strength and virtue, a human strategy, aphorism 501

501 

Were Job told by God that he had no hope of Immortality, of an everlasting companionship with God ... he would surely, even at his lowest point, have loved God ... as he would have had none of that ingratitude which asks for more than this life, as he would thereby be loving the gift of this life. He would have no payment for moral behavior other than his own honor in having the strength not to demand any other reward. He would even be grateful to God for permitting this one and only means of proving this ultimate degree of strength and type of virtue. It is divinely ironic that first we must renounce all claim to a Beyond and a personal Immortality before our love of God becomes genuine. I find the depth of such an affirmation, which only appears as a renunciation, truly significant and worth more than any eternal compromise.

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