The Elder of First John tells us, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."
In a similar manner, Soren expands on the privilege of choice. Humans are endowed with the privilege of choice. We all desire to make good choices, but these choices are predicated on the fact that we have the capacity of choice. The most fundamental choice available for humanity is whether or not to love God. This love manifests itself in obedience. There is an unalterable call to obey the one you love. For any act of disobedience is an act that is not of love for the other, but love for the self.
"If you are not obedient in everything unconditionally, without qualification, you don’t love him, and if you don’t love him – then you hate him. If you are not obedient in everything unconditionally, then you are not bound to him, and if you are not bound to him then you despise him" (pg. 11).
What leads to our choices of hatred? Soren would tell us it is ambiguity. Being in a state of the unknown makes it difficult to trust God. In moments of uncertainty Satan finds a way to lead us into temptation. Temptation arises out of a lack of trust in God's goodness. And it is this lack of trust that lets the temptation take us over.
"When unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom" (12).
It is all too often easy to doubt God's goodness for us. We are too easily shifted off of the solid ground of trust. It may have something to do with our independant culture, it may just be within our nature. Nonetheless, there is something quite foolish about us. We leave the security of trust to find the insecurity of doubt and temptation. Part of this may too be a choice. We may be called to choose to trust. In trusting God, we can love him. In loving God, we obey him.
To not love is to hate. We are given the responsibility, the privilege of choice. We can choose daily whether or not we are going to love God. We are then given the choice, to love or to hate. Either we will love the one and despise the other, or be devoted to the one and hate the other.
1 comment:
Kierkegaard said, "Purity of heart is to will one thing." The one thing that we should be pursuing with all of who we are is God, but for some reason that is not the choice we always make. I think we oftentimes favor the ambiguity because we are not totally committed to a side. Satan thrives in ambiguity because it is very much like an illusion. We tell ourselves the middle ground is okay for awhile, but when the dust settles there are really only two sides.
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