To Know and to Love

The metaphysical and material reality is one reality.  God so desires us to know Him, he has made himself accessible through both.  In my short life, the knowledge we have of the material world has expanded enormously in both directions.  We are simultaneously learning the Universe holds secrets which make it both larger and smaller than we could have ever imagined.  We focus in on the microscopic and out on the world beyond our own galaxy with greater and greater clarity. 

With high school and middle school students, I contemplate the Philosophical arguments for the Existence of God.  One which they grasp with ease is the Intelligent Design:  If there is a design, there must be a designer.  We look at three pictures: Help written in the sand, a letter found in a wall and a watch found on the beach.  They are asked: What has written Help in the sand, is it the wind?  What has left the note on the paper, is it mice feet?  What created the watch, was it the ebb and flow of the ocean?  We conclude quite quickly that it is not a what, but a who.  Behind intelligent designs must be an intelligence. We then look at two paintings, that of a young child and that of a skilled artist to deduce that the more complicated a design, the more intelligent and/or creative the designer.  By observing the known Universe, it is unreasonable to believe it was created by chance.  The more we learn, the more we understand it holds a design so complicated; its designer has an intelligence and a creativity far beyond our own.

The child in the Level Two Atrium uses similar logic:  If creation is a gift, there must be a Gift Giver.  When we look at Creation as a banquet of gifts set out before man containing all he would need to both survive and to thrive, we must ask ourselves:  Who gave all this to me?

The study of the Trinity is a mystery.  But this is not a limitation, it is an invitation.  God wished for each of us to have the opportunity to be surprised by Him.  If all that could be known about God could be known by one man, Thomas Aquinas would have figured it out.  What few loose ends he left would have been tied up by John Paul the Great.  We know much about God, yes.  But there will always be more to know.  He invites you to solve the mystery as well.  He invites you to know Him in a way that no one has ever known Him before.

God desires we know him and love him.  It is through our reason that we may come to know him more fully.  But how do we come to love him more fully?

To aid in the search this Lenten season, look to the youngest child, who simply delights in time spent in the presence of the Lord.