Sound doctrine and love do not exclude one another

Book 1, Chapter 2

-Part 8-

Whenever we hear one of our spiritual guides tell us that “God speaks to us personally,” or that “we only know perfectly what experience has taught us through suffering and action,” most of us will react.

The faith, we would contend, is based on objective, propositional truth; not on one’s subjective religious or non-religious experiences that have, after all, made God into some rather strange shapes through concocted theologies. We are aware of enough of this to become nervous when someone says to us that God “spoke to me,” or that it is their belief that the Holy Spirit is holed up in their basement or their suitcase. The mystics are sometimes blamed for pushing us away from objectivity and leading us in the direction of a “God-is-in-this-fruit-salad” sort of thinking.

Paul warned Timothy of such people in his second letter to the young church leader:

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 2:2-4)

Far from inviting us to dispense with the truth by which we learn of God, Caussade is here beckoning us to live life on more than theoretical terms. He is not in favor of people making up ridiculous notions about God; starting up movements or religions based on clumsy thinking and ham-fisted theology. When the good father is pulling us away from book-learning, it is because he wants us to walk with God, rather than discuss walking with God or read about walking with God.

He even says we can become like “dreamers” who know maps, but not places. He and we alike would balk at the idea of only knowing God in theory. Yet, every time we try to write against it, we are suspected of turning God into a bag of gummy bears.

We cannot help it. Talk of an “interior language” will give us the willies. We have to get used to the idea that experiencing the love of God does not comprise a departure, denial or defiance of the Scriptures.

Truth and love must work together as much on our part as they do on God’s part.

Additional note from Tim: We need to discover that we, as individuals, are created to be loved by God. We have not made much of a dent in this.