A Life Without Grace?

One of literature's more interesting characters is Satan in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. If you have ever read that poem you will know what I am talking about, and you will also understand why people scratch their heads and wonder why a Puritan makes the devil the hero of his greatest work. William Blake once mused that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it". Certainly in the first two books of Paradise Lost, written, it must be noted, from Satan's viewpoint, we see this extraordinary heroic figure rebelling against tyranny (God) and preferring to "reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n", the most famous quotation from the work. Satan, thrown out of heaven, resolves to make "a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n", an apt description of what the real devil has been trying to do these last number of millennia. 

Of course Satan is not the hero of the poem, he may be an anti-hero, that strange breed, but as you read the poem beyond the first two books, again we note they are written from Satan's viewpoint, we see a rather peevish creature emerge. Milton was a Christian - a Puritan, and as such the last word will not be Satan's, though he does give the first word to the evil one. That said, while Satan is not the hero, he is, perhaps the most interesting character in the poem. Personally I always thought Adam and Eve were rather gormless which I suppose explains why they fell so easily -although there is a certain nobility in them also.

After we encounter the heroic Satan, Milton begins to break him down and we see that his rebellion is based on what he wants himself - he is not rebelling against tyranny, rather he is refusing to see outside himself and wants to put himself at the centre of the universe. Given that the universe was created to lead us to God, then Satan must rebel against that and seek to destroy the universe; not even heaven is allowed to exist - hell alone must exist and thrive because it is now Satan's domain. To put it blandly, Satan is self-centred and only he is right, only he can govern, only he can raise himself up - hence Milton allows him present himself as a Promethean hero. There is an irony here - Prometheus stole fire from the gods not for himself but for mankind, this is the last thing Satan had on his mind as he soared up in pride.

We Ourselves Alone

In presenting Satan in this way, Milton is really revealing the fallen nature of men and women: we have a tendency to focus on ourselves and on our abilities and see ourselves as some sort of heroic beings, as that song which won the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago acclaimed, "We are the heroes of our time".  There is no doubt that human beings are the most extraordinary of creatures, we are the pinnacle of God's creation and the universe was made for us. In all its complexity and beauty, God wanted us to look around at this most wonderful place and see his love for us and a forum in which we come to find him, know him and love him. The fall was man turning in on himself - though the devil promised that we would be like gods in reality he conned us into turning our back on the real vision of humanity to embrace a peevish selfishness which undermined us. Like Satan in Paradise Lost, we have deluded ourselves; we have written a high and mighty narrative for ourselves and to do so we have edited out the real story. There is tragic irony here: in order to make ourselves great we have airbrushed out that which really made us great: God.

The incarnation of the Son of God and his life on earth as Jesus is God's work to restore the true narrative of our being and destiny and restore us to the wonder of our being.  But this requires a real shift in our existential outlook, to move from looking at ourselves to look out - to God and to others in the context of God. We see this in Christ who, in an act of obedience to the Father (Serviam!), forgets himself and his divinity and embraces the way of abandonment in order to restore humanity. One interesting aspect of the Lord's life on earth was his constant reference to the Father. St John in his Gospel devotes much time to this and he notes some of the Lord's sayings which reveal the unity of the Father and Son in being and will, "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30), but he also records the Lord saying "By myself I can do nothing" (John 5:30) and "Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does" (John 5:19). In this Jesus is not only revealing the oneness of God, but also a dependence that is vital - he needs the Father, and in revealing this to us reminds us that we need God: we cannot be ourselves alone.

But For The Grace Of God

One of the major debates in the early Church was that between St Augustine and Pelagius, it was the famous discussion on grace. Augustine's arguments won out and saw him, in time, be declared the 'Doctor of Grace', while Pelagius's position was formally condemned by the Church. This was not a political outcome, as a lecturer once taught me and my fellow seminarians aeons ago, rather Augustine was right in his understanding of the fall of man and God's work of restoration. Unlike Pelagius's position, we are utterly fallen, we cannot help ourselves, we need God's grace to lift us up: grace being the gift of God's very life. This does not deny our free will, we must cooperate with that grace and allow it transform us. I think St Therese put it beautifully when she said "All is grace" and while she was not commenting on St Augustine's theology but rather seeing the work of God all around her, she can be understood in Augustinian terms. In Ireland we have a phrase that also serves as an accurate gloss on Augustine's teaching, "But for the grace of God go I".

Milton's Satan had no place for God or his grace, and it seems, sadly, that there is developing within the Church herself an attitude, if not a theological position, that grace is being forgotten or seen not to be as active in human life. Certain pastoral responses to moral problems are being presented as if grace has no part to play; that human growth relies almost totally on the person themselves and if that person is impaired in terms of the will or practical situations, then allowances or reinterpretations of the moral law must be made to accommodate them. One of the chestnuts that allowed for this was the proposal of a 'graduality of the law' as opposed to the pastoral approach of the law of graduality for those slowly overcoming particular moral problems. The latter did not mean that the law changed, but rather the person is given space and encouraged to finally embrace the moral law in its fullness; the former, however, is a relativistic approach which sees the law as an evolving thing to meet the person where they are at and somehow endorse where they are. 

As Christians we must accept that grace has a part to play in our lives, that all indeed is grace, and we need this grace to help us grow as human beings and as disciples of Christ. Being a child of God means being immersed in a relationship of grace, beginning with baptism when the tap of God's grace was turned on and left running until we breathe our last breath.  Yet today we hear of pastoral approaches to moral issues, even mercy itself, in a wholly human context, where supernatural grace has been forgotten and instead an pathetic wringing of hands and utterances of "what can we do?" when individuals do not have the strength (or decisiveness) to make changes to their moral lives. The answer is not to pull the moral law down nor impair it, as some seem to suggest.

A Life Of Grace

This is not an attack on those who struggle with weaknesses, temptations, sinful lives and irregular situations (which includes all of us if we are to honest), but it is a questioning of a pastoral approach that seems to have excised grace from the response to such difficulties. The reality reveals that there are some (if not many) problems that we cannot solve ourselves: we need God and his grace. Yes, we as human beings must cooperate with grace, we will not be transformed in the same way as we will get wet if we go out in the rain without an umbrella, but there are practices and attitudes which will open us to that grace and gradually break us down so it can enter in, be effective in our lives and change us. And yes, I mean break us down, but in a positive sense. Sin builds a wall and pride is the mortar between the bricks, that mortar must be undermined, it must crumble, if that wall is to fall.

We have just entered the season of Lent, and this is a good time for us to reflect on all this. Lent is not a time about us. We tend to speak about what I am doing for Lent, what I am giving up. In reality, Lent should be a time when I forget about me and look to God and others instead - hence the call to prayer, fasting and alms-giving which take the focus off ourselves. It is a time for us to forget ourselves so grace can take hold of us and help deal with our sinfulness. That is the paradox of the Christian way: it is when we die to ourselves that we come to life; it is when we give that we receive, it is when abandon ourselves completely that we find ourselves, who we are and what we are called to be.

We see this in Christ himself in an extraordinary way; he lived for others. He embraced poverty to make us rich; he died so we might be born into life. But his glory also lies in this self-negation. As he became obedient unto death God raised him high (Phil 2:8-9), he took the lowest place, became as a worm for our sake (cf. Ps 21:7), and he was given the throne and made worthy to open the seals, as the Book of Revelation testifies. Christ is the one who was rejected and who has now become the corner stone (cf. Mt 21:42). This is the very opposite of Milton's Satan. Jesus teaches us that we must embrace, with humility, this way of grace and when we do, then we find ourselves overcoming our moral failures. It is not the law that needs to be changed, it is us; any pastoral strategy that proclaims otherwise is reckless, faithless and dangerous to souls.

A More Supernatural Life
Milton's Satan and Pelagius believed in themselves. Satan sought to be the author of his own destiny, his own reference point, his all. Pelagius overemphasised our abilities when it came to our salvation. These two traits mark the attitude of many today, even those within the Church. While we must do all we can to do what is right and to reform, if we find it difficult we do not throw it all in, reinterpret the Scriptures and rewrite the Church's teaching to make us feel better or provide an excuse or justification for our failures; no - we seek to live a more supernatural life. Augustine was right in directing us to grace and encouraging us to foster a deeper relationship with God.  Remember, Augustine is not a Saint for his writings, but for his holiness - his heroic virtue. He had to face the reality of his own situation and stop lying to himself, and while he sought advice from contemporary gurus and philosophies, it was the straight-speaking St Ambrose who finally got through to him.

We need pastors like Ambrose today, not sophists who twist the Gospel to prevent offence and ease the tensions between moral failures and the truth. Mercy is indeed important - vital, but it is not intended to facilitate the sinful life, it seeks to open the door to repentance and a new life. Grace is God's gift and it is given because ultimately we cannot save ourselves, we need it. As Christians we are called to live lives of grace, embracing this gift of God, cooperating with it in practical terms by pushing ourselves in the right direction and allowing that grace to strengthen and enlighten us.

When Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden of Eden they entered a hostile world where, it seemed, only pain and loneliness reigned. But they soon realised that God was still with them, and though they had turned their back on him and lost Eden, he did not turn his back on them. They still needed him. We see this, for example, in that incredibly poignant moment when the couple seeing they were naked and having made a most pathetic covering out of leaves, are clothed by God himself with warmer apparel (cf. Gn 3:21); so too God seeks to cover the nakedness of our moral poverty by his grace, a more effective remedy for our condition than any effort of our own. There is nothing worse for a Christian than a life without grace, it is a life in a desert, and though this life can often be seen as a desert, it is not one with an oasis, a little paradise, a shelter from the heat - and that is grace: the shelter of God in the heat of the fire that afflicts our human frailty; the pure water that quenches the thirst, revives us and makes us strong.