43. Human equality and inequality
43. HUMAN EQUALITY AND INEQUALITY
(1) What’s the ultimate basis of human equality? (2) What’s the ultimate basis for human inequality?
The image of God is in man in three ways.
First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men.
Secondly, inasmuch as man actually or habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of (man to) grace (in this life).
Thirdly, inasmuch as man knows and loves God perfectly (in the next life); and this image consists in the likeness of glory. . .
The first (human nature) is found in all men, the second (grace) only in the just, the third (glory) only in the blessed (I,93,4).
(1) We all have the same Ultimate Origin and the same Ultimate End because we were all created by the same God in His image. And that image is centered in our mind and will, our spiritual soul, by which we can know and love Him and thus attain our Ultimate End, spiritual union with Him in Heaven. That is everyone’s ultimate (a) origin, (b) nature, and (c) destiny. (Those three always hang together.) We have a common essence because we have a common Creator. If we stop believing in the Cause of our equality, we will eventually stop believing in our equality, and we will start treating each other as inferiors instead of equals, like the Nazis, or Brave New World. We may keep believing in equality for a while for other reasons, like the ideology of political correctness, or simply because we happen to feel like it or agree about it in “consensus”; but these things will not remain forever; only Truth, not Ideology or Opinion or Consensus, will remain forever. Only God will remain forever, for God is Truth itself.
(2) Inequality is rooted in free will. Because we have free will, we all have the ability to say Yes to God, by faith and hope and love, or to say No. And even those who say Yes do not all do it equally. So we can classify all human beings, by the standard of their positive response to God, into four categories. (The categories are divided gradually rather than sharply, but they are really divided, they are really unequal.) Some respond to God not at all, some weakly, some moderately, and some strongly. All receive grace, but not all respond to it. And those who do, do not respond equally to it.
That’s why you’re reading this book: you’re not yet a saint and you want to be. You hunger and thirst for righteousness—and therefore you are blessed, and you will be filled, according to the highest and most reliable of all authorities.
The ultimate inequality is between the saved and the damned. The saved fulfill their humanity; the damned lose it. Among the saved, even in Heaven there will be inequality, not only hierarchically, in quantity of glory, but also in quality. Because although all will know and love the same God perfectly, they will do this in uniquely personal ways, so that they will look up to each other and admire each other and learn from each other, as they do here. Everyone will have heroes in Heaven. The Blessed Virgin Mary will not be on the same level as Aunt Bertha, who barely squeaked into Heaven by the skin of her teeth.
Why do you suppose God created so many persons rather than just one? Surely one reason is so that each one will be able to know and love some one aspect of God in a way no one else can. That is our ultimate and glorious inequality. We will not all be the same in Heaven. (How dull would that be?) Our individual differences will be perfected, not set aside. Yet we will also all be unified by our common love of God, far more unified than we ever were on earth. Our differences will no longer divide us by war, misunderstanding, hate, scorn, lovelessness, and selfishness.
How wonderfully unequal are the saints, and how tediously equal the sinners!