day no. 17,147: belief is not a balance

"The idea was that which I had outlined touching the optimist and the pessimist; that we want not an amalgam or compromise, but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning. Here I shall only trace it in relation to ethics. But I need not remind the reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central in orthodox theology. For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now let me trace this notion as I found it.

All sane men can see that sanity is some kind of equilibrium; that one may be mad and eat too much, or mad and eat too little. Some moderns have indeed appeared with vague versions of progress and evolution which seeks to destroy the MESON or balance of Aristotle. They seem to suggest that we are meant to starve progressively, or to go on eating larger and larger breakfasts every morning for ever. But the great truism of the MESON remains for all thinking men, and these people have not upset any balance except their own. But granted that we have all to keep a balance, the real interest comes in with the question of how that balance can be kept. That was the problem which Paganism tried to solve: that was the problem which I think Christianity solved and solved in a very strange way.

Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously.” — G.K. Chesterton

Paganism forced feasting and fasting to fight to the death, but Christianity held them both in esteem and saved them from devouring each other. Christianity knows how to handle the fat and the lean kine. Christianity knows what time it is and what to do about it. It can rest well and stay up all night. It can wait patiently and rush enthusiastically. It recognizes the value of dry, cold Fall and hot, wet Spring. It can worship God in cold, wet Winter as well as in hot, dry Summer. It does not always feast and it does not forget to fast. It is not a balance of feasting and fasting for that never fasts or feasts. It is not a compromise of love and hate, it is knowing which to do when. It is hate to the nth and love to the nth. It is not milder versions of both sharing a bunk bed, it is extreme versions of each living under one roof. It loves God and hates evil.

Psalm 97:10

Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: 

So, Christianity honors martyrs as it condemn suicides and it encourages large families as it honors virginity. It calls men to the marriage feast as it calls them to pray and fast. It inspires love as it calls for hate and it loves life as it lays it down. This is Christianity. It is everything to the fullest. It is Christ crucified and it is Christ alive at the right hand of the Father. 

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die." — G.K. Chesterton

Courage is not a compromise.

Belief is not a balance, it is a both/and.