Continued from ‘A View of Truth II’ or to start at the first post of this series:‘The Smallest Part of Which I Feel’
From 1973, Neal A. Maxwell’s book “The Smallest Part which I feel:”
“Real individual freedom is tied to truth, it is not freedom a la carte—not freedom apart from everything else—not just to the absence of restraint! Freedom is the catalyst in the chemistry of choice; it is not an outcome to be achieved by itself alone. Free agency in its fullest sense requires the individual to be in command of himself, for one who is a prisoner of his bad impulses cannot really choose; and another truth about “things as they are,” therefore, is that we either control our bad impulses or they control us.
Education often gives little more than a curricular curtsy to those kingly truths about family and freedom, even though there is an alliance between moral absolutes and tactical ideals. It is a temporizing tutor who plays his bellows on the fires of student idealism, while insisting that there are, after all, no absolute truths to which idealism can be inseparably connected. Jesus did not drive the money changers from the temple because of vague or relative indignation; he was indignant his Father’s house had been made “a house of merchandise!”
Moral education based on eternal truths is necessary for the development of the selflessness each of us needs in order to persist in serving our fellow men. It is G. K. Chesterton who wisely observed that, “The more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything.”
Religion must, therefore, press for an emphasis on the application of truth and have a demonstrated concern for behavioral outcome. Rhetoric is an easy religion, and conversational Christianity makes few immediate demands of us while permitting us to exclaim and despair over distant wrongs.
Our individually imperfect attempts at applying these powerful truths are lamentable, but this in not an indictment of the truths involved; man’s early attempts at flight produced many failures but not because the laws of thermodynamics were unreliable.
Our perspective does affect our behavior and our view of our fellowmen. In fact, when men and women look at life through the lens of the gospel they will see not only more clearly, but more broadly, the realities, obligations, and opportunities around them. . . .
Life, or any particular situation, if viewed only through the peephole of pessimism, presents a puzzling or discouraging picture indeed. Instead of wonder, awe and pattern, which the Christian sees, the disciples of despair disclaim any knowledge of a “big picture” of life in which all things denote there is a God . . . yea, . . . and all planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.”. . . The degree of divine disclosure—from peephole to a picture window view of things—is up to us, for so many today are like the Romans to whom Paul preached and whom he described as follows: “For the heart of this people is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted. . . . (Acts 28:27.)
*As quoted by Edmund Fuller in The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1973.
First post of this series: ““The Smallest Part Which I Feel”
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
