Chapter 2: How Much God Deserves Love From Man In Recognition Of His Gifts, Both Material And Spiritual
Chapter 2: How Much God Deserves Love From Man In Recognition Of His Gifts, Both Material And Spiritual
And How These Gifts Should Be Cherished Without Neglect Of The Giver
Those to whom these things are evident, I think will also see why God should be loved, i.e., whence he merited to be loved. But if this is not recognized by unbelievers, God at once confounds their ingratitude by his innumerable benefits, lavished on our race, and evident to the senses. Who is it that gives food to all flesh, light to all that see, air to all that breathe? It would be foolish to wish to enumerate them, as I just said they are innumerable: but it is enough to give, as notable instances, food, sunlight and air. I say notable, not because they are the most excellent, but because they are the most necessary. Man must seek in his higher nature for the highest gifts, which are dignity, knowledge and virtue. By dignity in man I mean free-will, by which he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them. Knowledge is the power by which he recognizes this dignity, and recognizes that it is not from himself. Virtue is that which impels man to seek eagerly for him who is man's Source, and to hold fast to him when he has been found.
And thus it will appear that each of these three things has a twofold character. Human dignity shows not only the prerogatives of nature, but also as the power of dominion, which brings the fear and dread of man upon every beast of the earth. Knowledge is also twofold, if we realize that this dignity, or any other good in us, is both in us, and is not from us. Finally virtue will also be recognized as twofold, if we seek our author, and having found him, cling inseparably to him. Dignity therefore without knowledge is of no value; rather, it is harmful, if virtue is absent, as the following argument shows: if someone has something without knowing it, what glory does he have? Again, if you know what you have, but do not know from whom you have it, you have glory, but not before God. And so the apostle says to him who glorifies himself, "What do you have, that you have not received? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7). He does not simply say, "Why do you glory?" but adds, "as if you had not received it," showing that what is reprehensible is not the glorying over what one has, but glorying as though these things had not been received. And rightly is such glorying called vain-glory, since it lacks the solid foundation of truth. The apostle shows how to distinguish the true glory from the false, when he says, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord," that is, in the Truth, since our Lord is Truth. (1 Corinthians 1:31; John 14:6).
You must know, then, what you are, and that it is not of yourself that you are what you are, lest either you not glory at all, or glory in vain. Finally, it is said, "If you know not, go forth after the flocks of your companions." (Song of Solomon. 1:8).
And this indeed happens thus: man, being in honor, if he does not know his own honor, is rightly compared, by reason of such ignorance, to the beasts that perish, as to certain companions of the present corruption and mortality. It happens, then, that the creature blessed with the great gift of reason, not knowing itself, begins to approach the flocks of irrational animals, when, being ignorant of its own glory, which is from within, it is conformed to the sensible things outside, and is led away captive by its curiosity, and becomes one among others, which does not understand that it has received something more than the others.
We must vigilantly guard against this ignorance, by which we might perceive ourselves as less than we really our, or by which we might grant to ourselves more than we ought, when we wrongly think that the good which is in us, is also from us. But far more than either of these kinds of ignorance, we must reject and shun that presumption with which a person with knowledge and wisdom might dare to seek glory in goods not his own, and which are certainly not from him, and thus seek to rob another [God] of the honor due him. The first kind of ignorance does not glory at all, while the second kind does, but not before God. The third evil, however, which is committed knowingly, usurps the glory which belongs to God. And this last kind of ignorance is an arrogance that is more grievous and dangerous fault than the ignorance of the second, since it despises God, while the other simply does not knows him. And it is lower and more detestable than the first, inasmuch as by the first kind of ignorance we are associated to beasts, while by this kind we are associated with demons. It is pride, the greatest crime, to use things given us as though they were not given us, and in the benefits we receive, to rob our benefactor of the glory due him.
Wherefore to dignity and knowledge we must add virtue, which is the fruit of both of them. Through virtue one seeks and holds fast to him who is the author and giver of all things, and who is deservedly to be glorified in all things; otherwise, one who knows what is right yet fails to do it, will be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:47). Why? "Because he has not wished to understood, so as to act well," but rather "has imagined mischief upon his bed" (Psalm 36:4), as a wicked servant, he has plotted to take and to seize for himself the Lord's glory in regard to the goods which, by his own knowledge, he knew were not from himself. It is plain, therefore, that dignity without knowledge is useless and that knowledge without virtue is accursed. But a man of virtue, for whom knowledge is not harmful, nor dignity unfruitful, calls on God and confesses sincerely, "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory" (Psalm 115:1), that is, "O Lord, we attribute nothing of knowledge, nothing of dignity to ourselves, but acknowledge all as yours, from whom all comes.
But we have gotten too far off track, in wishing show that even those who know not Christ are sufficiently admonished by the natural law, and by the goods of body and soul which they perceive themselves to have, that they ought to love God for God's own sake. To recapitulate what has been said: what unbeliever does not know that he has received all the things necessary for bodily life--that from which he subsists, from which he sees, from which he breathes--not from another in this mortal life, but from him who gives food to all flesh (Psalm 136:25), who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, who sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Who is so impious as to attribute the splendor in the soul to another author of human dignity than the one who says in Genesis, "Let us make man in our image, after 0ur likeness"? (Genesis 1:26). Who else would he esteem as the giver of knowledge except him "who teaches man knowledge?" (Psalm 94:10) Who would he think had given him virtue, or from whom would he hope for virtue, except from the Lord of virtue? Therefore even the unbeliever who does not know Christ, but knows himself, ought to love God for God's own sake. He is therefore unpardonable if he does not love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength; for the justice innate in him, and not unknown to reason, cry out that with his whole self he should love him, to whom he knows he owes his whole self.
But it is hard, indeed impossible, for the will by its own strength or freedom, to turn those things it has received from God, wholly to God, rather than turning them back to itself, and holding on to them as its own, as it is written: "For all seek their own" (Philippians 2:21); and again, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21 ).