Q&A 113
Q. And you're not afraid of like making enemies with all these ended friendships?
A. Well, love or charity should always inform and direct everything we think, do or say. And if charity/love desires and seeks the greatest happiness for the other (i.e. heaven), then even when ending a friendship, it has to be done in such a way that that friend of ours is brought "closer to heaven" i.e. is helped to improve in terms of virtue. Depending on characters and friendships, this might mean being hard and direct, for others warm and apologetic. Whichever course, you must always be charitable. And please don't confuse charity or love with being nice.
Q. I thought -
A. Nope.
Q. But-
A. No! And allow me to summarise otherwise we get sidetracked again... And to summarise I'll borrow the words of an American theologian: "We have reduced all virtues to one: being nice." Even if being nice were a virtue, love/charity is larger than that. Being nice would be like a sub-class of charity. And being nice itself is to my mind too feelings-based. It is not sturdy and objective like a virtue is. It instead is soft, mushy and cuddly. It makes no demands - unlike true virtue - on ourselves or on others. It doesn't strive to make us objectively good like all virtues do, instead it tries to make us subjectively liked.
Q. OK. Taking you back a bit, I'm curious: why do you equate getting someone closer to heaven with him improving in virtue? What happens to guys who don't believe in heaven or at least not your heaven?
A. Two reasons.
First, from Scripture, nothing unclean can enter heaven. We with our sins whether mortal or venial, cannot enter heaven. And even without sin, we shall still not be able to enter heaven if we have evil inclinations, otherwise called bad habits or vices.
Q. Dude!
A. Yup. Nothing unclean!
Q. A bit harsh don't you think?
A. "Harsh" says nothing about a statement's truth. It is very possible to have a harsh truth as well as a gentle lie. The truth? Nothing unclean can enter. But I think it is good to realise that it is not just that nothing can enter because God randomly and dictatorially decided so, it is also nothing unclean can enter because it just wouldn't survive there.
Q. Elaborate.
A. In much the same way we can't look directly at the glaring sun because our eyes simply don't have the capacity for it, so too a human with any stain of sin or evil inclination cannot look directly on the glorious face of God because we simply don't have the capacity for it. Your naked eyes would "burn" if you look directly at the glaring sun, your unclean self would "burn" if you look directly at the glorious face of God.
And this is where the analogy breaks down: to enable us to look directly at the glaring sun we usually find a way of protecting our eyes by dimming the glare of the sun such as through the use of sun glasses. But God doesn't dim his glory, instead He gives us grace, which like a steroid, enables us to ensure and enjoy His glory without disintegrating.
This is the 2nd last installment in this series on friendship.
22ndSeptember 2016