Inclusion in God's: What, Why, and Who

Three key ways to deepen our Communion

Inclusion is an important term to the Catholic Church. Yet for many traditional Catholics it can become a bit of a frustrating term, where it is cooped by various political agendas. Understanding how the term applies to the Catholic, therefore requires some thought that goes beyond the nominal vagaries of our present age.

I would say that there are three terms that are properly associated with inclusion that are essential in a genuine Catholic Inclusivity: God’s What, Why, and Who.

Catholicism, by its nature is “universal” meaning that God extends his plan of salvation to all people. That type of inclusion, or liberalism is both a beautiful reality, and a challenging one. How often do we only reflect on the appetible dimension and go no further? But this hinges on the difference between pluralism and Catholicism. Radical pluralism doesn’t invite people into God’s own mind and heart, but rather includes those things which are contrary to God’s own heart and mind. Its the inversion of God’s inclusivity.

God’s What

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that each of us, in our nature, is a “participation in God’s own goodness.” What God is, is in fact a mystery because He is so Good that no words could ever scratch the surface of what abides in God’s nature. Yet, that is what He is, goodness-itself. While God is infinitely good, we are nonetheless finite. Yet, that finitude is linked to God’s own goodness by “participation.” And this means that each human person is an unrepeatable, finite instance of God’s own goodness. When God created us from nothing, it means that God created us from within Himself. Each of us comes from the very mind and heart of God, intended, and willed before, during and after our first moment of life. In fact, at every moment of our lives, we are willed, and participate in God’s own goodness. One thing St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us is that God invites us to participate in His own goodness because of His kindness. That is to say, God is the best most supreme good around, and we are invited simply by our existence to participate in being “like” Him.

Christ reveals to us an even greater dignity where the Church is not only called to act and be an image of God. But further, we are called to participate in Christ’s own identity as “members of His body.” Who we are, as a Church is “Christ’s body.” This elevated dignity changes the way we see ourselves, so that we no longer “live for ourselves, but for Him” who died for us. Christ therefore becomes our own “what” and this fact of Baptism is meant to be internalized. If Christ is externalized from our identity, we do not know who we are as Baptized Christians.

God’s Why

One of the philosophies the Church rightly criticizes is deontology and rationalism. Deontology is a “duty-bound” ethical approach to our lives. It’s an incomplete truth that reduces moral rights and wrongs to a theoretical exercise of discernment that does not encounter the person or even acknowledge the purpose of our own nature and God’s designs. God, however, when designing the universe imbedded in our nature a “purpose” that is objective. This purpose is a fundamental orientation toward what is ultimately good (God). As is the case with our very nature, so it is with our purpose, that our end is a participation in God’s own goodness. God who is “happiness” is our own end. We are called to participate in the inexplicable infinite intensity of God’s own joy and fulfillment. Our “why” is grounded not in mere duty, but the “why” of our behavior and choices that leads to freedom, healthy and loving relationships, and a love for God and neighbor. This implies, however, that we internalize what love actually is according to God, and will therefore include a hedonistic, pleasure-based, or ego-centric approach to love. God’s why defines love, not in a tautological manner but as such: “To will the good of the other as other.” God fully accomplishes that within His Triune Nature eternally, and invites us into a participation through our neighbor and our direct relationship with Him to share in that likeness. Left abstract, this “why” is mere sentimentality determined by the subjectivism and relativism of a value-based culture unhinged from discernment and God’s ‘what.’ God’s why involves a specificity to it, whereby we can genuinely love another, not merely in our heads, but in what is actually good for that very real neighbor.

Christ’s temptations in the desert were a proposed narrative of His mission that was inverted. To feed the world mere bread, would mean that Christ would reduce God’s why to a relationship with mere temporal concerns. For His humanity to be placed on the pinnacle of the temple was to place God under the judgment of a finite intellect. In other words, the prophetic message would be directed by man not listening to wisdom, but arbitrarily inventing it. Jesus however reveals what His Father reveals to Him. Finally, to become a political King is to receive his own power from mankind, which is beneath God’s dignity. Christ came to us not addressing our temporal political needs (primarily) but towards the spiritual needs for conversion. He did not principally come to change structures, but to change the very spirit by which they were either built, destroyed, and maintained.

Christ then extends to us, His own mission. These three temptations then become our own, and when we make the Church worldly, and addressing only temporal means to the exclusion of His vision, and His agenda, we are no longer allowing ourselves to be included in His why, but telling God that it is His job to be subservient to our fallen “why.” We exclude God, and choose not to be included in His vision.

God beautifully understands what the needs of mankind are, and He is deeply united to our aches and hungers (even though for us, they are often numbed and we go unaware of what it is we are actually hungering for). He invites us into His why, as a way of sharing with us the utter thrill and excitement of bringing others to perfection and fulfillment. When we finds us idle, he sees a sadness we ourselves are often unaware of within ourselves. We are not participating in an infinitely good vision, but rather are participating in a fragmented, egotistical, shortsighted act of building a Tower of Babel rather than an Ark.

God’s Who

It becomes evident to us in scripture that we are to become God. This teaching around deification or theosis certainly causes us to be mindful of the generosity of God. That while we sinned, God’s response is to entice us back into His arms by sharing with us a dignity that the angels themselves do not experience. To become God, by grace, is an incredible gift that is undeserved yet given freely. The gateway to this is Baptism, where we are not only shared with the nature of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King, but also sharing in the Divine Sonship of Christ, by grace. We enter in, and become participators in the very dignity of the Son of God, who has been loved for all eternity. Our “personhood” which is already unrepeatable and unique, is now configured to a relationship with the Father as Christ’s is. Thus, God brings about a significant invitation of inclusion in the life of the Trinity. And this invitation is not extended to some other type of relationship that contradicts the very movement of Lover, Beloved, and Love. Anything contrary to that is what God excludes, and we must as well follow.

So my question for you is: What does the world offer us today as “inclusion” that is the counterfeit to the “what, why, and who?” Are we able to exclude these counterfeits, not merely from a dutybound approach, but from a place of love for Who God is, What He is, and the Inspired Purposes He has?