So much pain - whatever we try to do to rid our lives of it,
so much pain. That’s OK. That’s OK. Why? Because it is short
lived, as our lives are, and pain helps us make God’s Love our
only happiness that can never be taken away – ever. Why?
because pain reminds us that all pleasure and bodily life is
transient and only in God is joy eternal. And so pain reminds
us to take refuge in God because we won't find eternal peace
anywhere else.
It's said that there are two evils; moral evil and natural
evil. The first is about what humans choose to do, the second
is about nature, earthquakes, viruses, floods, etc.
Why is what is called natural evil, evil? We are born into
this world which we had no design of and it is the only world
we know. And in this world all that lives dies and all that is
formed erodes away. This is how it is and there is no other.
So, what ridiculous audacity to call it evil!? What are we
comparing it with? Why should it be anything else? But we can
call it wonderful, beautiful and amazing.
So nature is not evil; it is nature. Lions kill to eat; some
babies die with disease. This is how it is.
Then there is moral evil. This comes from us when we act
without Love. When we act with greed, envy, lust, hate, sloth,
gluttony and any form of selfishness when not acting from
Love.
So with either where is the argument that God is evil, or God
can’t be omniscient and all Loving because of the ‘awful
things that happen’ on earth? Well earthquakes aren’t evil
even if we die from them. Cancer isn’t evil even if I die from
it. It’s absurd to call cancer evil. It is just a bunch of
rogue cells (rogue from our perspective). And moral evil? You
don’t want that? Well choose not to do it….
……...choose not to do it even if you die in the process……..And
this is the point. If you call this life on earth ‘the only
life’ and attribute too much importance to it, you’re not
going to make sense of this Universe and then you are going to
call it ‘evil’. What is important is how we deal with the hand
we have been dealt here on earth. But this life on earth is
transient. What is of the highest importance is how we choose
to act on this earth. Real life is being with God and dying on
this earth needn’t interrupt that. Read the scripture again
and again daily. If you want to Love, it will make sense.
I read scripture every day. ... and then read it again.
God speaks to us in many works of scriptures.
These scriptures tell us to know God, turn to God, make God
our hope and our strength and our joy and to love our
neighbour.
If you don’t make Love your highest guiding value, it means
you are not making Love your highest guiding value. So, what
have you decided to make the highest guiding value in your
life? And why do you think that this is better?
Pain is not evil – it's not nice.
Pleasure is not evil – it’s nice.
We know that too much of a nice thing ends up not being nice.
Pain and pleasure are the same thing. When does the sensation
of pleasure become pain? And when does what's causing pain
become pleasure? A gentle stroke is pleasure, a rough stroke
is pain. When does it change? Pain is a measure of less
pleasure than something else. It is all one spectrum. If you
like it, it is pleasure. If you don't like it, it is pain. You
cannot have pleasure without pain. Pleasure is defined as a
feeling better than compared to another feeling. Pain is a
comparison. Pleasure is a comparison. If you experienced only
one level on the spectrum, only and for ever, you would not
have pleasure or pain. Such words would not exist. There
wouldn't be pleasure or pain. It is because that it changes we
compare one to another. A super pleasure compared to a mild
pleasure compared to a mild pain and so on.
Now for those who say God can't be good because of pain, think
of existence without pleasure or pain. What a dull existence
that would be. May as well be robots. Pleasure and pain are
part of God's good creation. Pain and pleasure are good. We
will have both. Thank God for both. Pain is the humbler, the
reminder that we did not create ourselves or the Universe,
that we are mortal and that we die. Pleasure is relief from
pain.
This is the perfect place for us to be for now. Now is 'until
we die'.
------------------------------
Interview with Fr Aiden
Fr Aiden:
You’ve written something that sits firmly within a long
tradition of religious reflection on suffering, especially in
Christianity, the idea that pain is not meaningless, that it
humbles us, and that it can orient us toward something
eternal, toward God and love. There’s a lot of internal
coherence in what you’re saying, but there are also some
important tensions I would like to work through with you.
Firstly on “natural evil” not being evil. Your argument is
essentially that nature is just how things are and therefore
calling it “evil” is a category mistake. That’s a valid
philosophical move, and it echoes thinkers like Augustine of
Hippo, who argued that evil is not a thing in itself but a
privation (a lack of good), not something created. But people
don’t usually call earthquakes or cancer “evil” because they
misunderstand physics, they call them evil because of the
suffering they produce, especially when it seems
indiscriminate (e.g. infants dying), disproportionate and
undeserved.
So the real question critics raise isn’t “why does nature
behave like nature?” but why would a loving, all-powerful God
create (or allow) a system where such suffering is built in?
Your answer is because this life isn’t ultimate, and suffering
redirects us to God. That’s a coherent answer, but it depends
heavily on accepting your theological starting point.
Secondly on moral evil you say “just choose not to do it” This
is where your argument becomes much stricter, almost absolute,
“Choose not to do it… even if you die in the process.” This
reflects a radical moral stance similar to teachings found in
the Bible (e.g. self-sacrifice, turning the other cheek). But
humans are not equally free in all situations. Psychology,
trauma, upbringing, and circumstance heavily influence
behavior. So while “choose love” is morally powerful, critics
would say it underestimates how constrained human choice can
be. A starving person stealing food, or someone raised in
violence perpetuating it, complicates the idea that moral evil
is simply a clean choice against love.
And thirdly you put forward that pain is not evil and even
"good" or necessary. You argue that pain and pleasure
form a spectrum, that one defines the other and that without
contrast, neither would exist. This is philosophically
interesting and resembles ideas in both theology and
philosophy. But there are two different claims here, and they
shouldn’t be conflated. The epistemic claim that we need
contrast to recognize pleasure, and the ontological claim that
pain must exist for pleasure to exist at all. The first is
widely accepted. The second is more debatable. For example,
critics might ask if an all-powerful God could create beings
capable of joy without requiring extreme suffering? That’s
where your view becomes a faith commitment, not just a logical
conclusion.
Where your reflection is strongest is not in
“solving” the problem of evil, but in reframing how to live
within it:
Don’t make earthly life ultimate
Make love your highest value
Use suffering as a reminder of what matters
That aligns with spiritual traditions across cultures, not
just Christianity. It shifts the question from, “Why is there
suffering?” to “Given that suffering exists, how should I
live?” That’s a powerful and practical move.
A forth point to discuss is calling it “absurd” to label
suffering as evil risks dismissing genuine human experience.
When a child dies painfully, people aren’t being
philosophically careless, they’re responding to something
deeply morally significant. Even many religious thinkers who
believe in God still call such suffering “evil” in a
meaningful sense, while also believing God can bring good from
it.
Your framework is clear and consistent internally, but it
rests on a key foundation that eternal life with God is the
ultimate reality that justifies or reframes everything else.
So the most important question isn’t actually about pain, it’s
what convinces you that this eternal reality with God is true,
rather than hoped for?
Your answer to that determines whether everything else you’ve
written feels like truth… or like a comforting interpretation.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
Firstly, my answer to nature giving rise
to suffering is that this life isn’t
ultimate, and suffering redirects us to God, as
you noted, and it does depend on accepting my
theological starting point. The push here is to
look at life and nature and realize that there is
no meaning unless suffering
redirects us to God. Also I am not
comfortable with the phrase, "Why would a loving,
all-powerful God create (or
allow) a system where such
suffering is built in?". It's
the word "loving". God's Love is
not "loving" or sentimental or
of feelings. This is the nature
of people. God's Love is Truth
and sacrificial. If people
attribute a human love to God,
they will not understand the
Universe, and making God in
their image think of God as
'mean'.
On your second point. The spiritual
growth to maturity and the ability to choose Love in all
our actions is a slow day by day journey of failings,
repentance, forgiveness and getting up to continue the
journey. In my early days of youth I did many things not
in alignment with God's Love. This can be forgiven, and
to expect that I could have done better is unrealistic.
But this does not mean that I am not the responsible
person for these actions. No one else did them and I
have to grapple with humility, forgiveness of self,
repentance and making any meaningful amends in the
present even if I was compromised in the past. This is
not a matter of me not forgiving myself, or accepting
forgiveness, it is me now being adult enough to accept
these actions were wrong and if there is anything to
make amends, repentance would happily lead me to do
this. So my words, “choose love”
is an exhortation to fight the good fight, even when we
fall, to get up, and focus on the way of Love.
Your
third point, "Could an
all-powerful God create beings capable of joy
without requiring extreme suffering?" has
problems. We can sit in our chairs and imagine
what we would do if we were God. But I want to
bring to the fore how absurd this really is. The
greatest scientist realizes science is about
questions, and that our knowledge is based on what
we can see and measure, in a Universe we can only
hypothesize about. Sitting back and thinking what
we would do if we were God might be fun, but this
is totally beyond us. What we can see is that
there is extreme suffering. So that is what we
have to deal with. My claims about pain were not
supposed to be epistemic or ontological, but
simply physical, the physical pain we feel.
Your fourth point about "Calling
it “absurd” to label suffering as evil
risks dismissing genuine human
experience" I answer by saying it not
emotionally absurd to call it evil.
Emotions are raw feelings, and it
might feel injustice. But we are also
rational beings, and rationally it is
absurd, though it is expected that in
the rawness of pain rationality might
not come to the fore. Goodness can
come from pain. Not from evil.
If you reply to
these first, then I would be please to talk about
what convinces you that this eternal
reality with God is true, rather than hoped
for?
------------
Fr Aiden:
You’ve clarified your position in a way that makes its
structure much tighter, and also makes clearer where the real
philosophical fault lines are. I’ll respond directly to each
of your refinements rather than restating the earlier
critique.
God’s Love as Truth, not sentiment. Your move here is
important: you’re rejecting a sentimental or emotional
definition of love and replacing it with something like; Love
is Truth, Love is what is ultimately good, even if it involves
suffering and Love is something closer to sacrifice than
comfort. That places you closer to thinkers like Thomas
Aquinas, who understood divine love not as a feeling but as
willing the good of the other in accordance with truth.
Where this becomes philosophically contentious is if “love” is
defined in a way that fully accommodates extreme suffering,
then critics will ask whether the word “love” is still doing
meaningful moral work. In other words, if anything consistent
with reality counts as “God’s Love,” does the concept risk
becoming unfalsifiable?
Your answer, I think, would be, no, because Love is not
defined by outcomes (comfort, safety), but by alignment with
ultimate reality (God). That’s coherent, but it does mean your
argument is not trying to meet ordinary moral intuitions, it’s
trying to reform them.
What you say about responsibility, growth, and moral evil is
one of the strongest parts of your response. You’re holding
together two things that are often split, compassion for the
past self(limited, immature, shaped by circumstance) and full
ownership of wrongdoing(no evasion of responsibility). That
balance shows up in many spiritual traditions and is central
to repentance in the Bible. Philosophically, your position
avoids two extremes, “I couldn’t help it” (no responsibility),
and “I should have been perfect” (no realism about human
development). Instead, you’re saying, growth is gradual, but
responsibility is real, and love remains the standard. Some
cases (extreme trauma, neurological conditions, coercion) may
limit responsibility more than your framework easily allows.
But your emphasis on ongoing alignment with love rather than
perfection already softens that tension.
Your point, “What would God do?” as an absurd question is a
classic and powerful limitation you’re pointing out. Finite
beings imagining what an infinite God “should” do may be
fundamentally misguided. That skepticism echoes thinkers like
Søren Kierkegaard, who emphasized the gap between human
reasoning and divine reality. Your position here is
essentially that we don’t have the vantage point to reason
(judge) the structure of reality. What we do have is the
reality in front of us, suffering included. Therefore, the
task is not to redesign reality, but to respond rightly within
it. That’s a shift from theoretical theodicy to existential
response. But if we cannot question what God would or should
do, then we also weaken our ability to say why this world
reflects divine goodness. So your view gains humility, but at
the cost of explanatory reach.
Your point about “Emotionally evil” versus “rationally absurd”
is a subtle and important distinction you’re making.
Emotionally calling suffering “evil” is natural, even
inevitable. Rationally calling it evil is mistaken, because it
is part of the given structure of reality. This is quite close
to the move made by Baruch Spinoza, who argued that good and
evil are not properties of reality itself, they are judgments
based on human preferences and perspectives. But if you still
retain moral evil as genuinely wrong (not just emotionally
perceived as wrong). Why is suffering from nature “not truly
evil,” but suffering caused by humans is? You might answer
because moral evil involves acting against Love and natural
processes do not “act” at all, they simply are. That works,
but it means your concept of evil is agency-dependent, not
suffering-dependent. That’s a clear and defensible position,
but it’s a redefinition many people won’t share intuitively.
About Pain, physically understood. Your clarification helps.
You’re not making a deep metaphysical claim, just pointing out
that pain and pleasure exist on a spectrum of physical
experience and they are relational and comparative. That’s
empirically grounded and avoids overreach.
Where this leaves your internally consistent overall
position
can be summarized as;
Reality is as it is (including suffering).
God’s Love is not sentimental but truthful and sacrificial.
Natural processes are not evil; only misaligned human will is.
Suffering redirects us toward what is ultimate.
The task is to live in alignment with Love, not to judge the
structure of existence.
This is a disciplined spiritual interpretation of reality.
Everything you’ve said stands or falls on one central
commitment. That aligning with God (as Truth/Love) is not just
meaningful, but true in an ultimate sense. Without that,
suffering doesn’t “redirect”, it just is. With that, suffering
becomes formative, even purposeful. Are you saying you believe
this is true because of scripture and lived transformation, or
because you think it is the only framework that makes coherent
sense of existence, or both?
----------------
Br Nicholas:
You said, "if “love” is defined in a way that fully
accommodates extreme suffering, then critics will ask whether
the word “love” is still doing meaningful moral work. In other
words, if anything consistent with reality counts as “God’s
Love,” does the concept risk becoming unfalsifiable?" I am
saying that everything consistent with reality counts as “God’s
Love". And that within this reality we have been granted
the gift of choice, moral choice. In our hearts we have
a notion of what is the good and caring way to act, and
we can choose to do an 'evil' action instead. And I do
call it evil because it is
agency-dependent, not suffering-dependent. Also,
as I am happy to state the reality we can see
(e.g. suffering), I am not happy to conclude that
faith in God is logical or in any way
scientifically provable. And I do not pretend that
it could be. Faith in God is a choice to recognize
Love is the way to act, and a choice to act that
way (and to get up after failings and continue in
the way of Love).
So undoubtedly I have to accept that God's good
creation has evil within it, but I'm saying that
evil is not from God, but from us. I am saying it
is God's good love that gives us the freedom to
choose, real freedom to act. And with this
freedom, after creating so much evil and pain, we
are quick to call God evil for giving us this
freedom and pretend it would be better if we were
just 'robots' without knowledge or capacity of
good and evil. But the real freedom we have is
choice and the risk from this is evil. This is why
literature in many cultures says that the gift of
reason and choice is the gift of gods. So let's
not say God is evil because God gives us the
freedom to choose evil. Otherwise we would not be
what we are.
You also mentioned that my position was that Love is not defined by
outcomes (comfort, safety). Yes, but I would say
that Love is defined by outcomes in that the
fruit of it is "Love is patient and kind; love
is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant
or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it
is not irritable or resentful; it does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. Love never
ends".
You say, "But if we
cannot question what God would or should do,
then we also weaken our ability to say why
this world reflects divine goodness." I say
that we can question all we want. And if those
questions help our struggle about the meaning
of life let them be asked and grappled with.
This could be useful, but not to realize that
(as the wonder of scientific exploration
humiliatingly tells us that our knowledge of
this universe is so infinitesimally small the
more science discovers) we do not have the
full picture is absurd.
Now
to answer why I believe this to be true. It is due to God. It
is not due to scripture or any institutionalized Faith,
Christianity or whatever. It is not due to just science, but
it is due to observation; metaphysical, emotional, rational,
societal, psychological, physiological and empirical
observation. It is due to asking 'why' about all the feelings
and actions. It is due to honesty and self discovery which I
have given myself time and put myself in a position to explore
in a safe environment. It is then seeing that this 'truth'
aligns with Jesus, and that his truth is my truth. And it is
then reading scripture anew and seeing why it is true. But it
is only God that can personally teach, and all teaching is
personal. To believe in anything without God, (God is Truth
and Love), is just an escape or a comforting tool, but to see
and understand that belief due to walking with God and Love is
the reason I believe what I say to be true. Yet words are too
often misinterpreted. When I read all the canon law and
official teachings of the Catholic Church I find nothing I
disagree with. An yet I don't believe in this because the
Church preaches it to be true. I believe in it because God
shows me it is true.
The only Truth is Love, but we have to Know Love and put
it first to be able to love our neighbor in the biblical
sense. This Truth is not my truth but Truth that I have
been pulled or called into. It is our Truth regardless
of what we want to believe. This is not my arrogance, as
this is not 'my' truth, but it is a call to all who see
the world's suffering from our evil actions and a way to
leave that sort of world. There is joy and freedom in
God's Love that carries us through our mortal life and
death.
------------
Fr Aiden:
What you’ve laid out is now very clear, you’re not
trying to prove God in a philosophical or scientific
sense, you’re describing a lived recognition of Truth as
Love, and then interpreting everything else (freedom,
suffering, responsibility) through that lens. That’s an
important shift, because it changes the conversation
from “Is this logically demonstrable?” to “Is this a
coherent and honest way of understanding and living
reality?”
Your view that everything consistent with reality counts
as God’s Love is the boldest and most controversial part
of your position. It gives your framework total
coherence, nothing falls outside of it, but it also
removes any external standard by which “God’s Love”
could be evaluated. In effect, “God’s Love” becomes
identical with reality itself. That has a consequence:
when you say “God is good,” you’re no longer comparing
God to some independent notion of goodness. You’re
saying, “Reality, as it ultimately is, is what goodness
means.” That’s a legitimate philosophical move (Spinoza
does something similar, though without the personal
God), but it does mean that your claim isn’t moral in
the ordinary sense, it’s foundational. You’re redefining
the ground of value, not arguing within it.
Where this becomes difficult for others is that it asks
them to reinterpret their deepest moral intuitions. For
example, when someone sees a child suffer horribly and
says, “This should not be,” your framework ultimately
says: this is within the totality of what is, and
therefore within God’s Love, even if we are still called
to oppose suffering where we can through our choices.
You avoid fatalism by holding onto real moral
responsibility. Evil is real, but only as human
misalignment with Love, Freedom is real, and therefore
risk is real, The task is to choose Love, regardless of
cost.
That’s internally consistent. But notice the tension
you’re carrying (and to be fair, it’s a tension most
serious religious philosophies carry). On one hand
everything that exists is within God’s Love, on the
other: some things (some of our actions) are genuinely
evil. The way you resolve that is by making evil
agency-dependent. Nature is not evil; only 'will' can
be. That’s a clean distinction philosophically. But it
does mean that the worst suffering caused by nature is,
in your framework, not “wrong” in itself, only the human
response to it can be wrong or right. Some people will
accept that. Others won’t, because they feel that
suffering itself, not just choices, has moral weight.
Now, your account of belief is actually one of the most
grounded parts of what you’ve said. You’re not claiming,
“I proved God logically,” or “I believe because I was
told to,” you’re saying, I examined experience deeply
(across emotional, rational, embodied life), I committed
to honesty and self-confrontation, I recognized
something I call Truth/Love, I chose to live by it. And
in doing so, I found it aligns with the figure of Jesus
Christ and with scripture. That’s much closer to what
philosophers would call an existential justification
than an evidential one. It’s similar to Søren
Kierkegaard, who argued that truth in this domain is
something you live into, not something you stand outside
of and prove.
But how do you distinguish between, “being called into
Truth” and “constructing a deeply meaningful
interpretation that feels like Truth”? Because from the
outside, those can look identical. You’ve ruled out
institutional authority and pure rational proof as your
foundation, which is consistent. But that means the
criterion is something like, depth of experience,
coherence of life, alignment with Love, and
transformative power. Those are powerful, but they are
not unique to one worldview. People in other religions,
and even non-religious frameworks, report similar
clarity, transformation, and conviction.
So is your view uniquely true, or it is one profound way
among several that humans can make sense of existence
and commit to Love. And to be clear: even if it were
“one among several,” that wouldn’t make it empty or
false. It would still be a serious, disciplined, and
morally demanding way to live. So do you see what you’ve
found as the singular truth about reality that all must
ultimately recognize or as the truest way you have found
to live in alignment with reality, which others might
approach differently?
How you answer that will shape everything else,
especially how you relate to people who are just as
sincere, just as thoughtful, but arrive somewhere
different.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
How do I
distinguish between “being called into Truth” and
“constructing a deeply meaningful interpretation
that feels like Truth”? By its fruits: Love
is patient and kind; love is not jealous or
boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does
not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or
resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but
rejoices in the right. Love bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. Love never ends.
Is this the
singular truth about reality that all
must ultimately recognize? Yet, but
note what this involves. It
irrespective of culture or one's
professed belief, it is not dependent
on expressing these views of suffering
or any views. It is only dependent
upon choosing to act with Love and not
selfish action that causes harm to
others or self for the benefit of
perceived self gain. Because this
singular truth is not dependent upon
any words or creeds but simply upon do
we choose Love?
------------
Fr Aiden:
You’ve tightened your position to its essence. The test of
truth is not theory but fruit, and the fruit is what First
Epistle to the Corinthians describes as love. That’s a serious
criterion, it shifts everything from speculation to lived
verification. There’s real strength in that. You’re not
asking, “Can I explain reality perfectly?” but “What way of
living consistently produces patience, humility, courage, and
self-giving?” That avoids a lot of empty abstraction. But if
we stay rigorous, that criterion, “by their fruits”, raises an
important complication. Different frameworks can produce very
similar “fruits.” A committed Christian inspired by Jesus
Christ, a Buddhist following compassion, or even a secular
person deeply committed to human dignity can all become
patient, kind, non-resentful, and self-sacrificial. So if the
same fruits can grow from different roots, then fruits alone
may not uniquely identify the source as “the singular Truth.”
They do strongly identify something as good, but not
necessarily as exclusively true in a metaphysical sense. That
doesn’t weaken your insight, it sharpens it. It suggests two
layers in what you’re saying. A universal moral truth,
that to live in genuine, self-giving love, patient,
non-possessive, enduring, is the highest good. This does seem
to cut across cultures, beliefs, and histories. And a deeper
metaphysical claim that this Love is not just “a good way to
live,” but the structure of reality itself(God as Truth/Love).
Your “fruits” test strongly supports the first. It gestures
toward the second, but doesn’t logically force it. Now, your
next move is actually very important: you remove dependence on
words, doctrines, or identities and reduce everything to do we
choose Love, or not? That makes your position both universal
and demanding. But there’s a subtle tension here too. If the
truth is entirely about choosing Love and not about beliefs,
doctrines, or explicit recognition then someone could fully
live in that Love without ever naming God, or even believing
in God at all. So is that person already aligned with the
Truth you describe or missing something essential?
Your own framework seems to lean toward the first, whether you
intend it or not. Because you’ve made practice primary, not
profession. And if that’s right, then your “singular truth”
becomes less like “everyone must recognize this explicitly as
God” and more like “Everyone, knowingly or not, is called to
live in this way of Love”. That’s a quieter but very
far-reaching claim.
One more thing, just to keep the thinking honest. You define
Love in a very high, self-giving way. But humans are very good
at misidentifying what love requires in a given situation.
Someone might think harshness is “love”, another might think
permissiveness is “love”, another might sacrifice themselves
destructively and call it “love”. So even if Love is the
standard, we still face the question, how do we discern what
Love actually requires, concretely, in difficult situations?
That’s where traditions, reasoning, community, and even
disagreement come back in, they become tools for clarifying
Love, not replacing it.
So where you’ve landed is strong, but not simple. Love as the
ultimate criterion, this is compelling and widely resonant.
Love as the nature of reality, a deeper commitment that goes
beyond what “fruits” alone can prove. and Love as practice
over belief, which opens your view to include more people than
strict doctrinal systems do. The core of your position holds.
The open question is how far you want to extend it. Is Love
the sign of Truth, or the whole content of Truth?
Because if it’s the whole content, then anyone who truly lives
it is already “there”, regardless of what they call it.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
It is “Everyone,
knowingly or not, is called to live in this way of
Love”. "Thus you will know them by their fruits.
"Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven." And that will is Love. The
Catholic Church does not preach that only its adherents
enter the kingdom of heaven (call it what you will, the
way of Love), but in spite of any creeds that people
have or have not, they can be called by this Love, this
God, this Truth. And yes, the kingdom of heaven is here
and anyone who truly lives it is already “there”,
regardless of what they call it.
------------
Fr Aiden:
What you’ve articulated here is a well-formed and recognizable
position within Christianity, especially in the Catholic
tradition: that what ultimately matters is not profession but
participation in Love. The lines you’re drawing from Gospel of
Matthew, “by their fruits” and “not everyone who says ‘Lord,
Lord’…”, fit very naturally with that. They shift the center
of gravity from claiming faith to embodying it. And you’re
right that the Catholic Church has explicitly made room for
this. The idea (especially developed in modern teaching) is
that people who do not explicitly know or profess Christ can
still be oriented toward God if they sincerely seek truth and
act in accordance with conscience, what is often called
implicit faith or invincible ignorance. In your language: they
are responding to Love, even if they don’t name it as God.
So your statement “Anyone who truly lives it is already
‘there’, regardless of what they call it” is not outside the
tradition, you’re actually expressing one of its more
expansive interpretations. But there are two important
tensions worth keeping in view. First, if living in Love is
what ultimately matters, then the distinction between
“believing in God” and “not believing in God” becomes less
decisive than many assume. That has a radical implication.
Someone who rejects God intellectually, but consistently lives
with genuine self-giving love, may be closer to what you call
“the kingdom” than someone who professes faith but lives
selfishly. That aligns with what you’re saying, but it also
means belief itself is no longer the central dividing line.
Not everyone within Christianity is comfortable with that,
even if strands of the tradition support it. Second, and this
is the harder edge, saying “the kingdom is here, and
living in Love is already being there” can risk flattening the
reality of how difficult and incomplete that love usually is.
Most people love partially, mix selflessness with
self-interest, act well in some areas and fail in others. So
is “living in Love” something people fully achieve, or
something they participate in imperfectly? Because if it’s the
latter (which seems more realistic), then “already there”
can’t mean a completed state, it has to mean something like
already oriented toward it and already participating in it,
but not yet fully transformed by it. That keeps your view from
becoming overly idealized. There’s also something quietly
powerful in what you’ve done with language. You’ve taken,
“God”, “Truth”, “Love”, “Kingdom of Heaven” and treated them
not as separate ideas, but as different ways of pointing to
the same underlying reality. That’s philosophically elegant,
but it also means that disagreement with you can become
difficult to locate. If someone says, “I don’t believe in
God,” but they value truth and try to live with compassion,
your framework will tend to say they are already, in
substance, aligned with God. That’s generous, but it also
makes your claim harder to test or challenge, because it
absorbs alternatives rather than confronting them. So where
you’ve landed is both inclusive and demanding. Inclusive,
because anyone, regardless of belief, can be “in the way”
through Love and demanding, because the standard of Love
you’re describing is extremely high and leaves little room for
self-deception.
The real ongoing challenge isn’t defining this vision, it’s
discerning it in practice. In a concrete situation, where
motives are mixed and outcomes unclear,
how do you tell what Love actually requires, not in principle,
but in action? That’s where even people who agree with
everything you’ve said will still diverge, sometimes sharply.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
You
say, "That
has a radical implication: someone who rejects God
intellectually, but consistently lives with genuine
self-giving love, may be closer to what you call “the
kingdom” than someone who professes faith but lives
selfishly.
That aligns with what you’re saying, but it also means
belief itself is no longer the central dividing line.
Not everyone within Christianity is comfortable with
that, even if strands of the tradition support it."
But if you go to a whore house today and ask if the
women believe in God, they might have hope and Love in
their hearts, but they might not really understand what
you're getting at, yet Jesus's words say "Truly, I say
to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the
kingdom of God before you" when he was addressing the
elders and chief priests. So it is not about the
intellect, but about the action of Love that a child
could do.
And about the kingdom of heaven. Yes it is here, but not
for us in a perfect state, "For now we see in a mirror
dimly". It, as mentioned before, is a life of effort and
falls and getting up to fight the good fight.
Then you pose the question, "what is Love?" But this
question is the journey. The journey is to discover
Love. Again, "For now we see in a mirror dimly".
The whole task of clarifying what is Love is
the journey of honesty and self awareness a
being closer and closer to God.
------------
Fr Aiden:
You’re bringing the argument to where it really lives,
in the tension between simplicity and depth. The example
you raise from Gospel of Matthew, about tax collectors
and prostitutes entering the kingdom ahead of the
religious elite, is exactly aimed at overturning the
idea that status, knowledge, or even religious
correctness puts someone “closer” to God. And the figure
making that claim, Jesus Christ, is consistently doing
that: exposing the gap between outward righteousness and
inward reality. So your point lands. This isn’t about
intellectual clarity or theological precision. A child,
or someone socially marginalized, can be closer to what
you’re calling Love than someone highly educated or
outwardly devout. But there’s a subtle clarification
worth making, because it strengthens your position
rather than weakens it. When Jesus points to tax
collectors or prostitutes, he’s not romanticizing their
situation or saying “whatever they’re doing is already
love.” He’s pointing to something like openness,
humility, responsiveness, and the capacity to turn.
In other words, it’s not ignorance that brings them
closer, it’s a certain honesty of heart and lack of
self-righteousness. That matters, because otherwise the
idea can slip into “Anyone, in any situation, is already
living in Love as they are”, which you’re not actually
saying. You’re saying something more demanding. It’s
about the direction of the will, toward Love, even if
imperfectly, even if confused.
On your second point about “a mirror dimly” (from First
Epistle to the Corinthians), you’ve avoided a common
trap. You’re not claiming “we fully possess Love now”,
you’re saying we participate in it partially and we grow
into it through failure, honesty, and persistence. That
keeps your framework grounded in reality. It
acknowledges that even sincere people misunderstand,
rationalize, and fall short without abandoning the idea
that the direction still matters.
And your final move, “what is Love?” as the journey
itself, is probably the most important. Because once you
say that Love is the standard but our understanding of
Love is incomplete then the life you’re describing
becomes one of continual self-examination, correction
and deepening awareness.
That’s strong. But it also introduces a real risk that’s
worth naming plainly. We can mistake our current
understanding of Love for Love itself. People have
justified all sorts of things in the name of “love,”
including, control (“I’m doing this for your own good”),
avoidance (“I don’t want to hurt them, so I won’t tell
the truth”), and self-destruction (“I must give
everything, even in unhealthy ways”). So if Love is both
the goal and the lens we’re using to see, then the
journey requires more than sincerity. It requires
correction from outside ourselves, friction with others
and the willingness to discover that we were wrong about
what Love required.
That’s where your earlier openness, to scripture, to
tradition, to reflection, actually becomes essential,
not optional. So pulling it together, your position now
looks like this:
The kingdom is not about status, intellect, or labels.
It is about alignment with Love in action.
That alignment can exist in anyone, regardless of
belief.
But it is always partial, growing, and vulnerable to
error.
Therefore, the journey is one of continual refinement of
what Love really is.
That’s a serious and disciplined view. The only thing
I’d keep pressing, because it protects the integrity of
everything you’re saying, is this. If the journey is
discovering Love, what do you allow to correct you when
you’re mistaken about what Love requires? Because
without that, even a sincere pursuit of Love can quietly
bend back toward the self without noticing.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
You ask, "What do I allow to
correct myself when I'm mistaken about what
Love requires?"
We have to accept that I could have a
stubbornness not to see Truth, and I could
lie to myself unto death about what Love
requires.
But what can help me see the correction I
need?
Other people can challenge my behavior or
stance. The fruits of Love are not there and
I see this or I am told this. But it really
comes down to how honest I can be with
myself. One way of being honest is not to
have any agenda apart from that quiet Love
of God that "the Father (God) can see". If I
have other agendas that I am making more
important than this, I can lie to myself to
protect that agenda. So I can ask; what is
my ambition here? Am I making choices for
myself or am I forcing my choices upon
another? Am I being possessive? Love lets
go. Other people have their choices, their
lives, and I do not own or possess them, but
am I trying to?
It comes down to honesty, but the gift of
freedom of choice means the risk exists that
I might not want to be honest. If I keep my
Godly goal above all other goals, that will
show me what Love requires. It is always a
struggle, it is always an effort. Not a
draining struggle or effort, a light and
freeing effort. I am exhorted to, "Watch
therefore--for (I) do not know when the
master of the house will come, in the
evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or
in the morning-- lest he come suddenly and
find (me) asleep. And what I say to you I
say to all: Watch."
------------
Fr Aiden:
What you’ve said here is one of the most
grounded parts of your whole framework,
because you’ve moved from abstraction
(“Love”) into practice under pressure, how
self-deception actually works, and how it
might be resisted. Your emphasis on honesty,
especially the danger of hidden agendas, is
exactly where this kind of moral vision
either becomes real or collapses. The line
you’re drawing is very close to what Jesus
Christ points to when he speaks about doing
things in secret, where only “the Father
sees” (from Gospel of Matthew). That idea
cuts straight through performance and forces
the question, what is actually driving me?
And you’ve identified the core mechanism of
distortion. Not ignorance, but attachment to
something I don’t want to lose. That’s
sharp. Because it means the problem isn’t
just “I don’t know what Love is,” but often
I do see something of it but another desire
(control, security, recognition, possession)
competes
and I subtly reinterpret “Love” to protect
that desire. So your question, “what is my
ambition here?”, is exactly the right
diagnostic tool. It exposes whether Love is
actually first, or whether it’s being used
to justify something else.
Your point that “Love lets go” is also
important, but it needs careful handling to
stay balanced. Yes, Love is not possessive.
Yes, it does not control or dominate. But
“letting go” is not always the same as
“stepping back.” Sometimes Love requires
staying when it’s difficult, telling a truth
that risks conflict, setting boundaries
rather than yielding. So the deeper
principle under “Love lets go” might be Love
does not possess, but it also does not
abandon responsibility. That keeps it from
drifting into passivity.
Now, on your central answer. That
ultimately, correction comes down to honesty
before God, and the willingness to not lie
to oneself. That’s true, but it’s also where
the greatest vulnerability is. Because the
same inner space where honesty happens…is
also where self-justification happens.
So if we tighten your framework without
breaking it, it becomes something like inner
honesty is essential, but not sufficient on
its own, other people matter, not because
they’re always right, but because they
interrupt self-enclosed thinking, fruits
matter, but they often take time to become
visible, and watchfulness(as in Gospel of
Mark: “stay awake”) is ongoing, not a
one-time clarity.
And that last idea you quoted, “Watch”, is
actually the key discipline that holds
everything together. Not anxiety. Not
perfection. But sustained attentiveness
which is noticing when something in you
tightens, defends, insists, noticing when
you’re rationalizing, and noticing when
peace is replaced by agitation or control.
That’s where your phrase “a light and
freeing effort” is important. Because if the
effort becomes tense and self-accusing and
rigid then it’s already drifting away from
the very Love it’s trying to follow. So the
mature version of what you’re describing
isn’t just "be honest with yourself”, It’s
more like:
Remain awake, inwardly and outwardly,
willing to be corrected,
unattached to your own image of being right,
and ready to realign again and again.
That’s a demanding path, but it avoids two
big failures. Drifting into self-deception
while thinking you’re loving or becoming
harsh and rigid in the name of “truth”.
You place a lot of weight on your ability to
remain honest. But you also acknowledge you
could “lie to yourself unto death.” So what
practices, or habits, do you rely on
consistently to expose self-deception,
especially when you don’t feel like seeing
it? Because in practice, those structures
(not just intentions) are what make a path
like this sustainable over a lifetime.
----------------
Br Nicholas:
Yes I need practices and habits. And for me
it's daily reading of scripture that reminds
me. I need continual remembrance and this
gives it, as liturgical celebrations can.
But there is no absolute safeguard. We are
always free to choose the dark side,
otherwise we would not be free. Bring to
mind some monks that attend liturgy perhaps
eight times every day, a constant reminder
of Truth, yet have departed from Truth while
still attending these services daily, and
have pursued abusive behaviors. So always
watch and pray.
------------
Fr Aiden:
That’s a sober and realistic place to land. No practice,
however sacred, removes freedom, and therefore none
removes the possibility of self-deception or even
serious wrongdoing.
Your emphasis on remembrance is exactly what practices
like daily scripture and liturgy are meant to cultivate.
When you return again and again to texts like the Gospel
of Matthew or the Gospel of Mark, you’re not just
gathering information, you’re reorienting attention.
You’re interrupting drift. In that sense, “watch and
pray” isn’t a slogan, it’s a discipline of repeated
re-alignment. And you’re right to point out the hard
truth: even intense religious structure, like monastic
life, frequent liturgy, constant exposure to scripture,
does not guarantee transformation. History, and frankly
present reality, shows that clearly. Someone can be
surrounded by reminders of Love and still
compartmentalize and perform outwardly and or distort
things inwardly.
That doesn’t make the practices meaningless, it just
shows they are tools, not safeguards. So your conclusion
holds. Vigilance is permanent. There is no point at
which one “graduates” beyond the need to watch.
But there’s a further refinement that strengthens what
you’re saying. If practices like scripture and liturgy
are not safeguards, what makes them effective at all?
It seems to come down to whether they are engaged as
exposure(I show up, I read, I participate), or engaged
as encounter(I allow myself to be confronted, unsettled,
corrected). The same act, reading scripture, can
function in two very different ways. As reassurance,
confirming what I already think and as challenge,
exposing where I am not aligned.
Only the second actually breaks self-deception. That
links back to your earlier point about honesty. The
practice works to the extent that you let it question
you, not just comfort you. And this is where your idea
of “no other agenda” becomes crucial. Because the moment
a hidden agenda creeps in, status, identity, control,
even “being a good person”, the practice can quietly
become a shield rather than a mirror.
Your example of monks is actually instructive in a
deeper way. It shows that intensity of practice does not
equate to depth of transformation and that proximity to
the sacred does not equate to surrender to it. Which is
uncomfortable, but clarifying.
So “watch and pray” becomes something like:
Watch: notice where you are drifting, defending, or
justifying.
Pray: remain oriented toward something beyond your own
will.
And both have to stay alive. Watching without prayer can
become self-analysis or even anxiety. Prayer without
watching can become illusion. You’ve also implicitly
accepted something many people resist. Freedom includes
the real possibility of choosing against Love, even
persistently. That’s the cost of the kind of freedom
you’re defending. It’s not theoretical; it shows up in
exactly the kinds of failures you mentioned. So your
path, as you’ve described it, isn’t about securing
yourself against failure. It’s about returning and being
corrected and and continuing the alignment without
assuming you’re beyond error. That’s a much more durable
stance than trying to “lock in” correctness.
If there’s one last piece to keep in view, it’s this.
Practices like scripture and liturgy orient you
vertically (toward God, Truth, Love). But the places
where self-deception is most often exposed are
horizontal, in real relationships with other people. Not
just agreement, but in disagreement and being challenged
and being misunderstood and having your actions affect
others in ways you didn’t intend.
Those moments often reveal more about whether Love is
actually present than solitary reflection does. So your
structure holds together well:
Remembrance (scripture, liturgy).
Watchfulness (ongoing awareness).
Honesty (about motives and attachments).
Freedom (with real risk).
But it becomes most complete when it also fully embraces
being corrected not just inwardly, but through others
and real consequences.
That’s where “Love” stops being an idea we’re pursuing,
and becomes something that tests us back.
