What do we understand by “morality”? What role does the Holy Spirit play in helping us be moral persons?

First of all, we have to avoid simplistic answers as to where the Holy Spirit is in our lives because we are not simplistic creatures. We are very complicated. There is far more to it than to say, “the Holy Spirit will provide grace so we will act as God wants us to act.”

Let’s look at our behavior. Why do we behave the way we do? Unless we understand why we can’t appreciate the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. There are many ways to look at people. Many denominations look at people and say, “We are not good.” Rather, our first basic premise is: we are good. By and large, we are good people. Yes, we can read in the paper and on TV about people who are bad, but most people are pretty good. In general, most people want to be good and we try to live that way. We may not be as good as we would like, but we don’t live our lives with the focus, “who am I going to hurt today.” Most of us don’t live our lives that way; that’s not what we’re geared to. We may find that every day we do these things. We may discover that because of this or that we wind up hurting others or even ourselves, but that’s usually not our main goal.

But it is a fact, strangely enough, that we do hurt ourselves and others quite often, and sometimes intentionally. We do look for ways to strike out at people. Why do we do that? We come to church every Sunday and pray and ask God to be our strength—and we wind up doing bad stuff! Afterwards we regret it, yet we still do bad stuff over and over again. Why?

It doesn’t really make sense. We would all agree it would be better to avoid hurting others, since in the long run it would be better for us and them. And yet, we go on doing the same old stuff. Why do we do that?

The quick and easy answer is, “the devil made me do it.” Indeed, he may have a hand in it, but it goes deeper than that. We can’t blame everything on the evil one. The first place we have to look is at ourselves. What’s the problem?

The first, and very real problem is the gift God has given us. He’s given us freedom, and that creates problems. The rest of the universe (not mentioning the angels) doesn’t have these problems. It just does what it’s supposed to do. We may not always like it, but rivers flow and grass grows. God designed nature to do this, but when He designed us, He gave us the gift of freedom and free will. And that creates problems, because to live free means that we’re going to bump into somebody else somewhere along the line, and we don’t handle that very well. We don’t like bumping into people, and when we do, we find ourselves oftentimes acting against them, because they are, in one way or another, in our way.

Why do we sin? We don’t sin because our focus is on evil—we sin because we’re usually looking for some advantage for ourselves. We figure something good is going to happen from it for us. Now, if we stop and think, we might be able to say, “You know, that’s not right. If I do something bad to my neighbor, something evil happens to him, and in the long run, probably something evil is going to happen to me.” But we don’t operate that way. Even though we know there will be bad results for others and for ourselves, more often than not we operate on the immediacy of the situation. And that is why we sin. Because in the immediacy of the situation, we see the advantage. We see what’s in it for us.

It’s because of freedom and free will that we can make these choices. God gave us this freedom so that we can freely love Him and do the things He asks us to do. He says, “What I want from you is to love Me in return freely—to choose to love Me.” In the story of Genesis we know that we chose not to, that for whatever reason, when push came to shove, we said, “God, we are not going to love you primarily.” But God still loves us and still works with us.

So, one of the very first things we’re dealing with is our own freedom. Because we’re all free, somewhere along the line we’re going to get in each other’s way, and we have to learn how to deal with that.

The next thing is to deal with just who we are. We might call it by a real big name, “the existential dilemma.” This dilemma arises from the fact that we exist in the material world, and yet have spirit within us. This presents a conflict, because, as people with spirit, we are being called to more. We have aspirations within the spirit that call us to greater things. It’s the way we’re made. It’s what our faith tells us—that God invites us to a higher existence. And yet we have this body which has it’s own limitations. We come into conflict because, somewhere along the line, we recognize that the body isn’t going to be around forever—that it starts to break down. Things we would like to do sometimes are cut short—because of illness or accident. All of a sudden we realize, “I’m dealing with something that within me asks for me to be more, and yet is limited by this body.”

This can make us very angry. We ask, “Why should I strive for these goals that my spirit calls me to when, in the end, I may not be able to achieve anything? Ultimately, I’m going to die, and everything that I do is, in a sense, going to be meaningless.” This conflict is very real for people today. Because people in today’s world have lost touch with faith, they are raging. We hear about road rage. But they’re not raging because somebody cut in front of them—it’s because they know that life is ultimately meaningless.

People believe, “No matter what I do in my life, no matter how great I am, no matter what I achieve, no matter what goals I set for myself, one day it’s all going to stop and go nowhere.” This kind of existence creates tremendous rage. What’s the use? Why give vent to these aspirations that call us to reach for more, when in fact this human body is going to fall apart and die? It’s a tremendous problem in today’s world, because we have lost faith. It’s everywhere. It’s not just in this country. People everywhere have lost faith, and because of it, this rage is more and more coming to the surface. People are behaving in such bizarre ways because they’ve come to understand the meaninglessness of their lives.

The other thing we are dealing with also has a big name: “the ontological paradox.” What does that mean? When we exist, we are. And being who we are, we need to be recognized. We need to be valued. We need to be esteemed. In today’s world, all we talk about is self-esteem. Self-esteem is coming out our ears! But we do need it. We do need for people to tell us we’re worthwhile. But this often produces a very self-serving and selfish and self-centered person. “I’m going to take care of my need, no matter what.” “I’m going to prove myself. I’m going to show people that I’m worthwhile.” We might do it by making millions of dollars, or by winning the Olympics, so that people will recognize us for what we’ve achieved. But if we carry this too far, we become such self-centered prigs that nobody wants to have anything to do with us.

On the other hand, we might recognize that we have a responsibility to others. But if we carry that too far, we become the other’s slave. We become floor mats for people to walk on, to use us any way they want. After a while, we discover that we have no meaning other than what we do for other people. We become wash rags, so to speak, and our value is only in terms of the other person, and we don’t see ourselves as worth anything.

Now these are the extremes. But the thing is, that we need both of them in our lives. We need to learn how to strike a balance. How can we learn to be valuable for ourselves, to have this self-esteem, and yet not close ourselves off to our responsibility to other people? How do we understand ourselves as persons whose existence in this world is only going to be for a short time, and yet who are called to something more? How do we balance these dilemmas? How do we come to recognize that in our human being, there is something, no matter what it is, that is always struggling back and forth? First we want this, and then we want that. We’re at it all the time! We want more, but we still want the things this world offers. We want to break free and we want to be with God, and yet we like what God has created. We want people to admire us, and yet we want to be responsive to other people. How do we work with this?

How do we come to terms with our own freedom and the fact that God has made us the way we are? Because if we don’t know how to put a handle on this stuff, then we will go to the extremes—we’ll wind up off the deep end somewhere. Instead of being what God has wanted us to be, we wind up being persons who have forsaken anything that God has called us to be. We become the worst of creation instead of the best.

Next time: Part II: Holy Spirit in My Soul