But he has another, related idea, which is that the same vicissitude -- the same up or down -- has a different meaning, depending upon the character of the person who experiences it. As Augustine says (in Dyson's translation):
In the same fire, gold glows but chaff smokes; and under the same flail straw is crushed and and grain purified [....] Hence it is that, under the same affliction, the wicked hate and blaspheme God while the good pray and praise him. What is important, then, is not what is suffered, but by whom.
This can be read dualistically, of course, as indicating two entirely different classes of human being. It can also be read as speaking to the good and bad in each of us. In the second sense, then, each of the good or bad things that happens to us becomes a challenge. Will we respond with faith or with faithlessness, with prayer or blasphemy?
No comments:
Post a Comment