Good isn't What We Think It Is

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"Lay your heart into my perfect machine
I will use it to protect you from me
I will never let you see what’s beneath
So good for you and good for me
We told ourselves we’re
Right where we ought to be
Even you know, even you know
This was all for nothing
Just a sad show, just an ego"
We are sick of how we give, expect, and receive love, not that we shouldn't but we should question how we do it in any relationship. The song quoted above is a great allegory for how the secular world approaches love, trying to fill the cracks, holes, and wounds in our hearts. It isn't very difficult to see the connection between this and the first sin. In our every sin, whether of omission or commission, we fail in willing the good often for lack of knowing what is truly good. 

First, in the first sin, we can recognize the problem as Eve "believing" in the Catholic sense of the term i.e. in an action-inspiring extent, against what God had laid before them as good by choosing what God had told them was bad. Of course, it was our jealous and cunning enemy who spoke these lies, the lies that warped our judgment and disbelief in the existence of love/goodness or at least in the only True Lover Himself.[1] Then and there, it was not that we did not will, but we willed improperly. We had allowed our enemy to define for us what was good and evil, and the poison of that first fruit infected us in way all but genetic in effect, knowing only good mixed with evil and evil mixed with good.[2] Eve no longer saw fruit that causes death, but a supposed death apart from fruit, "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate"(Genesis 3:6). Effectively, she turned her gaze for the divine i.e. true, good, and beautiful to the fruit that that would alter humanity's perception of reality until God's Love and Will would take on flesh. The highest good no longer had God in view, but in His place was man's immediate material existence. God's providence was forced to change to bring man back to Himself, and of course, it had to become somewhat coercive in order that it be clear to us (Genesis 3:8-24). There is no salvation from any other (Acts of the Apostles 4:12). We hunger, we thirst, we struggle to see what is true, and even when we know what is best we struggle to will it.[3]

Second, we know that every sin is not so much an act against law, but truth, goodness, and beauty because our nature is wont to under-define their reality. [4] Every sin is an act against communion not only with our neighbor as it certainly was in the garden, not only from God from Whom our parents became estranged in their distrust but also within ourselves.[5] In each of our sins, especially those which directly and gravely wound those communions' called "mortal", we feel this same grave disorientation, a sense of feeling lost, and having lost our one true identity.[6] The innocent, joy-filled, and meaningful existence is replaced by a sense of despair; seeing only the pain we suffer and not the God Who Loves us. We begin to live as though we must steal happiness and grasp after it or else life has no worth to us and our suffering is felt in vain. 

In conclusion, we must learn to love even our sufferings, for we come to see that they are our salvation. We love in a world so sick that true love is called "fantasy" and "reverie". Yes, as we grow in communion, we are wont to hurt each other and to expect hurt because we have been hurt by someone who was meant to love us perfectly but is also a fallen creature, at best in the process of justification.[7] We should be merciful with ourselves and others when we continually fall into the same sins because they affect how we see the world and still be aware that this is a gravely dangerous battle.[8] Let us endeavor that "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, [we] think about these things. Keep on doing the things that [we] have learned and received and heard and seen in [Paul], and the God of peace will be with [us]."(Philippians 4:8-9). Let us educate and reeducate ourselves in Christ that we may always both understand and desire what is best. (Romans 13:14, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:23, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Romans 7:25, 2 Corinthians 4:4).[9] God alone is good (Mark 10:18).

FN: 

I am a created entity, not a person.

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