Causa Sui
How do you reconcile the desire to follow a path that leads to life with a personal desire to be “self-sufficient”?
Psalm 19:12-13
But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your faithful one also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
Being human is hard sometimes. We want to do the right things. We want to have a prosperous, healthy, and long life. AND, many of us want to experience ourselves as causa sui–that is self caused. We want to determine right and wrong for ourselves.
But, in God, what is right is that which brings forth and supports life and wrong is that which is anti-life. The Psalmist realizes this and understands that they do not have the capacity to discern their own errors and like it says in Proverbs 14, “There is a way that seems right, but leads to death.”
As the Author of Life, it only makes sense that surrender to God’s Law of Life would be the way to keep oneself innocent from transgression. But, one can only surrender by accepting that they are not self caused, but come from and answer to, a Creator.
How do you reconcile the desire to follow a path that leads to life with a personal desire to be “self-sufficient”?
– Pedro Silva
Pedro, thank you for your comments. Obedience reflected the slavery of the time, which God and Jesus both said should be replaced with equal love. Like surrender, obedience is another word very easily abused by humans, so we should resist the temptation to use such outdated language. We've got a long way to go to repair the grievous harms of slavery (obedience and surrender).
The only way to get to sustainable social peace and justice is for individuals to choose equal love and forgiveness. Pretty sure Jesus would avoid using the language of surrender or obedience or fear today except as a last resort alternative to disobedience for kids or stubborn, but real love and forgiveness must be chosen. In my experience, when loving God then simply choose to do as God asked or suggests (sometimes unanswered or vague). If not preferred for good (not selfish) reason, then may try to negotiate with God as some did in Bible with some success.
Jesus asked us to love God, not surrender. Surrender implies domination rather than choice of love.
Self-sufficiency allows generous love to those unable to be self-sufficient. Not to say our economic systems for self-sufficiency are equal or fair, but laws are fixable, and greed can be taxed. Without people fairly sharing the work burdens of simple sustainable lifestyles, plus emergency backup supplies for water, food, and energy, we would quickly return to a hard and brutal existence and many would perish.