Ideas

“You ask how to fight an idea. Well, I’ll tell you how: with another idea.”

This line from an old movie relates very well to this key line from today’s first reading (Wisdom 1:1-7):

For perverse counsels separate a man from God...

God, of course, is more than just an idea: God not only exists outside of our skulls, he is infinite, ubiquitous, omnipotent, and eternal.

Yet because God is beyond the reach of human senses – the senses upon which human beings depend to verify that our subjective perception is in sync with objective reality – our subjective concept of God, left to itself – can be vulnerable to the manipulations of the human mind: especially to ideas that twist the perception and understanding of reality, by long and short ways, to selfish purposes.

We need therefore to be attentive to the ideas that slip about in our minds, especially in a world where the tools of mass media, modern technology, and shifting cultural norms are so often used as vehicles for the exaltation of selfishness, nihilistic ethics, and other perverse counsels.

Love justice,
you who judge the earth;
think of the Lord in goodness,
and seek him in integrity of heart;
Because he is found
by those who test him not,
and he manifests himself
to those who do not disbelieve him.

For perverse counsels separate a man from God,
and his power, put to the proof,
rebukes the foolhardy;
Because into a soul that plots evil,
wisdom enters not,
nor dwells she in a body under debt of sin.

For the holy Spirit of discipline flees deceit
and withdraws from senseless counsels;
and when injustice occurs it is rebuked.

For wisdom is a kindly spirit,
yet she acquits not the blasphemer of his guilty lips;
Because God is the witness of his inmost self
and the sure observer of his heart
and the listener to his tongue.

For the Spirit of the Lord fills the world,
is all-embracing,
and knows what man says.