Daily Meditation: Thursday, March 3, 2005

Divine grace - its manifestations

03/03/2005

It is theologians who have done the most to muddle the question of grace. They present it as an arbitrary and inexplicable manifestation of the Divinity, which certain people receive and others don’t. They have no idea why it works in this way. It has nothing to do with one’s behaviour; this is just the way it is. Well, how unfair! The question of grace is actually easy to understand if we start with a very simple example. You are having a house built, but once the walls are finished, you realize you haven’t the money to continue. So you go to a bank, and if the bank sees that you have some capital, it agrees to lend you a certain sum. Will the bank extend credit to everyone? No, but if you already have capital – a piece of land or certain assets – it is willing to make up the difference. In the same way, grace is not distributed to everyone, but only to those who are already prepared, who are building something and have some capital. It says: ‘This man works, he prays, he meditates; he is building his temple, so I will give him enough to finish the job.’ Grace, then, is something more than justice, and yet it obeys a certain justice.