Tuesday, July 06, 2004
(6:29 PM) | Anonymous:
On deceptively Hating God.
To defraud oneself of love is the most terrible, is an eternal loss, for which there is no compensation either in time or in eternity. Ordinarily, when it is a matter of being deceived in love, however different the case may be, the one deceived is still related to love, and the deception is only that the love was not where it was thought to be, but the self-deceived person has locked and is locking himself out of love. There is also talk about being deceived by life or in life, but the one who in his self-deception deceived himself out of living - his loss is irreparable. Even for someone who all his life has been deceived by life, eternity can have rich compensation in store, but the self-deceived person has prevented himself from winning the eternal. Indeed, what has the person actually lost who, because of his love, became a victim of human deception if it turns out in eternity that love remains, whereas the deception has ended! But the person who, very ingeniously, deceived himself by sagaciously walking into the trap of sagacity, ah, even if all his life he in his own conceit counted himself happy, what has he not lost when in eternity it turns out that he deceived himself! - S. Kierkegaard
What do I love when I love my God? - St. Augustine
What would it mean if I have deceived myself into not loving God only as a way to hide my love for God? It is no secret that my life has been anything but happy these days and sadly I don't think there has been much fruit to prove that I love and rather plenty to prove the sorrow and bitterness. I think about the idea of God often and the strange idea that Jesus Christ was God, too much really. If someone were to ask me if God still worked in the world (bracketing whether or not God ever did) I think I would say no or if God does it is never a success but rather an impotent inbreaking.
I don't think I believe in God and yet I can't stop. I think about God in order to not believe, I have accepted the path towards sagacity of a certain kind. However all this thought is just a deception to save my love of God. I feel no love for God, not like the compassion and desire I feel for those like Jesus Christ and yet I think this is just to hide the pious life I live in my inner being, or maybe some would call it the unconscious. I have hidden my love for God in sorrow and thoughtfulness and even in the poor.
