“First then,” she continued, “will you
let me find out and make trial of the state of your mind by a few small
questions, so that I may understand what should be the method of your
treatment?”
“Ask,” I said, “what your judgment
would have you ask, and I will answer you.”
Then she said, “Do you think that this
Universe is guided only at random and by mere chance? Or do you think there is
any rule of reason constituted in it?”
“No, never would I think it could be
so, nor believe that such sure motions could be made at random or by chance. I
know that God, the founder of the Universe, does look over His work, nor ever
may that day come that shall drive me to abandon this belief as untrue.”
“So is it,” she said, “and even as you
cried just now, and only mourned that mankind alone has no part in this Divine
guardianship, you were fixed in your belief that all other things are ruled by
reason. How strange!
“I wonder how it is that you can be so
sick, though you are set in such a health-giving state of mind! But let us look
deeper into it. I cannot but think there is something lacking. Since you are
not in doubt that the Universe is ruled by God, tell me by what method you
think that
government is guided?”
'I scarcely know the meaning of your
question, much less can I answer it.”
“Was I wrong,” she said, “to think that
something was lacking, that there was some opening in your armor, some way by
which this distracting disease has crept into your soul?
“But tell me, do you remember what is
the aim and end of all things? What is the object to which all nature tends?”
“I have heard indeed, but grief has
blunted my memory.”
“But do you not somehow know from where
all things have their source?”
“Yes,” I said; “that source is God.”
“Is it possible that you, who know the
beginning of all things, should not know their end?” . . .
—from
Book 1, Prose 6
Even at
a time where the pendulum of fashion has swung so far away of from a sense of
piety, many people will still appeal to the Divine as a measure. We swear by
the name of God, we appeal to Him when we want to be right, we cry out to Him
when we think someone else is wrong.
There
is, I suppose, something comforting in having a fixed reference point, even
when we don’t need to turn to it all that often. When I lived in Boston, for
example, I would always pride myself on knowing where all the stops on the
subway were, and how to get from any one point in town to any other. That was,
of course, until I somehow got a bit lost on the Blue Line one day, and I was
quite grateful for one of those big maps of the whole system they have posted
in the stations. It’s good to know it’s
there if I need it.
A
danger, however, can be in always assuming the map is there for reference, but
then not being able to read it when I turn to it. The London Underground map
would often do that to me, because I couldn’t quite relate that tangled web of
colored lines on a white background to an actual geographical map of the city.
I was simply not familiar enough with all the names and landmarks to make
proper sense of it at first.
Boethius
finds himself in a similar situation, not in getting from one end of town to
the other, but in getting from one end of his life to the other. He has
forgotten who he is, not just where he is. It’s time to get some reference
points on the map of life.
Now Lady
Philosophy asks him if he thinks the world follows some sort of order, or if it
is just chaotic, and Boethius is very quick to answer how he is absolutely
certain that God rules everything with purpose and design. I almost sense that
he is bit offended to have that belief questioned.
But
Boethius needs to have that belief questioned, as we all do, so that we may
understand why it is that we happen to believe something. It is certainly odd
that a man, who had just cried out how fortune and chance had ruined his life,
would now suddenly insist that the Universe is all quite reasonable.
I have
done much the same myself, whenever I accept something to be true in broad
theory, but have absolutely no sense of how it works in immediate practice. I
say I know the principles by which a combustion engine works, but I’m likely to
be scratching my head when I break down on the drive to work.
It is
fair enough to say that God rules everything, but it would be of great help to
have some sense of how He goes about
ruling it. How do the pieces fit together, and act upon one another, within the
function of the whole? Lady Philosophy sees that Boethius thinks there are
rules, and she now asks him what those rules might be. He is confounded, and
seems not to know what she means by the question.
A way to
express this is that Boethius knows that God made him and everything else,
where it all came from, but he is uncertain about what God made him and
everything else for, where it is all going to. This could be something like
recognizing the station on the subway you started at, but being clueless about
the actual destination.
Trusting
in a Divine order will be of little use to me if I don’t understand my place in
that order. If God made me, why did
he make me? For what sort of end?
Some of
us may give a word-for-word textbook answer we memorized in a religion class
years ago, and some of us will have no answer at all, but most of us are unable
to think our way through this with any clarity. It’s like a big confusing spot
on the map, right on the bit we know we need to pass through. “Here dwell
dragons” isn’t the answer we need.
Lady
Philosophy is certainly beginning to diagnose the problem.
Written in 7/2015
"Um, a little help, please?"
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