Gilson, "The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King"

Another in my continuing series of texts that have formed me, spiritually and intellectually.

This selection is from Etienne Gilson's essay, "The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King," in his Christianity and Philosophy, translated by R. M. McDonald, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939).

Of this prodigious transformation of nature by the Incarnation we have an interpretation of incomparable profundity in Pascal, for that is what gives his work the plenitude of its meaning. That we know God only through the person of Christ, Who was God Himself living, speaking and acting among us, God showing Himself as man to men in order to be known by them, is too evident; but the great discovery, or redisvoery of Pascal is to have understood that the Incarnation, by profoundly changing the nature of man, has become the only means that there is for us to understand man. Such a truth gives a new meaning to our nature, to our birth, to our end. "Not only," wrote Pascal, "do we understand God only through Jesus Christ, but we understand ourselves only through Jesus Christ. We understand life and death only through Jesus Christ. Outside Jesus Christ we do not know what life is, nor death, nor God, nor ourselves."

Let us apply these principles ot the exercise of our intelligence; we chall immediately see that that of the Christian, as opposed to one which knows not Jesus Christ, knows itself to be fallen and restored, incapable consequently of yielding its full return without grace, and in this sence, just as the royalty of Christ dominates the order of nature and the order of siceity, so also it dominates the order of the intelligence. Perhaps we Catholics have forgotten it too much; perhaps we have never even truly understood it, and if ever there was a time that needed to understand it, it is indeed our own.

What in fact does this mystery teach us in regard to the ends and the nature of the intelligence?

Like the nature which it crowns, the intelligence is good; but it is only so if, by it and in it, the whole nature turns toward its end, which is to conform itself to God. But, by taking itself as its own end, the intelligence has turned away from God, turning nature with it, and grace alone can aid both of them in returning to what is really their end, since it is their origin. The "world" is just this refusal to participate in grace which separates nature from God, and the intelligence itself is of the world in so far as it joins with it in rejecting grace. The intelligence which accepts grace is that of the Christian. And it is in the abandonment of precisely this Christian state of the intelligence that the world, because of its hate for it, ever urges us to acoompany it.

That is what constitutes the real danger for us. We have no doubts concerning the truth of Christianity; we are firmly resolved to think as Christians; but do we know what must be done in order to accomplish that? Do we even know exactly in what Christianity consists? The first Christians knew it, because Christianity then was very near its beginnings, and the adversary against which it fought could not be unknown or misconceived by anyone; it was paganism, that is to say, ignorance at once of sin which damns and the grace of Jesus Christ which saves. That is why the Church, not only then, but throughtout the ages, has espcially recalled to men the corruption of nature by sin, the weakness of reason without Revelation, the impotence of the will to do good when it is not aided by grace. WHen St. Augustine battled against Pelagius,who called himself Christian and thought himself Christian, it was against an attempt of paganism to restore the ancient naturalism and introduce it into the very heart of Christianity that the great doctor fought. The naturalism of the Renaissance was another attempt of the same kind and we are still, today, in a world which believes itself natually healthy, just and good, because, having forgotten sin and grace, it takes corruption for the rule of nature itself...

...Hence the errors, the looseness of thought, and the compromises against which, at all times, the zeal of certain reformers has regelled. The restoration of Christianity to the purity of its essence was in fact the first intention of Luther and Calvin; such is still today that of the illustrious Calvinist theologican, Karl Barth, who employs all his powers of purify liberal Protestantism from naturalism, and to restore the Reform itself to the unconditional respect of the word of God. We all know how energetically he pursues that aim. God speaks, says K. Barth; man listens and repeats what God has said. Unfortunately, as is inevitable from the moment that a man sets himself up as His interpreter, God speaks, the Barthian listens and repeats what Barth has said. Tha is why, if we believe this new gospel of his, God would be reputed as having said that, ever since the firs sin, nature is so totally corrupted that nothing of it remains but its very corruption, a mass of perdition which grace can indeed still pardon, but which nothing henceforth could ever heal. Thus, then in order the better to fight against paganism and Pelagianism, this doctrine invites us to despair of nature, to renounce all effort to save reason and rechristianize it.

It is these two perils which ceaselessly plague us, and which, lest our thought be free from all attack, sometimes reduce us to a state of uncertainty as to what is or is not Christian. We forget the golden rule which decides all issues and dissipates every confusion, and one which ought to have ever present to thought s the light which no obscurity can resist. It is that Catholicism teaches before everything the restoration of wounded nature by the grace of Jesus Christ. The restoration of nature: so there must be a nature, and of what value, since it is the owkr of a God who created it and recreated it by repurchasing it at the price of His own blood! Thus grace presupposes nature, and the excellence of nature which it comes to heal and transfigure.

As opposed to Calvinism and Lutheranism, the Church refuses to despair of nature, as if sin had totally corrupted it, but she tenderly bends over it, to heal its sores and save it. The God of our Church is not a judge who pardons. He is a judge who can pardon only because he is first a doctor who heals. But if she doesn't despair of nature, neither does the Church hope that it can heal itself. Just as she opposes the despair of Calvinism, so she opposes the foolish hope of naturalism, which seeks in the malady itslef the principle of its cure. The truth of Catholicism is not a mean between two errors, which would participate in both the one and the other, but a real truth, that is to say a peak, from which it is possible to discover both what the errors are and what makes them to be so.

For the Calvinist, a Catholic is so respectful of nature that he is in nothing distinguished from a pagan, save by an additional blindness which makes him degrade even Christianity itself into Paganism. But the Catholic well knows that there is nothing in that, and that it is the Calvinist who, confounding nature with the world, can no longer love nature under the world which clothes it, that is to say, love the work of God while hating sin which deforms it.

For the pagan, the Christian saint is an enemy of nature, who rushed furiously in a foolish rage to torture it and even mutilate it; but the Catholic knows well that he chastises nature only out of love for it; the evil which he fights against has entereed too deeply into it to be able to be plucked out of it without making it suffer. Just as Calvinism despairs of nature while believing to despair only of its corruption, so naturalism puts its hope only in corruption when it thinks it is putting it in nature. Catholicism alone knows exactly what is nature, and what is the world, and what is grace, but it knows it only because it keeps its eyes fixed on the concrete union of nature and of grace in the Redeemer of nature, the person of Jeusus Christ.

To imitate the Church ought to be our rule, if we wish to put our intelligence at the service of Christ, the King. For, to serve Him, is to unite our efforts to His; to make ourselves, according to the word of St. Paul, his cooperators, that is to say, work with HIm, or permit Him to work in us and through us for the salvation of the intelligencce blinded by sin. But to work thus, it will be necessary for us to follow the example He Himself gives us: to free the nature which the world hides from us, to make that use of the intelligence to which God destined it when creating it.


It is here, it seems to me that we have to make a return on ourselves, to ask ourselves if we are doing our duty and especially if we are doing it well. We have all me, either in history or indeed round about us, Christians who believe they are rendering homage to God by affecting in regard to science, philosophy and art, an indifference which sometimes approaches contempt. But this contempt may express either supreme greatness or supreme littleness. I like to be told that all the philosophy is not worth an hour of trouble, when he who tells me so is called Pascal, that is to say a man who is at once one of the greatest philosophers, one of the greatest scientists, and one of the greatest artists of all time. A person always has the right to disdain what he surpasses, especially if what he disdains is not so much the thing loved as the excessive attachment which enslaves us to it. Pascal despised neither science nor philosophy, but he never pardoned them for having once hidden from him the most profound mystery of charity [i.e., love--B.B.] Let us be careful, therefore, we who are not Pascal, of despising what perhaps surpasses us, for science is one of the highest praises of God; the understanding of what God has made.

That is not all. No matter how high science may be, it is only too clear that Jeuss Christ did not come to save men by science or philosophy; he came to save all men, even scientists and philosophers, and though these human activities are not indispensible to salvation, yet even they have need of being saved as does this whole order of nature which grace has come to repurchase. But it is necessary to be careful not to save them by an indiscreet zeal, which, under the pretense of purifying them more completely, would only result in corrupting their essences. There is reason to fear that this fault is comitted quite often, and with the best intentions in the world, in view of what certain defenders of the faith call the apologetical use of science. An excellent formula, no doubt, yet only when one knows not only what sciene is, but also what apologetics is.

To be an efficacious apologist, it is necessary first to be a theologian; I will even say, an excellent theologian. that is rarer than we might think, which will be a scandal to those who speak of theology ony by hearsay, or are content with reciting its formulaes without having taken time to plumb their significance. But if one wishes to make an apologetic from science, it is not even sufficient that he be an excellent theologian; he must also be an excellent savant. I say savant advisedly, and not merely an an intelligent and cultivated man more or less annointed by science. If once wishes to practice science for God, the first condition is to practice science for itself, or as if one practiced it for itself, since that is the only way of acquiring it.

The same holds for philosophy. It is self-delusion to think to serve God by taking a certain number of formulas which bespeak what one knows ought to be said, without understanding why what they say is true. It is not even serving Him to denounce errors, however false they may be, while showing that one does not even udnerstand in what they are false. At least we can say that it is not serving Him ass a savant or as a philosopher, which is all we are for the moment concerned in showing. And I will add that the same thing holds for art, for it is necessary to possess it before pretending to put it at the service of God. We are told that it is faith which constructed the cathedrals of the middle ages. Without doubt, but faith would have constructed nothing at all if there had not also been architects; and if it is true that the facade of Notre dame of Parisis a yearning of the soul toward God, that does not prevent its being also a geometrical work. It is necessary to know geomety in order to construct a facade which may be an act of love.

Catholics who confess the eminent value of nature because it is a work of God, let us therefore show our respect for it by positing as the first rule of our action, that piety never dispenses with technique. For technique is that without which even the most lively piety is incapable of using nature for God. No one, nor anything, obliges the Christian to busy himself with science, art or philosophy, for other ways of serving God are not wanting; but if that is the way of serving God that he has chosen, the end itself, which he proposes for himself in studying them, binds him to excellence. He is bound, by the very intention which guides him, to become a good savant, a good philosopher, or a good artist. That for him is the only way of becoming a good servant...

What will happen to the unborn?

This is a copy of a message I sent a younger friend in response to his question.

Here's my thoughts, for what they're worth...you might want to talk with Steve more about this. He has spent lots of time thinking about issues of God and providence. Would it be ok if I forwarded your message to him, and let him chew on it? Meanwhile, here's my take.

You wrote: "I was talking with a few other people and the question about children who die before really having a chance to make a decision about Jesus."

Ok, this speaker is clearly coming from an American Evangelical perspective. Remember, it is just one wing of the Church Universal. Americans are Enlightenment people. That means that for them, freedom and choice are sacred. No wonder, then, that they view the most important part of the Christian life as one's "Decision."

Have you ever been to a Baptist service, or a Billy Graham crusade? Their high points are not Eucharist/communion (as it is in premodern churches, like Orthodox and Catholic ones) or even the sermon (as it is those of Calvinist/Reformed traditions). The entire service climaxes with "The Invitation," also known as "altar call" or "coming forward to receive Christ." According to Christians of this persuasion, anyone who does not make a public, conscious choice for Christ is not saved. (In the church I grew up in, while charismatic expression was frowned upon, people expected you to attest to some sort of "glorious" emotional experience accompanying one's decision, as evidence of your sincerity and God's grace.)

That makes the situation of persons who are unable to make a public conscious choice for Christ problematic. Think about all those aborted fetuses, or profoundly retarded persons who haven't been able to walk the aisle, muchless make any choices. So this is a real problem, and I want to commend whoever brought it up for their careful thinking and courageous question, because it is one that has a long history, though perhaps it has been framed a bit differently in the past.

Whereas moderns have made conscious public choice the point of entry into relationship with Christ, premoderns made the sacrament of baptism that portal, so the way they would put it is, "What happens to children who die before they have been baptized?" Catholics have wrestled with that formulation of the question for centuries, and even developed a popular but unofficial teaching about a place called "limbo" where such unfortunate persons would go after death. (Check out the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo or the even more detailed New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia entry at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm if your are really into this.)

Protestants have never accepted the idea of Limbo, and it seems like the Catholic Magisterium (teaching authorities) are moving away from it:

In recent years, the theological speculation of Limbo has fallen out of popularity amongst many lay Catholics and theologians alike. The Catechism of the Catholic Church entrusts the fate of infants and the unborn to the mercy of God:CCC #1261 states:"As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them' [Mark 10:14, cf. 1 Tim. 2:4], allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism."

The International Theological Commission was asked by Pope John Paul II to consider the question of the fate of unbaptized babies. Under Pope Benedict XVI, the Commission recommended that the theological hypothesis of Limbo be replaced by the more compassionatedoctrine that all children who die do so in the hope of eternal salvation. A Catholic News Service article quotes Redemptorist Father Tony Kelly, an Australian member of the commission, as saying that turning away from the idea of limbo was part of "the development of the theological virtue of hope" and reflected "a different sense of God, focusing on his infinite love."

All that would seem to affirm your speaker's intuition:
"... I thought that it would be reasonable to think that God has a method of judging them. Maybe they are essentially given a choice then and there, maybe it's a little more vague... But I never really got past that idea: that, if Christianity is the truth, then there is a way in which the destination of their souls can be justly determined."

I guess I would add that historically, Christians have destroyed forests debating how that determination happens. Is it entirely God's will? (St. Augustine, Calvinists, and all those who teach total depravity and predestination, where what a person chooses doesn't matter, only what God chooses matters). Is it entirely human will? (Pelagius) Or is it some combination of both human and divine wills? (Molina) If the latter, does God's will "fill in" when human will cannot function (as in victims of abortion)? And to those who have been given much freedom of choice, does He expect more? You can see that the answer to this question depends on one's prior theological commitments/ hermeneutics about divine providence.

Steve preached a series of sermons a while back about this stuff, and you might want to reread the one on God's concurrence, at http://www.valleycovenant.org/sermons/providence/providence04.htm.As you read, remember that the "occasionalists" are those folks who say everything is caused by God's will (Augustine/Calvin). The "deists" would include those who say that everything is a result of human will (Pelagius). The "concurrent/cooperatives" are those who say both God and human beings can be agents. (Molina). But only the latter perspective is able to speak of degrees of cooperation.

Perhaps it is the case that in some situations, there are human beings who have little or no possibility of cooperation/choice, so God "helps them out." That would be the act of a gracious God, completely in character with what the Bible tells us about Jesus as a shepherd carrying for helpless lambs. But perhaps there are other situations where human beings have a high degree of possible cooperation/choice. In those situations, what would be the most gracious thing for a gracious God to do? Why, allow those persons their freedom, of course! (And expect a lot more of them, as well.) Thus, it's neither totally random and relativistic (postmodernism) nor a matter of formulae (modernism), but of relationship (premodernism) between God and human beings.

It seems to me that this is exactly what is going on in Romans 1 and 2, which mirrors your first question by asking it this way: "what happens to people who perish apart from the law?" Romans 2:12-29 indicates that God will determine the future state of /judge the Gentiles who do not have the law differently, but no less justly, from the way he will judge the Jews. The only relationship those Gentiles have with the Lord is through nature and conscience, neither of which is as direct and intimate as the relationship the Jews enjoy through His Word. The Gentiles who lack the Law are thus in a different position to be able to make their decision about God, and how to live good lives; so God will relate to them as they are able to relate to Him. In a way, they are comparable to the unborn and the retarded, who do not have the full capacity to choose/ cooperate with God.

But those who do have that capacity--the Jews, who enjoy His special revelation, and not just natural revelation--those people will be related to according to their capacity to relate to God. As Jesus says in Luke 12:48, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." So much for that.

Next, we must deal with the second question:
"if there is a perfectly just and acceptable way of placing souls who haven't had any chance to make there decision on Earth, as most humans presumably do, then why even bother putting people on Earth? "

Ahh, you do ask some great questions! This one will require another separate response. I'll do my best...please be patient as it will be a while before I can get around to replying. And I'll try to be more succinct. I do so enjoy our conversations. Please tell me what you think of what I've written so far.

Blessings,Beth

Covenant Home Altar Devotionals for October, 2006

Sunday, Oct. 1 (Twenty-third after Pentecost)
Psalm 124

We Need God

Perhaps you’ve heard similar psalms in their “updated” versions. “Believe what you feel/ And know you're right, because/ The time will come around /When you say it's yours” (The Wiz). “Believe in yourself/And the world belongs to you...” (’n Synch). These renditions are recited at countless motivational seminars. They appear on business card cases, mugs, posters, and even turn up in the theme song for Arthur, the children’s TV show.

But God’s people sing Psalm 124. It carries us on a spiritual arc, moving us from focusing on ourselves and our predicaments (“If the Lord had not been on our side”) to God Himself (“Maker of Heaven and Earth.”) We do not trust ourselves for deliverance, for we know we are not our own. Rather, we are His beloved creatures; we belong to Him, and He has bought us for a price. Trust in the Lord. He is able to help us when we admit that we cannot make or save ourselves.

Our Father and Creator, deliver us from ourselves so that You can meet our needs.

Monday, Oct. 2 ­ - Genesis 2:18-24

We Need Friends

Have you ever been “alone” in a crowd? That was Adam’s situation. Eden was teeming with countless curious creatures, and even the Lord liked to hang out there with Adam, but it wasn’t enough. Adam was alone, and God knew it. God was Adam’s superior; the plants and animals were his subordinates. Adam needed a companion that would be his equal. God’s image in Adam was finally completed when He placed Adam in a relationship with another being of his own kind: Eve. Only she was “suitable:” literally, a helper “corresponding to” Adam; a friend.

When Steve and I were married, we wrote our vows, promising to be each other’s friend. The clergyman who performed the ceremony bristled. “You aren’t going to be friends!” he fumed. “You are going to be man and wife!” Twenty seven years later, I’m glad to say he was mistaken.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us friends, and for being our best Friend, Who makes our relationships with You and each other possible. Help us to mirror Your life as Trinity.

Tuesday, Oct. 3 ­- Numberss 11:4-6, 10-18

We Need Discipline

Yahweh is into variety. Why else to so many different species? 28,500 fishes, 8163 reptiles, 9917 birds, and 5416 mammals! As Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, God delights in whatever is “counter, original, spare, strange.” Yet the Israelites regard Him as the god of monotony. They have no anticipation of the manifold goods He has prepared for them in the Promised Land. All they expect is a daily grind of “long obedience in the same direction.” Incredibly, after everything God has done for them, they pine for the pickings they had as Egyptian slaves. Jaded by God’s journey mercies, they crave something different—now! Their thankless wailing depresses Moses. When God does something new, it is for His glory, not a response to our whims. His new leadership strategy of seventy helpers for Moses leads to blessing; and the novelty of quail is his design for discipline.

How often does this scene replay in our churches and in our own lives?

Gracious Father, guard us from ingratitude and peevishness. Help us to desire Your newness, not novelty.

Wednesday, Oct. 4 - Esther 3:5-6; 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22

We Need a Defender

“I come from a people that gave the ten commandments to the world. Let us agree that we need three more … thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.” -- Yehuda Bauer

God’s people have constantly been attacked. Today’s passage tells the story of a woman who refused to be a bystander. Her actions are chronicled in a book that never mentions God, yet they are unimaginable apart from Him, for the people she seeks to defend are a people only because of His calling. (1 Peter 2:9-10). But ironically, as our Lord Jesus later demonstrated, sometimes in order not to be bystanders we must risk becoming victims. Esther risked her resources, her position, and her very life to save the Jews.

Who is God calling us to defend? Are there ways we are perpetrating injustice and sin?

Almighty Father, deliver us from evil. Resurrected Son, show us how to be victims for Your sake. Indwelling Spirit, move us to righteous actions.


Thursday, Oct. 5 ­ - Hebrews 1:1-4

We Need the Last Word

Jews, Christians and Moslems are all sometimes called “People of the Book,” but this passage makes it clear that Christians are People of the Son. Jesus Christ is the “hard copy” of the Father; the exact and ultimate revelation of God to humanity. God has spoken to us through nature, through his prophets, and a variety of other means, but in all cases the communication was incomplete or unable to contain everything He wanted to share. But now that Jesus Christ has come, no further revelation is necessary, because there is nothing more to be said or done.

What remains to be disclosed, after we have been presented the Man Who is God and the God Who is Man? What else is there to see after He has been unveiled as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe? What more is there to desire after He eradicates sin and restores us to our original perfection? Jesus Christ is God’s last and best Word.

Son of God, Son of Man, having you, we need nothing more.


Friday, Oct. 6 ­ - Hebrews 2:5-12

We Need to be Restored

God’s people acknowledge that there is an order to creation, wherein diverse beings assume their proper place and perform their particular functions to His glory. Psalm 8 is a moving affirmation of that belief. But sin has subverted His perfectly designed, perfectly balanced order, and as a consequence every relationship we have—with God, with each other, and with creation—has been upset. Nature (including human nature) strains, cracks and disintegrates under sin’s load.

This order cannot be re-established by mere men and women, or even angels. Only Jesus is able to help us and defend us against sin. But the cure is a terrible one: to reconstruct what has been broken, He must be broken. Shame, suffering and death are the necessary restoratives, and they are applied with painstaking effectiveness, allowing us to pray:

Jesus our Redeemer,
You not only sustain all things but restore them to your Father’s original design. We marvel at Your love, that—after all we have done to defy you—You proudly pronounce us your brothers and sisters.


Saturday, Oct. 7 ­ - James 5:10-20

We Need Mercy and Compassion

I dreaded making the call. We had left Steve home sick, with a 102 degree fever. Now I had to tell him that I had just rear-ended a family in their brand new Jetta, smashing the left front of our Camry. The girls and I had driven an hour north to celebrate Thanksgiving with relatives at their new home, but in the darkness, fog and drizzle my eyes lingered too long trying to make out a street sign. Steve met my news with patience, concern and resourcefulness. All would be well.

The Lord welcomes our admissions, no matter what they are, no matter what the circumstances. However, we can’t be “double-minded.” We may not speak in the Lord’s name like the prophets, but we act on His behalf. How can we persevere, and help others to persevere today?

Steadfast Father, thank you for meeting the sicknesses of our bodies and souls with compassion, mercy and forgiveness. Merciful Jesus, thank you for surrounding us with your people, who listen, pray and minister in your Name.

The Whole Enchilada

A few days ago I had occasion to speak with a younger friend. He's been reading Donald Miller and the sort of stuff that you see in Relevant magazine, and seems to have been moved by their sincere call for a religion of the heart, rather than the head. That's great....except I worry about what will happen to him and a lot of other folks like him when they finally realize that following Christ is not an either/or situation, but a matter of both/and, the "whole enchilada."

Modernism held faith and reason to be opposed rather than complementary, and placed its trust in Reason. It's as if they decided to make enchiladas with the stiff circular form of the tortilla alone, discarding that messy sauce and filling. Now the postmodern pendulum, rightly sensing the disaster this has been, goes to the opposite extreme and disses the intellect, making faith exclusively a matter of feeling. This is like making an enchilada without its tortilla, allowing the spicy sauce to spill into a shallow pool covering one's plate. To do so taps into our Pietist heritage, repeating their rebellion against the scholasticism of the Lutheran Establishment, but it is to still be playing the game according to the rules of Modernism

"Look at it this way," I said tomy friend. "Someday you will love a woman. It may happen one of two ways.

1. Enchiladas need tortillas

"It may be that you fall in love at first sight. You don't know anything about her, but you are overcome with passion and absolutely cannot let her get away. You imagine her as some sort of goddess, holding your heart in thrall. What do you do?

First, you ferret out some information so you can get to know her. You discover her name, her phone number, where she lives, and in turn give her the same information about yourself. You ask her out. Laughing, she confesses that she's noticed you, as well, and is thrilled you would ask.

This just whets your thirst to know her better. You discover that her favorite group is Coldplay and her favorite film is The Shawshank Redemption. You learn that she played soccer all through elementary and middle school, but that she now is getting into ultimate frisbee and is trying to perfect her bidding. You are told by her close girlfriend that she works at Ross and is applying to Gonzaga next fall.

Then you get to know her even more. You discover that she has a brother with cerebral palsy, which caused her parents' marriage to collapse when she was twelve. You learn that her dream is to someday go to Prague, where her mother's people are from. She admits that she has been intrigued by Eastern Orthodoxy and has been going to St. Stamatios on the west end of town with that girlfriend for the last three months.

The point is: you can't love her apart from having some knowledge about her...knowledge that eventually reinforces your initial feelings for her and that leads to deeper feelings, so that finally, at some point, the knowing and the feeling become so entwined that it becomes impossible to separate them.

2. Enchiladas need filling

"But it could happen another way. You may be working with this girl, day after day. You know a lot about her. The two of you went through elementary, middle and high school together, and she always seemed quite ordinary. You aren't attracted to her at all. If anything, you think she is rather odd. Her ears are too big and stick out from her dirty blonde hair.

She likes to wear stripes, often in bright colors. You know that she got a scholarship from the U of O and double-majored in Biology and Computer Information Science. She lives close to work, and bikes everywhere. She always takes cream in her coffee and brings her lunch in a brown bag, so she can spend her lunch hour under the trees outside the office. There’s a small movie poster of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman in Gattaca neatly pinned to the wall of her cubicle. She’s currently reading
Searching for God Knows What.

But over time, you see how she treats everyone around her with dignity and respect. You see her work long and hard, and how she helps others who are falling behind. You begin to notice her honesty and smile. She doesn’t yell at you when you are late getting her your part of the project. You start anticipating the monthly staff meetings because she will be in attendance. Funny. Those ears start reminding you of Galadriel. You forward her a humorous story that has crossed your screen, and are pleased when she returns one to you.

Then it escalates. You start finding excuses to use the copier near her cubicle so you can take in her scent. You begin to dread the end of the week because it means a weekend without your paths crossing. Slowly, imperceptibly this woman you know so well becomes the woman you desire. When she announces she is being transferred to San Francisco, your heart shatters and you have to face up to your feelings, to your fantasy of someday holding her in your arms.

The point is: sometimes knowing can lead to loving.

Now tell me, which is the way to fall in love? Story one, or story two?

Nonsense, you say. Relationships can start either way!

All righty then, let's switch gears. It is clear that you can’t have a genuine enchilada without both the tortilla and the filling. But does it matter all that much which you prepare first, the tortilla or the filling? What if a relationship with Jesus Christ is like making an enchilada? What if His first approach to us is through the “tortilla” of Four Spiritual Laws, or a catechism, or Bible verses memorized at Awana, or Aristotle’s Metaphysics? Or what if His first approach is to us through the “filling” of a Wyldlife camp, a team sport, a film, the sound of ocean waves crashing, or the sacrament of communion?

Following Christ is a love affair. How did it begin for you?