Pairs

  Today's post is about disorder; the title refers to pairing virtues with vices. Christians believe that when Lucifer/Satan and Adam 'fell', sin and disorder entered into God's creation, and that the creation was 'subjected to futility' until the time when Christ ushers in the New Heavens and the New Earth. 

  This point is important for both Christians and non-Christians. A classic example is sex. Christians are often charged with being prudish and hating sex. The proper Christian doctrine is that sex is good. God created Adam and Eve (that is, Man and Woman) to procreate by sexual means. He intended sex to be an expression of love and unity between a husband and his wife, and the children that come from it are the fruit of that love. The point of difficulty lies in misuse of sex. Such misuse is confusing to our emotions: on the one hand, attraction is a very natural thing and sex is an expression of love; on the other hand, since the Fall, we have become very disordered in our being. There are so many factors that influence our feelings and decision-making: culture, experience, conscience, logic, physical circumstances. 

  The reason this is important to both Christians and non-Christians is that it helps Christians to be mature and sensitive in how they make decisions and relate to other people. They realize that 'the Flesh' - the sinful disorder in our being - is drawing us in one direction, while the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, wants us to go in another direction. 

  For the non-Christian, this information is important in helping them to make an informed decision about Christianity. Many of us, myself included, before we became Christians, thought that becoming a Christian meant giving up many things without having anything to replace them; we thought that what it meant was a kind of emptiness. In reality, what Christ's life means is a kind of reordering and restoration of mankind and the universe. We must get away from the notion that the body is inherently evil, right from its creation. Rather, this body is sin-riddled and in need of discipline until its redemption. When the Saints are resurrected they will be given new, 'heavenly' bodies - they will not float around like Ghosts - but these bodies will be free of the sinful disorder that now characterizes human life.  

  For this reason, I think it can be useful to realize the links between virtues and vices. This is not a fool-proof system that covers all aspects of life, but I think it helps one to avoid extremes and the naivety of separating things that are actually related - vice is, in fact, often a distorted version of virtue.

  Below is a short list of some examples. They are given to provoke thought, not as legalistic, binding ideas to be blindly accepted.

-Passion & Obsession
-Imagination & Fantasy
-Authority/Command & Manipulation/Control
-Love & Lust/Greed
-Self-control & Self-deprivation

 The list could go on, and the difficulties of language make the task of reflection on these matters harder. People tend to have associations with words and images and they are often graded positively or negatively. To one person the word 'father' means a source of strength and comfort; to another, it means 'Victorian hypocrisy' and a troubled home.

  As the ancient Greeks said, 'μηδεν αγαν' - 'nothing in excess'.

God bless.