Time Immortal

Nicholas writes in with an additional question, a follow-up to his last.

Sorry, Ken, my question wasn’t clear. There are many possible natural reasons why humans do good deeds. For example, some altruism may be built in (in humans and other social animals) because altruism can help you, or your close kin, survive long enough to reproduce. And, if your parents often praised you for being kind (as kind parents do, partly out of self-interest) you may get into the habit of being kind. And sometimes people do good because they believe they will get a reward in Heaven. (That can occur, of course, independently of whether heaven exists. And it raises a whole other debate about whether acts motivated by a belief in heaven are good, or self-interested.)

My question is, can you give examples of good deeds that cannot be attributed to any such natural causes, but only to what you call sanctifying grace?

I would posit that the act of genuine forgiveness — and its being regarded as a good thing — cannot always be attributed to natural causes, for the simple reason that forgiveness in its most genuine form does not involve “forgive, but do not forget.” It is more complete than that, requiring us to both grant that we absolve the person who has wronged us and that we will not in any way hold it against them; in any future dealings with them, we will not anticipate the possibility of a repeated transgression.

I think the reasons this is counter-intuitive to nature should be obvious: the instinct to survive should motivate a person to either never forgive a transgression or to forgive the transgression but to treat the transgressor with hesitance in any future encounters. Complete forgiveness means allowing oneself to again become totally open, and thus vulnerable, to the other, and to a repeat offence.

And yet, people offer forgiveness in this way quite often. Not always, of course, but often. And to do so, I think, puts a human being far outside of his or her nature. A nun, shot in the back, falls to Earth uttering her last words: “I forgive, I forgive.” A Pope makes a point of visiting in prison the man who attempted to murder him, and offers him his complete forgiveness. A man, nailed to a Cross, begs that the crowd of his murderers be forgiven, for they did not know then the full magnitude of their actions. That’s about as contrary to “natural causes” as one can get.

But Nicholas raises an interesting question of his own, O Reader. He lists many beneficial acts — good acts — that people do, and then asks for a demonstration of good deeds that cannot be attributed to natural causes, as though God could and would only choose to manifest His desire that we be moral in the inspiration of those acts which are contrary to, or at least outside, nature. Is it not equally reasonable that the author of all creation would choose to make His desire that we be moral innate to our nature? That is, is it not reasonable to suggest that the reason that human beings are altruistic, and the reason that altruism can be an advantage to survival in a species of social animal) is because it is God has made altruism to be moral, and desires that we live morally in this (and other) fashions?