I began by considering how the plants I was looking at were more than their parts, the precise combination of the parts creates a new sum. (The sum is more than its parts) Upon consideration, I believe it is the addition of the will from the creator that creates this difference. For example, when a house is built, it is made out of specific pieces. The instructions act as a guide for the work, but it is the will, which is then converted into actions, that causes the actual product: a built house. Though will is not visible strictly of itself, we can observe its effects, and has the potential to act as the glue for any given set of parts.
This led me to wonder; is the Holy Spirit inside of Christians the Will that gives us the potential to do good? Seemingly, the Holy Spirit cannot complete the action of moving towards goodness for us, if humans are to learn how to use free will. If that is true, than perhaps the Holy Spirit acts as the will, similar to the above example I gave. We can perform certain actions, but to ideally create a good action, the action ought to be derived from the impetus of the will. Is this line of thought heretical?
In a separate line of inquiry on the same walk, I was wondering what death does. If we are not just going to be spirits in the end, but in spirits in new bodies, what is the purpose of this initial living? We are given the opportunity to use our will to want goodness, truth and beauty, to want Jesus in essence. After we will to do this however, we still must convert our will into action, otherwise we are not fully actualizing our will, instead the will stagnates and decays as it pursues less goodly goals. What then are we trying to do? Involve ourselves in a perpetual struggle for motion of the will converted into action so as to seek the good? This reminded me of Plato, the Phaedrus, where Socrates says that
"Every soul is immortal. That is because whatever is always in motion is immortal, while what moves, and is moved by, something else stops living when it stops moving. So it is only what moves itself that never desists from motion, since it does not leave off being itself... (Phaedrus, 245C-D)"
Is this what our current life is giving us the opportunity to strive after, while being protected by time? If perpetual motion is always being ourself, could it mean that by a perpetual search after goodness, we become ourself? For if we ever thought we had found goodness, and stopped searching after it, we would no longer have goodness, because we would have stopped being ourselves, for we would have stopped being in motion. Does this mean that the Good does not actually exist? No, it must mean that the Good absolutely and necessarily exists, because it never stops moving. This is why we must always be moving after it, for it never stops being Good, itself.
Is that why in the Phaedrus, we must continually "catch sight of any true thing" if we are to remain pursuing True Reality? (248 C) For if we were to stop ever moving, then we would lose sight of Reality, and fail to be ourselves. Just as the person in love must keep loving more deeply, or that love be destroyed, we must keep moving further towards goodness. It is no unpleasant task, no endless monotony any more than being more deeply in love with the Beloved becomes monotony and punishment. I could not say that it is not a servitude, for it is a slavery, but of the most blessed kind.
