Getting to Heaven Isn’t About What You Do …

Maybe it’s just me, but I think that we Catholics are quite adept at enumerating lists of things we should and shouldn’t do. We have Ten Commandments, eight Beatitudes, seven deadly sins, seven works of mercy (corporal and spiritual) … the list goes on. It’s tempting to think that gaining heaven, or earning hell, is a matter of the accumulation and the gravity of the actions we do (or fail to do). And there is something to this, but I believe that focus somewhat misses the point.

I recall the Gospel story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life (Matthew 19:16-26 (also at Mark 10:17-27; Luke 18:18-27)). When Jesus asks if he has followed the Commandments, the rich man eagerly says, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” 

If entering heaven were just a matter of accumulating acts of obedience to the moral law, doing all the right things all the time, then it would seem that Jesus would have to say, “Good job! You’re on your way. Keep up the good work.” 

But He doesn’t. Jesus looks at him with love - that love of the Sacred Heart - and says, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The rich man’s “face fell,” and he “went away sad.” Doing the right things all the time was not enough. Why? I think a little trip through the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas may help us understand.

A Primer on Human Nature

First, let’s think about what it means to be what we are: human. Aquinas thinks anyone can start to figure this out even without having faith. He takes his cues from Aristotle and says that we are humans, as opposed to any other kind of thing in the material universe, because of the kinds of functionality (or capacity, or ability) we possess within the limits of our materiality. In addition to being capable of having and maintaining life (as opposed to non-living things) and being capable of perceiving and reacting to sense-data (as opposed to non-perceiving living things, like plants), we have a unique our capacity for understanding the truth, loving the good, and choosing accordingly (as opposed to mere animals). 

We are, according to this view, everything that any animal is - and more. As material creatures, we take up space and time; what makes that hunk of atoms a human as opposed to anything else is its functional organization, or what Aquinas and Aristotle call its form. Form follows function and gives any parcel of matter its fundamental identity through those functions, or abilities. This form also denotes what is our human nature - the “nature” that Aquinas references in his famed account of natural law. This form, because it causes the functionality for living in a human, is also called the soul (anima in Latin; psyche in Greek).

Functions have ends, or ideals; that is to say, if there’s a function, it simply means something for that function to be performed well. In the case of humans, our end specifically entails being able to exercise our rational functions for knowing not just any truth or many truths but the fullness of truth, as well as loving, choosing, and possessing not what is somewhat good or good in a limited sense, but what is ultimately good (and actually doing so). Our reason is aimed at truth, since all humans by nature desire to know. And our will is aimed at goodness. By definition, we pursue what is seen as good in some manner of speaking; it is impossible to aim at something under the aspect of evil-  even if it is morally bankrupt, what we want in it is something seen as a “good.” It is best, of course, when we want and will what is most fully and suitably good.

Who is God, and Why Do We Long for Him?

Aquinas showed one can prove philosophically (i.e., independent of Scripture or revelation) that there must be one ultimate source of truth and goodness. As he ends each of his philosophical proofs - his well-referenced Five Ways - “This being we call ‘God’.” Scripture and revelation themselves support this conception of God, though they complete it through their presenatation of the mysteries of the Faith. Nevertheless, to be able to know the fullness of truth and to be able to love, choose, and possess what is ultimately good is the exact same thing as to be able to see God, the source of Truth and Goodness, as He is, face to face, and never to be parted from Him. When that ability meets the reality of God is what Aquinas would call the beatific vision - that is, heaven. Our ultimate goal is to be able to (and actually) achieve the fullest closeness of union in relationship with God, which can only be accomplished in the life beyond this mortal coil. As St. Augustine said, our souls are restless until they rest in God; for Aquinas, this is true because of how we are made and what we are made for.

Becoming Better

To reach heaven, then, is to reach our ultimate goal. To reach our ultimate goal entails having certain abilities - namely, the abilities to function excellently. To be able to function excellently means to be a certain way, to actually possess a certain set of skills. None of us is born that way, though; none of us is born functioning as excellently as possible. We need to grow and develop. That said, mere natural development can only take one so far, especially when it comes to gaining knowledge and choosing right over wrong. We need a second nature built upon our given, or first, human nature, as it were. Having the ability to function excellently, then, means possessing habits that refine and improve the functioning given in our unrefined nature. These habits of excellent functioning are called virtues. Without virtues - that is, without these habits of excellent functioning - we have no chance of reaching our ultimate goal of being able to know the fullness of truth (and actually knowing it) and being able to love, choose, and possess what is ultimately good (and actually doing so). 

We can develop many of these virtuous habits ourselves; this is behind Aristotle’s account of virtue ethics. For example, the ability to pursue pleasure in moderation is not necessarily natural to us. It is easy for us to be ruled by our desire for pleasure, or to reject the goodness of pleasure wholesale. To develop a habit of moderation takes time, discipline, guidance, and vigilance, but it can be done. This virtue of moderation in the pursuit of pleasure is called temperance. Several other natural virtues (e.g., courage/fortitude, justice, prudence/practical reason) are required for other functions' excellence. Lacking or losing any virtue spins one into the realm of the habits of bad functionality; those habits are called vices.

That said, we are only human. Thomas Aquinas notes that sometimes all the strength and practice and discipline we as humans can muster still cannot develop in us sufficient abilities for some excellences - specifically, excellences regarding not what is natural but, rather, what is supernatural. We need Divine help to reach Divine things - and, as we noted above, we are in fact naturally aimed at Divine things beyond our natural capacities. Hence, he says the good habits of virtues can come to exist in us in a different way as well - namely, via infusion from the Divine to an open and willing soul. Among the virtues Aquinas says are caused in us not by our own efforts but by God’s infusion into us are the theological virtues - faith, hope, and charity - all of which are necessary to grasp truths and Truth itself beyond all human understanding and to have the ability to truly taste and see the pure and undivided Goodness of the Lord Himself.

To reach heaven - that is, to achieve the goal of our humanity to behold the Truth and rest in the Good, or to be in a complete and fully loving relationship with God for eternity - requires us to have the abilities to do so. It requires us to be a certain way. It depends upon the state of our soul: whether that soul has a second nature comprised of habits - both developed and infused - of excellent functionality (i.e., virtues) or a second nature comprised of habits of bad functionality (i.e., vices). 

That is to say: to reach heaven and the fullness of God’s truth and love, it’s not so much about what you do - it’s about who you are. 

Why What We Do Does Matter

Now, let me be clear: what you do does matter … to the extent that it changes who you are. For one, actions can and do create habits. As they say, practice makes permanent - and good practice makes perfect. Like a muscle, the powers of the soul wither and functionality diminishes without the right exercise. So some actions will be necessary to becoming the people we must become to reach our ultimate end. On the other hand, there are some things that we simply cannot do if we want to develop the right habits to reach that end. It is similar to the situation if you wanted to be a champion marathon runner: in that case, you simply could not regularly gorge yourself on unhealthy foods and fail to train. To reach our natural end, some actions are necessary to perform and some, which are contrary or contradictory to that end, are prohibited - these comprise what Aquinas refers to as “natural law.” In fact, Aquinas regards all ten commandments as, in some way, being of the natural law. All those “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” are important because they tell us what we must do and what we cannot do if we want to gain our ultimate goal.

But, while simple repetition of good actions can start to develop the right kinds of habits, they won’t fully develop without the right mindset or the right understanding of what is going on. That is, it is no guarantee that by simply following those “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” you will actually become the right kind of person. In fact, if you treat following the rules as an end in itself, you are liable to miss the “why” behind those rules - much like the oft-maligned Pharisees, who focused on their rule following so much that they missed seeing the signs in their midst that Jesus was the one who was promised to them through the Scriptures. Their mere, albeit meticulous, rule following didn’t help them develop well-functioning eyes of faith. Further, you come perilously close to becoming someone who thinks they can accumulate enough spiritual cash to purchase a ticket to heaven on their own dime, as it were, rather than becoming someone willing to open themselves up to receiving Divine help and being in relationship with someone else - namely, God, the ultimate and transcendent source of Truth and Goodness, through Jesus and His Church. 

For example, imagine you are in a relationship with someone and you follow every rule of every good dating advice book and blog that exists. You say all the right things at exactly the right time. Like a perfectly tuned romantic machine, whatever inputs you receive from your partner result in the appropriate outputs. You know every fact there is to know about your partner. Some lover, right? But, while you know every fact about them and each and every correct move to make, do you thereby actually know them, and who they are? After all, is any person merely the sum of the facts about them? Or are they fundamentally something else - a person, over and above a sum of facts; that is, a reality to be encountered that cannot adequately be captured in any book or any online profile, no matter how comprehensive?

And if you don’t know them, do you actually love them?  In your obsession with doing the right things, have you missed the reason why you do those things? Have you missed them as persons and thus failed to develop yourself into the kind of person who could actually know or love them?

In treating the rules of dating as the ends in themselves, you’ve missed the trick that following those rules was a means to a different end: namely, opening yourself to a relationship with a person and becoming yourself the kind of person who will be good in a relationship with them. While the rules may be indispensable, the reality they point to and that they are good for lies beyond them. Put yet another way, following those rules is necessary but not sufficient (i.e., needed, but not enough on their own) to become the right kind of person.

Returning to the Rich Man

Let us return to the rich man above. He had done all the good things - and, probably had developed some decent habits of some sort. But if, as it seems, he treated the “commandments” as ends in themselves, he will have failed to develop beyond them. He will have failed to really and fully develop the habits of loving God Himself and seeking after the truth of God beyond what was written and passed down. 

For one thing, one could interpret the rich man as being too trusting of on his own abilities to obtain eternal life; if so, he could not possibly be receptive of Divine help via infusion of grace and special virtue, let alone being open to the reality of God beyond the commandments he followed. We could, in this case, liken the rich man to someone who thinks their own merits are enough to earn them a relationship, irrespective of what any actual person themselves thinks or feels about them. Perhaps this sounds like someone with some hidden (or not so hidden) narcissism, or someone who embodies the shadow side of the “nice guy,” who feels entitled to relationships because of how awesome he (thinks he) is. What narcissist has actually developed the right habits for relationship with another, for true openness to another, let alone for receptivity of strength and ability and realities beyond themselves? By the same token, who could possibly develop the habits of humility and receptivity to a transcendent reality by simply and continually trusting in their own abilities to accomplish the goal of their nature via simple rule-following and accomplishment counting?

At the end of this story, Jesus makes the pointed remark that it would be “easier for a camel to pass through [the] eye of [a] needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” What is it about the riches? Along these lines, I think it’s the fact that having material wealth too often prevents one from experiencing and understanding the kind of dependence that we do have on anyone else - and most especially God. With riches, a false sense of self-sufficiency is easy to develop, embodied in an inflated trust in one’s own abilities to satisfy the deepest desires and longest yearnings of the human soul by throwing money at them or treating them as one more conquest among many that, materially, they have achieved. The riches make it more difficult to see the rules and commandments in the right perspective: as necessary but not sufficient means to developing the habits of openness to the other and dependence on God for grace and infusion of virtue. Rather, one is conditioned to treat the rules as a sort of divine checklist, another thing one can accomplish on one’s own for oneself. That is, the riches make it harder - albeit, not impossible - to become the right kind of person, even while ostensibly doing the right things. This is why Jesus asks him to divest of his riches to the poor. Not because riches are intrinsically evil; rather, in his case, because his riches were preventing him from becoming who he needed to be. By divesting of them, he would prefigure the famed St. Francis of Assisi and declare his devotion and dependence on God for his spiritual well-being. And in so doing, he would open himself to at least the possibility of grace from, and relationship with, the source of all Truth and Goodness. The fact that he didn’t exposed him at that moment. He had done all the right things, but had missed the forest for the trees and, thus, failed to become the right kind of person - at least, to that point. Alas, the Gospels don’t report if he ever came around …

Who Are You?

My dad likes to say, “God is not a bean counter.” Someone should have told this to the rich man! Granted, it’s easy to take that kind of stance and then use it to justify being cavalier about rule-following - saying to oneself “As long as I’m a good person, I can do what I want.” No. God the source of Truth provides wisdom for us via what we can find out through natural philosophy, as well as good theology, revelation, and the tradition and Magisterium of the Church. And that includes the “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” that we may need to simply obey and follow for quite some time if only to avoid certain bad or vicious habits from stealing our souls away and to begin to open ourselves up to the right kinds of habits. That said, mere rule following is never an end in itself as far as reaching the goal of our nature; it is necessary but not sufficient for this aim. The goal is to develop the right kinds of habits - both the ones we can work on ourselves and the ones for which we must be receptive to God for His grace - so that, in response to God's eternal and unchanging love, we can become the kind of people who can and will love God in return.

At the end of the day, God does not love a list of actions. God does not love a list of facts. Rather, God loves you - a person. So ... who are you? And who will you have become when you meet God face to face? Will you have developed the habits of desiring to know Truth and love Goodness, so as to see in God the fullest realization of humans' deepest desires and wish never to be parted from Him? Or will you wish for this, but have a soul still in need of some refining habits at the time of your death - meaning you will spend some time in Purgatory before reaching the True and the Good? Or will you have been so stubborn and unrepentant in one or more of your vicious habits that you will not see Him as the one for whom all have longed - and thus turn your own eyes and hearts away from Him, obstinately refusing God’s love and damning yourself to the life of eternal despair, incompleteness, and unfulfillment known as hell?

May we, inspired by the love of God as portrayed in the Sacred Heart, aspire to do the right things for the right reasons and thus strive to become and be made into the kind of people who will be open to the love and grace of God, so that, when our earthly lives are over, we will be the kind of people who love God in return.