The Moral Atheist

For today's Lenten reflection, I want to talk about our motivation for obeying God. Believers are like children in their motivations. The earliest motivation a small child has for not disobeying is fear: "If I am bad, the Big People will hit me." A reasonable motivation, but hopefully the child develops beyond this stage. If not, he will think the only reason to obey is out of fear, so that if he has no fear of being caught, he will not obey. The believer stuck in this stage avoids evil because of his fear of Hell. An extreme example is Martin Luther, who was a brilliant theologian but somewhat stunted in his spiritual growth; despite the assurances of his superiors, he went to Confession for hours every day, thinking his sins were beyond forgiveness. Then he stumbled upon a deep spiritual insight: God's love is what transforms us to be able to love like He does, if we accept His love. (Unfortunately, there are some schools of thought that have twisted this into: "God loves me, and I accept His love, so that's it - I'm saved!" Which is like a child who believes he can be as naughty as he wants because his mother will still love him.) Accepting God's love is not as simple as saying, "I know I'M saved!" It means we understand that Jesus died for our sins, meaning we have to face our own sinfulness and learn to love others despite their sinfulness, two things that are impossible for us to do without God's help.

The second stage might be something like this: "If I give the Big People presents, they will love me." Not particularly evil, but certainly a bit of an ulterior motive, and one that is easily subject to manipulation: "If I give the Big People presents, they will love me more than the other Little People." Again, a stage the child hopefully passes through quickly! The believer in this stage does as many good works as possible thinking only of the Heavenly Tally Sheet, and in its ugliest manifestation, he looks smugly at the person who does not seem to be as "good" and assumes God loves him more. Think of the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. Which one went away justified? Human parents may be manipulated into favoring one child over another, but God sees into our hearts, and He cannot be manipulated.

The final stage is this one: "I love the Big People so much! They give me food and clothes and they forgive me when I am naughty! I will draw a picture of them to show how much I love them." Then the parents post the drawing on the refrigerator, not because the colorful scribbles are a great work of art, but because of the intent behind them. In the same way that parents don't need silly pictures drawn by their offspring but count them among their greatest treasures, God does not need anything from us but He treasures our acts that are done for the purest of motives: love for Him.

I would argue that the truly moral atheist falls into this last category; like Luther, he has stumbled onto a deep insight via a circuitous route. Obviously the moral atheist is not in the earlier stages of obedience, since he doesn't fear Hell or desire Heaven. Today's Gospel relates how a scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus replied that it is: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength," and then he added, "The second one is like unto it: Love your neighbor as yourself." If God is in our neighbors, and we treat them with agape love, the perfect love that asks nothing in return, then we are giving this same love to God. Although the moral atheist does not believe in God, he is already obeying the greatest commandment and loving others not because he fears punishment or hopes for reward but because he understands that they have inherent worth and deserve his love. The only insight he is missing is that they receive their inherent worth from God, in Whose image and likeness they are made, but I would argue that he is further along in his understanding than the believer stuck in the earlier stages.

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