Character part 1

It’s not about what you do, but who your actions shape you into. 

I would say that I’ve lived a life that makes me somewhat qualified to talk about character. In my past, I used to be a nihilist. I was lazy, I lied if I thought that it would benefit me and I indulged any momentary urge if its gratification was within reach. This meant that I acquired habits that were hard to break. It also meant that I built up a life where I was more prone to lie and put myself first in the future. At first, when I started to find meaning and wanted to live a different life, I was so disconnected from myself, that I didn’t see all the baggage that was still there. I basically thought that I was just going to become a good person over night, just by deciding to be.

Character, I believe, would be how we bridge the gap between justification by faith and by action. I don’t think that I’m alone in feeling an aversion towards the idea that if you just do enough good deeds, you’re okay no matter what kind of person you are on the inside. 

Neither do I think that I’m alone in feeling an aversion towards the idea that faith is all that is required. Especially when faith comes down to believing in the right things. This, I think, would be even worse than the “just do good deeds” bit. Especially since good deeds tend to have a positive effect on one’s character, while forcing oneself to believe certain things out of fear of punishment and hope for rewards doesn’t seem to do anything good for anyone. 

Here I wish to interject something. I don’t know what happens when we die. I know that we go on existing in some way and I may have some idea what might happen. I don’t think that we will be tortured forever if we’re not right with God though. I don’t know, but I find this incompatible with the idea of a good God that is almighty, which would logically imply that God could choose not to let us suffer for eternity. But I don’t know. There could be something that I’m missing here. 

The point though, is that I don’t believe that we are totally liberated from any sorts of consequences for our actions or the people that we are either. 

One thought, which is in line with the idea of character being central to our spiritual lives, is that our punishment or reward is simply that we have to live with ourselves. We can, like I did, numb the pain of being people that we don’t like, by telling ourselves that there is no right or wrong and that nothing matters. We can numb the pain on the outside by distracting ourselves with things, money, work, addictions etcetera. We can even fool ourselves that everything is okay by convincing others of it.

But in the end, we are always there. And one thing that I believe that we can be fairly certain of when it comes to the afterlife, no matter what else it holds in store for us, is that we won’t be able to bring with us any of our distractions from this life.