We Ascend to God by Going Down

How do we praise and thank God for our being?

First, by understanding it: recognizing our being for what it is and appreciating it. Then by expressing that in praise

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… Lead me along the path of everlasting life (from Psalm 139:13).

There are four “ingredients” we have to identify in order to know ourselves (or anything else on earth) as a “being.” In metaphysics they are called the “four causes” of being. But the word is deceptive, implying that any one of them could exist by itself, which is a contradiction, since all four are required for a being to exist. (We are not talking about the Being of God here). A better word for them is “principles,” meaning “that which explains something else.” Their technical names are “material, formal, efficient and final cause.”

What follows is perfectly obvious to anyone who “calls a spade a spade.”

The first “ingredient” is “matter.” Stuff. Humans have bodies, are made of something. We “call a spade a spade” when we can see it, touch it, pick it up. When there is something “out there.”

Humans can only make things out of something (matter) that already exists. When God makes something out of nothing, causing the matter itself to exist, we call that “creation.” Ultimately, everything on earth, including ourselves, comes from nothing and is only kept from reverting to nothingness by God’s ongoing act of creation. God says, “Let it beeee…” and we exist as long as God holds the note. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

This is the fundamental reason for humility. Bellarmine says there is nothing in humans they can boast about, as if they had not received it from God. If a cedar chest could speak, it could say to the woodworker, “I owe my shape to you, but not my material. What I have of myself is more precious than what I received from you.” But no one could say this to God the Creator. Humans have nothing from themselves, and in themselves are absolutely nothing. St. Paul wrote: “If those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (Galatians 6:3; 1Corinthians 4:7).

We can’t imagine “nothingness,” but it is worth thinking about. If I hold my hand in front of my face, I should be aware that it has no more existence in itself than an image projected on a movie screen. If someone turns off the projector, it doesn’t just disappear or go somewhere else; it simply ceases to exist. Returns to nothingness. That is what would happen to us if God stopped saying “Beee…”

Saint Robert concludes:

Therefore, my soul, if you are wise, always take the last place. Do not steal the glory of God. Go down into you own nothingness – that alone is yours – and the whole world will not be able to lift you up to pride.

And because this precious virtue of true humility had already disappeared from the world and could not be found either in the books of the philosophers or in the cultures of countries, the Teacher of humility came down from heaven. And though he was by nature God, equal to the Father, “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7).

And he said to the human race, “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

To go deep is to go down. If we go deeply into our being, the bottom line is nothingness. This is the truth of our being. We can find peace in recognizing that

“Humility” is “to be peaceful with the truth.” If we are peaceful with the truth of our nothingness, we will find rest for our souls.