“There was this girl back in high school.” Most guys have at least one good story that begins that way, myself included. Yet, within this category of stories, the one that I think about the most is the one that never happened.
She was funny, smart, beautiful, Catholic, and a bit out of my league (at least, that’s what I told myself, and I’m pretty sure it was true). I really was planning on asking her out – I had the time and place and other such details for our hypothetical first date all thought out – but I never pulled the trigger. I just never found the courage, and she eventually ended up with someone else.
But, if I’m honest with myself, my failure to act wasn’t only caused by cowardice (though that was certainly a part of it). Honestly, I didn’t feel a huge need for a relationship like that – I was pretty content with the friendships I already had, so there was no burning motivation to step out of my comfort zone. Furthermore, I saw that my friends who did have romantic relationships were always under pressure to put in a lot of time and effort to make it work, and I wasn’t particularly enthused about submitting myself to that. At the end of the day, the real reason why I didn’t ask the girl out was laziness. My cowardice was just the kicker after sloth had already done me in.
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Not engaging is always easier than engaging. To act can always be thought of as unnecessary effort where inaction is the path of least resistance. Some people even think – and with solid rationale – that laziness is a beneficial evolutionary trait that urges us to find creative, more elegant solutions to problems that simpler beings might overcome with energy-wasting hard work. I contend that this dynamic (while sensible from the perspective of energy preservation) is an omnipresent undercurrent that works against us in our intellectual and spiritual lives, and that it must be overcome if we are to progress towards truth.
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Curiosity can be understood as the universal antidote to the intellectual laziness that we all suffer from. Our brains love shortcuts, and choosing to not think about things is the greatest intellectual shortcut of them all; however, curiosity compels us to swim against the tide. The popular TV show Rick and Morty regularly proposes that the answer to difficult questions is “just don’t think about it,” yet the cynical scientist spends far more time exploring the multiverse with his angsty grandson and inventing new gadgets than he does vegging out to inter-dimensional cable (though he does some of that too). Likewise, we could spend our whole lives enjoying passive entertainment instead of caring about science, art, philosophy, and everything in between; yet, we as a people, way more often than not, choose the latter. Science, philosophy, and culture all move forward when individuals overcome their sloth – when they find the drive to “ask out the girl from high school.”
The decision to think or not think only becomes truly difficult when faced with an intellectual threat. When a physics problem requires math that doesn’t exist yet, some physicists and mathematicians throw in the towel, while others invent new math. When faced with the scientific realities of evolution, some Christians become fundamentalists who plug their ears to the facts, while others find new, more nuanced ways of understanding Genesis 1. Whether you are a scientist, an engineer, an artist, a historian, or a theologian, this is the challenge you are faced with. This is the primordial question that you must answer correctly before addressing all of the other questions in your field. No matter what you think about, you must first choose to think.
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It is a real problem for religious people that some people are atheists. Does God only reveal Himself to a chosen few? I am convinced that, like in the “to think or not to think” dynamic, there is a willingness to engage that separates believers from non-believers. In this case, God is the attractive girl that some guys will have the courage to approach while others will not. Unlike the character from my high school past, God is open to – even thrilled to – enter into a relationship with all of us despite being cosmically out of our league. All we have to do is overcome our sloth and our fear (and perhaps a bit of high-school-ish awkwardness) – and ask Him.
At this point the seasoned philosopher grabs the mic and sternly reminds us that we are guilty of circular reasoning. All poetics aside, we have suggested that to come to believe in God we must first believe in God. The argument assumes its conclusion as a premise. Perhaps more soberingly, the hardened theologian chimes in and accuses us of fideism: the problematic notion that truth is attained via pure faith to the exclusion of reason. What they forget is that God has made Himself known to us – to our intellects, and even to our senses – both in the natural world and in the Incarnation. It is in fact quite reasonable to react to a being that has already extended His hand in introduction. The question we face as humans here in the third millennium is not the existence of God, but rather if and how we will respond to His presence in our lives.
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As we resist the looming temptation of inaction both in our intellectual pursuits and in our spiritual pursuits, we will be solemnly reminded that we do not face a hurdle to be cleared, but a current that we must continually swim through. The siren song of sloth will not fade away when we turn our back to it. Every time we are presented with a new problem, “just don’t think about it” is an option available to us. Likewise, every time we are invited by God to open our hearts to Him, we can ask Him to shove off – and according to the fall of man story, He’ll leave us alone. In the narrative, the fall was a long time ago and many of us have become quite comfortable with the space that God has allowed us to maintain between Him and us. In our personal lives, we can become comfortable with pretending that God isn’t there. But, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll see that the real chasm between God and ourselves only exists in our minds. As Augustine points out, God is more intimate with us than we are with ourselves.
Now you must overcome your own sloth. Ask God if He’d like to spend this evening with you. He’s going to say ‘yes’.
