Howdy all.
I feel a brief apology and a slightly less brief explanation for my silence might be in order--in case anyone's still around who cares.
I do apologise for my lack of attention to my blogs lately. I've had a busy sort of year, between new a new shift at work, a new job/promotion, more responsibility, less energy, a mission trip to Haiti, running our recent Halloween for Hunger food drive for our parish, plans for a new Catholic outreach project here in Hamilton, as well as the general throes of life and marriage. On top of all of that, it seems that returning from Haiti, in particular, has caused certain unresolved issues in my past to manifest in a sort of depression, which has played out, by and large, through far too much sleeping and not enough desire to do any of the things I need to do, and that I love to do. This blog, as well as Barque of Peter, and my art, have all, unfortunately, become the main victims of my busy life and psychological malaise.
That was then,of course, and this is now. And hopefully now will yield something different. I have and am taking steps to put my life back in order. The step, though, that most concerns you, dear reader, was actually taken by my beautiful and loving wife, who as an early Christmas present, bought me an HP Mini laptop with a Rogers Internet Stick, for the express purpose of getting me back to blogging! Because she's just awesome that way! And it is on this very laptop (which even happens to be a wonderful shade of my favourite of hues), that I am currently composing this message to you.
So here's the plan:
As I mentioned, there are various steps I am taking to get my life heading in the way I think God wants it to go. Some of those steps are significantly more immediate than others, and some are significantly more personal than others. In a nutshell, I'm intending to pursue a vocation to the Permanent Diaconate, and will contact the Diocese regarding that by week's end. I'll be old enough to start formation for the Diaconate in May, so it seems an appropriate time to get those ducks in a row. Saturday, Melissa and I are getting formation on becoming Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, so that we can serve more faithfully and purposefully in that most important aspect of the Christian Faith: the Eucharist. Over the next little while, I plan as well to join the Lay Dominicans, something I've been discerning for quite some time. On top of that, I mentioned a Catholic outreach above that I want to bring to Hamilton. I would love to see that kick off by Lent of next year, but it may wait until the following September, depending on certain details. Hopefully I can keep you more informed in the coming weeks and months.
So in all that hectic business, thanks to my new laptop, I'll have opportunity to blog during various periods of downtime previously unavailable to me: namely, break time at work! That's 45 minutes a day that I truly have nothing better to do than to write about the truth and beauty of the Church that Jesus founded! That's the sure thing, time-wise, on top of any other spare opportunity I get, like now, for example, while I sit in my car waiting for my wife to finish a tutoring session.
So expect new articles here and at Barque of Peter on a much more frequent basis! Next up for here, I'll continue to tell you What I Saw in Haiti. Over at Barque of Peter, I'll be returning to the series I'd begun on the Eucharist.
May God richly bless you as he has Melissa and me.
Monday, 15 November 2010
Friday, 12 November 2010
What I Saw in Haiti: Chapter 2
"Di Bonjou Se Lizaj."
In the wake of the earthquake, however, many saw this planned venture as a hopeless waste of time. After all, in the midst of such devastating tragedy, what could we really hope to accomplish? We weren't engineers, or doctors, or anything that seemed at all "useful". Wouldn't it be better, people repeatedly asked, to just send money? The logic of their question weighed heavily on our minds, and caused no little amount of second guessing. My own wife often wondered whether it would be better (and safer) if I just stayed home. But I felt a call to go, and I felt I had to respond. When we settled on the purpose of the mission as being to teach First Aid, we started feeling the first glimmers of actually having a legitimate reason for going. The snag, of course, was that of the five of us, only one of us, Nassrin, was qualified to teach First Aid. On the one hand, we couldn't just send her alone, but on the other hand, what would the four of us do that weren't teaching? We still felt useless, despite Père Ronal's insistence that he wanted us all to come.
Despite our doubts, we did feel God wanted us to go, and so we pressed on in our plans, hoping that God would reveal the reason that all five of us were travelling to Haiti, and what we could contribute to the mission and to the people of Beau-Sejour. Part of this preparation, and in turn, part of the answer, came again from Père Philippe, who graciously took time out of his busy schedule to teach us some basic phrases in Créole.
Language is an interesting thing. Not only is it our principle means of communication, but it can at the same time be our principle form of alienation. This is the lesson in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Common language and understanding can bring great unity to people--but when you take that away, the frustration and loneliness resulting from the inability to communicate can be overwhelming. This is the obvious fact about language. But there are subtler aspects to language as well, which serve to highlight not only differences in the words people use to express different ideas, but even differences in those very ideas. In other words, language is an important clue to what is important in a culture. And the little bit of Créole that the team learned from Père Philippe helped us to know that what was important to the people of Haiti, was our presence.
The first thing Père Philippe taught us was a Haitian proverb: "Di bonjou se lizaj." It means, "Saying hello is good manners." To the people of Haiti, especially in the rural areas like Beau-Sejour, everyone is family. Respect, love, and service are key aspects to their relationships--indeed, they are essential to their very survival. Every time you see someone, you stop and say hello--and not simply Hello, but that greeting takes on a dynamic expression. Recall my description of Père Philippe himself, when he would greet a person and make them feel like they were his brother, even if he had only just met them. It is not a particular good quality of Père Philippe's (though it does certainly make him a wonderful person and a wonderful priest), rather, it is a cultural way of life for his people. In fact, he told us that if you do not greet another person, you are considered rude, or perhaps learning delayed.
Père Philippe also taught the team a series of phrases about food and eating. Food is obviously an important and integral aspect of every culture, being a basic human necessity. However, how a particular culture approaches the issue of food says a lot about the prosperity of a nation, as well as the culture's understanding of the really important things in life. Whereas we in North America, with the availability, and indeed over-saturation of food, struggle with things like obesity and the opposite, eating disorders of various sorts, and so often need tragedies like the Earthquake to prompt us to share from our abundance with those who are less fortunate, another Haitian proverb reveals their attitude toward the little food that they have: "Manje separe pa janm fini"--"The food you share never ends." The people of Beau-Sejour depend very much on subsistence farming. Whatever they can produce from the mountainside is their dinner, and so this principle of generosity and solidarity is again a truth of survival and yet more--it is a truth about peace.
While we were in Haiti, we met some Brothers who truly lived this proverb. Les Petites Frères de Ste. Thérèse is a Religious Order uniquely Haitian. Their mission is in part to run the parish schools around Beau-Sejour, but it is also one of farming--trying to revitalise the soil denuded of trees, and eventually to re-tree the mountains in order to make Haiti a place of good harvest. In this venture, they encourage a co-operative gardening project among the residents of Beau-Sejour. Those who help tend the gardens may reap the harvest with the Brothers in order to help feed their families and others in need. In this way, this shared food really does never end, but through the tender hearts and green thumbs of the Little Brothers, the harvest of crops as well as the harvest of souls will indeed be plentiful.
I do apologise for the lack of updates to my Haiti adventures. It took a lot longer than I expected to get into the swing of things upon my return. One of the main factors for the delay was a cockroach infestation that was being dealt with after my return--and which, scheduling-wise, went a bit shakily. But the bugs are now dead or dying (I hope), and I again seem to have some time to continue. Thanks for your patience--assuming you're all still out there...Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?In my first chapter, I mentioned Père Philippe, and his dream of twinning parishes in Hamilton and Haiti, and how in 2008 this dream became a reality when St. Margaret Mary, of Hamilton, twinned with the parish he founded, St. Gabriel, in Beau-Sejour. And now, I was planning to go and visit our twin parish with a team of five, including my priest, Fr. Bill Trusz.
In the wake of the earthquake, however, many saw this planned venture as a hopeless waste of time. After all, in the midst of such devastating tragedy, what could we really hope to accomplish? We weren't engineers, or doctors, or anything that seemed at all "useful". Wouldn't it be better, people repeatedly asked, to just send money? The logic of their question weighed heavily on our minds, and caused no little amount of second guessing. My own wife often wondered whether it would be better (and safer) if I just stayed home. But I felt a call to go, and I felt I had to respond. When we settled on the purpose of the mission as being to teach First Aid, we started feeling the first glimmers of actually having a legitimate reason for going. The snag, of course, was that of the five of us, only one of us, Nassrin, was qualified to teach First Aid. On the one hand, we couldn't just send her alone, but on the other hand, what would the four of us do that weren't teaching? We still felt useless, despite Père Ronal's insistence that he wanted us all to come.
Despite our doubts, we did feel God wanted us to go, and so we pressed on in our plans, hoping that God would reveal the reason that all five of us were travelling to Haiti, and what we could contribute to the mission and to the people of Beau-Sejour. Part of this preparation, and in turn, part of the answer, came again from Père Philippe, who graciously took time out of his busy schedule to teach us some basic phrases in Créole.
Language is an interesting thing. Not only is it our principle means of communication, but it can at the same time be our principle form of alienation. This is the lesson in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Common language and understanding can bring great unity to people--but when you take that away, the frustration and loneliness resulting from the inability to communicate can be overwhelming. This is the obvious fact about language. But there are subtler aspects to language as well, which serve to highlight not only differences in the words people use to express different ideas, but even differences in those very ideas. In other words, language is an important clue to what is important in a culture. And the little bit of Créole that the team learned from Père Philippe helped us to know that what was important to the people of Haiti, was our presence.
The first thing Père Philippe taught us was a Haitian proverb: "Di bonjou se lizaj." It means, "Saying hello is good manners." To the people of Haiti, especially in the rural areas like Beau-Sejour, everyone is family. Respect, love, and service are key aspects to their relationships--indeed, they are essential to their very survival. Every time you see someone, you stop and say hello--and not simply Hello, but that greeting takes on a dynamic expression. Recall my description of Père Philippe himself, when he would greet a person and make them feel like they were his brother, even if he had only just met them. It is not a particular good quality of Père Philippe's (though it does certainly make him a wonderful person and a wonderful priest), rather, it is a cultural way of life for his people. In fact, he told us that if you do not greet another person, you are considered rude, or perhaps learning delayed.
Père Philippe also taught the team a series of phrases about food and eating. Food is obviously an important and integral aspect of every culture, being a basic human necessity. However, how a particular culture approaches the issue of food says a lot about the prosperity of a nation, as well as the culture's understanding of the really important things in life. Whereas we in North America, with the availability, and indeed over-saturation of food, struggle with things like obesity and the opposite, eating disorders of various sorts, and so often need tragedies like the Earthquake to prompt us to share from our abundance with those who are less fortunate, another Haitian proverb reveals their attitude toward the little food that they have: "Manje separe pa janm fini"--"The food you share never ends." The people of Beau-Sejour depend very much on subsistence farming. Whatever they can produce from the mountainside is their dinner, and so this principle of generosity and solidarity is again a truth of survival and yet more--it is a truth about peace.
While we were in Haiti, we met some Brothers who truly lived this proverb. Les Petites Frères de Ste. Thérèse is a Religious Order uniquely Haitian. Their mission is in part to run the parish schools around Beau-Sejour, but it is also one of farming--trying to revitalise the soil denuded of trees, and eventually to re-tree the mountains in order to make Haiti a place of good harvest. In this venture, they encourage a co-operative gardening project among the residents of Beau-Sejour. Those who help tend the gardens may reap the harvest with the Brothers in order to help feed their families and others in need. In this way, this shared food really does never end, but through the tender hearts and green thumbs of the Little Brothers, the harvest of crops as well as the harvest of souls will indeed be plentiful.
Again, sorry for the significant delay. Coming up next, we get to the good stuff: the departure and arrival in Haiti!.
Monday, 16 August 2010
What I Saw in Haiti: Chapter 1
The Plan
Père Phillipe is a large-hearted man who automatically makes you feel like you are not simply his friend, but his very family. With large, expressive arms and a bright smile to match, he would greet you in his Creole accent, "My brotha, how good to see you today!" During his time here in the Diocese of Hamilton (he is now the pastor at a French parish here, Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours), he has continued to love and to work for the people of his homeland--especially for the remote village of Beau-Sejour in the mountains halfway between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, and the parish of St. Gabriel there, which he founded. This work has taken concrete expression at St. Margaret Mary in the form of a "twinning project", in which my parish raises money, prays, and sends down mission teams to help the villagers of Beau-Sejour, and express our love and solidarity with them. In turn, they continue to keep us in their prayers. Through this endeavour, we really are becoming one family.
Ever since the Twinning Project took effect in 2008, I have had a great desire to be a part of one of the mission teams. The problem was mainly, though, what could I offer? In the past, we sent doctors and nurses to operate a health clinic, or a team of dentists to (for the most part) extract teeth. I am not a builder, a doctor, or anything that would seem particularly "useful". I simply am a person who wants to be a missionary.
Then, a couple years ago, the parish priest at St. Gabriel (who took over for Père Philippe), Père Ronal, came to visit us in Hamilton. He expressed to my priest, Fr. Bill Trusz, that it would be good for my wife and I (a teacher and a former youth minister) to go and help run a summer camp that they have for the children in Leogane. Melissa and I were very excited about this possibility, and had tried to gear things around going in the summer of 2009. Yet, because of some breakdown of communication somewhere over the Atlantic, we never heard anything more about the opportunity. When, the following winter, the youth minister at our parish began planning to do the same thing with some of the older youth and young adults, we again signed up to go. But then, in January, the devastating earthquake ravaged Haiti, and at the same time, shook all our plans to go. The camp was destroyed, conditions were far too unsafe for travel, and we were far too ill-equipped to deal with or help in the wake of the earthquake.
Once more, it looked like our plans were shattered, but we refused to give up hope. Recognising that there must be something we could do, we continued planning. We cut the planned team from 10 people over two weeks, down to 5 people for one week, in order to be less of a burden. In this reshuffling, my wife graciously decided to remain home so one more person could have a spot. However, the question remained, "What could we hope to do?" Was it enough to go just to gape at the carnage and offer our petty prayers on their behalf? Wasn't there something we could do tangibly?
Despite many nay-sayers who called us useless and crazy for wanting to go, Père Ronal kept insisting that we should, and that he really wanted us to come. Nassrin, our youth minister, kept writing to him back and forth via email, asking what we could do if we came. Finally, we arrived at the solution: We would teach First Aid to the villagers, so that they could better tend to themselves in an emergency!
And so, with a clear direction and purpose, we turned a deaf ear to the nay-sayers and scoffers, and set out to prepare to go to Beau-Sejour.
In my overwhelming desire to write about my recent mission trip to Beau-Sejour, Haiti, I find I am significantly less sure as to what I want to write about my recent trip. Part of me wants to reconstruct the trip like a journal or a travelogue. The rest of me wants to try to offer social and religious commentary. It leaves me with an odd juxtaposition, and further causes me to wonder just where to begin. Of course, I suppose in that regard, I am in good company. The great G.K. Chesterton set out to write a travelogue of his speaking engagement in the United States in 1921, and ended up writing a serious work on the concept of a "nation" in general. The title of this post is an homage to Chesterton's book.While I was investigating the Catholic Church, and regularly attending Mass with my girlfriend (now my wife), we had the blessed opportunity to encounter a priest, named Fr. Philippe Jean-Pierre. He had recently arrived from Haiti and was intending to increase his education and English speaking skills. He was stationed at my parish of St. Margaret Mary as our associate priest for a few years. Later, when my wife and I got married, and our priest could not perform the ceremony because he had just been elected Auxiliary Bishop in our diocese, we sought out Père Phillipe (who had been moved to a parish in Ancaster, ON) to perform that honour for us.
Père Phillipe is a large-hearted man who automatically makes you feel like you are not simply his friend, but his very family. With large, expressive arms and a bright smile to match, he would greet you in his Creole accent, "My brotha, how good to see you today!" During his time here in the Diocese of Hamilton (he is now the pastor at a French parish here, Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours), he has continued to love and to work for the people of his homeland--especially for the remote village of Beau-Sejour in the mountains halfway between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, and the parish of St. Gabriel there, which he founded. This work has taken concrete expression at St. Margaret Mary in the form of a "twinning project", in which my parish raises money, prays, and sends down mission teams to help the villagers of Beau-Sejour, and express our love and solidarity with them. In turn, they continue to keep us in their prayers. Through this endeavour, we really are becoming one family.
Ever since the Twinning Project took effect in 2008, I have had a great desire to be a part of one of the mission teams. The problem was mainly, though, what could I offer? In the past, we sent doctors and nurses to operate a health clinic, or a team of dentists to (for the most part) extract teeth. I am not a builder, a doctor, or anything that would seem particularly "useful". I simply am a person who wants to be a missionary.
Then, a couple years ago, the parish priest at St. Gabriel (who took over for Père Philippe), Père Ronal, came to visit us in Hamilton. He expressed to my priest, Fr. Bill Trusz, that it would be good for my wife and I (a teacher and a former youth minister) to go and help run a summer camp that they have for the children in Leogane. Melissa and I were very excited about this possibility, and had tried to gear things around going in the summer of 2009. Yet, because of some breakdown of communication somewhere over the Atlantic, we never heard anything more about the opportunity. When, the following winter, the youth minister at our parish began planning to do the same thing with some of the older youth and young adults, we again signed up to go. But then, in January, the devastating earthquake ravaged Haiti, and at the same time, shook all our plans to go. The camp was destroyed, conditions were far too unsafe for travel, and we were far too ill-equipped to deal with or help in the wake of the earthquake.
Once more, it looked like our plans were shattered, but we refused to give up hope. Recognising that there must be something we could do, we continued planning. We cut the planned team from 10 people over two weeks, down to 5 people for one week, in order to be less of a burden. In this reshuffling, my wife graciously decided to remain home so one more person could have a spot. However, the question remained, "What could we hope to do?" Was it enough to go just to gape at the carnage and offer our petty prayers on their behalf? Wasn't there something we could do tangibly?
Despite many nay-sayers who called us useless and crazy for wanting to go, Père Ronal kept insisting that we should, and that he really wanted us to come. Nassrin, our youth minister, kept writing to him back and forth via email, asking what we could do if we came. Finally, we arrived at the solution: We would teach First Aid to the villagers, so that they could better tend to themselves in an emergency!
And so, with a clear direction and purpose, we turned a deaf ear to the nay-sayers and scoffers, and set out to prepare to go to Beau-Sejour.
Tomorrow, I'll talk a little bit about our preparations, and the beginning of the trip. I'm not sure how long this series will be. Until I've said everything I need to, I guess. God bless.
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Sorry for the lack of Posting
But you're not going to get anything out of me for a little while.
I've been a bit absent lately as I prepare to go on a mission trip to Haiti. My team is leaving tomorrow, and we'll be back on the 13th. So yeah, needless to say, I won't be posting for a little bit--but when I get back, I'll let you all know how it went.
Please pray for Fr. Bill Trusz, Nassrin Msiss, Daniel D'Souza, Mark Drotar, and I, as we go to be with the Haitien people of Beau-Sejour, a remote mountain village, as they slowly rebuild from the earthquake, as we offer our compassion and solidarity with them, and teach them First Aid to help equip them to better take care of themselves.
God bless
Gregory
I've been a bit absent lately as I prepare to go on a mission trip to Haiti. My team is leaving tomorrow, and we'll be back on the 13th. So yeah, needless to say, I won't be posting for a little bit--but when I get back, I'll let you all know how it went.
Please pray for Fr. Bill Trusz, Nassrin Msiss, Daniel D'Souza, Mark Drotar, and I, as we go to be with the Haitien people of Beau-Sejour, a remote mountain village, as they slowly rebuild from the earthquake, as we offer our compassion and solidarity with them, and teach them First Aid to help equip them to better take care of themselves.
God bless
Gregory
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Body of Christ sketch
Image © 2010 Gregory Watson
Pencil Sketch, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".
Here's the value drawing sketch of another painting I want to do in the not too distant future. The image was inspired by an experience I had this past February or March. I was sponsoring someone through the RCIA process at my parish, and on one of the Rites of Welcoming, we happened to be in the front pew during Communion. At the time, we had a seminarian with us doing his internship, Deacon (now Father) Jeff Oehring, who happened to be distributing the Host directly in front of where I was kneeling after receiving the Eucharist. I looked up from prayer, and right in front of my face was the ciborium that he was holding, and reflected in it, I could see myself, and the entire church behind me. Immediately, I knew I had to paint it.The original sketch has sadly been destroyed by the front cover of my sketchbook, while it was packed in my luggage on my trip to Haiti, but prints of the image are now for sale. please email doubting-thomist@hotmail.com to order Prints.
Hence the image here, depicting, in a slightly different way, the scene that I saw. I say slightly different because that's not technically me in the foreground of the ciborium. It was intentionally a generic blurry person. Also, the structure of the church is decidedly more traditional and Gothic than my parish. Finally, I had intended to depict reception of the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue (of course, the image doesn't depict the actual communicating, so it's a bit ambiguous that way, which is good in its way because it's applicable to a wider range of Catholic experience then).
The title, "Body of Christ", is as multi-layered as is the term in Catholic theology, which is what made me want to make this image. Obviously, first and foremost, it refers to the Eucharistic Host, in which Jesus is truly present, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The moment captured is right when the priest or other minister of Holy Communion would say, "The Body of Christ" before administering the host to the communicant. However, the priest's hands are also a part of the meaning of "Body of Christ", since we hold that the priest is himself an alter Christus--by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest has the authority to act in persona Christi for us, a tangible sign and example of Christ's presence among us.
Finally, the reflection of the Church in the ciborium brings out a third dimension to "Body of Christ", in that we, the Church, is the Body of Christ, and we, individually, are members of it. It is through Communion that we become that Body, as St. Paul writes, "The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).
I plan to paint it with a very simple colour palate. The background, which merges into the sleeves of the chasuble, will be green, while the ciborium will be in golden tones, as will the shading in the alb. The skin will reflect that golden hue, though in a more natural skin-tone. I hope to keep the image simple, yet profound.
- Full size (5" x 8.5") limited edition high quality giclée print (unframed): $10.00 (CAD)
- Full size (5" x 8.5") limited edition high quality giclée print (framed): $20.00 (CAD)
- Image on 4¼" x 5½" Greeting Card (blank): $1.50 (CAD)
God bless
Gregory
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Epicurious about Suffering?
Recently, over at Barque of Peter, an anonymous commenter posted in the third Open Forum a question about why there is suffering if God is all good and all powerful. In a nutshell, he was troubled by a quote that has gotten a lot of use lately by the "New Atheists", and is attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus:
The good news is, there are a couple of good and short answers to the questions posed by Epicurus. The bad news is, people tend to find short answers unsatisfying, while on the other hand, they find the long, in depth answers boring. So, I'll attempt to provide you, dear reader, with both--the short answers first, and a more in depth elaboration after.
My first reply is that Epicurus' argument is actually nothing more than sophistry. (Sophistry: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.) That is, the argument is ingeniously phrased as to appear to cover all the bases, but it makes a deceptive move in plainly ignoring various other alternatives. It is equally deceptive in that, if it does indeed originate from Epicurus, he himself believed in gods. Hence, to formulate an argument against one's own beliefs is either for the purpose of dialogue or deception. The trilemmic formulation of the riddle doesn't tend to allow for dialogue--especially as it is used today by the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins. As such, I tend to view it as sophistry.
Of course, simply saying the argument is sophistry isn't quite effective enough to reassure those who face it that it is nothing about which to worry. So we'll move on to my second short answer, and build from there.
As I mentioned, despite the ingenious formulation of Epicurus' argument, in that it appears to cover all the angles, there are many assumptions being made throughout that should themselves be questioned. St. Augustine, the great early Christian theologian, addressed the problem of suffering point blank when he wrote, "Almighty God would not permit evil to exist in his works, unless he were so almighty and so good to produce good even from evil" (Enchiridion 11).
That, in a nutshell, is the Catholic Church's response to the problem of evil. But let's take a moment to crack that nut, shall we?
The problem with our culture and society today is that as a whole we seem to suffer from collective Attention Deficit Disorder. We want our deepest questions answered before the popcorn stops popping in the microwave. But as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, in response to why a loving and omnipotent God would permit evil,
In paragraph 324, the Catechism sums up by referring to St. Augustine's teaching that while we cannot fully understand why God allows evil, we can in faith be assured that He only does so to bring about a greater good.
So saying leads us to another element that Epicurus' riddle fails to address. He covers God being all-powerful and God being loving, but he fails to mention God's omniscience, His wisdom, nor any other aspect of His infinity.
The fact is, an all-powerful and good God would indeed bring about an end to evil. The ultimate sophistry in Epicurus' riddle is assuming that he knows better than the all-knowing God how to be rid of evil. In fact, Epicurus, and all who repeat his riddle, assume that he, and they, know better than God what actually is evil.
Of course, the fatal error in their questioning lies here: If the existence of evil demonstrates the non-existence of God, then the non-existence of God means that the world is simply the result of random chance, without design or intelligible order. The metaphysical categories of "good" and "evil" have no meaning in such a randomly constructed and meaningless universe--it simply is what it is. Now, if the universe simply is what it is, and good and evil have no objective criteria defining them, then it is impossible to determine what Good and Evil are, or even if they are. As such, "Evil" can not be proffered as an argument against the existence of God, because evil itself ceases to exist.
In other words, if there is something identifiable as "evil", that is, a deprivation of some good, then there must be an order, a meaning, a standard defining that the world ought to be a particular way. That is to say, if we can determine that the world is wrong, then we are at the same time saying there is a design to which the world should adhere. Design, of course, implies a Designer, i.e., God.
As such, the only way for Epicurus' riddle to be internally consistent would be to redefine "evil" as "What I happen to not like," which, I suppose, according to Epicurean philosophy, might very well be how Epicurus might define "evil."
But then his argument runs thus:
Furthermore, without any objective standard of evil beyond that which happens to displease us, expecting God to simply obliterate that which displeases us according to our whim and fancy, on the grounds that God is "all powerful" and "loving" simply shows Epicurus' riddle to be the sophistry that it is. Because God isn't waiting on our every beck and call to answer our demands for perfect happiness in the way we want it, when, how, and on the terms which we want it, He therefore must not exist. The ultimate sophistry of Epicurus' riddle is that he wants to have it both ways: For the argument to work, there needs to be Evil, because it apparently demonstrates that there is no God--but if there is no God, then "Evil" itself has no meaning.
I could continue to explore further reasons that bringing the riddle to its logical conclusions really rather backfires on the person making the argument, but I think you get the point.
So, whence comes evil? Ironically, it stems from God's Love, and His desire to love and be loved. He created the world and populated it full of rational beings like you and me, so that we could love Him and He us. But love requires a free choice, and so He gave us that choice, to love Him, the source of all goodness, or to reject Him and choose lesser goods instead. Evil, which is a deprivation of some good, results when a good is chosen in a disordered fashion. When, through sin, we choose not to love God, we become disordered in our desires, and this causes evil and suffering, both for ourselves, and for others, and to the world as a whole.
So, can God just "stop" the evil? Yes, but not without eliminating our freedom of choice. If He did so, He would negate the sole purpose of our creation. Since we were created to be free, eliminating our freedom would itself be evil--a deprivation of a good which we possess, or should possess, by our nature. In other words, in order to eliminate evil, God would have to commit a greater evil. As the old adage goes, two wrongs don't make a right.
So then, we're back to St. Augustine. God only permits evil because He's powerful enough to turn it into a greater Good. Our free ability to sin is the exact same things as the good of our free ability to love. And if we're willing to make that choice, then all the other evil, all the other suffering, all the other things we don't particularly happen to like, can actually become vehicles for His Grace to pour out greater good.
We see this analogically in nature. The very notion of "exercise" bears this out. We want to "feel the burn" because "no pain, no gain." The often uncomfortable and sometimes painful exertion of our muscles leads to greater fitness, health, and strength.
Similarly, the suffocating struggle of the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon is precisely the necessary exercise it needs to be able to fly. The most fertile ground results from forest fires. Or, as Jesus Christ Himself said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
Nowhere is this better realised than in Jesus Himself. The Greatest Good entered the world, and encountered Evil head on. It was precisely through His Suffering that He conquered Evil--not to make it something we never experience, but rather to make our experience of evil something that can be grace-filled, that when we follow Him, and suffer with and through Him, that suffering will bring about greater good in our life, and in the lives of others (see Colossians 1:24).
Of course, the same choice that brought about evil is ours today. Do we choose the lesser good to avoid the suffering, or do we go through the suffering with faith, knowing that God will bring out of it something that we can't even imagine? (c.f. Ephesians 3:20-21.)
"We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good" (Romans 8:28, NJB).
By way of further reading, Robert Colquhoun over at Love Undefiled addresses this issue as well as provides some rational arguments in favour of God's existence in an article he wrote in the wake of the Asian Tsunami of Christmas 2004.
God bless
Gregory
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?I've seen this riddle more than a few times in the past couple of years, and had always meant to post an article in response to it. Since I had to give a rather in depth response to the seeker on my other blog, I figured I'd re-post it here, and perhaps help others who find Epicurus' Riddle unsolvable.
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
The good news is, there are a couple of good and short answers to the questions posed by Epicurus. The bad news is, people tend to find short answers unsatisfying, while on the other hand, they find the long, in depth answers boring. So, I'll attempt to provide you, dear reader, with both--the short answers first, and a more in depth elaboration after.
My first reply is that Epicurus' argument is actually nothing more than sophistry. (Sophistry: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.) That is, the argument is ingeniously phrased as to appear to cover all the bases, but it makes a deceptive move in plainly ignoring various other alternatives. It is equally deceptive in that, if it does indeed originate from Epicurus, he himself believed in gods. Hence, to formulate an argument against one's own beliefs is either for the purpose of dialogue or deception. The trilemmic formulation of the riddle doesn't tend to allow for dialogue--especially as it is used today by the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins. As such, I tend to view it as sophistry.
Of course, simply saying the argument is sophistry isn't quite effective enough to reassure those who face it that it is nothing about which to worry. So we'll move on to my second short answer, and build from there.
As I mentioned, despite the ingenious formulation of Epicurus' argument, in that it appears to cover all the angles, there are many assumptions being made throughout that should themselves be questioned. St. Augustine, the great early Christian theologian, addressed the problem of suffering point blank when he wrote, "Almighty God would not permit evil to exist in his works, unless he were so almighty and so good to produce good even from evil" (Enchiridion 11).
That, in a nutshell, is the Catholic Church's response to the problem of evil. But let's take a moment to crack that nut, shall we?
The problem with our culture and society today is that as a whole we seem to suffer from collective Attention Deficit Disorder. We want our deepest questions answered before the popcorn stops popping in the microwave. But as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, in response to why a loving and omnipotent God would permit evil,
To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil. (#309, emphasis in original)For some reason, people today take such an answer as being evasive. This is another sophistry, masking the individual person's laziness in actually exploring just what the message of Christianity is.
In paragraph 324, the Catechism sums up by referring to St. Augustine's teaching that while we cannot fully understand why God allows evil, we can in faith be assured that He only does so to bring about a greater good.
So saying leads us to another element that Epicurus' riddle fails to address. He covers God being all-powerful and God being loving, but he fails to mention God's omniscience, His wisdom, nor any other aspect of His infinity.
The fact is, an all-powerful and good God would indeed bring about an end to evil. The ultimate sophistry in Epicurus' riddle is assuming that he knows better than the all-knowing God how to be rid of evil. In fact, Epicurus, and all who repeat his riddle, assume that he, and they, know better than God what actually is evil.
Of course, the fatal error in their questioning lies here: If the existence of evil demonstrates the non-existence of God, then the non-existence of God means that the world is simply the result of random chance, without design or intelligible order. The metaphysical categories of "good" and "evil" have no meaning in such a randomly constructed and meaningless universe--it simply is what it is. Now, if the universe simply is what it is, and good and evil have no objective criteria defining them, then it is impossible to determine what Good and Evil are, or even if they are. As such, "Evil" can not be proffered as an argument against the existence of God, because evil itself ceases to exist.
In other words, if there is something identifiable as "evil", that is, a deprivation of some good, then there must be an order, a meaning, a standard defining that the world ought to be a particular way. That is to say, if we can determine that the world is wrong, then we are at the same time saying there is a design to which the world should adhere. Design, of course, implies a Designer, i.e., God.
As such, the only way for Epicurus' riddle to be internally consistent would be to redefine "evil" as "What I happen to not like," which, I suppose, according to Epicurean philosophy, might very well be how Epicurus might define "evil."
But then his argument runs thus:
"If God is willing to prevent things from happening which I don't particularly like, but not able, then He is not omnipotent.Do we see what happens? If there is no objective standard of good or evil (which is the logical consequence of there being no God), then "evil" is simply what irritates me. Now, a great many things irritate me. My job irritates me because I have to do things that I don't want to, and can't do things that I do want to. So God should eliminate my job, because it is evil to me. Of course, no job means no paycheque, which means no food or clothes or housing. So, which should God eliminate next? The need for money for food, clothes, and shelter? Or the need for food, clothes, and shelter? How far do we take it? If we carry this line of thinking--that God should eliminate every evil--to its logical conclusion, pretty soon He will be eliminating everything, because it somehow irritates someone, or He will eliminate everyone, because we're irritating each other or ourselves. If there is no objective standard for good and evil, ultimately, nothing has a right to exist.
Is He able but not willing [to prevent things that I don't like]? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing [to prevent things I don't happen to like]? Then whence comes that which I don't happen to like?
If He is neither able nor willing, then why call Him 'the Great Vending Machine in the Sky'?"
Furthermore, without any objective standard of evil beyond that which happens to displease us, expecting God to simply obliterate that which displeases us according to our whim and fancy, on the grounds that God is "all powerful" and "loving" simply shows Epicurus' riddle to be the sophistry that it is. Because God isn't waiting on our every beck and call to answer our demands for perfect happiness in the way we want it, when, how, and on the terms which we want it, He therefore must not exist. The ultimate sophistry of Epicurus' riddle is that he wants to have it both ways: For the argument to work, there needs to be Evil, because it apparently demonstrates that there is no God--but if there is no God, then "Evil" itself has no meaning.
I could continue to explore further reasons that bringing the riddle to its logical conclusions really rather backfires on the person making the argument, but I think you get the point.
So, whence comes evil? Ironically, it stems from God's Love, and His desire to love and be loved. He created the world and populated it full of rational beings like you and me, so that we could love Him and He us. But love requires a free choice, and so He gave us that choice, to love Him, the source of all goodness, or to reject Him and choose lesser goods instead. Evil, which is a deprivation of some good, results when a good is chosen in a disordered fashion. When, through sin, we choose not to love God, we become disordered in our desires, and this causes evil and suffering, both for ourselves, and for others, and to the world as a whole.
So, can God just "stop" the evil? Yes, but not without eliminating our freedom of choice. If He did so, He would negate the sole purpose of our creation. Since we were created to be free, eliminating our freedom would itself be evil--a deprivation of a good which we possess, or should possess, by our nature. In other words, in order to eliminate evil, God would have to commit a greater evil. As the old adage goes, two wrongs don't make a right.
So then, we're back to St. Augustine. God only permits evil because He's powerful enough to turn it into a greater Good. Our free ability to sin is the exact same things as the good of our free ability to love. And if we're willing to make that choice, then all the other evil, all the other suffering, all the other things we don't particularly happen to like, can actually become vehicles for His Grace to pour out greater good.
We see this analogically in nature. The very notion of "exercise" bears this out. We want to "feel the burn" because "no pain, no gain." The often uncomfortable and sometimes painful exertion of our muscles leads to greater fitness, health, and strength.
Similarly, the suffocating struggle of the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon is precisely the necessary exercise it needs to be able to fly. The most fertile ground results from forest fires. Or, as Jesus Christ Himself said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
Nowhere is this better realised than in Jesus Himself. The Greatest Good entered the world, and encountered Evil head on. It was precisely through His Suffering that He conquered Evil--not to make it something we never experience, but rather to make our experience of evil something that can be grace-filled, that when we follow Him, and suffer with and through Him, that suffering will bring about greater good in our life, and in the lives of others (see Colossians 1:24).
Of course, the same choice that brought about evil is ours today. Do we choose the lesser good to avoid the suffering, or do we go through the suffering with faith, knowing that God will bring out of it something that we can't even imagine? (c.f. Ephesians 3:20-21.)
"We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good" (Romans 8:28, NJB).
By way of further reading, Robert Colquhoun over at Love Undefiled addresses this issue as well as provides some rational arguments in favour of God's existence in an article he wrote in the wake of the Asian Tsunami of Christmas 2004.
God bless
Gregory
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Sean Asks...Where does Jesus claim to be God?
Sean asked me recently, "Where exactly, does Jesus claim to be God? Not an 'If you say so' or 'You say it' type of answer but where he says, 'Yes, I am God.'"
It seems almost like a silly question. Jesus is God. Obviously in Scripture, He would have clearly said so. Right? Well, actually, not so much. In fact, this very lack of a clear self-identification led many in the early days of the Church to question, or even outright deny, that Jesus was God. Almost all of the early heresies attacked the notion of God as Trinity in some way or another, and most of them did so particularly by questioning if and how Jesus was God.
Jesus never actually says, "Yes, I am God" at any point in the Gospels, in so many words. However, He says (and does) many things that are only proper for God to say (and do). Had Jesus come right out and directly said that He was God, the Jewish people would have rejected Him outright. Instead, over His three year ministry, He slowly revealed His identity to His followers and the crowds.
There are key times in the Gospels, though, where Jesus makes claims that are proper only to God, such as when He claims that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom He wishes to reveal the Father (Matt 11:25-27), or when He points out that David calls Him Lord in Psalm 110 (Matt 22:41-45). At His trial, Mark's account (generally considered the earliest version) has Jesus saying "I am" to the accusations, and then declaring that they will see Him at the right hand of God, at which point they condemn Him of blaspheming (Mark 14:62). It's even more grand a claim since He uses the Divine Name, "I Am" as His answer.
Yet it is in John's Gospel that we see the clearest claims of Jesus to be divine. Seven times in John's Gospel, Jesus identifies Himself by saying "I Am..." We see from the reaction of the crowds that they understood quite well what He meant (cf. John 8:59; 10:31-33). In those instances, Jesus never denies His statements or His meaning, but He does, for the sake of His hearers, justify His statements in a way that makes their attempt to stone Him unjustifiable.
On the other hand, Jesus' followers do in fact make the claim that Jesus is God, such as St. John at the beginning of his Gospel, when he writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1); or St. Paul, when he writes "In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9), or "Jesus Christ, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and took on the form of a slave..." (Philippians 2:6).
Consider also St. Thomas' words upon seeing Jesus after the Resurrection, when he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28) Rather than saying, "Hang on, there, Thomas, no one said I'm God," Jesus affirmed Thomas' statement, saying, "You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who do not see, and yet believe" (v.29)
As well, Jesus did things that were proper only to God. His miracles went far beyond what any prophet had ever done. Prophets healed the blind. Jesus healed men born blind. Prophets raised the dead. Jesus did so after there was no hope of resuscitation. He claimed to forgive sins, and could read the thoughts and hearts of people. On the mountain, His transfiguration revealed the truth of His divine glory. And, of course, His ultimate divine act was raising Himself to life.
However, despite all this biblical evidence, there was still no little controversy in the Early Church (and still more controversy today) about Jesus' divinity. This occurred for a few reasons in the Early Church. First of all, even though the Apostles and their associates wrote the Gospels and the Epistles that make up the New Testament, these texts weren't compiled as "the New Testament" until significantly later. Not every church in the early centuries had every book of the Bible to use. They had to rely solely on the teaching of their bishop, which had been passed on to him through Apostolic Succession. His teaching came from the Apostles or their successors. Unfortunately, some early Christians either misunderstood or chose to reject this apostolic teaching, and reinterpreted the message to suit their preconceived ideas. Moreover, the Scriptural evidence of Jesus' divinity seems more obvious to us, who have had 2000 years of Tradition guiding our understanding of those Scriptures. Such interpretations weren't immediately obvious to everyone, which is why Scripture itself warns us, "At the same time, we must recognise that the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual" (2 Peter 1:20). Later, Peter writes again, referring specifically to St. Paul's letters, "In all his letters there are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture--to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16b).
This is why it's always dangerous to go by the Bible alone in developing our theology. The heretics of the early centuries, who denied Jesus' divinity, demonstrate clearly--as do those today who deny His divinity--that Scripture isn't necessarily enough to prove that Jesus is God.
When, in AD 325, the Council of Nicaea met to determine the truth about Jesus' divinity, their fundamental question was, "What did the Apostles teach?" The unanimous consensus was that Jesus was truly God. This can be seen from the Scriptures above, as well as by the teachings of the Early Church Fathers from the time of the Apostles until the Council of Nicaea. For example:
It seems almost like a silly question. Jesus is God. Obviously in Scripture, He would have clearly said so. Right? Well, actually, not so much. In fact, this very lack of a clear self-identification led many in the early days of the Church to question, or even outright deny, that Jesus was God. Almost all of the early heresies attacked the notion of God as Trinity in some way or another, and most of them did so particularly by questioning if and how Jesus was God.
Jesus never actually says, "Yes, I am God" at any point in the Gospels, in so many words. However, He says (and does) many things that are only proper for God to say (and do). Had Jesus come right out and directly said that He was God, the Jewish people would have rejected Him outright. Instead, over His three year ministry, He slowly revealed His identity to His followers and the crowds.
There are key times in the Gospels, though, where Jesus makes claims that are proper only to God, such as when He claims that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom He wishes to reveal the Father (Matt 11:25-27), or when He points out that David calls Him Lord in Psalm 110 (Matt 22:41-45). At His trial, Mark's account (generally considered the earliest version) has Jesus saying "I am" to the accusations, and then declaring that they will see Him at the right hand of God, at which point they condemn Him of blaspheming (Mark 14:62). It's even more grand a claim since He uses the Divine Name, "I Am" as His answer.
Yet it is in John's Gospel that we see the clearest claims of Jesus to be divine. Seven times in John's Gospel, Jesus identifies Himself by saying "I Am..." We see from the reaction of the crowds that they understood quite well what He meant (cf. John 8:59; 10:31-33). In those instances, Jesus never denies His statements or His meaning, but He does, for the sake of His hearers, justify His statements in a way that makes their attempt to stone Him unjustifiable.
On the other hand, Jesus' followers do in fact make the claim that Jesus is God, such as St. John at the beginning of his Gospel, when he writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1); or St. Paul, when he writes "In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9), or "Jesus Christ, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and took on the form of a slave..." (Philippians 2:6).
Consider also St. Thomas' words upon seeing Jesus after the Resurrection, when he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28) Rather than saying, "Hang on, there, Thomas, no one said I'm God," Jesus affirmed Thomas' statement, saying, "You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who do not see, and yet believe" (v.29)
As well, Jesus did things that were proper only to God. His miracles went far beyond what any prophet had ever done. Prophets healed the blind. Jesus healed men born blind. Prophets raised the dead. Jesus did so after there was no hope of resuscitation. He claimed to forgive sins, and could read the thoughts and hearts of people. On the mountain, His transfiguration revealed the truth of His divine glory. And, of course, His ultimate divine act was raising Himself to life.
However, despite all this biblical evidence, there was still no little controversy in the Early Church (and still more controversy today) about Jesus' divinity. This occurred for a few reasons in the Early Church. First of all, even though the Apostles and their associates wrote the Gospels and the Epistles that make up the New Testament, these texts weren't compiled as "the New Testament" until significantly later. Not every church in the early centuries had every book of the Bible to use. They had to rely solely on the teaching of their bishop, which had been passed on to him through Apostolic Succession. His teaching came from the Apostles or their successors. Unfortunately, some early Christians either misunderstood or chose to reject this apostolic teaching, and reinterpreted the message to suit their preconceived ideas. Moreover, the Scriptural evidence of Jesus' divinity seems more obvious to us, who have had 2000 years of Tradition guiding our understanding of those Scriptures. Such interpretations weren't immediately obvious to everyone, which is why Scripture itself warns us, "At the same time, we must recognise that the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual" (2 Peter 1:20). Later, Peter writes again, referring specifically to St. Paul's letters, "In all his letters there are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture--to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16b).
This is why it's always dangerous to go by the Bible alone in developing our theology. The heretics of the early centuries, who denied Jesus' divinity, demonstrate clearly--as do those today who deny His divinity--that Scripture isn't necessarily enough to prove that Jesus is God.
When, in AD 325, the Council of Nicaea met to determine the truth about Jesus' divinity, their fundamental question was, "What did the Apostles teach?" The unanimous consensus was that Jesus was truly God. This can be seen from the Scriptures above, as well as by the teachings of the Early Church Fathers from the time of the Apostles until the Council of Nicaea. For example:
"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God's plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, 18:2 [AD 110]).For some further reading on Jesus as God, specifically for more quotations by Early Church Fathers regarding Jesus' divinity, and a more detailed account of the Council of Nicaea, check out Adversus Da Vinci: Jesus Christ, the God-Man.
"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to reestablish all things; and the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth..." (Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).
"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter of the perfect begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, only of the only, God of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal.... And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever" (Gregory the Wonderworker, Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).
To Him who can keep you from falling
and bring you safe to His glorious presence,
innocent and joyful,
to the only God, our Saviour,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, authority and power,
before all ages, now and forever.
Amen.
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