God as the Practical Answer

Life with God is the easiest and most practical choice that man can make...

Thomas Paine wrote that "Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."  

Yet freedom, once earned, presents a quandary.  Is it possible that modern man has too many choices?  Furthermore, is it possible that he does not have the necessary spiritual formation to help him sort through the dizzying myriad of possibility before him?

Centuries after Paine, John Paul the Great said that "freedom consists in doing what we ought."  This is the quintessential truth about how to use our hard-earned freedom, and yet it is meaningless with an absolute reference point.  The freedom which Thomas Paine espoused -- and which John Paull II so perfectly defined -- needs God at its center.  To have any other reference point, be it a political ideal or a single man's will, can only lead to moral and aesthetic anarchy.  Our founding fathers understood this clearly when they used the phrase "we hold these truths to be self-evident."  Without God, nothing is self-evident.


Yet as elegant and clear as this idea is, so many modern men either ignore or outright reject their God.  I recently came across the blog of a former student, now blissfully wandering the world and glorifying hedonism.  Confusing old thoughts and values with recent hippy social disasters, he blissfully sums up his worldview with a quote from the American poet and author, Charles Bukowski:

“I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

One would have to labor greatly to cram so much idiocy into such a short paragraph.  Little wonder that Bukowski led such a shallow and narcissistic life, exemplifying the utilitarian and anti-humanistic despair that his type of "un-religion" was designed to breed.  I say "designed" because the above quote from Bukowski -- and other world-views similar to his -- are not a modern invention.  They come from a far deeper malice and a far more clever deceiver than the average hippy could hope to contend with.  Notice that in Bukowski's own prose, "god" is spelled with a small 'g,' while "Death" becomes a capitalized personality.  Notice the appeal to un-education, as such a worldview requires a mind easily deceived.  Notice the appeal to anti-religion, as such a world-view needs an unformed soul to corrupt. These are not coincidences, considering the spiritual root of such a phrase, as well as the moribund destiny of anybody who would follow such a thought to its inevitable conclusion.

God, in the end, is the impractical practicality.  Belief in him is the only sensible answer.  It brings sense to our lives by giving us understanding of our world.  It explains suffering, giving us a way to use this inevitable pain in a redemptive fashion.  It puts history into an understandable perspective.  It gives us rules by which to live, while presenting an ideal by which no rules will be necessary.  It frees human love to be an infinite gesture.

In short, it provides freedom.  He who seeks to be free must seek to "do as he ought."  In asking what we "ought," there is only one sure place to gain an answer.  There is no alternative path but the role of the aimless wanderer, and he is sure to get nowhere...