Obedience to Right Reason

Anything that goes against right reason is sin. That is why the philosophers see fit to define the most general passions this way: craving is a desire that disobeys reason; fear is a shrinking that disobeys reason; pleasure is an elation of the soul that disobeys reason; distress is a contraction of the soul that disobeys reason. If, then, disobedience where reason is concerned is what generates sin, how can we avoid the conclusion that obedience to reason — to the Word — which is what we call faith, must of necessity be the effective cause of duty? For virtue itself is a settled state of the soul, made harmonious by reason across a whole life. And to crown it all, philosophy is itself declared to be the cultivation of right reason. So of necessity, whatever is done through an error of reasoning is a transgression, and is rightly called sin. [a]

Since, then, the first man sinned and disobeyed God, it is said, “And man became like the beasts.” He is rightly counted as unreasoning, and so he is likened to the animals. That is why Wisdom says: “A stud horse — that is what the lustful man and the adulterer have become, an animal without reason.” And it adds: “He neighs, whoever may be sitting on him.” The meaning is that the man no longer speaks. Anyone who offends against reason is no longer a reasoning creature but an unreasoning animal, handed over to the cravings that ride him.

But what is done rightly, in obedience to reason, the followers of the Stoics call prosekon and kathekon — what is fitting, and what falls to a person to do. What is fitting is what falls to him. And obedience rests on commands. These commands, being the same thing as counsel, and having truth for their aim, train a person up toward the last object of all his longing, which is thought of as the end. And the end of reverence for God is rest in God forever. The beginning of eternity is our end. The right working of that reverence brings duty to completion through deeds; so, by sound reasoning, duties consist in actions, not in sayings. And Christian conduct is the activity of the rational soul in accordance with correct judgment and a longing for the truth, which reaches the end it was made for by way of the body, the soul’s partner and ally. Duty is a will that conforms to God and to Christ in the way it lives, rightly fitted to life everlasting.

For the life of Christians, in which we are being trained now, is a system of reasonable actions — that is, of the things taught by the Word — an activity that never fails, which we have called faith. The system is the commands of the Lord, which, being divine statutes and spiritual counsels, have been written for our own use, fitted to us and to our neighbors. And they turn back on us, the way a thrown ball rebounds on the one who threw it. So duties are indispensable to God’s discipline, since God himself lays them down and supplies them for our salvation.

Now of the things we need, some have to do only with life here, while others have to do with the blessed life over there and give us wings for the flight out of this one. In the same way, some duties are appointed with a view to this life, and others for the blessed life. The commands issued with respect to our natural life are published to everyone; but the ones suited for living well, the ones eternal life springs from, we now have to consider — in outline, as we read them out of the Scriptures.