A Short Credo

The two great self-evident propositions - the descriptive principle of non-contradiction, and the prescriptive imperative: we ought to seek the good - compel our rationality, in their respective arenas, to the initial acceptance of a basic Monotheism. Not, I say, with the force of self-evidence; yet, most certainly, with a compulsion beyond a reasonable doubt. In the descriptive arena, Pure Existence (God) is posited in order to "adequately explain observed phenomena." In the Prescriptive arena, God represents the object of our "human desire for something more than nature-which nature cannot explain, because nature cannot satisfy it." In the history of philosophy, no non-self-refuting philosophy has legitimately questioned either the perennial reasoning of a basic philosophical Deism, or the practical spontaneity of religious Mysticism.

Between the dry rationalism of Deism, working on the hypothesis of clear and distinct ideas -- despite it's acknowledgement of God's unfathomable attributes - and the wild speculation and untamed compassion of Mysticism, lies the beautiful structure which finds "grace built upon nature," finds the speculative and practical virtues in tact: lies the Christian Church. And this is a great comfort to the intellectually honest who know the "two facts (which) are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in": We "know the Law of Nature; (we) break it." The intellectually honest know that the bridge to the object of our deepest desire cannot be crossed by our own mortal effort, and it is to these that the words of John the Baptist are directed, pointing the way to a Savior.

The fullness of time sees this Savior come forth, out of Nazareth. Jesus the Christ, comes forth, telling us to follow him, to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. This he does in word and deed, enduring rejection, agonizing suffering and eventual death - at the hands of the very neighbors he loved till the end -- and loves even now.

In light of His life, suffering and death; his death, resurrection and ascension, the human purpose has been illuminated: "We were made to know, love, and serve God in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next." --Paraphrase from the Baltimore Cathechism.

From the particulars of Scripture, interpreted by the Church and Tradition, are fashioned the Creeds -- namely the Apostles and the Nicene Creeds -- which serve as the most general, revealed principles which enable us to actually "know, love and serve." Instead of being content with mere subjective "sincerity," we can truly live to objectively "advanc(e)…(others)…to the Vision of God." For these generalities breath life into our concrete world of experience through "religion itself -- prayer and sacrament and repentance and adoration" - all done with the aim to trust Christ and obey his command to love our neighbor, having in mind "a concept of neighbor that knows no bounds…even extend(ing) to enemies," in the words of Pope John Paul II.

The Christian apologetic is thus beautifully expressed by Etienne Gilson, summarizing the approach of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, "[He] posited an infinite God at the beginning and end of…theology; (to) …act both as a general qualification applying to all theological statements, and as an invitation to transcend theology…by entering the depths of mystical life," where "reason gives way to love."

Love is the means to man's final end: union with God. "In this life," that union can be sought through the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. To be sure, meaning in life must be concrete -- a point well noted by the existential psychotherapy of Victor Frankl. Moreover, the answer to that need begins in the Catholic call to a vocation, a call which starts to reconcile the paradoxes and supra-rational implications our intellects find in God, man, and immortality -- letting us find, concretely, that "conceptually irreconcilable propositions, in being lived, are one."