As I wrote in last week’s column, I have come to think of God’s revelation as an invitation to enter into God’s unfathomable life of love and to think of faith as a saying yes to that invitation. Thinking of revelation and faith this way has marvelous implications for our lives.
God’s invitation can come to us through various mediators such as other persons, nature, history, art and in an ultimate way, through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. After persons say yes to the invitation, faith takes its cognitive form in dogmas, doctrines and prayers of the faith community. When I think about revelation and faith in this way, I see more clearly, and I think more deeply about how much God loves us.
God does not have to invite us into an intimate love relationship, so it is awesome that God chooses to do so. The invitation is a wonderful sign of God’s love for us. Being loved is always a gift. God’s love for us is the best gift. To whom is God’s invitation offered? To every human being.
The invitation is offered not only to those who seem to do their best to please God. It is offered to those who seem to have made no room for God in their lives. It is offered to Catholics who attend Mass every Sunday and to Catholics who rarely, if ever, go to Mass. It is offered to those who believe in God and to those who say they do not believe in God. It is offered to Christians who are not Catholic and also people who are not Christian. It is even offered to agnostics and atheists. No one is excluded from God’s love.
I have come to believe that this invitation is never withdrawn. God is always loving and inviting us. Even when a person consciously, through serious sin, rejects God, the invitation is not withdrawn. Nothing anyone does can stop God from loving.
Pursuing the Sinner
At St. John’s University this semester, I am teaching a course on philosophy and literature. I gave the course two subtitles: “Meaning, Mystery and Metaphysics in the Catholic Novel” and “God, Satan and Sin.” In a number of the novels that the students and I discuss, the theme is that God always lovingly pursues the sinner. In the first class, I give students a copy of Francis Thomson’s wonderful poem, “The Hound of Heaven.” It poetically expresses a view of God that is present in several of the novels that we read. In fact, the view may be present in all eight books.
Because God’s invitation is never withdrawn, it can be responded to at any time, in any place and at any moment.
I don’t pretend to understand how an agnostic or an atheist might respond to God’s invitation. How can someone who does not believe in God respond to God’s invitation to enter into a loving relationship? Perhaps it happens through the agnostic or atheist following his or her conscience and sincerely trying to live what he or she believes is the moral way to live. Maybe by loving human beings and caring for the poor or being faithful to marriage vows, an agnostic or atheist may meet God. I agree with Pope Francis’ view that God is part of everyone’s life.
Inadequate View
As a young priest, I suspect that I had a view of God’s relationship with human persons as almost mechanistic. I certainly didn’t have an adequate view of God’s love for us. I think I considered some people completely cut off from God. If people seemed to be living in what I considered a state of sin, I don’t think I even encouraged them to pray.
Perhaps I had the impression that their prayers couldn’t reach God because their sinful state made them incapable of reaching God. I find it hard to believe that I could have ever thought that. I now suspect that anyone who prays sincerely cannot be in a state of sin.
That God is inviting everyone into a love relationship is awesome. Sinner that I am, I cannot prevent God from loving me. No person can prevent God from loving. If believing in that truth does not make us joyful and hopeful and unafraid, then I don’t know what will.
Father Robert Lauder, philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica, is the author of “Pope Francis’ Spirituality and Our Story” (Resurrection Press).