Thursday, April 25, 2019

Temptations Can Perfect Man In Two Ways But Not Always

This blog entry is pure speculation.

The first way is by accepting temptation that leads to remorse.  The second is by rejecting temptation at the outset.

Acceptance of temptation

God created man with Free Will.  Free Will can only exist where there is choice.  Choice is only meaningful where contrast exists.  Contrast comes to life through temptations.  Temptations allow man to choose.  At its extreme the choice is between good and evil  Without temptations, man would be left with only what is good.  Free Will would then be at best a meaningless ideal.  To give meaning to Free Will, man has to be subjected to temptations so that he can choose freely.

By struggling constantly to choose good over evil, man fulfills the first and most important commandment which is to love "God with all [his] heart, and with all [his] soul, and with all [his] mind, and with all [his] strength. [1]  This puts man on the path to perfection.

To reach perfection, man has to be humble in the way Christ (the new Adam) and the Blessed Virgin Mary (the new Eve) were humble.  Their humility were demonstrated by their obedience to God.  Since man is tainted with Original Sin, the source of pride, he is unable to be like the new Adam and the new Eve.  Perfection is therefore elusive.

Pride is part of man's nature.  It is from Eve.  Eve wanted to be like God because she thought she was good enough to be God.  Her pride was at an extreme.  The realization of this pride came with a price she already knew, death. [2]

Remorse came too late for her, after experiencing an unexpected first death, when her one son Cain killed her other son Abel.  Yet, it was this very death that brought her remorse that had also brought her humility.  For the first time, she realized as a mother, how painful it was to lose a child.  In a way, she did become like God in that she felt the pain God felt when she disobeyed Him which is tantamount to having a beloved child die to love.

Eve's falling into temptation allowed her to experience remorse and to be humble.  By being humble always, she could once again perfect herself.

Nobody knows if  Eve remained remorseful and humble or if she had died to God's love by hating God for taking away all the comforts she was given and to which she and Adam had grown so accustomed.

If one dies to love and remorse sets in, one is still able to obtain forgiveness and to resurrect that love, again and again, through the Sacrament of Reconciliation for Catholics and through honest examinations of conscience for non-Catholics.  Love is universal.  Love never dies.  It is those who are proud who die to it.

Death is God's answer to pride, but that does not mean man necessarily loses his Free Will to be prideful when it comes to death.  Death itself can be a temptation.  Man can be tempted to commit suicide.  By choosing to commit suicide man retains his pride until the end of life and unto eternity, by rejecting God's gift of life and the manner and the timing God has chosen for each individual to die.

If one's death is not by wilful suicide or by physician assisted suicide, then there may be a chance for to experience true humility for a period of time. Time is an element of life that one does not think much about, that it belongs only to God.  Having the opportunity to live this period of weakness and humility is a gift from God, for it is only those who are meek and humble who allow God's will be done who enter Heaven.

Similarly, it is the admission of weakness that gives man strength.  Since man is weak, he must ask God for help.  God will give him strength.  More often than not, man does not think of God.  Pride has blinded him to his innate human weakness.

Human weakness is proven by most people's inability to resist temptations.  Even though humans are weak, their weaknesses are not so disabling that they have no choice but to fall into temptation.  The fact that people fall into temptations so frequently makes it seems that Satan, not man, is in charge.

This blogger has blamed Satan for many things in the past because he believed that Satan was in charge.  He could not be more wrong.  Satan is not in charge--man is.  Although weak, man is nonetheless strong enough to reject Satan by his Free Will.

Whatever God gives to man, Satan cannot take away.

Rejection of temptation

Free Will is a gift from God. It is both Satan's friend and foe.  Satan knows man's weakness and turns Free Will into its friend.  Only when man realizes that he is powerful enough to reject Satan and all of its temptations does Free Will become Satan's foe.

Christ rejected all of Satan's temptations when He, as man, was at his weakest after having fasted for 40 days in the Judean desert. [3]  Even though man is not Christ, Christ has become man to show how man is able perfect himself.  Except for His miracles, nothing Christ did man cannot do.

Rejection of temptation is a show of love for God.  Constant rejection of temptations puts man on the path toward perfection, holiness and an eternity with God in Heaven.



[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12%3A30&version=KJV
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A2-3&version=NIV
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temptation_of_Christ

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