Friday, December 26, 2014

QUOTATION: God Does Not Owe Us Friendship

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
You might say that it was very unjust of God to deprive us of friendship with Him, and of these other gifts, simply because Adam sinned. There would have been injustice if God deprived you of your due, but you are no more entitled to be a child of God than a razor has a right to bloom, or a rose has the right to bark, or a dog has the right to quote Dante. What Adam lost was gifts, not a heritage. On Christmas Day, when you distribute gifts to your friends, would I have a right to say to you: Why do you not give me a gift? You would answer: I am not doing you an injustice, because I owe you nothing. I am not obliged to give these gifts to my friends. If I had not given them gifts, I would not have deprived them of anything I owed them, So, neither did God owe us anything beyond our nature as a creature of his handiwork.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Preface to Religion