WE MUST AVOID ALL CURIOSITY AND HUMBLY ACCEPT GOD’S MOST WISE PROVIDENCE
The human mind is so weak that when it wants to examine too curiously the causes and reasons of the divine will it gets puzzled. It entangles itself in the nets of a thousand difficulties from which it cannot afterwards free itself. It resembles smoke, which becomes fainter as it rises and as it becomes fainter it disappears. By our efforts to raise our reasoning high into divine things from curiosity we become futile in our thinking (Rom 1:21). Instead of coming to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4), we fall into the folly of our vanity.
But above all we are curious in what concerns divine providence, with regard to the diversity of means that it gives us in order to draw us to God’s holy love and by his holy love to glory. Our rashness urges us always to inquire why God gives more means to some than to others. Why did he not work among the people of Tyre and Sidon the miracles he worked in Corozain and Bethsaida, since they would have made good use of them? (Mt 11:21). In short, why does he draw to his love this one rather than another?
O Theotimus, my friend, never, no, never, should we let our mind be carried away into this mad whirlwind. Nor should we think of finding a better reason for God’s will than his will itself which is supremely reasonable. Or rather it is the reason behind all reasons, the principle underlying all goodness and the law on which all justice is based. The most Holy Spirit, speaking in Sacred Scripture explains in many places almost all that we would want to know regarding what his providence does to lead people to holy love and to eternal salvation. Nevertheless, on numerous occasions, it points out that we should in no way be lacking in the respect which is due to his will. We are to adore the purpose, decrees, good-pleasure and verdict of his will. In the end, he being supreme Judge and supremely just, it is not reasonable that he reveals his motives. It is enough that he says simply: for reasons. In charity we have to show so much respect to the decrees of supreme courts composed of corruptible judges, of the earth and earthly, as to believe that they were not made without motives, though we do not know them. Ah! Lord God, with what loving reverence have we to adore the fairness of your supreme providence which is infinite in justice and goodness.
Thus, in a thousand places in Sacred Scripture we find the reason why God has rejected the Jews. Since, say St. Paul and St. Barnabas, you reject it [the word of God] and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). Anyone who considers with a calm mind Chapters 9, 10 and 11 of the Letter to the Romans will see clearly that God’s will did not reject the Jewish people without reason. However, this reason must not be investigated by the human mind. On the contrary it is obliged to restrain itself, purely and simply showing reverence to the divine decree. We are to admire the divine decree with love as infinitely just and upright, and love it with admiration as impenetrable and incomprehensible. That is why the divine Apostle [St. Paul] concludes the long reflection he made about it thus: O the depth ofthe riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or has been his counselor? (Rom 11:33,34). By this exclamation he testifies that God does all things with great wisdom, knowledge and reason. Nevertheless, the human mind has not entered into the divine counsels, whose judgements and designs are raised infinitely above our ability. So we are to devoutly adore his decrees as most just. We are not to search out their motives, which he keeps to himself, in order to keep our understanding respectful and humble.
St. Augustine teaches us this same practice in a hundred places. “No one comes to the Saviour," he says, “if he is not drawn. Who is the one he draws? Who is the one he does not draw? Why does he draw this one and not that one? Do not want to judge if you do not want to err. Listen once and for all and understand. Are you not drawn? Pray that you may be drawn." “Truly, it is enough for a Christian still living by faith and not seeing what is perfect but knowing only partly, to know and to believe that God does not deliver anyone from damnation but by his unmerited mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ; and that he does not condemn anyone but by his most just truth through the same Lord Jesus Christ. But to know why he saves this one rather than that one, let the one who is able search so great a depth of God’s judgments but let him beware of the precipice. These judgments are not therefore unjust because they are hidden." “But why does he save these rather than those?" We say again, who are you, a man, to answer back to God? His judgments are incomprehensible, and his ways unknown (Rom 9:20). And we add this: seek not the things that are too high for you, and search not into things above your ability (Sir 3:21). “He does not show mercy to those to whom, by a truth most secret and very far removed from human thoughts, he judges that he should not grant his favour or mercy."
Sometimes we see twins, one of whom is born full of life and receives Baptism, while the other at birth loses temporal life before being reborn to eternal life. As a result, one is heir of Heaven and the other is deprived of the inheritance. Now why does divine Providence give such different results to so similar a birth? We can say, it is true, that God’s providence does not ordinarily violate the laws of nature. One of the twins being strong and the other being too weak to bear the exertion of leaving his mother’s womb, one died before he could be baptized and the other lived. Providence did not want to stop the course of natural causes, which on this occasion were the reason for one being deprived of Baptism. Indeed, this is a very solid answer. But following the advice of the divine St Paul and St Augustine, we should not distract ourselves with this consideration. Though it is good, it can in no way be compared with many others which God has kept to himself and will make known to us in Heaven. “Then," says St Augustine, “it will be a secret no longer why the one was chosen rather than the other, the cause being equal as to both. Or why miracles were not worked among those who, in case they had been worked, would have repented, or were worked among those who would not believe." In another place, the same saint, speaking of sinners, of whom God leaves one in his sin and frees another, says, “why he leaves one and does not leave the other, it is not possible to understand and we are not free to find out, since it is enough to know that it depends on him that we remain standing and it is not due to him that we fall." And again: “This is hidden and far removed from human understanding, at least from mine."
There, Theotimus, is the most holy way of philosophizing on this subject. That is why I have always found admirable and loveable the learned modesty and most wise humility of the seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure. This is seen in his reflection on the reason why divine Providence destines the elect to eternal life. “Perhaps," he says, “it is by a foresight of the good works which will be done by the one who is drawn, in so far as they are produced in some way by the will. But to say which good works being foreseen move the divine will I do not know clearly nor will I make inquiry about it. There is no other reason except some sort of congruity, so that we might choose one while it might be another. That is why we cannot point out with certainty the true reason nor the true motive of the will of God in this. For as St. Augustine says, although the truth of it is most certain, yet it is far removed from our thoughts. So that we can say nothing about it with certainty except by the revelation of Him to whom all things are known. All the more so since it was not useful for our salvation that we should have knowledge of these secrets. On the contrary, it was more profitable that we should not know about them, to keep us in humility. That is why God did not will to reveal them. Even the holy Apostle did not dare to inquire about them but rather testified to the insufficiency of our understanding in this matter when he cried out, O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom 11:33). Could one speak with greater holiness, Theotimus, of so holy a mystery? Also, these are the words of a very holy and prudent Teacher of the Church [St. Paul].