Life by nature

Life by nature
People make mistakes and apologize for being natural. Is it really natural? If they lived by nature, Dante writes in the Divine Comedy, there would be no sin in the world. The Slovak word naturalness is related to the word to be born; Greek physics and Latin natura have a similar origin. So it is what God created, and it can only be good. That is what naturalness meant for Greek Fathers. God gave man and divine life, love, faith, all virtues. All this is therefore natural to him (so-called complete nature, nature nature). Against nature, however, is sin and corrupt tendencies, bad passions. In the West, the term naturalness has not retained its original meaning. Theologians needed to discern what is human and divine in us. Therefore, they called e.g. reason, will, feelings of natural gifts, sanctifying grace on the contrary, gifts of supernatural. That is why they speak of supernatural virtues of faith, hope, love. Man sinned. His reason darkened, his will be tilted to evil, his body and senses seized with passion. We are so, and therefore our nature, of course, in a very special sense, is spoiled, fallen (nature corrupt, lapse). But they oppose grace. It must be constantly overcome. The following of Christ has a whole chapter «about various movements of nature and grace»: Grace invites us to the heights, nature pulls to earth. This triple meaning of the word must be borne in mind when we read spiritual books. It should be noted how the author uses the term. Otherwise, we would come across arguments that are in complete contradiction. Once we read that we have to live and develop according to nature, sometimes it is claimed that we must always deny and mortify it. Once it is written that love of God is natural, sometimes it is proved that it is not natural but supernatural. All these statements are true, but according to the meaning in which the word «naturalness» is used.we can be “natural” by human judgment. Belief in the Holy Trinity is a «supernatural» gift of faith, or grace. Thus, the gifts of grace are “voluntary”. God gives them when and as He sees fit. No one has a right to them. They “elevate” man to the “state of grace”, giving him a higher perfection than he would be capable of with his own powers. This scholastic distinction is very useful for expressing a few basic truths of grace. However, we are well aware that all participation in God’s life cannot be expressed in several terms. Tradition here helps with figurative symbolic expressions, aphorisms, the experience of saints. Let us recall at least the main ones.