8 October 2022

More on Grace

Yesterday I posted about grace in the Platonic tradition.  Here are a few more observations:

1. In comment 4 yesterday I think I could have been clearer.  To put it more simply, I understand The Eternal as having three aspects: the everywhen, the everywhere, and the everything. 

The everywhen refers to The Eternal as always existing, as never not existing.  This speaks to The Eternal’s relationship to time.

The everywhere refers to The Eternal as always present throughout all space.  This speaks to The Eternal’s relationship to space.

The everything refers to The Eternal as the source of awe which arises in our interaction with ordinary things when we intuit the presence of The Eternal within the ephemeral.  This experience of awe is grace.

2. Sometimes people dislike the idea of grace because it seems to run counter to our sense of fairness and/or justice.  Yesterday I used the metaphor of moonlight falling on a mountain path that, without the moonlight, we would not see.  But the moonlight shows this path to anyone who comes along, not just good people, or people who ‘deserve’ to be shown the path.

But there are many situations in which we assist people who may lack in virtue.  We might drive someone to a 12-step program even though they may have directly harmed us, in the hope that this may lead to them not engaging in this kind of behavior in the future.  We may assist our children even if we have questions about our children’s character.  We may donate to a charity without knowing if any of the people receiving assistance from the charity are ‘deserving’ of such charity.  These kinds of things happen frequently.

The truth is, the material realm in which we live is inherently imperfect and human beings are imperfect participants in this imperfect world.  I think that is part of what it means when we think of this material world as ‘fallen’.  Whatever capacity we possess to assist others is small, due to being entangled in material concerns.  But The Eternal is not entangled in these material concerns; it is transcendental to the material dimension.  Because of this, The Eternal’s capacity for assistance is limitless and that limitless capacity is its grace.