Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [10]
Supernatural readiness to change vs. malleability
However, it would mean a grievous misunderstanding of this indispensable basic attitude to interpret it as a state of fluidity as such, a general disposition to change in no matter what direction. In fact, what we have in mind is exclusively the readiness to let ourselves be shaped by Christ, and by whatever speaks of Him and of the “Father of all lights.” The change we have in view is merely the change implied in the continual process of dying unto ourselves, and being reformed by Christ. Moreover, that state of fluidity which makes this process possible is linked, on the other hand, to an attitude of consolidation in Christ and in the goods we receive from Him. With the postulate of soft receptiveness susceptible to the formative influences from above corresponds, as a logical complement, the postulate of an increasing rigidity in relation to all tendencies towards being changed from below.
Here the difference between fluidity under the sign of the supernatural and the mere natural disposition of fluidity becomes clear. Some people, owing merely to their natural temperament are like soft wax, prone to any change whatever. These impressionable persons who yield to all kinds of influences lack solidity and continuity.
The fluidity which goes with aliveness to the supernatural, on the contrary, has nothing to do with spineless malleability as such. Rather it involves a firm standing in the face of all mundane influences, a character of impermeability in regard to them, and an unshakable solidity on the new base with which Christ supplies us. Even at this early stage we discern that strange coincidentia oppositorum which will again and again strike our eyes in the course of our inquiry: that union between attitudes seemingly irreconcilable with each other on the natural level, which is the sign of all supernatural mode of being.
Also, that fluidity in our relationship with Christ is anything but a state characterized by a continuous flow of change, in the sense that the change as such be credited with a value of its own. What the readiness to be transformed by Christ really implies is rather the utter negation both of the worship of being in a state of movement as exhibited by the Youth Movement and of the Goethean ideal of an abundance of life based on the concept of continual change. We are far, then, from preaching fluidity in general, be it in the sense of a glorification of movement as such, or in the sense of the celebrated verses of Goethe, beautiful though they may be: Derm solang du das nicht hast, dieses Stirb und Werde, bist du nur ein trüber Gast auf der dunkeln Erde (“Unless thou follow the call of dying and becoming, thou art but a sad guest on this dark earth”).
Man is called to the unchangeableness of God
It does not behoove us to cherish variability as such; for, as Christians we give our worship not to change but to the Unchangeable: God, Who in all eternity remains Himself: “They shall perish, but Thou remainest” (Ps. 101:26-28). Thus, as Christians we direct our lives towards that moment in which there will be change no longer, and rejoice in the hope of sharing in the unchangeableness of God. We deny our love to the heaving rhythm of life. And the ideal of vitality, seductive to those who see the ultimate reality in Nature, has no attraction for us. Nor can we be intoxicated by any communion with Nature in a pantheistic sense, For we do not believe ourselves to be a part of Nature: we conceive of man as a spiritual person endowed with an immortal soul. We feel that he does not belong as a whole to the natural realm, It is only in respect to our terrestrial situation that we are subject to the rhythm of ebb and flow, the fluctuation of dying and becoming, the law of perishableness. Non omnis moriar (I shall not wholly die), says Horace, having in mind earthly fame. But we say it in awareness of our ultimate, our