither Jesus’ philosophical style or method or
irreverently nor absurdly speak of it as “cast of mind” but about his
a “type of mind”) stands at just about philosophical substance, his
the same distance from the poetic as philosophical answers, his philosophy.
from the philosopher. . . . After all,
how full of argument, of repartee, even There ARE FOUR PERENNIAL
of irony, He is. The passage about the philosophical questions. “Philosophy”
denarius (“whose image and means “the love of wisdom,” and
superscription?”); the dilemma about wisdom, if we had it, would give us
John’s baptism; the argument against answers to at least these four great
the Sadduccees from the words “I questions:
am the God of Jacob, etc.”: the terrible,
yet almost humorous, trap laid for his 1. What is? What is real?
Pharisaic host (“Simon, I have Especially, what is most real?
something to say to you”); the repeated 2. How can we know what is real, and
use of the a fortiori (“If . . . how much especially the most real?
more”); and the appeals to our reason 3. Who are we, who want to know the
(“Why do not ye of yourselves judge real? “Know thyself.”
what is right?”)—surely in all these we 4. What shouldwe be, how should we
recognize as the human and natural live, to be more real?
vehicle of the Word’s incarnation a
mental complexion in which a keen- They are the questions about being,
eyed peasant shrewdness is just as truth, self, and goodness. The divisions
noticeable as an imaginative quality— of philosophy that explore these four
something in other words quite as close questions are called by four technical
{2} names: metaphysics, epistemology,
(on the natural level) to Socrates as
to philosophical anthropology, and ethics.

1. First things first: everything

is relative to metaphysics. The
first thing every baby wants to
know is:
What’s there? My son’s first like a machine gun, until he got a
question was “Wot dat?” He kept catalog of answers, a universe.
shooting the question at everything,
that, we ask how we can become our good people? And what is it to be a
true selves, our real selves, our good good person? (“Wot dat?”)
selves. How can bad people become

If we are wise, we never grow up. The logical order of questions is

this: we must first know something real
2. But we do change. Around the before we can know how we know it;
beginning of adolescence we turn and we must first know who we are
critical: we want to know not just the before we can know what is good for
difference between cats and dogs but us. The order is also an order of
the difference between truth and increasing concreteness, increasing
falsehood. We want to know how we practicality, and increasing accessibility
can know, how we can be sure. We and interest to ordinary people. Ethics
become epistemologists. is based on metaphysics, it is logically
posterior to metaphysics; but it is
And since the most interesting psychologically more compelling.
question of metaphysics is about
ultimate reality, the most interesting Philosophers have thought
question of epistemology is about profoundly about these four
knowing ultimate reality: how can we questions for over two millennia. Why
finite fools know infinite wisdom? have they not found answers that are
How can man know God? Or even adequate, final, and universally
that there is a God? acknowledged? Why is one of the best
definitions of a philosopher “one who
3. A little later, we also turn inward. contradicts other philosophers”? H.L.
We wonder who we really Mencken said, “Philosophy consists
are largely of one philosopher arguing that
once we stop playing with our all the others are jackasses. He usually
masks on other people’s stages. proves it.”
Why is it so hard to “know
thyself”? Obviously, what we are The Christian answer: because
is human beings, but what is that? the only adequate and final answer to
(“Wot dat?”) Once we know the all four great philosophical questions is
known, we want to know the Christ. The most philosophical writer
knower. in the Bible, John, begins his Gospel
4. Finally, when we realize that this self by identifying Jesus with the Logos (“In
that knows is fundamentally different the beginning was the Logos, and the
from everything else in the known Logos was with God and the Logos was
universe because it alone can fail to be God . .
{3}
its true self, we then demand to . and the Logos became flesh and
discriminate not only between dwelt
truth and falsehood but also between among us.”) What is the Logos? It is an
good and evil. We can be bad or incredibly rich Greek word. Here are
good. Nothing else in the universe some of its meanings: the Logos means
has that choice. Our selves, unlike the Word of God, the Revelation of
acorns or stars, are not wholly given God, the Speech of God, the Wisdom of
to us but made by our choices. Once God, the Mind of God, the Truth of
we realize God, the Reason of God, the
Philosophy
of God. Jesus is God’s philosophy.
 smarter than anyone else. It was
Jesus’ Metaphysics
because Ultimate Reality, for reasons
known only to Himself, had chosen to
1. Jesus’Jewish
reveal Himself to them as to no one
Metaphysics
else. God had come out of hiding.
The FIRST FACT WE must know about
In fact, He had told them His name.
Jesus to understand his metaphysics—in
And that name was “I
fact, the one fact that is the necessary
AM.”
historical key to understanding
everything He says, and the fact that
“I” is the name of a Person, not a
has been denied, forgotten, ignored, or
Force. God is “He,” not
downplayed by every heretic in history,
“It.”
in one way or other—is the fact
that Jesus was a Jew.
Half a hemisphere away, in India,
great sages had reached the realization
He was not a Gnostic or a New
that Ultimate Reality was one, and
Ager. He was not a Modernist or secular
that it was infinite; but they did not
humanist. He was not a Marxist or
know that its name was “I.” On the
socialist. He was not a Platonic
contrary, most of them taught that
philosopher. He was not a Brahmin
the “I,” or “ego” (“ego” is simply the
pantheist. He was not an Aryan
Latin word for “I”), that is, our
racist. He was not a social worker or
sense of unique, irreducible, distinct,
a pop psychologist or a pagan myth or
individual personhood, was the
a magician. He was not a Democrat or a
ultimate illusion and the great obstacle
Republican; in fact, he was not an
to supreme enlightenment.
American. He was not a libertarian or a
monarchist or an anarchist or a
This is probably why the East never
radical or a neoconservative. He was
developed a morality or a politics of
not a medieval or a modern man. He
human rights as did the Jewish, then
was a Jew.
Christian, then Muslim, West. For the
metaphysical basis for the idea of the
What does this have to do with
rights of man is the idea (or rather, the
metaphysics? Everything. Jesus knew
revealed truth) of man as created in the
the crucial answer to the crucial
image of God. The rights of the human
question of metaphysics because He
“I,” and the very reality of the human
was a Jew. The ultimate truth of
“I,” are grounded in the divine “I.” The
metaphysics, the nature of ultimate
West had both its “I’s” open, while the
reality, reality at its most real, was
East was closed to both.
not the unknowable mystery to the
Jews that it was to all the pagan
In fact, no two religions could differ
tribes, nations, and religions around {4}
more radically in their metaphysics
them.
than Judaism and Hinduism. That
which Hinduism claimed to be the
This was not because the Jews were
ultimate illusion and the ultimate
obstacle to wisdom and enlightenment
was precisely that which Judaism
claimed to be ultimate reality and
supreme wisdom. If a Jew said to his
rabbi, “I
just discovered that I’m God,” the rabbi existence of everything else out of
would rend his clothes and cry, nothing at all, ever enter any human
“Blasphemy! Insanity! Arrogance! mind except that of the Jews and those
Idiocy!” But if a Hindu said that to his who learned from them (mainly
guru, the guru would smile and say, Christians and Muslims).
“Congratulations. You finally found
out. Welcome to the ranks of the Alone among the many ancient
enlightened.” gods, the Jewish God was always “He,”
never “She” (or “It” or “They” or the
Hinduism and Judaism had both Hermaphrodite). For “She” symbolized
risen above paganism by realizing that something immanent, while “He” was
God was one and perfect. Hindus transcendent. “She” was the Womb
reached that point from the bottom up, of all things, the cosmic Mother, but
Jews from the top down: Hindus got “He” was other than Mother Earth. He
there by human mystical experience, created the earth, and He came into it
Jews got there by divine revelation. from without, as a man comes into a
woman. He impregnated nonbeing with
Hinduism and Judaism were the two being, darkness with light, dead
purest religions of the ancient world. matter with life, history with miracles,
Both religions rose above paganism by minds with revelations, His chosen
knowing that God was allknowing, and people with prophets, and souls with
therefore could never be escaped, salvation. He was transcendent.
tricked, conned, or bribed like the gods
of paganism. But the Jewish reason for That is why only Judaism, of all
this belief was different from the Hindu ancient religions, had no goddesses and
reason. The Jewish reason was that God no priestesses. For priests are
knew all because He had created the representatives and symbols of gods.
universe; the Hindu reason was that Priests mediate not only Man to
God was dreaming the universe. God but also God to Man. Women can
represent Man to God as well as men
The idea of creation, in the proper can, for women are equally human,
sense, is a uniquely Jewish idea. It valuable, good, and pious. But women
is expressed by a uniquely Jewish word: cannot represent this God to Man, for
bara’. It is a word that has no equivalent God is not our Mother but our Father.
in any other ancient language. It is Earth is our Mother.
a verb that never has any subject
besides God. Only God can create. For Jesus always called God “Father.”
to create means to make out of And Jesus was anything but a male
nothing, not out of something. It means chauvinist. He liberated women more
to make the very existence of than anyone else in His time. But
something, not just its form, He was also a Jew. He believed
{5}
meaning, structure, order, or destiny. that Judaism was the revelation of the
Creating is not just making new form in true God. He believed that God had
old matter; it is making the very taught us how to speak of Him. He not
existence of the matter. only believed this, He knew it, for He
was there! He was (and is) the eternal
Not once in history did this idea, Logos or Mind or Reason or Word of
the idea of a single God creating the God. He
very
was the Mind that had invented Judaism a lie.
—unless He was a liar and Judaism was
 Hindu monotheism had made peace be really real we must conform to the
with polytheism. To this day, Hindus character of Ultimate Reality—
worship many gods as well as one. therefore the meaning of life is to be
Brahman Himself (or Itself) is equally holy, to be a saint. Morality flows from
manifested in Vishnu, the metaphysics because goodness flows
immanent from God. “You must be holy because
”creator” of life, and in Shiva, the I the Lord your God am holy.” The
destroyer, and in Kali, Shiva’s connection is repeated like a liturgical
thousand-armed consort—and in formula in the Torah. Unlike the gods
literally thousands of named gods and of the polytheists and unlike the god of
goddesses. But for the Jews there the pantheists, God has no dark side.
simply were no other gods. With And that is why we shouldn’t have a
one startlingly unecumenical sweep of dark side either. The consequences of
God’s pen, all the gods of all the the Jewish metaphysics for ethics have
religions of the world were crossed out. been worldshaking. The whole world
got a Jewish mother, a Jewish
History has not been kind to conscience, because the world got the
polytheism. In the West, all the other Jewish Father.
gods are dead. (How many temples of
Diana or Mithras or Zeus are listed in This divine goodness is not just
your Yellow Pages?) And so are their perfect, it is more than perfect. It spills
worshippers. out beyond itself like sunlight. It is
agape, generosity, altruism, self-
(When was the last time you talked giving, self-sacrificial love. God seeks
with a Caananite or a Moabite or a intimacy with Man, God seeks to marry
Hittite?) Four thousand years after Man. “Your creator shall become your
Abraham, half the people in the Husband,” says Isaiah (54:5). To that
world have learned from the Jews that end, He makes covenants, to prepare for
(as the Muslims say) “there is no God the fundamental covenant, marriage.
but God.” He is the One, the Creator.
He is unique. No pagan ever suspected the
possibility of such intimacy, even with
That is the first point of Jesus’ their finite, anthropomorphic gods: that
metaphysics. It is not original. Every is, the relationship scripture calls
Jew knew it. Anyone who ignores, “faith,” or fidelity. And therefore no
doubts, or waters down that pagan ever understood the deeper
historical fact cannot possibly meaning and terror of “sin” either,
understand Jesus’ philosophy. for sin is the breaking of that
relationship. Sin is to faith what
And here is a second unique Jewish infidelity is to marriage. Only one who
belief: that the divine Will is perfectly knows the wonder of marriage can
{6}
good and righteous and holy and just. know the horror of infidelity.
God is the only god you can’t
bribe. And since that is the character of That is why Jesus, the Jew, took sin
Ultimate Reality—and since in order much more seriously than any pagan
to possibly could, and why He paid
the ultimate price—His own life—to
save us from it.
 From the viewpoint of the purely new concept of God or a new attribute
rational philosopher, the most of God, but He gave them a new deed of
surprising thing about the God, the greatest of all divine deeds,
the Incarnation, and in it the
Jewish concept of God is not that God redemption by His divine suffering,
is one, or perfect, or good, or even death, and resurrection.
loving, but that God, the infinite being,
has a character. He is not just “the The Father and the Son are the
Ground of Being” but a person with a same God, for “he who has seen Me has
personality. And that person and His seen the Father” (John 14:9). “Like
personality can be known (connaitre, father, like son.” Jesus was not God
kennen) by the experience of prayer, represented but God presented, God
moral effort, repentance, and faith as made maximally present, God known
a lived marriage-like relationship with by sight and even touch as well as by
Him. Though He is infinite, faith. Heaven had come to earth. It was
“infinite” does not mean “without not a new concept of Heaven but a new
character.” He is infinitely holy, presence of Heaven. Jesus showed His
infinitely righteous, infinitely just, chosen people thirty-three years of
infinitely loving, etc. He is not Heaven. For Heaven is where God is.
everything in general and nothing in God defines Heaven, Heaven does not
particular. He discriminates between define God.
good and evil, and demands we do the
same, both in thought and in life. 2. Jesus’ New Name for God
He gives each of us the inner
prophet of conscience for that purpose: The name Jesus called God was an even
to be morally narrow-minded, to be more startling one than the one God
judgmental, to be discriminating had revealed to Moses. Through Moses
between good and evil. For He is the Jews had learned that God is simply
infinitely narrow-minded: He will not I AM, the one, eternal, perfect,
compromise with evil. And if we are to unique, utterly real Person. Now
live in His family, as His children, we Jesus called this Person a name no one
must do the same. Just as His only- had ever dreamed or dared to use:
begotten Son is just like His Daddy, we “Father.”
His adopted children must be just like
Daddy too. That’s why He says to us, That meant two shocks: God was
“You must be perfect as My Father in Jesus’ Father by nature in eternity and
Heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) our Father by adoption in time.

Religious Jews before Jesus had already (“Adopted son was the generic legal
learned from their own prophets most title for adopted females as well as
of these startling truths about God males in the ancient world, since the
(though they did not know that God had {7} right of inheritance passed through
an eternal Son), and thus about males. So “son” was the necessary
Ultimate Reality, and thus about word to designate the fact that women
metaphysics. All Jesus did was to show as well as men had the right of full
what they already knew, to show it “up spiritual inheritance of all God’s riches
close and personal,” to put God’s face through Christ. The really
“in their face.” He did not show them a “inclusive” point could only be
new God or teach a expressed through the
apparently “exclusive” word.)
 And Jesus went even further. His The Metaphysics of
word was “Abba”—not just “Father” Love
but “Daddy,” the intimate term used
by a child, or even a baby. (Even a “So that you may have fellowship with
baby can bubble “Abba” or “Dada.”) us, and our fellowship is with the
The infinitely transcendent One was Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
now and for the rest of time and (I John
eternity also the infinitely intimate 1:3) The “bottom line” or practical
One. The Father is now in Baby’s payoff of the theological paradox of
playpen playing with Baby in baby- the Incarnation is the religious
talk. The inaccessible Deity became opportunity of fellowship, or
so accessible that He could be intimacy, with Ultimate Reality.
murdered. He made accessible not just This is the most radical solution to
His spirit but His blood. His saving the fundamental problem of
words of power were not, like a metaphysics: how to know Being.
philosopher’s, “This is my mind” but Being (“AM”) turned out to be also
“This is My Body.” (Matthew 26:26) Person (“I”), and knowing turned out to
be marrying! The object of meta-
St. John the apostle is still stunned physics proposes to the
and astounded in his old age as he metaphysician. It is as utterly
ponders this paradox when penning his unexpected as if when Newton
first epistle. The first sentence of his discovered gravity he had heard a
Gospel said: “In the beginning was the voice coming from all the gravity in
Word, and the Word was with God and the universe: “Will you marry me?” It
the Word was God . . . and the is as if the square of the hypotenuse
Word was made flesh and dwelt had confessed it was in love with
among us, and we saw His Pythagoras.
glory.” The first sentence of his
epistle said: “That- which-was-from- Only love could motivate such
the-beginning [became] that-which-we- madness. Christ’s outstretched arms on
have- looked- upon-and-touched-with- the Cross are God’s answer to our
our-hands.” The unmanifest Source of childlike question: “How much do you
all manifestations became manifested. love me?” “This much!” How big is
The “Tao” beyond and behind “the ten that stretch? It is the distance between
thousand things under heaven” became Heaven and earth that was bridged
one of those things. by the Incarnation, and it was the
distance between Heaven and Hell that
was bridged by our salvation.

Christ is the ultimate revelation

of God, or ultimate reality, of the
deepest secret of metaphysics.
The equation of God with Christ metaphysical
Man’s quest finds its final
is like the equation
Great Beast by usingofHis
E with
secretMCweapon: m earthly
od tofulfillment
give. To attheGolgotha,
scandaltheof the
squared.
The
His divine His
blood, energy
love.wasHeconverted into
let the Beast {8}o
Place
Skull, of the
where the
scholars, God’s answerworld saw theto mostour
matter,
drink Hisinblood,
a kindlike
of transnuclear fission.
a reverse Dracula. r dramatic event in history: Death
metaphysical quest is not a concept or a
The divine subject (“I”) became a e and
Life dueling
mythic in miraculous
symbol but thatcombat
deed. You
human object have
He could (“him”).The
redeemedspeedus withof b (Mors
etcan
Vitasee the nature of ultimateinreality
duello, conflixere mirando, the
Heavenly
one droplight becamewhy
of blood; finite.did He die l words of the “Dies Irae”).
when you look at a crucifix. There Life
such a bloody death? Because He had o conquered Death not bywisdom
is more metaphysical power butin by
that
Why did He do it? love. The Little Lamb defeated
the
simple gaze of the simple Christian only data we have to know that God
child than in the highest mystical is love is Christ.
experiences of the sage or guru, and
more than in the finest philosophical Yet once revealed, the absurd story
systems of a Plato or an Aristotle. appears totally beautiful. Tolkien
They may have known the experience says of the Gospel, “There is no tale
of Being or the concept of Being, but men more wish to be true.” For life’s
the Christian child sees Being’s face. greatest joy is to be loved, passionately
loved, infinitely loved; to be totally
How could any mortal man have known, with all our wrinkles, and yet
dared to imagine such a story? How totally loved.
could the human heart have ever
conceived such a thought? The Sartre, in No Exit, shows how
effect cannot exceed the cause. Such a apparently impossible this is: for me to
thought—that the perfect God should know you is for me to know all
act as if He stood in desperate need the things that make you not lovable, he
of us sinners—is far too absurd to be argues, and for me to love you is for me
anything but either Hellish insanity or to love an ideal, a dream, a fantasy
Heavenly revelation. of my own. Only God made the
impossible possible. To be loved and
How else, but for Christ, could we known at once: that is Heavenly.
have known that God loves us? I mean Remember the joy you felt when you
really loves us, not just with proper received even a little of that, even the
philanthropy but with utterly improper tiniest approximation to that, from one
passion. Even if any man dared to hope little stupid, sinful human being like
this, what ground could there yourself? Now multiply that by
possibly be for such a crazy hope? infinity, which is the difference
What data do we have? What evidence? between humanity and divinity, and
Certainly not nature (“nature red in you begin to understand the joy of
tooth and claw”), or human life being known and loved by God. Loved
(“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and how much? This much. Christ-much.
short”), or human history (“the
slaughter-bench at which the happiness But we live in the shadow of
of peoples is sacrificed”). The sinfulness, the light-absorbing clothing
that we wear over the divine glory we
were created with, and that is why the
love of God seems less piercing and
powerful to us than the love of a man
or a woman. But that shadow was lifted
by Christ. That was the veil that hid
{9} the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and
He tore it. In Heaven, when with
purified eyes we can endure the sight,
the veil will be lifted totally. As of
now, we can endure only an inch of
light from the empty tomb. (Remember
that last scene in Mel Gibson’s The
Passion of the
Christ?) Perhaps that is why Christ did re surrection: it would have blinded us.
not allow us to be actual
eyewitnesses of the event of His
The Moral Consequences of Matter is that which can be quantified.
Metaphysics But mathematical, arithmetical unity is
not the highest kind of unity, the most
The consequences of this unified kind of unity. Rather, the
metaphysics for morality are active, personal identification of the
momentous. Since love “goes all the lover’s identity with the beloved’s
way up” into Ultimate Reality, into identity is the higher unity. And by
God, so does morality. Real morality “higher” unity here I mean not just
(as distinct from legalistic or pragmatic “better” but also “more truly one.”
or political morality) is grounded in
metaphysics. For the essence of We can see faint but definite
morality, agape love, is the essence of indications of this even in our faint
Divine Being. Christ revolutionized loves, if only they are definite. The
metaphysics by revealing not just love lover finds his unity, his identity,
but the metaphysics of love, the fact his self, his “I,” more in his beloved
that love is the essence of God; that than in himself.* The death or
love is, in the absolutely last analysis, suffering or sin of the beloved is far
“the way it is.” more of a threat to the lover’s own life
and identity and joy than his own could
All explanation is a relationship ever be. We know this strange fact by
between A and B: A is explained by B, experience only if we are lovers. Thus
and B by C, and C by D. But eventually we know by experience the basis for the
there has to be something that is not Trinity. We know it not by theorizing
explained by anything else, but just by but only by practicing love, by
itself. Of that something we must practicing what the Trinity is. But the
simply say, “because that’s just the way theory can then follow, like a shadow,
it is.” Christ revealed that “the way it
is” is love. The ultimate equation is not * Were I a woman, I would say “her”
“Being is Being” but “God is love.” (I unity and “herself.” I will not say
John 4:8) “his or her self” or “themselves”
because abusing grammar is not
It is this ultimate truth about reparation for the sin of abusing
“the way it is,” the truth that God is grandmas.
love, that is the reason behind the other
astonishing paradox of Christianity, if the lived substance comes first. And
that the absolutely one God is a Trinity the theory is this: that love, which we
of Persons.The reason is that the have already seen to be the highest and
supremely single thing, the supreme most unified kind of unity, requires
oneness, is the oneness of love, not of more than one person, unless it
number or of matter. Matter follows the is merely selfish love, auto-eroticism. It
laws of matter, which are the laws of requires a lover and a beloved, an other.
{10}
mathematics, the laws of
quantity. And the love between the lover and
the beloved at the highest level can
be so real that it is a reality in itself, a
third person. For love is fruitful and
creative. Human sexuality is a pale
but holy image of that ultimate fact.
That is why
the fleeting act of human sex is so Mystery,” in The Philosophy of
ecstatic in both senses of that word: Existentialism.)
unutterably joyful and mystically
standing-outside-oneself. It surpasses That is one of the most puzzling
anything possible on a merely and pregnant sayings I have ever heard
animal level because it is an image from any philosopher. It is not
of the infinite and eternal ecstasy sentimentalism; it is perfect logic. For:
of the Trinity.
(1) Ontology, or metaphysics, is
If God were only one Person, only a the science of being.
Lover, instead of complete Love, He (2) And our clearest understanding
would need an other to love, and thus of being, or reality, must come from
God would be in need of His creatures. the most real being, not from the less
Or else, He would not need any real.
other, and then His love would be only (3) And the most real being, the
love- of-self. Even when such source and standard and archetype of
“selfish” love is not competitive and all reality, is God.
sinful, it cannot produce the ecstasy and (4) But we don’t know God
the joy that unselfish love can and does directly, as an object, for His name
produce, both spiritually and sexually. is not “IT IS” (object) but “I
AM”
Since God is complete, He is (subject).
complete love: Lover, Beloved, and (5) And we too are subjects (“I’s”),
Loving all in one: subject of love, not objects, since we are created in
object of love, and act of love. Each of His image.
these three is so real in God that they (6) Yet we can and do know
are not just mentally-distinguished, ourselves somehow.
abstract aspects but really-distinct, (7) So it is personhood, or I-
concretely real Persons. ness, that is the key, or door, or
window, to metaphysics.
(8) But personhood, like being, is
So the nature of ultimate reality is
analogical. It is a matter of degree.
Trinity: not only absolute oneness but
We are more or less authentic, more or
also absolute manyness. Plurality as less
well as unity “goes all the way up.” real. Atoms are not as real as souls,
This too is revealed only by Christ. No and human souls are not as real as God.
one who does not believe in Christ (9) The most real human persons
believes in the Trinity. The data for the are saints. They are what we are all
ultimate secret of metaphysics is Christ. designed to be.
Christ is the world’s greatest (10) Therefore the study of sanctity
metaphysician. is the key to the study of being.
{11}
3. Sanctity as the Key to Let’s go through that again, this
Ontology time emphasizing the central role of
Christ.
And because saints are “little Christs,”
Gabriel Marcel is right when he (1) Metaphysics is the science of
says that “sanctity is the true being.
introduction to ontology.” (“On (2) The nature of being is the
the Ontological nature of God, for all being is defined
by God,
the Creator of all being. For instance, the one God: God is love (agape) and
all being is good because God is good God is also Necessary Being, the
and all being is either the Creator, who Unchangeable Way Things Are, the
is supremely good, or a creature Utterly Real, Ultimate Reality. So
created by the Creator, and therefore ultimate reality is agape love. So the
also good. object of metaphysics is the object
of sanctity.
(3) God “speaks” or “expresses” or
“reveals” Himself in His Logos, His Still another formulation: To
eternal Word, His Mind. This is the succeed at metaphysics we must know
eternal Christ. Jesus is His human the utterly real; to know the utterly real
name, Logos is His eternal name; it is we must love; to love is to be a saint;
the same Person. God the Father holds therefore to succeed at metaphysics is
nothing back in expressing His whole to be a saint.
self in God the Son.

(3) God the Son became a man, G

and gave us the final, definitive, perfect o
revelation of God, and therefore of d,
Being.
(4) Saints are little Christs. We
see
Christ through the saints. Saints
are windows who let through more of
the
light of Christ, which is the light of
the
Father, which is the light of Being.
(5) That is why saints are the
windows to being, and why the study of
sanctity is the key to metaphysics.

Marcel’s saying refutes our foolish

and harmful habit of separating
metaphysics and sanctity into very
separate compartments. On the one
hand, metaphysics is supposed to be
objective and impersonal. But the
ultimate object of metaphysics, the
ultimate being, ultimate reality, is a
Person. His name is “I AM.” On the
other hand, sanctity is supposed to be
subjective and psychological. But the {12}

ultimate point of being a saint is to be

real, to be Godlike, to conform to and
thus reveal the ultimate nature of
objective reality.

Another way to see the connection

between metaphysics and sanctity is by
remembering two of the names of
The Metaphysics of “I AM” hi e had the only camera, and it was up to
s him to give the camera to another
Until the Incarnation, the Jews were pi family member so he could pose for a
forbidden to have any image or ct picture of himself. This is what God
picture of God. For God’s essence, ur did in the Incarnation. Being became
revealed in the name He gave to Moses es a being, the Subject became an object,
in the burning bush (Exodus 3:14), was , God became a man, I AM became a He.
“I AM.” God is pure subject, not object. b
There is no picture of God because God ut But He is still I AM. Watch how He
is the one behind the camera. he interacts with His creatures now, and
di you will detect the metaphysical
Back when cameras were new, d secret in the name “I AM.”
Grandpa was the only one in the family n
who took all the family pictures. So the ot “Your father Abraham rejoiced that
rest of the family always appeared in . he was to see my day; he saw it and
H was
glad.” rabbi answer a question with
another question?)
The Jews then said to him, “You
are not yet fifty years old; have you (1) “Shall we stone the adulteress
seen Abraham?” or not?”

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly (If so, you defy Rome. If not, you
I say to you, before Abraham was, I defy Moses.) “Let him who is
AM.” without sin cast the first stone.”
(John 8:7)
So they took up stones to throw
at him. (John 8:57-58) (2) “Should we pay taxes to
Caesar or not?”

One of the most striking pieces of 1: ies, when they try to put Him on the
evidence about who Jesus is—I AM, 5) spot and pin Him down to their walls,
the Subject, not the object—is how He W when they try to make Him the object
always manifests this identity in His he of their control and of their
interactions with His creatures. In all n comprehension, He not only escapes,
His encounters, He becomes in time H but He reverses the relationship so
what He is eternally. He is the First, and e that He becomes the questioner and
so He cannot be the second. He is the is they become the questioned ones.
Subject, and so He cannot be the object. q (Jesus perfectly understands the
ue archetypal Jewish joke: Tell me, why
He cannot be the object of human st does a rabbi always answer a
manipulation and control unless He io question with another question?
consents to be. This consent culminates, ne Answer: Why shouldn’t a
of course, in His crucifixion. But d
remember that He had said, “I lay b
down My own life. No man takes it y
from Me.” (John 10:18) Nor can He be H
the object of human understanding and is
comprehension. For “the light shines in en
the darkness and the darkness was not e
able to comprehend it.” (John m
 ( soon shout, ‘We have no king but
Is Caesar!’)
C
ae “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s
sa and to God what is God’s” (instead of
r vice versa, which is what they were
y doing). (Luke 20:25)
o
ur (3) “By whose authority do you
ki do these miracles?” “By whose
n authority did John the Baptist
g
or preach to you
n
ot repentance?” “We
?
T cannot tell.”
he
se “Then I will not tell you by whose
w authority I do these miracles.”
er (Matthew
e 21:27)
th
e (4) “You shall love the Lord your
ve God with your whole heart, and your
ry neighbor as yourself, but who is my
m neighbor?”
{13} en
w And, after telling the parable of the
h Good Samaritan, “Go and do likewise.”
o (Answer the question about who is the
w neighbor by being the neighbor—as I
o am doing.) (Luke 10:37)
ul
d (5) “Lord, are many saved?”
“Strive to enter in.” (Luke 13:24) pecially clear in John’s Gospel. It
T begins early, with the very first words
What is common to all these hi John records as coming from His lips:
examples is that the judge and the s “What do you seek?” (John 1:38) The
judged change places. Christ the Tiger p question may seem casual and
bursts the bars of the cage men try h common, but it is profound.
to put around Him, and captures e
His would-be captors inside. He is the n It is profound because it is a probe
Fisherman, the Fisher-King, and we are o that goes into the depths of our heart. It
the fish, not vice versa. This Fisherman m means, “What do you love the most?”
cannot be caught like a fish. He fits into e And this means, “Who are you?”
no net and swallows no bait, not n For we are what we love. We become
even the Devil’s temptations in the o what we love. We “identify with”
wilderness. There is no place in His n what we love. We find our identity in
mouth for a hook to hold, for His is what we love. St. Augustine knew
mouth is fire. es that well; that’s why he wrote: Amor
meus, pondus meum -“my love is my (Matthew 7:7) In other words, what you
gravity,” my weight, my destiny. We love, you will get. So be careful
become what we love the most, what what you love.
we send out hearts out to. Our
heredity makes us what we are, but our So this is a very dangerous thing,
hearts make us who we are. this lovingthing. It changes you. It
changes your life. It’s as objectively
Jesus says the same thing: “Ask, real as a large, hot rock thrown in your
and it shall be given to you. Seek, and face. It’s not just a thought or a feeling
you shall find. Knock, and the door will inside you; it really happens. We
be opened to you. For all who ask, unite with what we love. We become
will receive, all who seek, will find, all what we love. The more you love
who knock, will have the door chocolate, the more chocolate you
opened.” become. The more you love
cannibalism, the more cannibalistic
you become. The more you love
Christ, the more Christlike you become.
Nothing is more scary than that.
Look how scared the world was of
Christ: they had to crucify Him.

Do you want that? Jesus asks you,

“What do you want?” just as personally
and just as insistently as He asked His
first disciples. We think we are on
a quest for Him, but He questions our
quest, He questions our heart. He is on
a quest for us. He is the questioner,
and we must answer Him, not vice
versa. This is exactly what Job
discovered when he met God. It is also
what Viktor Frankl observed some of
the prisoners in Auschwitz discovering:
that this outrage that had happened to
them, this suffering that was too big to
get their minds around, this terrible
thing that they were questioning as to
its meaning (“Why must I suffer
so?”)— that this was not the answer
but the question; that they could find
{14} the answer to their question only
through their own action; that they
were the answer and life was the
question rather than vice versa. And
this was true whether they believed that
there was a God who stood behind
“life,” wearing it as His mask, or
whether it was just “life” asking
them the question.
 In these four little words, “What do insecure by challenging you to go
you want?” Jesus is asking not just one beyond the safe little beach of human
question but many. He is asking, for knowledge, even the profoundest
instance, the question that most of the human knowledge, out into the deep
Jews of His time were answering with the terrifying waves, where you
wrongly, just as most Gentiles do actually meet the All-Holy One in
today: Do you want a political whose presence you will “fall down at
Messiah? A means to your political His feet as one dead?” (Revelation 1:7)
ends, whatever they may be, Left or Do you want to meet satisfyingly
Right, socialist or libertarian, intelligent ideas rather than God? Or,
Monarchist or Marxist, Herodian or if you do meet God, do you want to
Zealot, collaborationist or rebel? In His meet Him as an uncle rather than as an
question He was giving an answer to earthquake (to use Rabbi Abraham
their question (“Are you our Heschel’s memorable words)? If that’s
Messiah?”). He was saying: “If you what you want, do not come to Me. I
want a supernatural means to your am not your Messiah.”
natural end, I am not your Messiah. Do
not come to Me.” (That was probably Our fundamental question to Jesus
why Judas betrayed Him. —“Who are you?”—rebounds off him
and hits us full in the face. He does not
Politics has been betraying religion answer our question, “Who are you?”
ever since, from the Inquisition to until we first answer His question,
Al Queda.) “Who are you? What do you want?”
We come to Him hoping He is the
In these four words He was also answer to our question, and we find
addressing a smaller group, the Him asking us whether we are the
apolitical ecclesiastics who saw Him question to His answer.
as a rabbi rather than as a rebel, and
He was asking them: “Do you want This is not a trick, like a riddle, or
a teacher who will pat and pander and even an optional, chosen method,
patronize you and reinforce your self- like the Socratic Method. It is an
esteem and self-satisfied, respectable ontological inevitability, because of
pride? A contrast to that troublemaker Who He is. He is God. God is not our
John the Baptist? Someone who will Answer Man, our servant, the means to
condemn and upset your enemies the our end. To think that is pagan
Romans but not you? If so, then do not anthropomorphism. No, God is the
come to Me. I am not your Messiah.” End. He is the Absolute; He is not
relative to us, but we to Him. He is the
And He was also addressing an First, the Creator, the Initiator. He is
even smaller but significant group of the Wooer, and we the wooed; He is the
people, His scholarly and philosophical Impregnator, and we are the
{15}
contemporaries, and their followers impregnated; He is the Bridegroom; we
down through the centuries, and He are the bride. (The image of the wooing
was asking them: “Do you want a may be socially relative, but the
rational philosopher who will not image of the impregnation is not. That
surprise or confuse you? The kind of is why God is always “He” and never
teacher who will make you secure by “She” in the Bible. To think the reverse
telling you what you already know is to commit a metaphysical
rather than mistake, a
solecism against the grammar of other.
being, a sin of the mind against the
unchangeable nature of ultimate Imagine a pious Muslim. A pious
reality.) Muslim is simply one who is filled with
true “islam,” or submission and
This is the God of Abraham, the surrender to the one God, whom
real God. Abraham’s Muslim children Muslims call “Allah” (“Allah” means,
have never succumbed to the simply and literally, “the one God”).
temptation of pop psychology, The Muslim has deep reverence for his
relativism, subjectivism, secular prophet Muhammad precisely because
humanism, or “politically correct” he sees in him the perfect example of
feminism, as many American Jews and “islam” to Allah. When Allah
Christians have. (They have different commands, Muhammad obeys. When
temptations, like Islamo-fascism. None Allah says “recite!”, Muhammad
of us is immune.) recites.

All the encounters between Christ Now imagine this Muslim reading
and us in the four Gospels are the Gospels for the first time. He would
structured by the fact that God is the be impressed by the fact that Jesus, like
great I AM; the subject, not the Muhammad, is totally obedient to
object; the questioner, not the the Father. (“I came into the world not
answerer; the judge, not the judged; the to do my own will but the will of my
initiator, not the responder. That is one Father.”
of the clues, one of the fingerprints, so ... “My teaching is not my own, but my
to speak, of the true God; and when Father’s.”) This fact would reinforce
pious Jews or Muslims read the the Muslim’s belief that Jesus is a great
Gospels, it is possible for them to find prophet. But then comes a puzzle:
this clue based on their own scriptures. unlike Muhammad, Jesus is always the
Christ speaks of this possibility when judge, never the one judged. The
He says, “Everyone who has heard Qur’an itself labels Muhammad a
and learned from the Father comes to sinner, whom Allah commands to
Me.” (John 6:45) and “If you believed repent of his sins. But Jesus says,
Moses, you would believe Me.” (John “Which of you can convict me of
5:46) sin?” And what would this Muslim
make of the fact that after railing
This possibility, or clue—the clue to against the blasphemously “unfitting”
Christ’s divinity to be found in the fact Christian notion that Allah should
that He is always the initiator, not the have a son, Muhammad suddenly
responder—is exactly what we and surprisingly declares, “But know
should expect if only two premises that if Allah did have a Son, I would be
are true. The first is the essence of the first to worship him”?
{16}
Christianity: that Christ is the Son
of God. The second is that the Is there the faintest note of
principle “like father, like son” is true uncertainty there, like David’s in
not only literally and biologically but Psalm
also analogically and theologically, 139:19-24?
since biological reality is derived from
theological reality as the creature is The divine fingerprint that the
derived from the Creator. What Muslim might detect in Jesus’ words in
follows is that to truly know either the Gospels is not merely the fact
one, Father or Son, is to know the that
He claims divinity. Madmen have done of God Himself, ‘I AM.’” God sneaks
that too, and Muslims claim that the into the conference debate and presents
madmen here were the Christians who Himself as evidence. It is like a
wrote the Gospels, not Christ. teenager’s “Hel—loooo!” to her parents
The divine fingerprint I speak of is the when they’re talking about her in
style of His claims. Whenever He is her presence as if she were not there.
asked a question, He turns the This is the humor Jesus Himself used
situation around so that the questioner in John
is questioned. Whenever He is asked an 8:58. The response He got was rocks
abstract, impersonal question, He thrown at Him. It is also the same
gives a concrete, personal answer. humor Socrates used in the Apology
When He is asked who He claims to be, when, on trial for atheism, he brought
He gives them not an objectifiable into court as his character witness the
name, like “Zeus,” but the holy, word of a god, from the Delphic oracle.
unique Name of His Father that The response Socrates got was
declares His real presence: “I AM!” hemlock. People don’t like to be subtly
Imagine the greatest philosophers in the and gently laughed at by their own
world holding a conference on the innocent victims.
existence of God: atheists versus
theists. After all the arguments for This situation endures to the end of
atheism, the case for theism is time, since Jesus endures to the end of
presented by a visitor: God Himself, time, and He is “the same yesterday,
Who shows up at the conference not today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
as a philosopher defending a theory but The Incarnation had a beginning but not
as data, creeping up behind the an ending. It forever divided time in
philosophers and saying, “BOO!” two, cutting the Gordian knot of
history. Abraham looked forward to the
That is the high and holy joke beginning of this event, while we look
of Aquinas in the most famous of all backward to it, but God looks
his articles, the one on the existence of neither forward nor backward, since He
God in the Summa. (Aquinas has the is not merely a character in His own
same kind of sense of humor Jesus has: play but the Playwright. For God it is a
it is at the opposite extreme from jokes: timeless truth that human flesh and
it is an irony that resides deep in the blood, body and soul, is joined to
very substance of what he is talking His Son, the Divine Word of God,
about.) In each article in the Summa, in hypostatic union. As the
Aquinas, after listing objections to his Athanasian Creed says, the Incarnation
thesis, defends it in two steps: first, in happened not by the lowering of
the section that begins with the formula divinity into humanity, as if divinity
“on the contrary,” with an authoritative could suffer change, but by the raising
quotation, and then, in the section that of humanity into divinity. We suffer
{17}
begins with the formula “I answer change, we are potentially this or that,
that,” with an original argument. So but God is purely actual. We are
what authoritative quotation about potentially divinizeable, but God is not
God’s existence does Aquinas use? Not potentially humanizeable. God is purely
any quote about God but a quote from actual. (That is the first meaning of
God: “On the contrary, it is said in the “act.”) Therefore He acts (that is the
person second meaning of “act”), while we are
also acted upon. The divine
nature
cannot be acted upon. It cannot be concrete and personal and standing
changed. It is not passive or potential. before him, condemned. Pilate’s
Only when He assumes human nature skepticism implicitly complains: “How
can He be acted upon by us. And then am I supposed to know that great
He is acted upon even to the point philosophical will-o-the-wisp, ‘truth’?
of our scorns, our thorns, and our nails. Can I see it? Can I touch it?” And Jesus
answers: “Yes. In fact, you can crucify
In the Incarnation, “I AM” became it.”
“HE WAS conceived of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.”Then, on But when man crucifies truth, truth
Calvary, the Iwho became a he crucifies man. In the very act whereby
became an it: the God who became Pilate condemns truth incarnate, truth
a man became a corpse. unincarnate condemns Pilate.

But then there was (or rather is) “the Jesus does not answer Pilate in
rest of the story”: the Resurrection. The words because truth incarnate is like
startling point for metaphysics is that light, not like a lit object. Jesus is not
this whole story is the story of on trial, Pilate is. When we juxtapose
Jesus with this second great
Jesus’ Epistemology philosophical question, the
epistemological question, we see the
THE FIRST GREAT PHILOSOPHICAL same pattern repeated as we saw with
question is: What is? The second, the first question: just as Jesus is not a
which naturally follows, is: How do we metaphysician but something more
know what is? The first question is metaphysical than a metaphysician—He
about being, the second is about truth. is the very being that all metaphysics
seeks—so he is not just an
Truth is relative to being, for “truth” epistemologist but the truth that all
means “the truth about being.” “An epistemology seeks. For Jesus is not a
orange is round” is true only because an philosopher, a lover of wisdom, only
orange is round. because He is wisdom. He is the
Beloved that “the love of wisdom” is
Jesus’ answer to the first in love with. The title of this book is
question, the question of being, was appropriate because Jesus is more
Himself. It was not to point but to be, to philosophical than any philosopher, not
be “I AM.” So His answer to the less.
second question, the question of truth,
is also not to point to anything else as He is the answer to Job’s great,
the truth but simply to be Himself the perennial quest:
truth: “I AM the truth.” (John 14:6)
{18} Surely there is a mine for silver
Thus the supreme irony of Pilate
cynically addressing the philosophers’ And a place for gold which they
great question “What is truth?” to refine.
the eternal, perfect, absolute, divine,
eternal truth Himself, made Iron is taken out of the earth
incarnate and And copper is smelted from the
ore.
Men put an end to darkness And search And concealed from the birds of the air
out to the farthest bound the ore in ...
deep darkness.
God understands the way to it And
The open shafts in a valley away he knows its place. ( Job 28)
from where men live;
What place is that? Jesus. Jesus
They are forgotten by travelers, is the place of wisdom. Jesus alone
reveals both God and man to man,
They hang afar from men, they swing because He alone is perfect God and
to and fro . . . Man puts his hand to the He alone is perfect man. As Pascal
flinty rock And overturns mountains by says,
the roots.
Not only do we only know God
He cuts out channels in the rocks through Jesus Christ, but we only know
And his eye sees every precious ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only
thing. know life and death through Jesus
Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we
He binds up streams so that they do cannot know the meaning of our life or
not trickle, And the thing that is hid he our death, of God or of ourselves.
brings forth to light. (Pensées 417)

But where shall wisdom be found? What must we know? Only two
things: who we are and who God is. For
And where is the place these are the only two persons we will
of understanding? never be able to escape from, to all
eternity. And knowing who we are
Man does not know the way to it involves knowing what the meaning of
our life is, and that involves
And it is not found in the land of knowing the meaning of death, for
the living. death defines life as a frame
defines a picture. Pascal’s claim
The deep says: “It is not in me.” (which is the claim of Jesus Himself,
and of all His disciples who wrote the
And the sea says: “It is not with New Testament) is that He is the
me.” answer, the true and final and ultimate
and only adequate answer, to all four
It cannot be gotten for gold of Pascal’s questions: God, self, life,
and death.
And silver cannot be weighed as
its price. Of these four questions, the first is
{19} God. God is the first question because
Whence then comes God is the first in every way. We must
begin with the Beginning. The most
wisdom? And where is the necessary thing to know is the most
Necessary Being.
place of
understanding? But this is impossible, for “He dwells in
inaccessible light.” (third canon of the
It is hid from the eyes of all the Mass)
living
How can the Eternal Subject, I AM, become some man-made abstraction, some idea or
the object of human knowledge? How can rule or number. In that case, all the activity
mere mortal man, how can this finite, fallen, comes from you. For an abstract idea can do
fallible fool, know God? Far easier for a nothing of itself. Its whole life comes from
mentally retarded amoeba to know man. yours.

Christ’s answer comes in two parts: first Next, suppose you want to know
the bad news, then the good news. something that is inferior to yourself that is
independently real but not alive, like a rock.
The bad news (which we knew already if It has a reality independent of your mind, but
we were as wise as Job) is that we can’t. “No all the activity (except its very act existing
man has seen God at any time.” (John 1:18) and its nature) comes from you. You must go
Then, immediately, He gives us the good to it and study it. It does nothing but sit there
news: “The only-begotten Son, who is in the passively and let itself be studied.
bosom of the Father, He has made Him
known.” (John 1:18) Man’s universal search Next, suppose you want to know
for God is a universal failure, like the Tower something alive, a plant. It has some
of Babel. Philosophy is ultimately the classic activity of its own. It can change from seed
Vermont farmer joke: “Ya can’t get there to tree, from living to dead, from healthy to
from here.” But God’s search for man is a diseased. So it is a little harder to know,
success, and the name of that success is Jesus. especially to predict. It is alive, and we speak
of “the mystery of life.” We do not speak of
We can’t know God, ultimate Truth, by “the mystery of rocks.” But it is still fairly
climbing any human tower, whether it is built easy to know, and mainly passive.
of the babble of words or of bricks. We can
know God only if God climbs down, if He Next, suppose you want to know an
lets down Jacob’s ladder from Heaven. Jesus animal. This is harder still because the animal
is Jacob’s ladder (He Himself says so: has a much richer, higher level of reality. It is
compare John 1:51 with Genesis 28:12), and active. It can run away from you and hide
the way we see this ladder is upside down: it from you, unlike a plant. You have to win its
really rests on Heaven, not on earth like the confidence. There is a mental life shared
Tower of Babel. Its foundations cannot between you. But still, you are the initiator.
collapse like Babel’s because they are not We do not see guinea pigs doing laboratory
human thought and words (logoi) but the experiments on men.
divine thought and Word (the Logos:
John Now when you move up one more step,
1:1). when the being you want to know is another
human being, an equal, the activity is divided
It is utterly reasonable that human reason equally, or almost equally. (You do most
cannot find God. To prove this, we need of the activity in dialoging with babies, while
a basic principle of epistemology, which the older, wiser person does most of the
we will discover by looking at the various activity in dialoging with you.
levels of human knowledge. For the levels of
knowledge correspond to levels of reality, {20} That is why most of our prayer time should
since knowledge corresponds to reality. (In be spent in listening.)
fact “knowledge” means “correspondence
to Next, suppose you want to know an
)
reality.” angel. If the angel does not reveal
himself, you will know very little, almost
Let us begin by supposing that you want nothing.
to know something very inferior to yourself:
Finally, suppose you want to know God. Him. If He does not take the initiative, we
Here all the activity must originate from simply cannot know Him.
 heard it, they went away, one by one,
This is why there must be divine beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left
revelation if there is to be knowledge of God. alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus looked up and said to her,

“Woman, where are they? Has no one

condemned you?” She said, “No man,
Lord.”

But there is divine revelation, God And he said, “Neither do I condemn you; go,
did reveal Himself, and in many ways: first and do not sin again.” (John 8:3-11)
of all, by creating the universe, but last and
most of all by Christ, the final, definitive The scribes and Pharisees demand an
revelation of God. There will be no more answer from Jesus to a question they are
definitive revelation, until the end of time. certain must trap Him: what does He say
“For in him all the fullness of God was should be done to this woman who has been
pleased to dwell.” (Colossians 1:19) This caught in the act of adultery? The Law of
verse tells us that Christ is all of God that Moses, i.e. the law of God, commanded them
we can ever know because He is all of God to stone her. (Note that the law did not merely
that there is. There is no more in God than in allow or recommend this punishment but
Christ. The Father holds nothing back in the commanded it.) But Roman law forbade the
Son. Christ is the ultimate epistemological Jews to exercise the right of capital
revelation of ultimate metaphysical reality. punishment for any crime at all. (Note that
Christ is the key to epistemology. this law did not merely discourage but
forbade this punishment to be meted out by
Watch how this unfolds in the Gospels. the Jews rather than by the Romans.) So if
Watch how He works, how He does much Jesus says, “No, do not stone her,” he
more than simply know the truth and teach it. disobeys Moses, and is a heretic. If he says,
Watch how He is the truth, not just as 2 plus “Yes, stone her,” he disobeys Rome, and is a
2 are 4 in an equation but as bees do be in a traitor. And if he says neither, he disobeys
beehive. (Bee-ing is what bees do. Existing is the law of honesty and is a coward.
an act.) Watch how epistemology comes alive
because truth is alive and active and therefore No human wisdom could have
able to free us. Watch how “the truth shall escaped this perfect trap. Only three answers
make you free”: are logically possible (yes, no, and nothing),
and all three leave Jesus condemned: by
The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman Mosaic law if he says no, by Roman law if
who had been caught in adultery, and placing he says yes, and by the natural law if he says
her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, neither.
this woman has been caught in the act of
adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded Ah, but remember who He is. He is I
us to stone such. What do you say about AM. He is the one who spoke to Moses from
her?” This they said to test him, that they the burning bush when Moses tried to pin
might have some charge to bring against him. Him down by demanding His name. Then, it
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on {21} was He who pinned Moses down by giving
the ground. And as they continued to ask him as His name the name no pious Jew
him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him would henceforth ever dare to pronounce. For
who is without sin be the first to throw a to pronounce “I AM” is to claim to bear that
stone at her.” And once more he bent down name, to be that “I.” “I” can only be said in
and wrote with his finger on the ground. But the first person. Any other name can be
when they said in the second person, the person
addressed
(“you”) or in the third person, the person expressed or referred to (“him” or “her”).
 or Churchill would do, then how could a few
Now, 1500 years later, Jesus enacts the
Jewish fishermen 2000 years ago write such
same role reversal He enacted at the burning
incredibly original, unprecedented creative
bush, by making His answer a question.
fiction based on nothing? This character could
(He’s a rabbi, remember. “Why does a rabbi
not possibly have been invented because He
always answer a question with another
still cannot be invented. He can only be real.
question?”) He says, in effect, “My answer to
your question is this: I tell the one among you
The way Jesus effects the role reversal
who is without sin to cast the first stone.”
between the questioner and the answerer
And suddenly they all realize, as Job did, that
cannot be put into a formula, because all
they had all along only seemed to be the
formulae are universal and therefore
questioners, the teachers, the judges, the
repeatable, but Christ is the unique Son
testers, the controllers, the active ones, the
of God. It also cannot be put into a formula
knowing ones, like scientists examining some
because all formulae are objective and
new species of animal. In reality they
impersonal, but Christ is the personal Subject,
were and had always been the questioned
the divine I AM. He pulls off His “trick”
ones, the students, the judged, the tested, the
repeatedly simply by being Himself, simply
controlled, the ones who were acted upon,
because it is His nature, as the sun pulls off its
the known ones, not the knowing ones. They
“trick” of shining simply because it is its
had always been this because they are
nature to shine. Sunlight naturally
creatures. God had always been testing
illumines all things, things of all sizes,
them, not vice versa, every moment of their
shapes, and colors, without effort. That’s
lives. What Christ did here was simply to
what light does because that’s what light is.
snatch back the curtain of human ignorance
And this role reversal is what Christ keeps
for a moment so that all could see clearly for
doing because I AM is what He is.
the first time what had always been
happening throughout all of time.
We see this role reversal happening again
and again in the Gospels. We learn by
No technique can accomplish this most
repetition. The wise need fewer examples
radical epistemological breakthrough. Only
because they are quick to see the universal
His real presence can. That is why His
truth in the particular example. The wiser we
methods can never be successfully
are, the fewer examples we need. If we were
imitated by any man. That is why no one
really wise, if we had spiritual x-ray vision,
can ever successfully imagine Him as a
we would discover that Jesus is divine from
fictional character. No convincing fiction
this one passage in John’s Gospel alone. (In
has ever been written about the most famous
fact, this is exactly what happened to Arthur
man in history. But much convincing fiction
Katz, according to his autobiography, Ben
has been written about most of the other
Israel.)
famous men in history, and much more will.
Here is a strong argument for the truth of the
Gospels, for Christianity: Christ could not After Jesus frees Himself from the
possibly be fictional, for if no one in the condemnations of the scribes and Pharisees,
world even now, after 2000 years of knowing He then frees the accused woman: “I do not
Him, can write convincing fiction about Him, condemn you.” He does not send along the
if no one can imagine “what would Jesus
{22} condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees to
do” in a convincing way, as they can her but blocks it, and sends to her instead His
imagine what Alexander or Buddha or liberation. They wanted to imprison Him as
Augustine or Lincoln well as her in their logical trap. Instead, He
frees her as well as Himself. Their work is to
imprison, His is to free. For He is the
Truth,
and “the Truth shall make you free.” (John S od exists, nothing happens by chance. And
8:32) in since nothing happens by chance, God
ce did not let this passage be put into John’s
G Gospel by chance. It is not just about this
woman but about all of us. We have all payoff of this theological mystery. And so do
committed adultery against God. And as we we. Christ is not passively imprisoned by
read this passage, it is we who are being truth, as we are; Christ actively liberates by
tested—not just by God’s law against truth, as God does. Christ is not a scientist
adultery, both physical and spiritual, but also but an artist.
by the story itself. The story tests us by
asking us whose work we are doing, Christ’s Just connect these three verses and
or the Pharisees? We may hope to remain you will see: (1) “I am the Truth.” (John
spectators judging the spectacle from outside 14:6) (2) “The truth shall make you free.”
as we read this passage, but we cannot. We (John 8:32) (3) “So if the Son makes you
are drawn into the situation; we are not free, you are free indeed.” (John 8:36)
judging it but we are being judged. In fact we
are always being judged, not just by the Law
But the story is only half over, and
but by Christ. He is always the judging,
we like to forget the second half. Christ says
knowing Subject, and we are always the
not only “I forgive you” but also “Sin no
judged, known objects. Our truth is our
more.” Both are equally necessary parts of
conformity to His knowledge.
His work of liberation, like faith and works
(the works of love) in salvation.
For God does not discover truth, as Remember, the prophecy did not say that
we do. He decrees it, He creates it. We do “His name shall be called ‘Jesus’ [‘Savior,’
this too, partially, in the creative arts. There, or ‘God saves’] because he will save his
we make truth; elsewhere, we discover it. people from the punishment due to their sins,”
It is true that elves are small and impish but “His name shall be called ‘Jesus’
in the world of A Midsummer Night’s because he shall save his people from their
Dream because Shakespeare made them sins.” Saying “I forgive you” but not “Sin no
that way, and it is true that elves are tall more” would have been just as much a work
and awesome in The Lord of the Rings of imprisonment rather than liberation as the
because Tolkien made them that way. The opposite, saying “Sin no more” but not “I
creation (the universe) is God’s art and forgive you,” as the scribes and Pharisees did.
man’s science. What is objective to us (e.g. For sin imprisons us just as certainly as
tigers) is subjective to God. First He unforgivingness does. “Whoever commits sin
invents tigers, then we discover them, as is the slave of sin.” ( John 8:34) “For the
first Tolkien invents hobbits, then we wages of sin is death, but the free gift of
discover them. When we discover truth about God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
the creation, we are reading the thoughts of (Romans 6: 23)
the Creator.
Sin is like a drug.To be freed from
What does this theological truth have addiction to any drug, two things are
to do with John 8? It is the basis for Christ’s necessary: someone has to love you tenderly
liberation of the woman caught in adultery. enough to free you, and someone has to love
For Christ is not a creature but the Creator. In you toughly enough to demand that you stay
the words of the Nicene Creed, He is free. This is the Savior’s double work.
“begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Sometimes theologians call it “justification”
Father.” The woman received the practical {23} and “sanctification.” The two cannot be
separated. To separate the tender warp and
the tough woof of this seamless garment is to
unravel and destroy the whole of it. To
oppose a “liberal” tenderness to a
“conservative” toughness, or vice versa, is
nothing but a new imprisonment, a
new
dilemma like the one the Pharisees posed to But Jesus escapes our dilemma too, as He
Jesus. escapes the Pharisees’ dilemma. He
escapes all our nets, for He is not a fish but
the Fisherman, the “fisher of men,” and we about nature and much pain and suffering by
are His fish. To be caught in His net is “the conquest of nature.” But we can
to be freed, because His net is truth. only postpone, not conquer, nature’s trump
card, death.
Thus, in the same chapter, after He frees
the woman, He interprets what He has just The truths of science do increase our
done in telling us that “the truth will freedom. For instance, we are free to escape
make you free” (vs. 32). But did the truth earth’s gravity and travel through air or space
free her? Wasn’t the truth that she had only because of the propositional truths of
committed adultery? How could that truth physics and mathematics. But we cannot be
free her? free of gravity altogether, for it is in our very
essence as material creatures. What goes up
We have difficulty seeing how that truth must come down eventually. No
can free her because we think of “truth” as knowledge of abstract propositional truth
abstract and impersonal, as either a general can free us from that.
principle (like “adultery is sin”) or a
particular fact (like “she has committed But Jesus can. He makes it possible
adultery”). Both general principles and to escape earth’s gravity forever, to go up to
particular facts are expressed in propositions, Heaven and not down to Hell. He lifts
sentences, statements. This is “propositional our bodies from our graves and our souls
truth.” from our sins.

How can He do that? Because He is the

truth, and “the truth shall make you free,”
and “if the Son makes you free, you are free
indeed.” (John 8:36)

I will not here play the popular card of This is epistemology incarnated, and
trashing propositional truth. For propositional therefore empowered. He is “the word of
truth is precious, and is the servant, not the power” because He is “the Word of God.” He
enemy, of Christ. That is why even has the power to liberate the woman because
propositional truth, even abstract truth, even He has the power to create the universe. He
philosophical truth, can be freeing. is the Word the Father spoke to create the
universe. (Genesis 1:2) He is not just
For instance, the philosophy of Socrates “the word about power” but “the word of
frees us from much ignorance, especially power.” (Luke 4:32; Hebrews 1:3) He does
from our ignorance about our own ignorance. not merely copy what-is when He speaks; He
But it does not free us from all ignorance. It creates what-is. When He says, “let there be
tells us much about ourselves, but very little life” at Lazarus’s tomb, even death obeys
about God. Him.

And the propositions of good psychology He is “the Word of God” in the singular
can free us from much self-deception. But because He is absolutely singular. He is not
{24}
not all. In fact, to think that it does is the “the word about God,” not even the last word
greatest of self- deceptions. about God, but “the Word of God.” He is not
about anything else; everything else is about
And the propositions of science, Him. Everything in the universe and
philosophy’s child, and of technology, its everything in the Bible is a finger pointing to
grandchild, can free us from much Him. He is the end of epistemology.
ignorance
How do we know God? One indispensable co ously or unconsciously, known or unknown.
way is to pray. And all prayer, if it is to reach ns So Jesus is the way to know God here too.
the Father, must go through the Son, ci
 Knowing persons requires words. How despite the fact that more than half of all the
could Juliet ever know Romeo if no books on all the sciences that are sold in
words ever passed between them? And how bookstores today are written about some
could you know God if He never spoke to aspect of psychology, there is no science with
you, through His inspired written Word and less agreement, less certainty, and less
above all through the Word confidence that we now know what we used
to not-know. We seem to know ourselves less
Incarnate, and if you never spoke to Him, by well as a result of all this modern self-scrutiny
prayer? Love needs words as well as music than we did before. The more we look,
because love sings. the less we see. It is just the opposite with the
external world. We can now understand the
So prayer is necessary to know God (as mysteries of the origin of the universe, 15
distinct from knowing about God). But this is billion years ago, or the forces that keep the
not the “necessity” of an obligation, one galaxies spinning trillions of light-years away,
among many, like fitting a square into a quilt. better than we can understand ourselves.
This is God we’re dealing with: the burning, “Know thyself,” said Socrates, at the dawn of
blazing, bursting fire at the heart of all philosophy. But “know thyself” seems to be
goodness and beauty and life. To pray is more an unsolvable puzzle, a koan. We cannot
like plunging yourself into a volcano than like know ourselves, yet we must know ourselves.
fitting the missing piece into a jigsaw puzzle.
Prayer is a matter of justice, but much more What does this have to do with Jesus, or
than that, it is a matter of love. To pray is not Jesus with this? In the oft-repeated words of
merely to give God His due, to perform your John Paul II, “Jesus alone shows man to
moral obligation, to fit something in; it is to himself.” Since He is both perfect God and
touch the body of the God whose love spills perfect Man, He perfectly reveals both God
out of five wounds as human blood. and man. Jesus is the solution to the koan.

Jesus’ Anthropology But an answer is only as meaningful

as the question. We need to understand why
The THIRD GREAT QUESTION of philosophy is this question is a koan before we can
the question of the questioner, the question of appreciate the uniqueness of Jesus’ solution
man. It is naturally third because after to it.
thinking about reality (metaphysics), we
naturally think about our thinking “Know thyself” seems to be an
(epistemology), and then about the thinkers, unsolvable koan. It is. We cannot solve this
ourselves (anthropology). problem because it is not a problem at all, it
is a mystery (to use Gabriel Marcel’s useful
But there is a “but.” This division of distinction): we are involved in it, not
philosophy is much more interesting than detached from it. This problem “encroaches
either metaphysics or epistemology; yet upon its own data.” We cannot solve this
despite the intense interest, time, energy, and problem because we are this problem. As the
books that have been devoted to this pursuit, eye can see any object, but not itself, so the
mind can know any object, but not itself,
{25} because it is not an object.

When we look at ourselves, we get in our

own way. We stand in our own light and
make our own shadow. Then we identify
ourselves with our shadow, the shadow
we have cast, or the image of ourselves that
we
have cast in the mirror. But that is not are like spectators at a play whose very
the self; that is an image or a shadow of the W presence and gaze affects and alters the
self. e players and the play. For we are not only the
spectators; we are also the players. In science, dualism, that Buddhism seeks to overcome is
this is called the “observer effect”: we alter really the Creator-creature dualism, since the
the thing observed by the very act of Creator’s name is “I AM” and His
observing it. Whether or not that principle creatures are His objects. There is another
applies to subatomic particles, it certainly subject- object dualism that Buddhism
applies to us. For we alone in the universe are denies: the one between the objects in the
subjects, not objects. In man for the first time universe and us human subjects, who bear
the universe achieves self-consciousness. We God’s image and are therefore also I’s, or
are selves, subjects, whos, not things, objects, subjects. The two things Christ reveals to
whats. How can we make a subject of man, God and man, the two subjects, are the
knowledge into an object of knowledge? How two things Buddhism denies.
can the archer become his own target? How
can the I become an it without ceasing to be But even though I do not believe in the
an I? truth of the Buddhist answer, I do believe in
the profundity of the Buddhist question, and
Clearly, it cannot. And clearly, it in the power of a koan to transform
must. We cannot know ourselves, yet we consciousness. I also believe that God
must know ourselves. Himself set us a koan in making us insatiably
curious about ourselves while at the same
That is our koan. We must know ourselves time making those selves inaccessible to
because if we do not, then we do not ordinary curiosity.
know who it is that is knowing anything else
at all. If we do not sign the impressively large He made us in His own image as I’s
bank account of our knowledge, we do not (subjects, persons)—and yet at the same time
possess a penny of it. it’s (objects, creatures). We are
metaphysically dual, double.
In Zen Buddhism, a koan is a puzzle
that is in principle not solvable by It seems that we cannot overcome this
ordinary, rational thought. Its purpose is to dualism except by denying the reality of
put to death, or put to sleep, ordinary thought either or both of its horns: the Western
so as to release “Buddhamind,” which is materialist reduces personality to a thing
thought without a subject-object dualism. The among other things in the world while the
sudden emergence of this radically new kind Eastern mystic reduces the objective reality of
of thought is “Enlightenment,” or satori, the things, including our own finite thinghood, to
Zen version of Nirvana (“blowing-out” the consciousness, or spirit, or “the Buddha-
candle fire of ordinary thought). mind,” or Brahman (“thou art That”).

I do not believe in this Buddhist goal, for Down through the ages, our most brilliant
as a Christian I believe in God and in philosophers have been drawn to one or the
Creation, and therefore in the reality of the other of those two classic errors in
subject-object dualism that Buddhism anthropology: either materialistic
seeks to overcome. The whole universe is naturalism or spiritualist pantheism, either
objective to God. The subject-object dualism, confusing Man with things or with God.
or the I-it {26} Incredible!— our greatest philosophers, our
greatest knowers, do not know
themselves well enough to avoid confusing
their very essence with what they are not!

And when our philosophers do avoid the

two extreme errors of materialism and wi Empiricists, positivists, pragmatists, and
pantheism, they still fall into a modified form th secularists are scandalized by the soul, the
of one or the other: animalism or angelism. If an supernatural, miracles, Heaven, and
they do not confuse us with matter or ge abstract universal truths. They are the
with God, they confuse us with animals or ls. animalists. Platonists, Gnostics, Cartesians,
New Age flakes, and those who seek question of anthropology is not any abstract
“spirituality” instead of sanctity in their ideal but a concrete, realized fact. The
religion are the angelists. They are meaning of Man is a man, this man.
scandalized by the body, the natural, the
Incarnation, the sacraments, the visible The old Testament told us that we
Church, and the concrete. are created by God in His own image
(Genesis
Christ is the answer to this dilemma. 1:26-27), but only the New Testament fully
He is the definitive refutation of both errors shows us what that image is: it is Christ. It is
(for, remember, Christ reveals to us not this, rather than some vague humanism,
only perfect God but also perfect Man). that St. Ignatius Loyola meant by saying that
Christ is not just the perfect “the glory of God is a man fully alive.”
anthropologist; He is perfect anthropos. He (All Jesuits, please nota bene!) “A man
is what anthropology is all about. He is man fully alive” means “a little Christ.”
as man is designed to be. He is not the freak;
we are the freaks. How could we miss it? Only because we
are more than half asleep more than half the
The greatest modern Christian time. The New Testament says it strongly and
anthropologist philosopher was Pope John clearly in many places. For instance,
Paul II. At the center of his philosophy was Romans
anthropology, and at the center of his 8:29: “Those whom he foreknew, he also
anthropology was Christ. “Christ is the predestined to be conformed to the image
meaning of man,” he kept repeating. And of his Son, in order that he might be the
therefore “in reality, it is only in the mystery first- born among many brethren.” Or I
of the Word made flesh that the mystery Corinthians
of man truly becomes clear.” John Paul loved 15:49: “Just as we have borne the image
to quote that sentence, from the documents of the man of dust, we shall also bear the
of Vatican II (see Catechism of the Catholic image of the man of heaven.” Or II Peter
Church [hereafter CCC] 359). What we fail to 1:4: “He has granted to us his precious and
see in our own philosophies and psychologies very great promises, that through these you
and anthropologies about our- selves, we may . . . become partakers of the divine
see in Christ: our own meaning and destiny. nature.”
He is an x-ray mirror: when we look at Him,
we see our own depth. There is also a second reason why we
need the divine revelation of Christ to know
Christ is the answer to the question: What ourselves: because “without the knowledge
is the meaning of human life? Who are we revelation gives of God, we cannot recognize
meant to be? The answer is that we are sin clearly, and are tempted to explain it as
destined to be little Christs. The meaning of merely a developmental flaw, a psychological
life is to be Christ. The answer to the weakness, a mistake, or the necessary
primary consequence of an inadequate social
structure.” (CCC 389). Christ shows us how
abnormal we are by being the norm. If we let
{27} Him judge us rather than us judging Him, we
see that our “normal” is really abnormal.
That is the crucial epistemological question in
anthropology: do we judge Christ or does
Christ judge us?

Without knowing Christ, and thus

knowing our “abnormalism,” we must fall
into the fundamental error of
“normalism.” All secular psychology,
sociology, and
anthropology is fundamentally askew at its not really liberating) denies the reality of
very foundation because it assumes, wrongly, personal sin and sees man as a lettuce rather
that its object, man, is in his natural state. All than a potato. (Lettuce rots from the outside
its data are its observations of “normal” in; potatoes rot from the inside out.) So their
human behavior, just as in physics or solution is always a “lettuce solution”: let
astronomy all the data come from us do this or that, let us improve the social
observations of how matter naturally environment, let us throw some money at the
behaves. Just imagine how radically physics social structures, or let us condition people by
would change if physicists came to believe better education. They are like the Pharisees,
that gravity was not inherent to matter at who clean the outside but ignore the rot
all but that matter had “fallen” into this within. (Matthew 23:25-26) Someone defined
abnormal state at some time in the past. a liberal as one who demands the right to
Imagine the radical shock astronomy would breathe clean air so he can speak dirty words.
experience if astronomers came to believe
that stars only started to shine at some The only way to correct this skewered
point in past time called the “fall.” perspective is to find the true reference point.
Christianity reveals a shock as great as that But we can’t! “Physician, heal thyself.”
in anthropology in its doctrine of the Fall, in We are the cripple in the commercial: “I’ve
its most basic interpretation of human history, fallen and I can’t get up.” We can’t go back
in which the three great defining events are to paradise. The words of the song are
Creation, Fall, and Redemption. exactly wrong: “And the riders will not stop
us ‘cause the only drug they’ll find is
Christianity adds two men to its database Paradise” No, the riders (the cops) will stop
that secular anthropology does not know: us because they will find every other drug but
Adam and Christ, the only two innocent men that one.
who have ever lived, and Christianity judges
fallen men by that norm. Without that We cannot go back to Paradise to see
corrective, we inevitably think backwards and unfallen Adam. “But we see Jesus.”
misunderstand our present sinfulness as (Hebrews
natural and normal, and thus see innocence, 2:9) Christ is our new data for anthropology.
and even sainthood, as abnormal and Christ is our standard, or norm.
unnatural, superhuman rather than human. In
the same way, drunks and drug addicts see
Without this data we are like a dog in a
sober people as abnormal. We are all morally
cage at the airport who has chewed off
drunk and sin addicts. So it was quite natural
his dog tag so that he does not know his
for Bill Clinton’s supporters to claim that it
true name, or the name of his master, or his
was wrong and even immoral for his critics to
home. He does not know where he has come
expect of presidents “unrealistic,
from, who he is, or where he is destined to go.
unattainable” moral virtues like fidelity and
honesty.
“Without Jesus Christ we do not know the
meaning of our life, or our death, of our
This is the most fundamental error of our
God or of our selves.” (Pascal) We get this
secular society’s view of man, and the root of
crucial fourfold information only from
all its other errors. “Ignorance of the fact that {28} Christ. Our true name is “Christ’s brother,
man has a wounded nature inclined to evil
God’s adopted child.” We must keep this dog
gives rise to serious errors in the areas of
tag, cherish it, live by it, remember it, read it
education, politics, social action, and morals.”
often. The tag is Christ. Christ is the key to
(CCC 401) In all four fields, secular
anthropology.
“liberalism” (a misleading term because it
is
But how can we become Christs? Is this
not another impossible koan? We must
become Christs, but we cannot. Not all
our
prayers and sighs and tears, not all our loves Nicodemus seems to have prepared a
and thoughts and deeds and mystical little flattering speech. He began politely and
experiences, can do that. We simply can’t do indirectly, with a word of praise for Jesus’
it. To do it, we have to become someone else. miracles (“signs”): “Rabbi, we know that you
We have to be “born again.” Of all the are a teacher from God, for no one can do the
images for change among all the world’s miracles you do unless God is with him.”
teachers, Jesus’ image here (in John 3) stands This was a polite, roundabout way of asking:
out as the most radical one of all. So much so Are you the Messiah? It probably would have
that Nicodemus argued that it was simply taken Nicodemus five more minutes of
impossible: “How can such things be?” flattery to get to the second question, the
practical question, the “bottom line” question
Now there was a man of the Pharisees about how to enter this kingdom of God. But
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Jesus cut through all the flattery and
immediately answered the question that lay
This man came to Jesus by night and on Nicodemus’ heart, without waiting for the
said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you question to rise to Nicodemus’ lips: “Truly,
are a teacher come from God, for no one can truly I say to you, unless a man is born anew,
do these signs that you do unless God is with he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I say
to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot Nicodemus is startled. Jesus startles three
see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to different kinds of people, and thus reveals
him, “How can a man be born when he is three different kinds of startles relative to
old? Jesus. Everything is relative to Jesus. He is
the best standard for judging anything,
Can he enter a second time into his mother’s including people and their startles. In fact,
womb and be born?” Jesus answered, these three startles are a clue to a basic
anthropology, a basic classification of people
“Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is into three classes. Pascal defines these three
born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter classes as follows: “There are only three
the kingdom of God. That which is born kinds of people: those who seek God and
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of have found him—and these are both
the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I reasonable and happy—those who are seeking
said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’The God and have not yet found Him—and these
wind blows where it wills, and you hear the are reasonable and unhappy—and those who
sound of it, but you do not know whence it neither seek God nor find Him—and these are
comes or whither it does. So it is with both unreasonable and unhappy.”
everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Penseés
Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?” 160) Jesus startles His disciples, who have
Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of found Him, in one way. He startles
Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” Nicodemus, who is seeking Him but has not
(John 3:1-10) yet found Him, in another way. And He
startles His enemies, who neither seek Him
Nicodemus came to Jesus with two nor find Him, in a third way.
questions in his mind: about the Messiah and {29}
about the “kingdom of God.” According to Those who become His disciples and are
the prophets, the Messiah would bring about “born again” of the Spirit have the same
this kingdom on earth, and Jesus had been ability to startle the world that Jesus had. It is
preaching about the kingdom, so was he the an invisible power like the wind, a power
Messiah or not? And if so, how could we that can overturn a whole pagan Empire, the
enter this “kingdom of God”? greatest in world history, as a hurricane
can
overturn a forest. That’s why the world called mysteries, and yet you yourself do not
His disciples “those men who have turned the understand this? That is the whole point and
world upside down.” (Acts 17:6) purpose of Israel.”
 Nicodemus asks Jesus to explain His He then compares this unfamiliar
startling image. Surely He does not mean it thing with a familiar thing, the wind. The
literally, for that is a physical impossibility. wind is a natural symbol for the Spirit. The
Nor could He be referring to reincarnation, same word, in both Hebrew (ruah’) and
which no Jew believed, for it would imply Greek (pneuma) means “spirit,” “wind,” and
that the individual is not God’s unique created “breath of life.” The wind is quite invisible,
image, a finite “I” that is as uniquely indi- yet quite real. And though the origin of the
vidual, in its finite way, as God, the infinite wind is as invisible as the wind itself, its
“I AM.” So Nicodemus believes that effects are not. And these can be radical. A
Jesus’ image must be a mere figure of speech, great wind can blow down houses and trees.
a rhetorical exaggeration. But he wonders: The same is true of the wind of the Spirit: it
what does it mean, literally? can blow down the greatest kingdom of this
world, the universal (“catholic”) Roman
Jesus’ interpretation of his image is even Empire, and it can erect another kingdom,
more startling than the initial image. It is which is “not of this world”: the
not to water it down (“it’s only an image”) universal (“Catholic”) Roman Church.
but to repeat it with the Rabbinical formula
“Truly, truly I say to you”, which means You cannot see the wind, but you can see
“You must interpret these words in the that there is a wind by seeing its effects, by
strongest possible sense, not the weakest. It is reading the wind’s fingerprints, so to speak.
more than literally true, not less.” Unless, of course, you are hypnotized by the
modern idiocy of materialism, the fallacy that
Then He adds an explanation: the identity the trees make the wind, that visible things
of the parent: it is not Mother Earth and cause invisible things and not vice versa.
matter, but it is the Spirit of Father God
and the water of baptism: “unless one is born We habitually think of the invisible as
of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the abstract and impersonal, as a set of ideas or
kingdom.” ideals, words or principles. And we think of
only the visible as concretely alive and life-
So this rebirth is spiritual, not fleshly. But changing and dangerous, like tigers or
that does not make it merely symbolic, less cancers or surgeons. But God’s Spirit is much
real, a mere image. Just the opposite: the more alive and fiery, and He is the ultimate
Spirit is more real, more solid and substantial, agent in every baby’s conception as well as in
than the perishable flesh. So spiritual birth is every believer’s conversion. The Holy Spirit
more solid and substantially real than is not an “it” but a “He”: a Person, not a
physical birth. Force. He is as shatteringly real and as
revolutionary as a hurricane.
Jesus then compares fleshly and spiritual
birth by explaining that the child resembles And Jesus will send Him to all who will
the parent in both cases: “flesh begets flesh, {30} open the door of their heart to Him. And if
Spirit begets spirit.” It is startling yet utterly you open your door to that wind, He will
reasonable. But seeing the uncomprehending radically rearrange the furniture of your
look on Nicodemus’ face, Jesus says, house.
ironically, “You are supposed to be a teacher
in Israel, a teacher of God’s So the image of being “born again” is not
revealed
too strong but too weak. The difference bu ence between being born again and not being
between being born again and not being born t born again is a difference between eternal
again is even more radical than the difference th being and eternal nonbeing, Heaven and Hell.
between being born and not being born. For e It is an absolute difference, like the
the difference between being born and not di difference between being pregnant and not
being born is a difference between temporal ff being pregnant. It is not a relative
being and temporal nonbeing in this world, er difference, like the difference between being
very good and being very bad. It is not simply Incarnation.” That is why She not only
an addition or an improvement to your life: teaches in His name and with His authority
it is life itself. It is not the difference between but also baptizes in His name, forgives sins in
more life and less life, or good life and bad His name, offers the Eucharist in His
life, but between life and death. Therefore it name and real presence.
cannot be brought about by trying a little
harder, or a lot harder, or by being very This is not optional. This is the way.
good, or sincere, or nice. It is a gift, just as unless you are born again, you cannot enter
new physical life is a gift. It is the gift of a God’s kingdom. Unless you get pregnant with
new being. It is the transition from nonbeing God, you cannot go to Heaven. This is not
to being. It is an act of creation. Only God Southern Baptist Fundamentalism; it is
can create (bara’). Jesus of Nazareth Christianity.

But to do this, to make us pregnant with But like Nicodemus, many of us still just
His new life, God must be as really present to don’t get it. We miss the very center and
us as a man is to a woman to make her essence of this whole religion business. We
pregnant. There are no pregnancies by email. think it’s about thinking differently, believing
You can’t get pregnant simply by thinking differently, evaluating differently, acting
about it, or by a “transformation of differently, and forget that the root of all of
consciousness,” however profound it may be. these things is being differently. Christ
Your body can get pregnant with human life came to give us not just new thoughts and
only by the real presence of a man inside values but new being.
your body, and your soul can get pregnant
with divine life only by the real presence of
Just as many of us, like Nicodemus, just
God inside your soul.
don’t get the heart of the religion business,
many of us don’t get the heart of the sex
And Jesus is that real presence of God to business. Just as the main point and
man. He was visibly present in His individual purpose of religion is creation (the creation of
human body for thirty-three years in first- new, divine being), the main point and
century Israel, but He is just as really present, purpose of sex is procreation. But we’ve
though invisibly, in His universal Body of the turned pregnancy into an “accident”! That’s
Church, the “mystical Body of Christ,” for like accepting religion, faith, creed, church,
the rest of history throughout the world. The sacraments, the whole package, and then
Church is “the extension of the calling your entrance into Heaven an
accident! Or like eating healthy food and
calling your body’s health an accident. We’re
not just stupid; we’re twisted!

When Jesus told Nicodemus that “unless

you are born again, you cannot see the
Kingdom of God,” Nicodemus was amazed,
and voiced his amazement: “Can such things
be?” This is a candid, honest, humble
{31} reaction. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and they
weren’t all bad. His voice is very different
from the voice we hear from most of the other
Pharisees in the New Testament. But not all;
not Gamaliel (see Acts 5:34-39) or Paul (see
Philippians 3:5). Nicodemus’ amazement
is
the amazement of an honest child not hiding ab out appearances but only about reality and
behind a mask of high office, reputation, and truth.
supposed expertise. The mask is off.
Nicodemus is now like Socrates, not worried
 Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus’ you at this moment face to face. The whole
amazement is another kind of meaning of Israel is me, and you, the
amazement. Jesus is amazed that teacher of Israel, do not know me. How
Nicodemus is amazed. Jesus’ reaction to ironic!
Nicodemus’ utterly non-ironic surprise is
ironic surprise: “What’s this? You are a “And within Israel there is a third womb,
rabbi, a teacher of Israel, and you don’t know my mother. She is all Israel come to one
this? This is what all of Israel and all of single, sharp point, like a pen: a young virgin
Judaism is for. kneeling at her prayers, addressed by my
angel, who breathlessly waited to see whether
“All the laws and the prophets, all your my chosen door into humanity and its
scriptures, all your history, so full of salvation would freely open or not. And it
prophets, providence, and miracles, all this did. She said yes. I knew she would. I am the
2000 year long divine teaching program, only man in history who chose his own
starting with Abraham, in fact all the mother.
covenants, starting with Adam and Noah, was
for this. This is the end My Father had in “So the universe was a womb for
mind when He chose Israel. He chose her to humanity, and humanity was a womb for
be a womb within humanity for a second Israel, and Israel was a womb for Mary, and
birth of humanity. This was His intention Mary was a womb for me. Thus, Mary is the
from the beginning, from the Creation of point of the universe, and I am the point
the universe. This is the point of everything, of that point.”
of stars and galaxies, of geological and
biological evolution. The highest purpose of
All of this, not one bit less, is implied in
the material universe He created is to supply
Jesus’ claim. To unpack that much took 2000
the dust He used to form mankind from
years, and to unpack it all will take thousands
(Genesis 2:7), to be the womb for mankind’s
more—no, it will take eternity. The
first, physical birth. This was the womb that
Church has only begun to unpack her holy
He designed to give birth to women’s wombs,
luggage, her “deposit of faith.” From the
which in turn give birth to new men and
perspective of the year A.D. 5000, we will be
women, new persons with immortal souls,
“the primitive Christians.”
made in His image. That was the first point of
the universe: people. Did you think God
At each step in this design of God, the
cared about gases and galaxies? They were
role of the Spirit is essential. The Spirit
just the preparation, the preliminary, the
breathed order into chaos (Genesis 1:2)
placenta for people. People are the point
and life into man (Genesis 2:7). We are made
of the universe. The universe
in God’s image because we have God’s
‘peoples’ as a flower bush
flowers. breath (Spirit). And when we defaced the
image of God in us by sin, God’s response
was to send the Spirit to call up the miracle of
“And within this humanity, the point of
Israel and finally to conceive Mary in
Israel was to be a second womb, a womb
her mother Anna’s womb without Original
within the womb of the world. And the
Sin, and then to conceive Christ in Mary’s
ultimate point and product of this chosen {32} womb without a human father. The Spirit
womb is the Messiah, and he is speaking
was Christ’s food and strength and wisdom
to
throughout His earthly life. And His gift of
His and His Father’s Spirit to us is the
culminating point of His ministry (see John
16:7). The Spirit’s work is this “new birth”
that Jesus speaks of to Nicodemus. The
Spirit fulfills David’s prophetic prayer in
Psalm 51: “Create in me a
clean heart, o God, and put a new and right (bara’), can make something out of nothing,
spirit within me.” Only God can create can bridge the infinite gap between nonbeing
and being. God creates a new human spirit (a most necessary one, the most practical
soul) at conception every time physical love one, the most interesting one, the most
provides an open body, and He creates a new personal one, the one that holds us eye to eye
spirit, a real human participation in His own and demands an answer. How should we
divine life, every time spiritual love and faith then live? What is the greatest good, the
provide an open soul. The door for new highest value, the meaning of life? How can
natural human life (bios) to enter the world is I avoid the tragedy of getting A’s in all my
a woman saying Yes to a man by sexual subjects but flunking life?
intercourse; the door for new supernatural,
eternal life (zoe) to enter the world is a soul Of the four great philosophical questions,
saying Yes to God by faith, as Mary did. The this is the one that everyone knows has
promise to her is also to us: “The Holy Spirit something to do with Christ. Even those who
shall come upon you, and the power of the do not believe His claim to be the Lord
Most High shall overshadow you; usually praise His morality, both His
therefore the holy thing that will be born of preaching and His practice. He is by a wide
you will be called the Son of God.” (Luke margin the most admired and influential
1:35) moral teacher of all time. But what is
distinctive, what is different, what is new
This is the real meaning and purpose of about His answer to the moral question?
history; this is the true “short history of
time”: our “new birth” into eternal life, His morality was not new. There is
our becoming little Christs, children of God, no such thing as a new morality, only new
with our divine Father’s divine nature as immoralities. Everyone always knew what
well as our human parents’ human nature— was good and what was evil. No sane
in a word, having two natures, human and individual and no sane society ever believed
divine, like Christ (though our divine nature that justice, charity, honesty, self- control,
is only by grace, by adoption, and by mercy, loyalty, and wisdom were wicked or
participation). For this is any parent’s first immoral, or that injustice, hatred, lying,
and primary gift to the child: the very nature addiction, cruelty, betrayal, and folly were
of the parent. This gift is the foundation of all moral goods or obligations. Jesus’
others: love, time, education. morality was only the fullest flower of the
plant that God had already planted in the
nature of man, in all human hearts and
consciences by creating us in His image.

And that is the point of religion that Conscience is universal. It exists in all
Nicodemus did not know. He knew men. In some it is horribly weak, and in some
everything except the one thing most worth it seems almost dead, but it never is. A man
knowing, the reason for everything else that totally without a conscience is not a man, just
has ever happened. And that reason is sitting as a man without a mind at all is not a
right in front of him. man. (A man with an I.Q.of 45 is a man;
a man with an I.Q.of 0 is not.)
And of us.
{33}
Jesus’ moral appeals, therefore, were
Jesus’ Ethics appeals to a moral conscience that was
already there. The ground had already been
Of ALL THE GREAT questions of philosophy fertilized. And other sowers had sown moral
that all men by nature ask in all times, places, seeds in that field, and many of them had
and cultures, the ethical, or moral, question sown very deep and lively seeds, though no
is the
one had ever sowed so many deep seeds in is ly any moral saying of Jesus in the
so few words as Jesus. If you look at ha Gospels whose equivalent cannot be found
Jesus’Jewish tradition you will find that there rd somewhere in the scriptures or in the
sayings of the rabbis. Much of it, even some Christs. “Truly, truly I say to you, whatever
of the most startling points about humility you do to one of these least of my brethren,
and selfsacrifice and the power of weakness, you do to me.” (Matthew 25:40)
can also be found outside Judaism: in Lao
Tzu, in Buddha, in Confucius, or in Socrates. You see, instead of telling us the answer,
So what’s new? What new moral doors does Christ shows us the answer, for He is the
the Golden Key open? answer. He shows us Himself.

There are really three moral questions, That's what’s new, this New Man. We all
three basic parts to morality: how should we knew the other answers. We have never lived
relate to each other, to ourselves, and to God? morality very well, but we have always
How should my ship cooperate with the other known it quite well, quite adequately.
ships in the fleet, how should it stay Contrast how well we know morality with
shipshape itself, and what is the fleet’s how well we know metaphysics, or
mission? These three questions are the ques- epistemology, or anthropology—or, certainly,
tion of social morality, the question of theology. God has left us to make many
individual morality, and the question of the mistakes in those other areas, but God has not
meaning of life. The last one is the most left Himself without clear witness in the area
important because the answer to it makes a of morality. He has given every one of us two
difference to the answer to all the others. It is heavenly prophets of morality who speak
the question of the ultimate end of everything powerfully to each of us if only we listen.
else. Everything else is ultimately a means to Each of us has a conscience, and each of us
this final end. And though “the end does not has an angel. Each of us has two prophets
justify the means”—that is, a good end does from God, an inner prophet and an outer
not justify an evil means—yet a good prophet.
end does justify a good means, for the means
are relative to the end. That’s what a
With all this help, the map of moral
means means: a “means” to an end.
principles is so clear that even an idiot
can read it. (Applying those principles to
So what is Jesus’ answer to the complex and changing situations, of course,
question of the meaning of life, the ultimate is a complex, changing, and not-so-simple
end, the greatest good? task.) We do not have too few principles
in our many moral philosophies; we have too
The answer is Christ Himself. Christ is many. We need to see the oneness of all
the greatest good. of them. And we see that when we see Jesus.
We see that there is “only one thing
How then should we live? What sort of needful” (Luke
people should we be? Christs. We should be 10:42), and that is Him. We do not need
little Christs. We must “grow into the full “Jesus and” but “Jesus only” (Matthew 17:8).
measure of the stature of Christ.” In Him are all goods, all gifts, absolutely
(Ephesians everything we need. (Philippians 4:19). For
3:14) when we know Him, we learn that we do not
really need many of the little good things we
And how should we treat each other? As {34} think we need, the many Martha-things, like
making sure the supper is always on the table
on time. And when we know Him, we learn
that we do need one thing that we thought we
did not need: the Mary-thing, simply sitting at
His feet and listening and loving. He is really
all we need. Literally. Besides Him, the
only
other thing we need to know is that besides S ul teaches this scandalously simple idea of
Him there is no other thing we need to know. t. the good life as simply Christ. His formula
Pa for the good life could not possibly be
simpler: “For me to live is Christ.” life.” (John 14:6)
(Philippians 1:21). And therefore he goes
on to say next that “to die is gain,” for if life This is so shocking that it looks like what
is Christ, then death is only more Christ. analytic philosophers of language would
call “a category confusion,” as if Plato had
About half of the words Jesus spoke said that the eternal Essence of Beauty Itself
in the Gospels are about ethics. Yet Jesus’ was in his kitchen preparing dinner, or that
most world-changing work in ethics is not Justice was six feet tall.
his words, which are many, but Himself,
which is one. He is not called “the words of The point is hard to see because it is so
God” but “the Word of God.” simple, so single. Since our minds and hearts
are not simple, it will be easier for us to
He is the world’s greatest moral teacher, see the point if we make it more complex. So
but He is more than that. He is the world’s let’s split it into four parts, or four points, or
most perfect moral example, but He is more four dimensions: first, the “personalism” of
than that. He is the world’s greatest prophet, following Him instead of a set of impersonal
but He is more than that. He is more than one principles; second, the overcoming of
who taught goodness and lived goodness and legalism by this simplicity; third, the
demanded goodness. He is goodness. refutation of moral relativism, which is the
apparent opposite of legalism; and fourth, the
on one occasion someone addressed Him secret of moral success.
as “good master,” and He asked him, “Why
do you call me good? No one is truly good Jesus’ Personalism: Seeing “Jesus Only”
except God.” (Matthew 19:17) He was not
denying that He was God but affirming it, and
And after six days Jesus took with him
thus affirming that He was more than a good
Peter and James and John his brother, and led
man, even more than a “good master.” He is
them up a high mountain apart. And he was
not just a good man, He is the whole of
transfigured before them, and his face shone
goodness, goodness incarnate, the universal
like the sun, and his garments became
good, not just a partial or particular good. He
white as light. And behold, there appeared to
is not just the best teacher of the meaning of
them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
life; He is the meaning of life. Buddha says,
And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well
“Look not to me, look to my teaching”; Jesus
that we are here; if you wish, I will make
says, “Come unto Me.” (Matthew 11:28) He
three booths here, one for you and one for
is not just one who perfectly exemplifies the
Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still
meaning of life, He is the meaning of life. He
speaking when lo, a bright cloud over-
is not an example of anything. Examples
shadowed them, and a voice from the cloud
point beyond themselves, but He does not just
said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I
point out the good way, He is the good way.
am well pleased; listen to him.” When the
He does not just speak the truth about
disciples heard this, they fell on their faces
goodness, He is the truth about goodness. He
and were filled with awe. But Jesus came
does not just live the good life, He is the good
and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no
life. ”I AM the way, and the truth, and the
fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes,
{35} they saw no one but Jesus only. (Matthew
17:8)

The first thing to get clear about this

“transfiguration” is that it was not a
transfiguration of Jesus’ reality but of the
disciples’ vision. Jesus did not change
and
become brighter than light. He always Hi It was the disciples’ eyes that were
was and is brighter than light. (He is not a m. changed. God enabled them to see what is
little bit like light; light is a little bit like )
instead of just what appears. He lifted the ridiculous is not the idea of building shrines,
curtain. but building three of them, putting Jesus
in the same category as Moses and Elijah.
It is exactly like the scene in II Kings 6, And Peter probably thought this was flattery!
when the wicked king of Syria finds out God corrects Peter by a voice from Heaven
where the prophet Elisha is staying, and that says, in effect, “Who do you think
sends troops to kill him: this is, anyway? I have many servants, but
only one Son.” (Matthew 17:5)
It was told him, “Behold, he is
in Dothan.” So he sent there horses and How did foolish Peter and the others
chariots and a great army; and they came by manage to become so wise as to see “Jesus
night and surrounded the city. When the only”? Very simply: as soon as the voice of
servant of the man of God [Elisha] rose early God commanded, “Listen to Him,” they
in the morning and went out, behold, an obeyed. “They fell on their faces and were
army with horses and chariots was round filled with awe.” (Matthew 17:6) (We live
about the city. And the servant said, in a horribly impoverished age when this
“Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He most basic religious emotion strikes our
[Elisha] said, “Fear not, for those who are teachers
primitiveas and our students as
with us are more than those who are with incomprehensible.) Only because the
them.” Then Elisha prayed. “O Lord, I pray
thee, open his eyes that he may see.” So the disciples obeyed did they experience the holy
Lord opened the eyes of the young man, fear, and only because they experienced the
and he saw, and behold, the mountain was holy fear could Jesus come and touch
full of horses and chariots of fire about them and say, “Fear not.” Fear is the
Elisha. necessary precondition for “fear not.” “The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of
God did not put this vision of the fiery wisdom.” (Proverbs
army of angels into Elisha’s servant’s 9:10) And this is moral wisdom, the
eyes. He simply removed the scales from his wisdom of holiness. (See Job 28:28)
eyes. (Angels aren’t there only when we see
them!) We usually think wisdom comes first and
leads to holiness, but it is the opposite. We
God did something similar to think we must first see and then act, but it is
Peter, James, and John on the Mount of the opposite. We think the will follows the
Transfiguration. Just before this, Peter had mind, but it is the opposite. We are Greeks
found it difficult to see “Jesus only” when He instead of Jews. The Jews knew that it
walked on the dark and fearful waters of the was the other way round, that moral
storm at sea (Matthew 14), and he began to obedience comes first, and then, after we
sink when he took his eyes offJesus. obey, our sight is clarified. only wills open to
Now Peter also finds it difficult to see “Jesus obedience can give us eyes open to
only” atop the mountain in the bright wisdom. Thus Jesus says, “If your will were
heavenly glory. (Matthew 17) For he blurts to do the will of my Father, you would
out the ridiculous but reasonable-sounding understand my teaching.” (John 7:17)
proposal to build three shrines. If Jesus {36}
had allowed this, it would have become a And thus was the disciples’ sight
tourist trap in a few centuries, and Peter clarified by their obedience. What was the
would be famous as a developer instead of clarification? Simply that “when they
a disciple. What is lifted up their eyes they saw Jesus only.”
That is wisdom: to see “Jesus only.” The
only way to attain this advanced wisdom of
seeing “Jesus only” is to begin with the
primitive wisdom of
the fear of the Lord and obedience to What does it mean to see “Jesus only”?
His voice. The “only” here is not the exclusive
“only” but the inclusive “only.” It is not perfect nature but destroys it. But it does
Jesus outside of all things but Jesus inside perfect nature, for the result of the death is a
all things; not Jesus excluding all things greater life. The pruned bush naturally doubts
but Jesus including all things. For “grace the good intentions of the gardener. But if it
perfects nature” rather than destroying it. God lets itself be pruned now, in faith, it will see
empowers His children, like a great father next year why it was right to trust the
who is willing to appear small so that His gardener. It’s not true that “seeing is
children can appear great. He does not believing” but it is true that “believing is
rival His children, like a small father who seeing.” As Jesus said at Lazarus’ tomb,
is worried about appearing great and therefore “See? Didn’t I tell you that if you believed,
makes his children appear small. God you would see?” (John 11:40)
does not belittle us, He “be-greats” us.
of course we cannot see the end from the
The ultimate reason why grace perfects beginning, as He can. We do not see the
nature is that God is love, and love does not perfect plant we will become by His pruning,
harm or rival or destroy or displace nor do we see the Gardener: “No man
anything at all. Jesus does not displace Moses has seen God at any time” (John 1:18). “But
or Elijah or Peter or Judaism (“I came not we see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9). We see
to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to “Jesus only” (Matthew 17:8) And if we take
fulfill them”—Matthew 5:17). The supremely our eyes off Him, we are like a little child
concrete proof of this principle is Christ who sees only the scoop of ice cream fall
Himself, in Whom divinity (grace) perfectly from the cone onto the ground, and who wails
perfects humanity (nature). in agony as if this were an unredeemable
tragedy. The child just has to take his eyes
He does come to destroy something, off the ice cream and look trustingly at
though: sin. He is the Lord of life and Daddy, who gave it to him.
therefore the enemy of the enemy of life,
which is sin. He kills only that which kills That’s the best thing we can do: look at
and therefore needs to be killed. We all know Jesus. That’s what Mary did and Martha
that we harbor and cherish some enemy of didn’t. And when we look to Him for help
life, of our life, some habitual sin, or even because we have real or apparent needs,
something innocent in itself that He sees whether big or little, whether falling World
leads to sin for us, or keeps us from fuller Trade Centers or falling ice cream cones, the
life: some creature comfort, some security best thing He can tell us is what He told Job:
blanket, some earthly happiness—perhaps “Just trust Me, child. Know yourself and
biological life itself— that will build up a know Me. I am the giver of ‘every good and
shell around us and make His entrance more perfect gift’ (James 1:17), and you are only a
difficult, make it harder for us to receive the child who cannot understand My designs.
fullness of life and joy in the end because of Your wisdom is trust, my wisdom is
this lesser life now. So the divine gardener providence. For you are only you, and I am I.
prunes us, killing the lesser life to grow the I am not man and you are not God. Why is it
greater. so hard for you to remember that elementary
fact? Let me help you remember: tell
Since He kills the lesser life, which is {37} me,
part of nature, it looks as if His grace does ‘where were you when I designed your
not world?’” ( Job 38:4)

This is Lesson one: that we do not

know. If we do not know that, we do not
know anything else. God taught Lesson one
to Job, and also to Socrates.
And then Jesus taught us Lesson Two, yo orld?” He says, “I will tell you where you
which is the answer to Lesson One’s ur were: you were in the center of my vision
question “Where were you when I designed w and at the center of my heart. I designed the
universe for you, for your highest good and We think we have believed the Good
greatest joy, which is also my greatest glory News that “God is love” (I John 4:8) and that
and my greatest joy. My greatest joy is you, He makes “all things work together for good
and your greatest joy is me. Your joy was the for those who love Him” (Romans 8:28)
whole point of my banging out the Big Bang. — and we have, but our belief is mainly what
Do you think I had stars in my eyes instead of Newman called “notional assent” rather than
souls? Do you think I am more glorified by “real assent.” It is assent to the truth of
burning hydrogen than by burning hearts? By the idea more than to the reality. It is easy to
big acts of supernova explosions than by say a total Yes to the truth of Christ. To do
little acts of love? that is simply to be a Christian. But it is hard
to say a total Yes to Christ. To do that is to be
“You don’t understand your life because a saint.
you are not simple. The meaning of life to
you is me, and the meaning of life to me is Our faith is true, and precious, and
you. The beloved is always at the center priceless, but it is not heavy enough. It is
of the lover’s vision. That’s what love means. like a beautiful golden cloud. When life
I waited billions of years for you, while deposits a heavy burden on us, it falls
the galaxies cooled, and those years were through the cloud like a cannonball because
nothing to me because of my love. I was like it is heavier than any cloud, even a golden
Jacob waiting for Rachel: ‘And Jacob served one. Our faith must become more than a
seven years for Rachel, and they seemed cloud; it must become a thing, a thing more
unto him but a few days, for the love he had real and solid and substantial than any
to her.’ (Genesis 29:20) That is why ‘a burden. And that thing can only be “Jesus
thousand years are as yesterday’ to me only.” It cannot be “Jesus if” or “Jesus and”
(Psalm 90:4): because I am love. or “Jesus but.” In Christ there are no ifs,
ands, or buts. (II Corinthians
“Be like me. Be love. See all other things 1:20)
as relative to love, and as my love letters to
you. See things as they are: all things in the The Overcoming of Legalism
universe and all things in your life are Jacob’s
ladders, highways for the commerce between
No one defends legalism today, yet
two lovers, myself and yourself. If you see
few escape it.
this, then you will see all your fearsome
storms and all your Job-like pains as ice
The only escape is truth, the truth about
cream cones dropping. Better, you will
law. And that truth is that the purpose of law
see them as my cross. And since it is my
is to lead to Christ. (“The law was our
cross, you will see it as a cross of love
schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.”—
and life. Your very sufferings will be like the
Galatians
Mount of Transfiguration: through the
3:24.)
prism of your faith in me and through the
power of my wounds of love, your wounds
will reflect my Sonlight and turn to gold Law is good. (Romans 7:12) We need it
and glory. I Jesus am your Midas touch.” for moral clarity, to define good and evil.
This is true of both moral law and civil law.
{38}
But while only criminals need worry about
civil law, everyone has to worry about moral
law. Only a few are civil law- breakers, but
all are moral lawbreakers.

We worry about breaking many moral

laws many times. For we know we are very
creative at inventing new ways to sin and new
excuses for repeating old sins. Christ is
the
single solution to all our sins. Sins are Especially our moral needs. For the
many and laws are many, but Christ is one. Christian, the moral life is simply Christ
Himself living through the members of His
Our inner moral lives seem complex. Body, His Church, His people. Moral law
There are many laws, many temptations, only describes and prescribes that life; Christ
many sins. our external social life is also is it, and gives it. He gives what He is. He
complex, increasingly so, sometimes gives Himself.
crushingly so. That is why we hurry so:
we are trying to do the impossible: He gives it especially in the Eucharist. The
everything. Perhaps there are a few people Eucharist is His Body, and so is the Church.
somewhere hiding in trees who are sane And just as the Eucharist is not a mere
enough not to be affected by our worship of symbol or picture of Christ but Christ
the clock, and who therefore still have and Himself, so the moral life of Christians, i.e.
feel liberation and leisure and freedom in of Christ’s Church, is not a mere picture but
their lives—but I have never met them. Our the real presence of Christ acting through His
worries and concerns are many, both sinful, silly, stupid people.
spiritually and physically, both internally and
externally. We are complex and worried The difference between His hidden
externally only because we are complex and presence in the Eucharist and His hidden
worried internally, just as there are external presence in His people is that the Eucharist
wars only because there are internal wars. does not have two natures. It is perfect. It
(See James 4:1-3.) Simplicity would be is
liberation. But simplicity seems impossibly, 100% Christ and 0% bread and wine, while
unrealistically distant. we are mixed and imperfect. We are 99%
Adam and 1% Christ. Therefore we are not to
—Until we hear Christ’s radical, worship His imperfect people, but we are to
liberating word that frees us from both worship the Eucharist. What appears to be
physical and spiritual complexity and not- Christ in the Eucharist is Christ, but
therefore from legalism; the liberating word what appears to be not-Christ in fallen, sinful
He spoke to Martha. (Martha is us.) “Poor humanity really is not Christ. The Eucharistic
Martha. You are anxious and troubled about bread is transubstantiated, while we are
many things. But there is only one thing consubstantiated. The Lutheran theology of
necessary.” (Luke 10:42) the Eucharist is right, but it’s right about us,
not about the Eucharist. (“Consubstantiation”
O Gospel! O news of a good beyond means the belief that both Christ and
hope! O secret of success for both sanity and bread and wine are really present in the
sanctity! O sweet substitute for psychiatry! Eucharist after the consecration.)
Could it be true? What could this “one thing
necessary” possibly be? But though tiny and imperfect, Christ’s
presence in us is real. For being a Christian
Christ does not tell us the answer, He means real incorporation into Christ’s real
shows us the answer: “Mary has chosen the Body. And it’s alive! It’s a corpus, not a
better part.” What did Mary choose? Jesus corpse. And that is the whole point
Himself. Jesus only. Mary forsook all else {39} of morality: Christ and His Body. Just as
to sit at Jesus’ feet. The “one thing necessary” the whole point of houses is living, and the
is Jesus Himself. He is the one whole point of medicine is healing, and the
Messiah promised by all the laws and all the whole point of science is knowing, so the
prophets, and He is promised to all of us and whole point of religion is becoming little
to all our needs. Christs, becoming Christ’s Bride, becoming
the Church, becoming His Body, becoming
one
with Him in body and spirit. (How many w from legalism: a romance, a marriage, a love
ways there are to say the same thing!) Christ or affair with the Lord. How could we have
makes morality into the farthest thing in the ld thought of morality as dull and
dehumanizing, repressive or confining? Only (I Corinthians 1:30) Therefore Christ is the
because we did not know its whole point: fulfillment of philosophy.
Him.
Moralists seek righteousness. Christ is
This second point (overcoming legalism) right- eousness. (I Corinthians 1:30)
is the immediate consequence of the first Therefore Christ is the fulfillment of
point (personalism). Christian personalism morality.
means more than merely the idea that persons
are important, even intrinsically valuable, and The difference between “follow my
more than the idea that principles are for teaching” and “follow me” is like the
persons rather than persons for principles, and difference between following a road map and
more than the idea that we should look at the following a car. Being a Christian is not
personal subject who is doing the moral worrying about getting all the details right in
choosing and acting rather than merely at the the map’s directions; it’s a high- speed car
object of that person’s thinking, choosing, chase. “Follow me!"
and acting. It means all of those things
too, but you don’t have to be a Christian to
And when the chase is over and we find
know all those principles. Christian
Him, we find that He is “the hound of
personalism means above all that the ultimate
Heaven” who has been chasing us long before
object of the Christian’s thinking, choosing,
we began chasing Him. In fact, our very
and acting is a Person: Christ. “Only one life;
seeking Him was the result of His having
‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for
sought us. In the words of the old hymn,
Christ will last.” My grandmother sewed
those words into a sampler and put it on
I sought the Lord, and afterwards I knew
her dining room wall, and thus into the walls
of my mind and heart. Thank you, Grandma.
It has been over sixty years since I have He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking
seen that sampler, but I have not forgotten. me.

Jesus sums up the moral life in two It was not I that found, O Savior
words: “Follow Me.” (John 1:43) All other
great moral teachers—Moses, Buddha, true; No, I was found by Thee.
Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Muhammad—
said: “Follow my teaching.” But Christ said: Christ is the single touchstone of morality. It
“Follow me.” They said, “I teach the is not possible to find an innocent act that
way,” but Christ said “I am the way.” Buddha does not welcome the name of Christ, or a
said, “Look not to me, look to my dharma sinful act that does. But He is more than the
(doctrine).” Christ said, “Come unto me.” touchstone, He is also the goal, the good we
(Matthew 11:28) Buddha said, “Be lamps seek, the “meaning of life,” the summum
unto yourselves.” Christ said, “I am the light bonum, the end, the “one thing necessary.”
of the world.” (John 8:12) our hearts cannot be fooled about our ultimate
good, even though our heads can. We know,
Philosophers seek wisdom. Christ and cannot not know, that nothing else is
is {40}
enough, that none of the other candidates for
wisdom. the office of king of our lives is really royal.
Our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.

We have a “divine discontent,” a “lover’s

quarrel with the world,” a mysterious longing
for a weknow-not-what. This longing feels
like the heart- breakingly beautiful sound of a
muffled bird’s voice, so deep in our B ehem, a finger that moves restlessly through
hearts that it is both infinitely far and et the sky and comes to rest only over the crib
infinitely close. It is like the Star of hl of the true Christ.
 principle, and it is Christ, it is this personal
This is our supreme glory: the fact absolute rather than impersonal legalism that
that our deepest longing is for divine glory, is the refutation of moral relativism.
even though it seems ungraspable,
unattainable, unimaginable, impossible, Moral relativism is the “politically
ineffable, indefinable, and infinite. This is correct” orthodoxy of our moldy culture.
also our supreme failure: that we long for a In the minds of the mind-molders, nothing is
glory that is unattainable. Life is this koan: worse than “intolerance,” and moral
that the one thing we most want, we can least absolutism is intolerant. Thus the popularity
get; that on the one hand the glorious thing of sayings like “Don’t impose your values on
we want is nothing less than the glory of God me,” “Different strokes for different folks,”
and that on the other hand “All have fallen and “Live and let live.”
short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
The end— God—infinitely exceeds the No culture in history has ever embraced
means—all human effort. moral relativism and survived. our own
culture, therefore, will either (1) be the first,
And then we hear “the rest of the story,” and disprove history’s clearest lesson, or (2)
the Good News that God has done the persist in its relativism and die, or (3) repent
impossible because “with God all things are of its relativism and live. There is no other
possible” (Matthew 19:26); the Good News option.
that God has let down from Heaven a ladder
on which we could climb up to Him. The greatest man in the worst century in
(John history has called our culture a “culture
1:51; Genesis 28:12) We fell short of the of death.” It is a culture that is increasingly
glory of God, so the glory of God came down sympathetic to “mercy killers” like “Doctor”
to us. Kevorkian because the culture itself is in the
process of Kevorkianizing itself. It tolerates
What is “the glory of God” that we abortion because it is aborting itself. It
have all fallen short of? It is Christ. Christ is therefore needs a far deeper therapy than
the glory of God, the greatest glory of God. good philosophical arguments refuting
“In him all the fullness of God was pleased to relativism. They are only an x-ray; we need a
dwell.” (Colossians 1:19) The Catechism cure. The x-ray provides only the observation
of the Catholic Church explicitly makes this of the symptoms, the effects of the
simple equation: “The glory of God is Jesus disease; we need a diagnosis of the disease
Christ.” that is causing the symptoms before we
can prescribe for the cure. And the deepest
The Refutation of diagnosis of the root cause of our culture’s
Relativism disease, in a single word, is
Christlessness. Worse, it is Christophobia.
The real presence of Christ in the moral life
frees morality not only from legalism but also The strongest answer to moral relativism
from relativism. The two are opposite errors: is not a perfect argument but a perfect person:
legalism sacrifices persons to principles, Christ. For that is concrete evidence, real
while relativism sacrifices principles for {41} data, real presence. Meet Him, and relativism
persons. But Christ is more absolute than instantly shrivels like a vampire in the
any sunlight. The most irrefutable arguments are
always facts, data, concrete reality. For
instance, the most effective argument against
abortion is simply to see one. That is why the
most common operation in America is the T ings that convince people the most are facts
only one never seen on any TV or movie he and persons. Christ is both.
screen. tw
o Our culture rejects Christian morality
th because it rejects Christ. It usually thinks of
morality as helpful in other areas but as The Secret of Moral
joyless and repressive in one area: sex. It does Success
not know that morality is sexy: it is spiritual
foreplay, spiritual courtship, spiritual We know the good; we do not do it. C.S.
marriage preparation on earth for our ecstatic Lewis says, rightly, that it is simply
consummation in eternity. It does not impossible to think clearly about life without
know that the point of morality is admitting those two primary facts. (See
ultimately a marital union with God in the end of Part I of Mere Christianity.) We
Christ, which is an unending, unlimited, know the good because we can’t not know it.
unimaginable ecstasy of self- giving, self- God continues to enlighten our conscience.
forgetful love. Does that sound like what But we do not do it because we are not saints.
our culture means by morality? Why not? The good that we would do, we do not,
Because it does not know Christ. That’s why and the evil that we would not do, we do.
it thinks of morality as human rules, (Romans
necessary but joyless, like baggage 7:15) We are morally impotent. We have
inspections at airports. It thinks that necessary moral knowledge but not moral power.
goods are necessary evils! Its images of
moral living are images of unfreedom: The golden key of Christ’s real presence
marching in lockstep in a parade, or coloring unlocks this door too. Christ gives us not only
within the lines, or even the bars of a prison. the most profound understanding of morality
but also the power to practice it. He does both
If it knew Christ, it would know that in giving us Himself.
morality is more like sailing lessons for
beginners, in little Sunfish in shallow waters. The very first words of the Catechism of
But those shallows are the same water, the the Catholic Churchs section on morality
same holy element, that we are destined explains this: “Christian, recognize your
to sail on forever, in great tall ships, wild and dignity, and now that you share in God’s own
free, with the wind of the Holy Spirit in our nature, do not return to your former condition
sails and the Mind of God at the tiller. For our by sinning. Remember who is your Head and
destiny is to sail the great deep of God of whose Body you are a member.” The
Himself, and that is no longer impossible secret of moral success is simply to practice
because God Himself has become a man and the presence of Christ, which is to “know
has come aboard our boat. To be a moral thyself.” Christ is not only our moral
relativist when the Absolute Himself is authority but our moral identity. We are not
beside you in the boat is as stupid as it is to be just members of His organization; we are
such a skeptic about truth that you cynically members of His organism, His Body.
ask “What is truth?” to Truth Himself who is “Members” means “organs”!
standing before you, and then authorize His
murder.
Look how literally St. Paul means that
word (“members”) in telling the Corinthian
Christians what sexual immorality means
now for a Christian: “Shall I take the
members of Jesus Christ and make them
{42} (that is, make Him) members of a
prostitute?” (I Corinthians
6:15)

Just as whatever we do to our brothers,

we do to Christ, so what we do with ourselves
we do with Christ. For we are His members
just as much as they are.
Just thinking about His teachings and an er all the questions right. But practicing His
trying to practice them is like thinking about s presence is like acknowledging Him sitting
getting an A on a hard test and trying to w right beside you taking the test with you.
His presence is to sin what light is to of Christ. But it is an actuality, not just
darkness, what the sun is to maggots, and a potentiality or ideal. The Gospels are a
what crucifixes are to vampires. “show and tell” of Christ: for Christ not only
tells us what love is but shows us what love
Nothing even remotely comparable to this is. The Cross is the “operative definition” of
exists in any secular morality. Christians and love. It is what happens when perfect love
secularists agree that self-esteem is a cause meets the fallen world. It was no accident.
of good moral behavior, since we act out
our own perceived identities; but no secularist Second, Christ is not only what love is,
knows the greatest reason for self-esteem: the but Christ is also where you go to get it. To
astonishing fact that by His grace we are not get crocodiles you must go to where
only His, but Him. (Remember II Peter 1:4.) crocodiles are. To get wet you must go to
where water is. To get sunburnt, you must go
Moralists and philosophers can convince out into the sunlight. And to get Sonburnt
us that it’s good to be good, but they can’t with His love, you must go out into the
make us good. Psychologists can take Sonlight. That’s all. To those tired and thirsty
away our guilt feelings, but they can’t take for love He says simply: “Come unto me, all
away our guilt. you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) That is the
Yet sinners do become saints. It happens. simplest and most perfect formula for
Some people do conquer moral impotence. becoming a saint: go to Him.
Saints happen. And saints are always made
from the same raw material: sinners. There is The one and only thing that can ever save
no other raw material. Look at St. Paul, St. our world from disaster, from all the
Augustine, St. Francis, St. Ignatius: a consequences of sin, is saints. And Jesus
persecuting bigot, a playboy sex addict, a is the saint-maker. He was called “Jesus”
rich fop, and a professional killer, and they (“Savior”) not because He would save us
all become great saints. How can this only from the punishment that was due to our
happen? What is the efficient cause of it? sins. The angel’s command was: “You
Ask them. They will all give you the same shall call his name ‘Jesus’ because he will
answer: the Golden Key, Jesus Christ. save his people from their sins.” (Matthew
1:21)
Everybody knows that a saint is a great
lover of God and man. And everybody knows God will not rest until you are a saint. He
that love is the greatest thing in the world. demands it: “You must be perfect even
But not everybody knows what kind of love as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”
this is or where to get it. The answer to both (Matthew
questions is Christ. 5:48)

First of all, love is defined by Christ. I But we are not saints. Why?

Corinthians 13, the most famous chapter The answer is very easy to find. Look
into the mirror of your heart. Be utterly
in {43} honest with yourself. Can you doubt that (to
the Bible, the one about love, is a quote William Law) the only reason you are
definition
not a saint at this very moment is because you
do not wholly want to be?

oh, but I do want to be, you answer,

quite honestly.
Yes, but not wholly. W en can make our will whole? What is the
ha secret of the saints? We have the same ideals,
t the same principles, the same beliefs, the
th same aspirations. Why do the saints live
them so much better than we do? What is the Moral relativism is the new orthodoxy
secret of their success? among our mind-molders in media and
education. And almost all the justifications
Paradoxically, we don’t do enough good for the new moral relativism are sexual. No
because we do too much good. That means one wants a morality of “anything goes” or
two things: first, we are Marthas, worrying “different strokes for different folks” or “live
about many things, instead of Marys, simply and let live” or “don’t be judgmental” when it
loving “Jesus only.” And second, we try to do comes to ecology, or economics, or
it ourselves, asking God for “help,” instead penology, or terrorism, or even smoking. only
of realizing Step One of any Twelve-Step sex.
program, that we can’t do it ourselves. Jesus
has to do it. Our resources are tiny, His are We do not justify murdering helpless
unlimited. innocents, except in the name of sex. If storks
brought babies, there would be no abortions.
A saint is a soldier who has burnt all his Abortion is backup birth control, and birth
bridges behind him and sees “Jesus only” control is the demand to have sex without
ahead of him. having babies. The motor driving the
abortion holocaust is sexual.
That does not mean passivity any more
than it means Martha-like activism. Giving We do not justify any other practice
yourself up to God is the least passive thing whose clear results are (1) betraying your
you can possibly do. It was that dynamo of life’s most intimate friend and your most
activity, St. Paul, who said “I live, solemn promise, (2) harming your children’s
nevertheless not I, but Christ lives in happiness very deeply for the rest of their
me.” (Galatians 2:20) It was another dynamo, lives, and (3) destroying the most
John the Baptist, who said, “He must fundamental building block of human
increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) society. But we justify divorce, even
though it has these three results, because it is
Jesus and Sex in the name of sex. We are not allowed to
steal another man’s money without being put
When we hear the word “morality” today we into jail, but we can steal another man’s wife.
automatically think of sexual morality. This You cannot betray your lawyer without
is because we know that sex is by far the being penalized, but you can betray your
biggest moral battlefield in the world. wife, and she is penalized. You cannot kill
Everyone speaks of the “sexual revolution.” unborn bald eagles or blue whales without
No one speaks of a corresponding moral breaking the law, but you can kill your
revolution in any other area. In fact, the rest own unborn children without breaking the
of the moral law is still pretty much in place law.
in people’s minds and hearts. No U.S.
President would have survived revelations Obviously, this society is not overstocked
that he was a sadist, or a robber, or a with philosophical wisdom or logical
murderer, or even a deliberate liar about consistency. But there is little hope of
anything else than sex. restoring these commodities simply by
{44} arguments, however unanswerable they are.
Try proving to a pothead that he needs to
unscramble his brains. His brains are already
scrambled, so the message will find no soil.
Sex addicts will not think clearly any
more than drug addicts will.

Yet, though thinking is not sufficient, it is

necessary. Thinking unconfuses things. We th at confusion.
must find the essence of our confusion and
then find the golden key to the way out of
 The essence of the confusion is that we Unlike all other forms of love, Christ’s
confuse sex with love. And Christ is the way love is not easy, natural, or emotional; it is
out. hard, supernatural, and an act of will,
sometimes in the teeth of feelings. Was
Now watch how this Mother Teresa’s work of picking up the fly-
works. infested, dying derelicts from the streets
of Calcutta based on some sweet, cuddly
Here is the confusion: the Beatles sang: feeling she had for them? Was she a
“All you need is love.” But it isn’t. Someone necrophiliac? Did Jesus have the same
wrote a romantic novel with the title “Love Is feelings toward Judas that He had toward
Enough.” But it isn’t. Not the kind of John? When His feelings changed, did His
love they mean. On the other hand, it is love change?
true that “all you need is love” and that “love
is enough,” for “God is love” and God is We do not usually ignore Christ’s
enough. demand for love, but we do usually
ignore how different that love is from all
And here is the clearing-up of the merely human loves. Differences are revealed
confusion, the apparent contradiction: by thought. We do not think about His
What kind of love is God? The answer is saying “By this all men will know that you
Christ. Do you want to know what love are my disciples: by the love you have for
ultimately is? Look there. Look at Christ. each other.” (John 13:35) If that love had
There is love. The definition is not abstract been a natural, generic, universal love
but as concrete as a crucifix. already present in man, the saying would
contradict itself. It would mean: “The world
No one in Western civilization can ignore will see the difference between you and them
the wisdom we received from Christ, that the by the fact that you all share the same kind of
greatest value is love. What we can and do love.” It meant, of course, exactly the
ignore is how different that love is from all opposite.
natural human loves, how challenging it
is, how radical a change it requires. To Now what difference does Christ and His
explain it by an analogy, He called this love (agape) make to sex (eros)? What light
change a “new birth,” deliberately using as does the Light of the World shed on the
its image the single most radical change we god of our world, sex, and on our Sexual
have ever experienced in our natural lives. Revolution?
We confuse the love He was talking about
(agape) either with sexual love (eros) or with Sex is the god of our world, our
subjective compassion and kindness, or culture. It is our most non-negotiable
with philanthropy, the objective deeds demand. The teaching of Christ’s faithful
these feelings motivate us to perform. The Church about sex is the main reason the
confusion with sexual love is not rationally world hates and fears the Church, for the
defensible, so it is unconscious; the confusion Church is “judgmental” about our society’s
with inner feelings of compassion, or with addiction and its real religion.
external deeds of philanthropy, seems
defensible, so it is usually conscious. But I {45} Christ revolutionizes the Sexual
Corinthians 13 explicitly refutes both. Revolution. How does He do that? Not
by opposing religion to sex but by opposing
real religion to false religion.

From Freud’s point of view, religion is a

substitute for sex; from Christ’s point of
view, sex is a substitute for religion. It’s a
pretty
good substitute. Of all the things God created, su rnatural love and our supernatural destiny.
it is one of the very best, and a natural icon of pe Only very good things can be worshipped.
You can’t make a religion out of plumbing or could not have happened without two causes,
insurance. or conditions: (1) religious passion declined,
and (2) the Pill enabled us to separate
Let’s explore how close sex is to religion. sex from procreation and lifelong
The center of religion, the ultimate end of responsibility.
religion, the “holy of holies” of religion, is
spiritual marriage to God. The last event in Religion is not a pale substitute for
human history, according to the Bible, at the sex but sex a pale substitute for real religion;
end of the Apocalypse, is a wedding between because, as Aquinas says, “No man can live
the Lamb and His Bride, His Church. And without joy; that is why a man deprived of
the center of sex, and its greatest thrill, is the spiritual joy goes over to carnal
intimacy of intercourse, the almostmystical pleasures.” (ST II-II, 35, 4 ad 2) The origin of
overcoming of separateness and egotism, the the Sexual Revolution is religious. That’s
identification with the other, in body and why its demands are so non-negotiable.
mind, the fact that the beloved allows
you into his or her “holy of holies.” This But when you have the real thing you are
is a natural icon, image, shadow, prophecy, freed from addiction to its image. When you
appetizer, and foretaste of that infinite and have a love (agape) relationship with God
unimaginable ecstasy of Heaven that we were you are freed from addiction to love (eros)
all made for. We are hardwired for becoming relationships to creatures. And only then,
one with God; that’s why we are so thrilled at only when we do not so desperately need
becoming one with each other. That’s why them, we can enjoy and appreciate creatures
self-forgetfulness, the transcendence of freely. The alcoholic is not free to appreciate
egotism, and the loss of control, in sexual alcohol, and the sexaholic is not free to
orgasm is so mysteriously fulfilling. It’s not appreciate sex.
just the purely physical sensation; it’s the
mystical meaning. The higher animals
What does Christ have to do with this?
experience the same physical pleasure (watch
Everything. For Christ alone gives us
dogs!), but they don’t write mystical,
intimacy with God. Therefore Christ alone is
romantic love poems about it, and they
the answer to the Sexual Revolution.
wouldn’t write them even if they could write.
To many people, this connection will
Animal sex is only a remote image
seem bizarre. The question “What does Christ
of human romance, and human romance is a
have to do with sex?” will sound suspiciously
remote image of Heavenly ecstasy. The
similar to the one the demons asked Christ
earthly intimacy with the beloved is a tiny,
when He was about to exorcise them from a
distant spark of the bonfire that is the
man possessed: “What do you have to do
Heavenly intimacy with God. Sex is a faint
with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” (Mark 1:24;
image of the Beatific Vision.
Luke
4:34) How dare we bring these two things
The Age of Faith invested its faith, its
together? We must, because they are the two
hope, and its love in that Heavenly ecstasy.
most passionate things in our lives.
our Age of Apostasy has lost it, and therefore
has become quite naturally attached to its {46}
Go over this again more deeply. Look at
image, human sex. The Sexual
the deeper meaning of the Sexual Revolution.
Revolution
We live in a revolutionary time. More and
deeper changes have happened in human
history in the last halfmillennium than in any
other half-millennium, and more in the
last century than in any other century. And
the Sexual Revolution is surely the most
radical revolution of our time. For
“radical” means
“about roots” (radix), and sex is the root censorship of sexual behavior. Its friends say
of human life itself. this was good, and its enemies say it was not.
But they are both wrong. Much more radical
The most radical fruit of the Sexual was the imposition of a new censorship,
Revolution is not in action but in thought. It is a censoring of the essence of sex, the
not what its enemies on the Right usually meaning of sex. They were so fixated on the
say it is, namely increased sexual immorality fact that people make sex that they forgot that
or promiscuity, even though the consequences sex makes people. They were so engrossed in
of that are disastrous for the family and psychology that they forgot biology.
therefore for all society, especially for
women. Nor is it what its friends on the Left The lies of the Revolution must be
usually say it is, namely increased exposed. Divorce and abortion are two of
knowledge and power by “sex education” them. The Revolution justifies divorce by an
and sexual experimentation and experience. appeal to “compassion,” but in fact divorce is
Just the opposite: the most radical fruit of the terribly lacking in compassion to its innocent
Sexual Revolution is ignorance: ignorance of victims, children. It is like abortion that
the most basic truth of all about sex, about way. In fact it is an abortion: of the “one
its basic significance, that is, what it most flesh” new person created by marriage. And
basically means, or signifies, “what it’s all that is the second lie: abortion, the primary
about.” Sex is about babies. Sex is the origin sacrament of the Sexual Revolution and its
of new human life. That’s why it’s so most astonishing fruit.
ecstatic! Sex is for procreation, the closest
approximation we can ever come to the Since the Sexual Revolution is based on a
divine ecstasy of creation. And that is what lie, it can be defeated only by telling the truth,
the Sexual Revolution forgets, denies, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
covers up, or forbids. about sex. This means not just No’s but
a Yes: dispelling fantasy by displaying
The most radical change of the reality, exposing the whole truth, the Big
Revolution was not in behavior. There have Picture. (That is what John Paul II did in his
been all sorts of wild explosions of sexual “theology of the body.”)
behavior before in history, notably in dying
Rome. The real revolution has been in The “big picture” includes two of the
thought. “All that we do is made from most basic truths of Christian theology,
our thoughts,” says Buddha, at the Creation and Incarnation. Christ believed the
beginning of the Dhammapada. What Pope first, as a Jew, and He was the second.
Paul VI prophetically called “the
contraceptive mentality was a more radical
Creation means that God loved into
change than anyone foresaw, except Aldous
existence the whole material universe,
Huxley in Brave New World. Contraception
including the human body and its sexuality.
separates sex from babies. That is like
Christianity is the most materialistic
separating food from nutrition, or eyes
religion in history. Matter is very good.
from seeing, or ice makers from ice, or
God loves matter. Look how much of it He
churches from saints. (We do that too;
made!
how many of us see the Church first of all {47}
as a saint-making machine? But that’s how
Incarnation means God not only created
St. Paul saw it. Remember that, and all the
matter but became matter! God became a
epistles light up.)
material being! And He still is. He did not
leave His human body behind when He
Both the Revolution’s friends and its
ascended. The Ascension was not an undoing
enemies usually say that the revolution
of the Incarnation. Christ took His
consisted in the removal of restraint human
and
nature, human body and human soul, with
Him to Heaven, where He has it forever.
 The doctrine of Creation means that all This is Christocentric because Christ
matter is holy because God made it, but the alone reveals the Trinity. (Only Christians
doctrine of the Incarnation means the human believe it.) Christ is our fundamental data for
body is most holy because God took it into the doctrine of the Trinity. Christ is the
His own being, married it, in an indissoluble reason we know that God is not just one
union. (What God has joined together, no lonely person but Father, Son, and Spirit:
man can put asunder.) Christ became Christ called His Father God, and He called
incarnate to redeem us, and redemption was Himself God, and He called the Spirit
physical. It did not happen just by teaching They would send God; and yet as a Jew He
or good example. It happened by Christ knew there is only one God. Therefore God
physically giving us His blood, on the Cross, is Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
not just mentally being willing to do this.
Tertullian said, “the flesh is the hinge of And the Trinity is the ultimate
salvation.” “No other blood will do.” meaning of sex. For we are made in God’s
image, and that means sex. The very first
Creation (of matter), Incarnation (into time scripture uses the phrase “the image of
human matter), Ascension (of His material God” (Genesis
human body), Eucharist, “new heavens and 1:27), it identifies it as “male and female.”
new earth—God cherishes matter like an
artist. only such a religion could have How important is the theology of the
produced John Paul’s “theology of the body.” body? That depends on how important the
It will be his trademark forever, as the Sexual Revolution is. The importance of St.
“restless heart” is St. Augustine’s and as holy George depends on the importance of the
poverty is St. Francis’s, and as the dragon. The importance of Dr. Van Helsing
marriage of faith and reason is St. Thomas’s. depends on the importance of Dracula.

And how important is the Sexual

Revolution? That depends on how important
the family is—for exactly the same reason.

The theology of the body is totally And how important is the family? It is
Christocentric. Christ does not teach the only the basis for all human society, in
theology of the body; Christ is the theology fact for human existence.
of the body.
Four of the most stable, successful,
At the heart of the theology of the body is internally peaceful, and long-lived societies
the vision of sex as an icon of the Trinity and in history were the Jewish (Mosaic), the
of our final, mystical Heavenly destiny to be Confucian, the Islamic, and the Roman. They
married to God. God is not just an individual; lasted, respectively, about 35, 21, 14, and 7
God is a family, a Trinity, a family of Father, centuries, for one overriding reason: because
Son, and Spirit. Thus the family is Godlike they all greatly respected the family.
because God is a family.
I think the family is even more important
God is a Trinity because He is love, to God than doctrinal orthodoxy, because the
{48}
complete love, therefore Lover, Beloved, and family is about the very image of God in
Loving. He is not just a lover, but “God is man. Islam and Mormonism are
love.” (I John 4:8) And that is why human theological heresies, but God is blessing
love, especially human sexual love, is them and they are expanding faster than
Godlike: because God is love. Christianity today because Muslims and
Mormons are much more faithful than
Christians to the family,
marriage, sexual morality, and procreation. ar e succumbing to it.
They are resisting the Sexual Revolution. We
 This is outrageous, because the definitive for all human lives, including the smallest
answer to the Sexual Revolution is not and weakest and neediest and most
Muhammad or Joseph Smith but Jesus, who vulnerable, the most “useless.” But why? On
not only reveals but incarnates the mystery of what basis? Feeling and sentiment? That is as
the holiness of sex, marriage, and the changeable and unpredictable and
family as a sacred sign of our ultimate uncontrollable as the wind, or the winds of
destiny, spiritual marriage to God. Jesus does fashion as manipulated by the media. Christ’s
not just tell us the Big Picture; He is the Big Church gives the real answer: the real basis
Picture. He does not just teach us the Word for human solidarity is Christ. It is in Christ
of God about sex. He is the Word of God that all men are brothers. Whatever we do to
about sex. He does not merely reveal the a bag lady or a baby, born or unborn, or a
spiritual marriage; terminally ill cancer patient, or a political or
military enemy, we do to Christ.
He is the spiritual marriage. In Christ we
have more than the Big Picture; we have the For in the Incarnation Christ became not
Big Person. just a man but Man, humanity. And not
“humanity” as an abstract idea but as a
Christ and Social Ethics: Solidarity concrete family. It is no legal fiction when He
says, “Whatever you do to one of the least of
The fundamental problem of society is glue. these my brethren, you do to me.”
What glues naturally selfish individuals (Matthew
together? We are naturally selfish. That is the 25:45) It is literally true. In physical marriage
empirically verifiable formulation of the “the two become one flesh,” one body, one
doctrine of original Sin. Selfishness divides, new person; and if you realize that, you will
community unites. What melds selfishness no longer compete with or put down or harm
into community? Is it force? Or is it social your spouse, for that is yourself, your
justice? own body. (Ephesians 5:28) But in Christ we
are married to all men, for we are members
Neither. It is solidarity. Solidarity (organs, hands) of His Body. If we
(Sobornost in Russian, Solidarinosc in Polish) realize that, we realize solidarity. outside
has always been more powerful than Christ, solidarity is only a beautiful ideal. In
justice as human glue, for justice is abstract Christ, it is a beautiful fact.
and rational, while solidarity is concrete and
mystical. outside Christ, this beautiful ideal has
to be realized by human effort. But human
But what is the basis of solidarity? It effort is compromised with sin. Thus many of
is not merely our common origin, in Adam, the regimes that show passionate, self-
but our common end, in Christ. sacrificial human solidarity, from Germany in
the 1930s to Al Queda, are also regimes that
Secularists say our common origin is show passionate sinfulness and hate.
apes and our common end is death. Not a
very good basis for solidarity! Solidarity is the fundamental answer
to the fundamental social and political
The world rightly praises (when it is {49} problem. The problem is how to get selfish
sane) and practices (when it is moral) individuals to cooperate without losing
respect their individuality. It is the problem of the
polis, the civitas, the community: what is the
common unity of the comm-unity? How can
we live together in peace instead of war?

War is the stupidest idea in history: “We

have problems. Let’s solve them by killing happen in the topography of our world it
each other.” Yet history is full of this brilliant must first happen in the topography of our
idea, and peace is the exception. For peace to minds, for our thoughts govern our actions.
our perception must be changed from war abortion and no to that same question when
to peace, from “us vs. them” to “us includes we address war and capital punishment—or
them.” How can “them” become “us”? How vice versa. It’s not just that we give wrong
can we identify the private good with the answers (I’m not sure what the right answers
common good? How can we overcome that are in particular about a particular war or
“state of (fallen) nature” which capital punishment in a particular case), it’s
Hobbes that we have self-contradictory principles.
memorably described as a state of war of each
against all and all against each, a state of life
Only from the viewpoint of the
that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
straight can we judge the skewered. Christ is
short”? Not just by social contracts and
the straight, the plumb line—both when He is
technologies. Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s
explicitly known, by divine revelation, and
Russia, and Mao’s China had both, and
when He is implicitly known, by conscience
life was still solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
and the natural law. He brings to all issues
short.
God’s natural order to judge man’s unnatural
disorders. Therefore, He does that to politics
Again, Christ does not merely teach the too.
answer, Christ is the answer. He does not
point us to our peace; He is our peace.
He also unites the proper concerns of
Right and Left, for He is the straight path (“I
am the Way”) from which both Right and
Left turns depart. He gives a stronger
reason for the rightful concerns of both
Right and Left than either Right or Left can
do.

Jesus and Politics: Is He Right or For instance, why feed the poor? Because
Left? the poor are Christ in disguise. Not just
because of political correctness or individual
All political issues today are seen through the sentiment.
prism of Right vs. Left, the political “us vs.
them.” The categories are all- Why love sinners, as the Left does, and
encompassing thoughtsavers, knee-jerks that why hate sins, as the Right does? Why love
allow us to avoid thinking about each addicts to drugs, violence, money, or sex?
issue on its own merits. But the And why hate their addictions? For the same
categories, and the polarization they create, reason. Because Christ does. That’s why we
is even more indefensible when applied to should be more compassionate to sinners than
Christ because it means judging Christ by liberals are and more uncompassionate to sins
the fallen world rather than vice versa. than conservatives are. For the same reason:
Christ.
The polarization is also harmful to
morality because it lets us be selectively Why insist on doctrinal orthodoxy? Not
moral, selectively idealistic—which means just out of correctness but out of loyalty to
selectively immoral and pragmatic. If we take Christ. Why speak of sin and salvation, two
the high road on abortion, euthanasia, and {50}
words that scandalize the secularist? Not
sexuality, we can take the low road on war, just to refute secularism but because of
poverty, and pollution; or vice versa. Even Christ. Christ not only spoke of sin and
when we focus on a specific question like salvation, Christ is salvation.
whether all human lives are intrinsically
valuable, these categories allow us the moral Why preach and practice the “social
schizophrenia to say yes when we address
gospel”? Not to be politically correct, or to
refute the Fundamentalists, but because Christ Why be universalistic and inclusive and
did. ecumenical? Not to sneer at xenophobia,
isolationism, and provincialism, but because to worship Christ’s values instead of Christ.
Christ was and is universalistic. Christ is not That is just as abstract as the Right’s
a local tribal deity. substituting Christ’s doctrines for Christ.
They are also only pointing fingers.
Why insist on “the scandal of
particularity,” and on the concrete, visible, The Right argues that the Left is
particular, and exclusive claims of Christ vague, but even the true and precise doctrines
to be the one and only Savior? Not to stick it of the Right are vague compared with Christ.
to the liberals, but because Christ is Everything is. The Left argues that the Right
particular and concrete and visible and is hard, but even the soft, compassionate
exclusive and literal. heart of a liberal is hard compared with
Christ. Everything is.
Why be progressive and radical and
creative and in love with the new? Why be Right and Left cannot convince and
open to the winds like a sail? Because Christ convert each other for the same reason
is. that the Pharisees and the Sadducees could
not convince and convert each other. For
Why be faithful and stick-in-the-mud what a Pharisee needs is not a little softening
traditionalist, like an anchor? Because Christ of the head, a little dose of worldliness, pop
is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” psychology, relativism, and subjectivism.
What he needs is Christ. And what a
Why be a “bleeding heart liberal”? Sadducee needs is not a little hardening of the
Because Christ is. Why be a “hard-headed heart, a little arrogance, a little bit of Scrooge
conservative”? Because Christ is. or Machiavelli or Darwinian “survival of the
fittest.” What he needs is Christ.

And our society needs nothing less,

split as it is between Left and Right today just
as Jesus’ society was split between
Sadducees and Pharisees in His time.

Many have substituted Liberalism or Earthly societies are not eternal, as souls
Conservatism or some other ism for are. Yet Christ is the Savior of societies
Christ, and coopted Christ for their cause. as well as souls. Our society is dying because
Christ cannot be coopted for any cause; all it has turned the holy name of its Savior into
causes must be coopted for Him. All isms are a curse word. Christophobia is the poison that
abstractions. Even the perfect ism, if there is is killing our society. Our secularists are
one, cannot save us and cannot love us. making us forget Christ faster than we are
making them remember Him: that is why
The special danger of the religious our society is dying. Its blood supply is
Right is to worship Christ’s doctrines instead drying up. The Precious Blood is evaporating.
of Christ, confusing the sign with the thing We are losing more blood each day.
signified. The Right is absolutely right to
{51}
insist on being right and to insist on The answer is scandalously simple,
absolutes. But a finger is for pointing at the unless Christ and Christianity and the Bible
moon; woe to the fool who mistakes the and the Church and Christ’s apostles and all
finger for the moon. the saints are liars. The answer is that there is
only one hope, for societies as well as souls:
The special danger of the religious Left is “What must I do to be saved?” “Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be Is that too simple and childish for
saved.” you? Are you too “advanced” and “adult” for
(Acts 11:14) that? Remember what “advanced” tooth
decay looks like. Remember what our society
means by “adult.” Remember what “adult” Age of Apostasy vs. Age of Faith, 132 Al
movies mean. And then put that against The Queda, 39, 143 alcohol, 133 Allah, 42-43
Passion of the Christ. And then “choose ye Alexander, 58 amazement, 88 amoeba, a
this day whom ye will serve.” (Joshua 24:15) mentally retarded, 51 American, Jesus not
an,
Conclusion 10 Amor meus, pondus meum, 36
analogical nature of personhood, 30 anarchist,
YOU DIDN’T EXPECT A book on philosophy to Jesus not an, 10 angels, 54, 97, 102, 124
end like that, did you? But that’s the way the angelism vs. animalism, 73 Anna, 91 Answer
world’s greatest philosopher ended His Man, God not our, 40 anthropologist, Christ
philosophy. The last words of Christ in the as the perfect, 73-74 anthropomorphism, 40
Bible, through His prophet John, in the Antichrist, 150 Apocalypse, 131 Apology, 45
Apocalypse, say the same thing. (Read appearance vs. reality, 88 Aquinas, 44, 133,
Revelation 22.) For this is the most important 138 Aristotle, 23 art, universe as God’s, 61
thing anyone can ever say, the most artist, Christ as, 62 Ascension, 137-38
momentous choice we can make, the choice Athanasian creed, 46 Augustine, 36, 123, 138
between everything and nothing, being and Auschwitz, 37 Ayran racist, Jesus not an, 10
nonbeing, light and darkness, Heaven and Babel, 51 baby-talk of God, 20 bag ladies,
Hell, Christ and Antichrist—and if 142 baggage inspections, morality as, 120
philosophy has nothing to say about that, then baptism, 83, 87 bara', 12, 86, 91 Beatific
the hell with it. Vision, 132 Beatles, 128 Beauty, 99 Being or
Love as the ultimate equation, 26 Bee-ing as
what bees do, 55

“be-greats” vs. belittles, 104 Ben Israel, 50

Bethlehem, 116 Bible as finger, 66 Big Bang,
107

Big Picture, 136, 140-41 bios, 91

Index birth control, 127 Boo, God saying, 44 “born

again,” 79 Brahman, 15, 72 Brahmin
See also headings in Table of Contents pantheist, Jesus not a, 10 Brave New World,
(e.g. “legalism,” “relativism,” 135 Bridegroom, God as, 40 Buddha, 1, 3, 58,
“epistemology,” “metaphysics,” etc.). 94, 99, 114, 135 Buddhism, 71-72 burning
bush, 57
Some topics (“Christ,” “love”) are
omitted not because they are not Caananites, 16 Calcutta, 130 Calvary, 46
important but because they are on
camera, God as the one behind the, 32
nearly every page. afortiori arguments,
cannibalism, 37 cannonball, faith as, 109
used by Jesus, 4 Abba, 20 abortion, capital punishment, 145 capitalizing God’s
118, names, 1 Cartesians, 73 Catechism of the
127, 136, 144 Abraham, 16, 41, 45, Catholic Church, 74-75, 77, 117, 121
89 {52}
absolutism, 118 Absolute Himself, 119 “category confusion,” 99 “Catholic”
accessibility of God, 20-21 Adam, (“universal”), 84 character, God has a, 18
77- chariots of fire, 101 China, 144
78, 89, 112, 141 addictions, 146
adoption by God, 20 adultery, 60, Christophobia, 119, 149 crucifixes vs.
64
Aeschylus, 4 agape, 17, 26, 32, 129-
30,
133
vampires, 122 Church, 73, 86, 90, 111, 113, for God, 15, 20, 83 fear, holy, 103-4 fiction,
130-31, 135, 142, 149 Churchill, 58 civitas, Jesus never a convincing fictional character,
143 Clinton, 77 Collected Letters of C.S. 58 fire, Jesus’ mouth as, 36 fisherman, Christ
as, 36, 63 flesh, the “hinge of salvation,” 138
Lewis, 3 common good, 143 Confucius, 3, Force, God not a, 11, 85 Francis of Assisi,
94, 114, 140 conscience, 18, 94, 97 123, 138 Frankl, Viktor, 37 Freud, 131
conservative vs. liberal, 63 consubstantiated, fundamentalism, 87
we are, 112
galaxies, point of, 89, 107 Gamaliel, 88
contraception, 135 correspondence, gardener, God as, 105-6 Germany, 143-44
knowledge as, 52 covenants, 17 George, St., 139 Gibson, Mel, 25 glory of
God, 117 Golden Key, 94, 121, 123, 128
creation, 13, 76, 86-87, 91, 137 Golgatha, 23 Gnosticism, 10, 73 goddesses,
none in Judaism, 14 goodness of all being, 31
crocodiles, 124 Cross, 108, 124, 137 crucifix, Gordian knot, 45 “grace perfects nature,” 104
23, 122, 129 Critique ofPure Reason, 3 grandmas, 27 Grandma, 114 gravity as a
“culture of death,” 118 voice proposing marriage, 22 greatest good,
93, 96 Greeks vs. Jews, 103 Griffeths, Dom
“Daddy,” God as, 20, 106 dark side, God has Bede, 3 “Ground of Being,” 18 guilt vs. guilt
no, 16 Darwinianism, 148 David, 43 Delphic feelings, 123 guinea pigs, 53
oracle, 45 death as nature’s trump card, 65
Harvard, 3
Democrat, Jesus not a, 10 demons, 133
“deposit of faith,” 90 Devil, 36 “He” vs. “She,” God as, 14 Heaven, 19, 22,
65, 73, 85, 88, 102, 117, 132, 138, 150
Dhammapada, 135 dharma, 114
Hell, 22, 65, 85, 150 heredity, 36 Herodians,
Diana (pagan goddess), 15 “Dies Irae,” 23 38 Hermaphrodite, God as,
dignity of the Christian, 121
14
“divine discontent,” 116 divorce, 127, 136
dog in a cage, man as, 78 Dothan, 101 Heschel, 40
Dracula, 23, 139 dragons, 139 drunks and
drug addicts, 77 highways to Heaven, 108 history, meaning of,
92 Hitler, 144 Hittites, 16 Hobbes, 143 Holy
2
e=mc ,21 of Holies, 25,131 Holy Spirit, 46, 83-85, 91,
120, 139 Homer Simpson, 3 hound of
Earth as Mother, 14 earthquake, God as an, Heaven, 115 humor, Jesus’ sense of, 44
40 ecstasy, 132, 135 “ego,” 11 hurricane, God as, 85 Huxley, Aldous, 135
hydrogen vs. hearts, 107 hypostatic union, 46
Elijah, 100, 102, 104 Elisha, 101 Empiricists,
73 end justifies the means, 95 Enlightenment, “I,” (“the West had both its ‘I’s’ open”), 12
71 eros, 129-30, 133 Eucharist, 87, 112, 138 {53} “I AM,” 11,22, 3-33,41, 44-47, 51, 56, 59, 71,
euthanasia, 144 evolution, 89 example, Jesus 82, 99 I.Q., 94
not an, 99 face, Being has a, 23 faith and
works, 62 faith “heavy enough,” 109 Fall, 76 Incarnation, 19, 22, 137 identity, in beloved,
not in self, 27 Ignatius Loyola, 75, 123
family, God as a, 138 “Father,” Jesus’ name inclusive “only,” 104 India, sages of, 11
infinity, meaning of, 18 intimacy, divine, 17
Incarnation, 45, 46, 73, 87, 137, 142 138, 140-41
Inquisition, 39 Intolerance, 118 irony, 44, 88
Isaiah, 17 Islam, 140. See also Muslims Martha, 97, 106, 111, 125-26 Marxism, 38
Islamo-fascism, 41
Mary, 46, 90-92, 97, 106, 111, 125 Mass, 51
Jacob, 108
materialism, 72, 84, 137 meaning of life, 16,
Jacob’s ladder, 51, 108, 117 James, 100, 102 93, 107, 116 members = organs, 122
Mencken, H.L., 9 Mere Christianity, 121
Jesuits, 75 Messiah, 38-39, 40, 80-81, 90, 111 Midas
touch, Jesus as, 108 “A Midsummer Night’s
Jews, Judaism, 10, 12, 14, 16, 41, 56, 58, 88, Dream,” 61 Mind of God, 120 mirror, Christ
94-95, 104, 137, 139-40 Job, 37, 48, 51, 57, as, 74 Mithras, 15 Moabites, 16
106-8 John, 100, 102, 130, 150 John the
Baptist, 39, 126 John Paul II, 69, 74, 136, 138 Modernist, Jesus not a, 10 moldy culture’s
mindmolders, 118 monarchist, Jesus not a, 10,
John’s Gospel, 9 joy the point of the Big 38 moon, 147 Mormonism, 140 Moses, 41,
Bang, 107 Judas, 38, 130 Juliet, 66 55-57, 100, 102, 104, 114, 140 Mother Earth,
14, 83 Mother Teresa, 130 Mount of
justification and sanctification, 63 Justice, 99 Transfiguration, 108

Kali, 15 Kant, 3 Katz, 60 Kevorkian, 118 Muhammad, 3, 42-43,

Kingdom of God, 80 koans, 69, 71-72, 79,
116 “know thyself,” as puzzle, 7-8 as koan, 114, 140 Muslims, 2, 12, 14, 16, 41, 42-43
69-71 mystery, life as, 53 mystery vs. problem, 69

Lamb of God, 131; vs. narrow-mindedness of God, 18 Necessary

Being, God as, 32
Beast, 23 Lao Tzu, 95, 114 Law, William,
125 Law and Prophets, 104 necrophilac, 130 need, God has no, 28 neo-
conservative, Jesus not a, 10
Law’s purpose, 109 Lazarus, 66, 105 Left vs.
Right, 38, 134, 144ff. leisure, 110 Lesson New Ager, Jesus not a, 10, 73 New Man, 96
one, 107 “lettuce solution,” 77-78 levels of Newman, 108 new morality, no, 94 new birth,
knowledge and reality, 52 Lewis, C.S., 3, 212 129 Newton, Isaac, 22 Nicene Creed, 62
liberal vs. conservative, 63, 77-78, 147 Nicodemus, 79-83, 87-88, 91-92 Nirvana, 71
Libertarian, Jesus not a, “No Exit,” 24 non-being to being, 86, 91
“normalism,” error of, 76 “notional assent,”
10, 38 Lincoln, 58 logos, 9, 15, 31, 52 108
longing, 116 The Lord of the Rings, 61 love:
as “the way it is,” 26 as a large, hot rock orgasm, 132
thrown in your face, 37 Lutheran theology of
Eucharist, 112 {54} oneness, supreme oneness is of love, not of
number, 27
Machiavelli, 148 magician, Jesus not a, 10
maggots, 122 male chauvinist, Jesus not a, 15 otherness, 28

Mao Tse-tung, 144 Marcel, 29,31, 69 Marcus pagan myth, Jesus not a,
Aurelius, 3 marriage to God, 17, 22, 119, 131,
10 quest, life as, 37

pantheism, 16 Paradise, 78 Qur'an, 1

parent’s primary gift, 92 Pascal, 3, 50, 79, 81 rabbis, 57, 83 Rachel, 108
“The Passion of the Christ,” 25, 149 Paul, 88,
98, 122, 123, 126, 135 radical, Jesus not a political, 10 Real
Presence, 112, 121 reason, Jesus’ appeals to,
Paul VI, Pope, 135 Penseés, 50, 82 Person vs. 4 reason for everything, 92 redemption, 76
Force, God as, 11, 85 reincarnation, 82 Republican, Jesus not a, 10
Resurrection, 46 revelation, need for, 54
personality of God knowable, 18 personhood Right vs. Left, 38, 134, 144ff.
as the key to metaphysics, 30 personalism,
meaning of, 113-14 Peter, 100, 102, 104 righteousness, Christ is, 115
Pharisees, 55, 60, 62-63, 78, 88, 148
philosophy, Jesus as God’s, 9 Jesus as romance, 132; morality as a, 113 Rome, 135,
fulfillment of, 114 skeptical definition of, 140 Romeo, 66 ruah', 84 Russia, 144

9 sacraments, 73 Sadduccees, 4, 148 saililng

lessons, morality as, 120 saint, being a, as the
as a joke, 51 The Philosophy of meaning of life, 16
Existentialism, 29 Pilate, 47-48 Pill, the, 137
as the true introduction to ontology, 29-31
Plato, 23, 73, 99 Platonist, Jesus not a, 10 seen as abnormal, 77 definition of, 109
Playwright, God as, 45 plurality as well as
unity ‘goes all the way up,’ 29 Pharisees, 4 made from sinners, 123 Jesus as saint-maker,
pneuma, 84 124

poet, Jesus as, vs. Jesus as philosopher, 4-5 why you are not a, 125 as soldier, 126 not a
“poltical correctness,” 118 political Messiah, liar, 149 sanctification and justification, 63
38 polis, 143 polytheism, 15, 16 pop satori, 71 Sartre, 24
psychology, 10, 41,
“scandal of particularity,” 146
148
schoolmaster, Law as, 109 science as reading
potato, man as a, 77 practice of the presence, God’s art, 61
121
scientist, Christ not a, 62 Scrooge, 148
prayer, 54, 66-67 Precious Blood, 149 seamless garment, 63 secular humanism, 10,
pregnancies by email, 86 priestesses, none in 41 secular morality, 122 self, made good or
Judaism, 14 “primitive Christians,” 90 bad by choices, 8 self-esteem, 122 sex, 28,
problem vs. mystery, 69 Prodigal Son, 5 87, 92, 119, 122, 126ff.
progressivism, 147 prophets, two, of morality, {55}
96-97 propositional truth, 64 psychiatry, Sexual Revolution, 130ff. Shakespeare, 61
sweet substitute for, 111 purpose of the “She,” God as, 14, 41 Shiva, 15
universe, 89-90
shrewdness of Jesus, 4 ships, morality like, 95
Pythagoras, 22 simplicity, 110 Simpson, Homer, 3 sin, is to

faith what infidelity is to marriage, as light-absorbing clothing over divine glory,

25 as imprisonment; as drug, 63
17;
as enemy of life, 105 as many, Christ as one,
 transubstantiation, 112 trick, Jesus’, 59
110 Trinity, 27, 28-29, 138-39 truth, 47-48;
murder of, 120 twelve-step program, 126
is to Christ as maggots to light, 122
skepticism, 47, 120 Smith, Joseph, 140 Ultimate Reality, 16, 19, 22-23, 26, 32 uncle,
sobornost, 141 solidarinosc, 141 social God not an, 40
gospel, 146 social worker, Jesus not a, 10
vampires, 119, 122 Van Helsing, Dr., 139
socialist, Jesus not a, 10, 38 Socrates, 4, 45, Vatican II, 74 veil of the Temple, 25 Vermont
64, 69, 88, 94, 114 Socratic method, 40 farmer joke, 51 Virgin Mary, 46 Vishnu, 15
Socratic dialog, 3 Solomon, 3
war, 145 origin of, 110 stupidest idea, 143
Sonburnt from Sonlight, 124 water the holy element, 120

“spirituality” vs. sanctity, Western civilization, 129 “What do you

want” as Jesus’ first question, 38 “who” vs.
73 “what,” 36 Will, divine, 16 wisdom, Jesus is,
48, 114 defined as answering four questions,
Southern Baptist, 87 Stalin, 144 6 Word of God, 65-66, 98, 140

Star of Bethlehem, 116 startles, four kinds of, works and faith, 62 Wooer, God as, 40 World
81 story of Being, 46 subject, divine, became Trade Center, 106 x-ray, 74, 118 xenophobia,
human object, 21 subjectivism, 41, 148 146
subject-vs.-object, 70-72 Summa Theologica,
44, 133 summum bonum, 116 Sunfish, 120 Index; Scripture Quotations
Supernovas, 107 “survival of the fittest,” 148
Syria, 101 Yellow Pages, 15 Zeus, 15, 44

Tao, 21 Zealots, 38 zoe, 92

Temple veil, 25 Tertullian, 138 “theology of Zen Buddhism, 71

the body,”
Scripture Quotation

Genesis 1:2 (66, 91) Genesis 1:26-27 (74)

Genesis 1:27 (139) Genesis 2:7 (89, 91)
Genesis 28:12 (52, 117) Genesis 29:20 (108)
Joshua 24:15 (149)

II Kings 6 (101)

136, 138-39 Tiger, Christ the, 35 Tolkien, Job 28 (48)

24, 61 Torah, 16 {56}

Job 38:4 (107)

Tower of Babel, 51 touchstone, Jesus as, 115-
16 traditionalism, 147 transcendence, God’s, Psalm 51:10 (91)
14 “transfiguration,” 100, 102, 108
Psalm 90:4 (108)

Psalm 139:19-24 (43) Proverbs 9:10 (103)

Matthew 1:21 (125) Matthew 5:17 (104)
Matthew 5:48 (18, 125) Matthew 7:7 (37)
Matthew 11:28 (99, 114, 124)
 John 8:7 (34) John
Matthew 14 (102) Matthew 17:1-8 (100, 102)
8:12 (114) John
Matthew 17:5 (102) Matthew 17:6 (102)
Matthew 17:8 (97, 106) Matthew 19:17 (98)
8:32 (60, 62) John
Matthew 19:26 (117) Matthew 21:27 (35)
8:34 (63) John
Matthew 23:252-26 (78) Matthew 25:40 (96)
Matthew 25:45 (142) Matthew 26:26 (21)
8:36 (62, 65)
Mark 1:24 (134)

John 8:57-58 (33, 45) John 11:40 (105)

Luke 1:35 (92)

Luke 4:23 (78) John 13:35 (130)

Luke 4:32 (66) John 14:6 (47, 62, 99) John 16:7 (91)

Luke 4:34 (134) Acts 5:34-39 (88)

Luke 10:37 (35) Acts 11:14 (149) Romans 3:23 (117) Romans
6:23 (63) Romans 7:12 (109) Romans 7:15
Luke 10:42 (97, 111) Luke 13:24 (35) (121) Romans 8:28 (108) Romans 8:29 (75)

Luke 20:25 (35) I Corinthians 1:30 (114) I Corinthians 6:15

(122) I Corinthians 13 (124, 129)
John 1:1,2,14 (21, 52) John 1:5 (34)
I Corinthians 15:49 (75)
II Corinthians 1:20 (109) Ephesians
John 1:18 (51, 106)
3:14 (96) Ephesians 5:28 (142) Philippians
1:21 (98) Philippians 3:5 (88) Philippians
John 1:38 (36, 38)
4:19 (97) Galatians 2:20 (126) Galatians 3:24
(109) Colossians 1:19 (54, 117) Hebrews 1:3
John 1:43 (114) (66) Hebrews 2:9 (78, 106)

John 1:51 (52, 117) II Peter 1:4 (75, 123) James 1:17 (106)

James 4:1-3 (110)

I John 1:1 (21)

John 3:1-10 (79-80) John 3:30 (126) I John 4:8 (108, 138)

John 5:46 (41) I John 4:18 (26) Revelation 1:17 (40)

{57}
Revelation 22 (150)
John 6:45 (41)

John 7:17 (103)

John 8:3-11 (56)