GOD CREATED US FOR JOY

Don't be angry with God (3)

Author: Paulino Quevedo, PhD.

We long to be happy because we were created for happiness, but we don't seem to be aware of it, nor do we seem to look for it intelligently. Rather we walk like men and women of the masses, chasing after money and what fashion dictates.

Brief pre-article

It has been rightly said that fashion is what happens, pun intended not only to mean what happens now, but also what is left behind. Fashion is left behind, it doesn't last. Happiness, on the other hand, bliss, must be lasting. How could we be happy knowing that joy will end? That child story about the girl who had found a coin was saying it well. She wondered: What will I buy? If I buy bread, I run out; if I buy milk, I run out. ... And finally she decided to buy wax and straws to build a ladder and climb to Heaven. Childish?

We strive to be fashionable, even knowing what will happen. This happens in many fields: at home, what we dress and our livelihood, in professions and trades, in amusements and hobbies, in attitudes and ways of thinking, in arts and letters. ... Let's change clothes! Let's change cars! Let's change...! Much of our money is spent on fashion, trying to please the whims of others. My father used to say, with a lot of humor: We spend money we don't have ... on things we don't need ... to please people we don't like.

Why do we behave like this? We do it, in large part, because we want to be approved and accepted by others, for which it is convenient to do what they like, look like them, become uniform with them, standardize with them; and from all this the mass man and woman emerge. But then we want to stand out, to be admired, envied, and feared.

We believe that we will achieve bliss by using others to praise our ego. The reality is the opposite: we attain bliss when we love, that is, when we surrender our ego, when we surrender for the benefit of others. Bliss is not achieved through interest, specifically seeking it; It is only achieved selflessly, indirectly, as a boomerang effect, when we seek the happiness of others. Bliss is an indirect prize for selflessness, for altruism.

Money does not provide happiness either, because it is saved, invested or spent. If it is saved or invested it does not provide great appeal, and if it is spent it ends. Well, unless you have so much money that you can't finish it in a lifetime. On the other hand they say that money is "round", and that it "rolls" from here to there, and so we can loos it. Anyway you have to earn a lot, a lot of money; and when this is achieved, you will no longer have the necessary youth to enjoy it. Who will enjoy it? Most likely the new husbands of our widows will do it. Why don't we seek bliss as God commands?

Although the articles in this series can be read independently, there is a relationship between them; due to which, the reading of each one will be better understood if it relates to that of the others, which can be found by activating the link offered immediately:

Don't be angry with God

Body of the article

In the second article in this series, I invited the reader to try to get us "In the sole of God's shoes" to find better solutions to their problems   -with a supposed permission that He would give us  - as a peculiar literary resource, intellectual exercise or trick that helps us better understand why things are as they are, and why God works as He works and governs as He governs. If the task becomes difficult my reflections can help, but each reader can venture on more personal paths. In those first two articles the following came to light:

• God knows all, can do all, and creates freely. He can also avoid all evil without restricting our freedom.
• In the best of worlds there must be many evils, and God decided to create that world as a gift for us. That is why there are evils in our world.
• The best of all worlds is not made up of completely perfect creatures, but creatures that cover the entire range of perfections, including their deficiencies and fallibility.
• God conceals himself as much as possible to give us the opportunity to participate fully in the conquest of our glory, so that we deserve it and that it be absolute; that is why He is a quiet and hidden God.
• Before God we can never reach a majority of age; we are always like children, because He keeps us in existence at all times.
  

The reader can now consider whether he would prefer that things had been done differently in regard to the points indicated, even if they are very synthetic. In case of doubt or requiring more information, you can always resort to reading the above mentioned articles.

God created for love

God did not create out of necessity, or for convenience, in order to have company, to not be alone. God is not a loneliness; He is a Divine Family: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is the most perfect divine Being in person; the Son is the most perfect divine Wisdom in person; and the Holy Spirit is the most perfect divine Love in person.

This is our God, One and Triune; in his very rich intimacy is immeasurably happy. No creature could add anything to his finished and full happiness. If He decided to create, it was not to get anything for Himself, but only for love, that is, to communicate his happiness to others.

God did not create for the sole pleasure of manifesting his power or for the mere satisfaction of contemplating his Creation. He created to communicate his own bliss to others, and since only people can come to enjoy divine bliss, the main objective of his creative work was people: angels and us, men, as far as we know. He created a whole range of angels and has also created   -and continues to create  - another whole range of human beings. And he created the rest of his creatures for the benefit of us, who are people.

We do not know for sure if angels and men are the only people of Creation. Nor do we know for sure if the creation of angels continues, nor if the creation of material realities continues; but we certainly know that God continues to create human souls, many every second, one for each conception. The creation of human souls is practically continuous. Presumably, God continually creates, although we don't know what.

People are intelligent, spiritual beings; and as far as we know, the only people embodied in a material body are human. Today we are very restless, more than in the past, about the possible existence of aliens. Perhaps there are, and in that case, just because they are people, we should love them, as we also love angels.

A strange cocktail

I have liked to call strange cocktail the set of realities we are dealing with as we try to get into the sole of God's shoes in regard to Creation and its government. We have all the possible goods, all the possible evils that are compatible with all the possible goods, the whole range of creatures and people, and the search for the full bliss of people. The goods favor the happiness of the people, but the evils disadvantage it. How to fix this strange cocktail? What can we advise God?

The popular saying says that he who laughs last laughs best. This principle of popular wisdom tells us that in the end there should only be goods, or that good must prevail over evil. Evils cannot be alone, there are no pure evils, because evil is only the lack of good due. So that there is evil, the existence of a good that lacks something due is needed, as a blind man's eyes are missing. There are only pure goods and goods with a mixture of evil. Therefore, it seems that in this mixture the proportion of evil will have to be large at the beginning, and then be reduced, until it becomes null at the end.

The previous observations allow us to give another answer to one of the objections referred to in previous article: God could take away my defects in order to include me in the best of worlds; and the same we could think of the rest of creatures, and then the best of worlds would not have to include evils.

It should be exemplified, and in order not to offend anyone I will exemplify with myself. Let us consider that God exempt Paulino from all his defects    and also gave him the life of grace and created him already in Glory    in order to include him in the best of all worlds. In this case Paulino only exists in Glory, and not before:

• Paulino in Glory.

Consider now the real case, granting me that one day I will reach Glory:

• Paulino in original sin.
• Paulino baptized.
• Paulino ignorant.
• Paulino sins.
• Paulino confesses.
• Paulino recieves communion.
• Paulino studies.
• ... ... ...
• Paulino in Glory.

In which of the two cases does Paulino have more goods, in the real one or in the one devised by us? In which of the two does Paulino bring more goods to the best of all worlds? Obviously, in the real case, which includes Paulino in Glory    as in the case devised by us    and also all his previous situations, which include many goods, even if they are mixed with evil. It is as if we had many Paulinos, but in successive times. And all with the huge difference that in the real case Paulino earns his glory    with the help of God, of course    while in the other Paulino is a young gentlemand of Heaven.

Pain, a real phenomenon.

We are seeing that the solution to the problem of evils is to put them at the beginning, and that they decrease until they are canceled at the end. Actually, what matters is that they cancel out at the end, since the previous “decrease” may have ups and downs. But how do evils diminish, how do they disappear?

Evils do not exist, they are only a vacuum, a hollowness, the lack of a due good. Consider as bad a half-empty glass of milk, which should be full. How to make the hollow of the half glass disappear? We don't have to make anything disappear; all it takes is to fill it with milk. The evil disappears in the presence of the corresponding good.

In the previous two articles we saw that evil leads to important situations of good, as in the case of forgiveness. Well, it turns out that evil leads to another important situation of good, which is the proper acceptance of pain. Evil does not exist, it is a lack, a deprivation. Pain is not so. Pain is not an evil; pain really exists, it is a real and true commotion of the soul before the "presence" of evil:

Pain helps self-knowledge. Pain makes us sympathetic. Pain strengthens. Pain makes us mature. Pain purifies faith. Pain strengthens hope. Pain brightens love. Pain prepares for complete bliss. Pain can be offered, pain redeems, pain resembles us to Christ. Therefore pain is a good, it is a great good, it is a good caused by the "presence" of evil, that is nothing more than the deprivation of other goods. A world without evil would be a world deprived of this good, of this great good, of this wonderful good that is pain. In a created world, which cannot have the fullness of being, proper to God, that lack of fullness is compensated by the presence of pain, which gives a creative form of fullness. How would God create a world without pain? How would God deprive us of pain? God delivered Joseph and Mary from sin, but did not deprive them of the benefit of pain.

Evil, duly accepted and managed, leads to those goods that make it disappear, as happens at least with pain and forgiveness. It is easy to recognize the goodness of forgiveness, but not that of pain, which tends to be seen by many as an evil. In other religions pain tends to be shunned. It has been in Christianity where pain has been recognized and accepted in all its value, even redentor, in the form of a cross.

God created us for bliss, and it seems that the best way to achieve it is in the way planned by Him. If we had been original, it would hardly have occurred to us that in order to attain bliss we would have to accept evils and value pain. And in all this I would not like correct God’s actions either. I don't know what the reader thinks. On this theme I return again to the same point of arrival: we should not be angry with God.

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