saints and sinners
There rests a common complaint among many and I must confess throughout much of my life to membership with those so conflicted, that there is no valid rationale for imbibing at the altar of church. After all, isn’t church simply a crutch, a group therapy clinic for the weak and broken? The argument follows along a well-worn arc: church is unnecessary because I pray to God on my own, read and study about God on my own, talk and hear God on my own, anytime and anyplace. So why go to church? Why waste my time?
Sand House
Having been a full-fledged member of this self-inflicted orthodoxy for many years I can say with no small amount of equanimity and assurance that it is a delusion of the highest order which rests upon a shaky foundation. Arguably, there is absolutely nothing wrong with praying to God, reading and studying about God, or talking and listening to God. Those are all good and valid activities to engage in doing. But will you? How often and for how long?
And then there is the issue of coming to know God. On this Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us “It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason … because man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason. But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their … actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths about God which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation.”[1]
Our intellect and reason are incapable of discerning much that is God thus it was necessary for God to reveal something of himself to us in order that we might come to know God not just know about God. Consider how little we know about God, the fact that we still are attempting to “prove” or “disprove” his very existence.
Peter Kreeft offers this insight:
“But even if we had not fallen into sin and error, our knowledge of God would have been less adequate than a worm’s knowledge of us. For the distance between the finitude of the worm and the finitude of man is only finite, while the distance between finite man and infinite God is infinite.
Only God can bridge that gap, by acting ‘down’ with His power; we cannot bridge it by moving ‘up’ with our power…This was so from the beginning, even before we fell. How much more do we need divinely revealed truth now that we are fallen.”[2]
Returning to the question of whether church (organized religion) is a crutch, Kreeft responds, “Yes, organized religion is a crutch. You mean you didn’t know that you are a cripple? … Go back to Socrates: ‘Know thyself.’ For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and the fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints. Which are you? You can tell which class you fit into by whether or not you accept the ‘crutch’ …”
[1] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I,1,1.
[2] Peter Kreeft, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas, 1. Religion.
