34. Do creatures withdraw us from God?
34. DO CREATURES WITHDRAW US FROM GOD?
The old spiritual writers emphasize detachment from creatures, and asceticism. But why is this necessary? Why would God create a universe that’s so full of temptations?
Corporeal creatures according to their nature are good, though this good is not universal but partial and limited . . . Creatures of themselves do not withdraw us from God, but lead us to Him; for the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made (Rom 1:20). If, then, they withdraw men from God, it is the fault of those who use them foolishly. . . . And the very fact that they can thus withdraw us from God proves that they came from Him, for they cannot lead the foolish away from God except by the allurements of some good that they have from Him (I,65,1).
We have only our own wrong attitudes to God’s good creatures to blame, never God’s creatures. It’s as wrong to blame the apple as it was wrong for Adam to blame Eve (and God for giving him Eve) and for Eve to blame the Devil. God tempts no one (Jas 1:13). We make ourselves into addicts and idolaters, but the good things that we become addicted to or that we idolize remain good, for God made them. When we are free from addiction to anything, we appreciate it more, not less. For instance, wine. The psalmist praises God for making wine “to gladden the heart of man” (Ps 104:15), not to sadden it or to tempt us to alcoholism. He gladdens, we sadden.
Many spiritual writers warn us against loving creatures too much. That’s true, but that “too much” is relative to God and our neighbors, which are ends whom we are to love for their own sakes, while things are only means, to use for their sakes. We reverse that order when we use people and love things instead of using things and loving people. In one sense we cannot love people too much, only too little (as means instead of ends). In another sense, we can, for we can treat them as God, as our final end.
“I gotta have those things” is a dangerous and wrong kind of love of creatures. But “They are God’s beautiful and desirable works of art” is not. “I gotta have them” starts with “I”; “They are God’s works of art” starts with them and with God. The first kind of love is greed, the second kind of love is appreciation. Grateful appreciation never led anyone astray. In fact it is a necessary ingredient in sanctity. Listening to a bird or a thunderstorm or gazing at the sunset or the stars is a cure for atheism, not a temptation to it.
God put us into a beautiful cathedral called the universe. Everything in it speaks of Him. Every creature is to be trusted. The only thing to be mistrusted is sin.
When the New Testament says “Do not love the world” (1 Jn 2:15), the word for “the world” is not gaia but aion. Gaia is a space word, the material planet. That is good. God made it. Aion is a time word: the fallen world-order, the fallen relations between men and things that was orchestrated by the Devil, not by God.