This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8 |Part 9|Part 10|Part 11
“Contradictions have always existed in the soul of man. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem. We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison.” - Thomas Merton
Oh, how many seekers stumble along this path. Either knowingly, as an excuse to never really get anywhere, or unknowingly, 
trapped in the age of scientific reason where everything must be reducible to “fact” in order to attain that status.
Consider these paradoxes: We have choice, yet we are chosen before time; God hardens the hearts of some, yet they are still responsible for their sins. These paradoxes cannot be reasoned away, though many have tried. We simply live with them.
What then are the “exterior and objective values” that make these paradoxes trivial by comparison? That God is good is certainly one of them. However much an atheist might mock the seeming simplicity of such a position, it is indeed the one we hold to as believers. We do not understand all that God does, but we trust that from his perspective it is both right and good.
In Isaiah 30:15 God says, ”In repentance and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.” We are not meant to question everything without end, nor will we ever understand all his ways.
If we could, we would be God and he would not and we would all be in a lot of trouble.
