Ownership v. Gratitude

Our very existence is gift. That means that our very existence involves participation in the life of the giver. Paul Griffiths (Decreation, 200) puts it this way: “the fact that you are is sheer unmerited gift, and what you are is a participant in the LORD.” 

Sin is the rejection of the gift because it’s a rejection and flight from the Giver. But if our very existence is gift, rejection of the gift involves self-renunciation. 

And this is just what we attempt to do when we claim ownership of our own persons, existence, substance. Griffiths cites Augustine’s interpretation of the prodigal son story to expound the theme. 

In the Vulgate, the son asks his father for his substantia; the Greek has ousia. This means his possession, but it carries the resonance of existence itself. He doesn’t want to continue receiving his substantia from his father. He wants it all under his control, as his own possession. He demands “ownership or control over what he is: your substantia is what you essentially are, what makes you you. It is a gift freely given by the LORD, and to demand it for yourself is to make it less than it is by turning it into an object wholly owned instead of a gift freely received” (199). 

The inevitable result is loss: If you are gift, and you reject all gifts to stand on your own feet, you lose yourself. If we reject existence-as-gift, we are rejecting ourselves and already embracing the abyss. 

The prodigal parable is a cautionary tale about self-ownership: The prodigal who wants all his substance as his own ends up with nothing, until he repents and receives back all his substantia, all his being, again from his father, again as gift.

There are two ways of being in the world: The way of ownership of self, which can only end in nothing; and the way of gratitude, receiving one’s life as a gift. Those who seek to gain and grasp life, lose it; those who lose life – those who recognize that their life is not theirs from the outset – gain it.