Stick and Carrot

A friend of mine posted this story on Facebook a few days ago. I apologise for the offence of reproducing an image of Mr Bieber here, but you get the point. Further down the comment thread, somebody else stated, 'One of my favourite TV quotes ever, from True Detective: "If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit." ' 

'Piece of shit' isn't language I can imagine St Augustine using, but if it's the only sort of language on offer, I can accept and own it. I know I'm not the person I could be, and in fact admitting it seems to me to be nothing more than sanity. If you look in the mirror in the morning and think to yourself, 'Nothing about me needs change or improvement; I am the best I could possibly be', what does that say about the sort of person you are? Are you Donald Trump, perhaps?

I remember a similar conversation with an atheist friend years ago who claimed I was exaggerating my faults and that rationally viewed I was not that bad a person and perfectly capable of behaving decently without imaginary divine assistance. I suppose that as one moves forward in the spiritual life one discovers more about one's own sins, revealed by the light of God shining on your thoughts, words, acts and motivations. It doesn't surprise me that atheists can't grasp the significance of the inner life and its external ramifications. 

I can say nothing about Mr Bieber and would prefer to say as little about him as possible, but I can't say that 'divine stick and carrot' has any motivating effect on my behaviour. I leave my ultimate fate to him, knowing that finally I can't change it by what I do. God is perfectly just: so, if in the end I am flung into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, that will only be what I deserve, and were I in my right mind I would take the same decision about myself. There is no point fearing or resenting perfect love and justice. Rather, any desire I have to be a better person is prompted by contact with the holiness of God and knowing that he loves and cares for me, and the desire to respond to this love and care; fear of what might otherwise happen to me, at least in that gross and brutal way of understanding it, plays next to no role at all.