4

Struggling with the World

Central idea, spoken in sacred and profane voice

A third major option in the spiritual history of humanity, for more
than twenty- fi ve hundred years, has been the struggle with the world.
Its central idea is that there is a path of ascent, requiring and enabling
us to undergo a transformation of both society and the self, and re-
warding us with an incomparable good. Th e incomparable good is a
greater share in the attributes of the divine, or eternal life, or a greater
life, with higher powers, making us more godlike.
By treading this path, we triumph over evil. Evil is death and, be-
yond death, the diminishment of being. It is our failure to be rescued
from what seems to be our condition: hapless and dying organisms,
unable to discern the reason for our existence and desiring, especially
from one another, more than we can ever receive. Separation from the
divine and from one another presages death: it closes the route of es-
cape from this condition. It is itself a beginning of death because it
leaves us blocked and diminished, face to face with our mortality, our
groundlessness, and our insatiability, and bled of vitality even before
we perish.
If we cannot enjoy the eternal life promised by some versions of the
struggle with the world, and be brought into the presence and favor of
God, then we can at least possess the greater life off ered by other ver-
sions, and become more godlike. Whether or not our lift ing up takes
the form of victory over death, it calls us to pass through an itinerary
of change in our selves and societies, and makes it impossible for us to