Every cliché has a reason

God did something much more clever than create a clockwork world, He created a world that could make itself.

And you know what else He did — let’s say categorically we’re all people of faith — He gave humankind free will, and free will becomes the essence of the whole thing. Because it’s not just free will in the conscious sense, but He would have created the free will that makes the synapses and the nerve cells and the neurotransmitters, allows them to make choices. And given the opportunity to make choices, they will always choose the more, let’s use that big word, salubrious way, and salubrious in the classical sense of healthy way, physically healthy, emotionally healthy, the thing that’s going to make it survive most likely and provide it with the most pleasure.

And the moral sense provides people with more pleasure than anything.

That’s been my experience, that a sense of oneself as a good person whose life isn’t sacrificed for others but is based around community and love gives one a sense of self that is the greatest pleasure that anybody can have. We say virtue is its own reward. And, you know, it’s a little homily, but there’s a lot of stuff behind that homily. Every cliché has a reason.

~ by Natalie on 23 April.