Lightness

June 4, 2009

Why is Christ's yoke light? Why is not His yoke burdensome as a plow's yoke is to an ox?

Because it is made of love. All that love requires is requital. Love admits of no proof. It cannot be matched except with reciprocation.

A plow's yoke restricts the desired movements of the ox. It wishes to escape, but remains hindered. The yoke is affective because it limits freedom.

Christ's yoke propels the desired movements of an individual. She wishes to be alive, and is given life. The yoke is affective because it enhances freedom.

What is life? It is the given. It is the ontos of every individual. Life is basic. It is contemporaneous with her existence, which is prior to her consciousness. Life is the grounding. It resists definition. It is a mystery. Its trappings can be described, but it remains ineffable.

The living individual can judge it--some judge it a gift and others a burden. Regardless, within every living individual there is a desire to persist--to continue to live. Even with those who take their lives, there is doubt somewhere in the mind and resistance somewhere in the body.

To be kept from evil is to at once have less freedom-as-option and more freedom-as-good. Freedom-as-option is valueless; it is increased by the quantity of possibilities. Freedom-as-good is valueful; it is increased by the quality of possibilities. Freedom-as-option has no end; the well of possibilities is without bottom. Freedom-as-good has one end--itself, the Good.

Love is life's gravity. Love gives life coherence, structure, and integrity. Unalloyed love is constant, eternal, and thereby mysterious.

Love is the name for the desire of a good. Love admits of gradations; good is diversely manifest. Pure love is simple; the greatest good is unified. Both are one. The former is one in one; the latter is one in many. The movement of love is always the same; the effects of good are always the same.

Everything that is good is related to life. Every good ought to be related to with love by the living individual. Christ is the point of convergence between the subject (individual), the object (good), the action (love), and the setting (life).

The relation between life and freedom: the former is a necessary condition of the latter. Freedom-as-option is the sort of freedom available to sub-rational animals. With rationality, a person has an ability to recognize a good. With practical rationality, a person has an ability to successfully pursue a good. When freedom is construed as a good in itself, it is good to the extent that it nourishes life.

Life admits of quality (in normative terms) and quantity (in numerical terms). The former relates to freedom-as-good. The latter relates to freedom-as-option.

The quality of life is more valuable than the quantity of life. Eternal life is the point of convergence between the two. Christ confers the greatest quality (reunion with God) and greatest quantity (eternity).