Writing Our Own Stories: When ‘My Way’ Replaces God’s Way, by Regis Martin

Regis Martin, S.T.D., is a professor of theology and a faculty associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He podcasts at In Search Of The Still Point and is the author of Looking for Lazarus: A Preview of the Resurrection. His most recent book, published by Sophia Institute Press, is March to Martyrdom: Seven Letters on Sanctity from St. Ignatius of Antioch.

When self-determination becomes an idol, we risk losing the very meaning of freedom.

Does life come with a set of instructions on how to live it? And if so, who wrote them? By whose authority are the instructions to be followed? Options are fairly limited here, reducing either to God, who inscribed them into the very constitution of our being, or ourselves, who more or less make things up as we go along. We write the constitution, adding numberless amendments along the way. Are we aiming to hit the bullseye of beatitude, or do we fall headlong into hell? It hardly matters so long as we get to call the shots.

It has not always been like that. Not until the 1960s, when the world seriously lost its mind, had people quite given up on God. Before that, almost everyone would have agreed with C.S. Lewis, who, taking note of the fact that we live in a world none of us created, drew the obvious conclusion: “Your preferences have not been consulted.” That had been the perspective in place pretty much forever — yes, even when the observance remained largely in the breach. How else can there be hypocrites, who, by the very exercise of their vice, to quote Oscar Wilde, “pay homage to virtue?” …

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