Choosing Involves Renunciation

Many of us find it difficult to make choices. This is not because we cannot find anything that suits our preference, but precisely for the opposite reason, namely, we find it difficult to exclude the things which will not be involved in our choice. Scholastic philosophers had the dictum: ‘Every choice is also a renunciation.’ This is very true since whenever we choose one thing, we necessarily exclude certain other things.

For this reason we find it hard to choose a vocation, an occupation, a set of friends, a life companion or even a new house or car. The difficulty arises because, in choosing, we have to limit ourselves, and our lonely, insatiable insides rebel against this. Thus we often end up dissipating our creative and affective energies: hanging loose, spreading ourselves too thin, unable to make clear choices and commitments, procrastinating indefinitely, being wishy-washy and generally being unable to make decisions which could give our lives more direction and thus help us to love and work more effectively.(Ronald Rolheiser)

Argument For the Existence of God

The Bible has no arguments for the existence of God. There are moments of conflict with God, anger with God, doubt about God's purposes, anguish and lostness when people have no real sense of God's presence... Don't imagine that the Bible is full of comfortable and reassuring things about the life of belief and trust; it isn't. It is often about the appalling cost of letting God come near you and of trying to trust him when all the evidence seems to have gone. But Abraham, Moses and St Paul don't sit down to work out whether God exists; they are already caught up in something the imperative reality of which they can't deny or ignore. At one level, you have to see that the very angst and struggle they bring to their relation with God is itself a kind of argument for God: if they take God that seriously, at least this isn't some cosy made-up way of making yourself feel better. (Rowan Williams)