The Goal and the Means
The Goal and the Means
Almost all of us agree on goals or purposes, as long as the goal is sound and good. But we differ concerning the means that lead to the goal…
So what are the reasons for the difference in the means?
The reason is the difference in thought and mind. Each of us has his own thinking and his own view of matters. Ideas also differ in the degree of intelligence, and consequently in conclusion, judgment, and evaluation. People also differ in temperament and in the type of personality. They also differ according to each person’s environment and the extent of its influence on him.
Therefore, you find good people who desire good. Yet their means are different…
Each one has his own method, style, and approach in reaching the purpose. Therefore, disagreement often occurs in collective work, whether in a church, an association, a committee, or any organization.
Sometimes there is diversity, and sometimes there is difference and conflict.
We do not object to diversity, for it leads to richness in thought and experience. But disagreement often causes division and conflicts. It may even move from objectivity to personal disagreement, and perhaps to quarrels and enmity.
For example, in the matter of reform:
We all love for things to be corrected. Who among us does not want that?! But the method differs.
- One person says: Let us pray and fast, and God will intervene and set everything right… He sees this as the proper spiritual method.
- Another says that matters are corrected through patience and long-suffering, for the Scripture says: “By your patience possess your souls” (Luke 21:19), and, “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14).
- A third believes that reform comes through wisdom, understanding, and thoughtful consideration.
- A fourth person’s method of reform is violence, through harsh criticism, pamphlets, insults, and defamation. He says that these wrongdoers can only be corrected by dealing with them severely…
- A fifth loves for matters to be corrected with meekness and calmness, in a humble manner in which we do not lose our spirituality, nor our relationship with others. Scripture says: “Let all that you do be done with love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
There is no doubt that Habib Girgis’ method in reform differed from that of others. His support was constructive work and staying away from negative approaches.
Therefore, if you participate with someone in a work, or for the sake of some good cause, it is not enough that he shares your goal and purpose. Rather, he should also share the means and the method of work, lest his way of carrying out the common purpose differs from yours, and the two of you disagree, or he causes you problems because you are partners in one work.
The strange thing in the matter of the means is the Machiavellian principle:
Some think that a good goal justifies a wrong means!
This is what Machiavelli used to say: “The end justifies the means”.
For example, someone, in the name of holy zeal, uses violence in the church, shouts, rebukes, reproves, insults, and perhaps files lawsuits. If you reproach or discuss him concerning all this, he protests with the Psalm: “Zeal for Your house has consumed me!” (Psalm 69:9). But we say to such a person:
Holy zeal requires a holy means.
Likewise, a father is extremely harsh with his son until he causes him psychological harm, claiming the sacred purpose of raising his son! The purpose is right, but the means are wrong. Or a husband confines his wife to the house and restricts her movements and speech under the pretext of protecting her! The means are also wrong.
Or a mother interferes in the very heart of her daughter’s married life and in her relationship with her husband. She may even cause her separation from him. She hides behind the sacred goal of caring for her daughter and ensuring her comfort and dignity.
Many people have ruined themselves and their relationships by wrong means.
A person seeks reconciliation with another. This is undoubtedly a sound goal. He believes that the means is reproach. There is no objection. But in the way he reproaches, he reopens old pains and wounds, and pressures the other person in a manner that exhausts him. He leaves the conversation with the relationship worse than before because the method of reproach was wrong. In contrast, another person can, through reproach, win the situation, make the other understand the matter, apologize, and both leave as friends as though nothing had happened.
Reproach is reproach. But one person’s method is acceptable and fruitful, while another’s is exhausting and harmful, producing the opposite of what is desired.
One reproaches calmly, while another reproaches angrily.
The first reproaches with love and confidence. The second reproaches with hatred and revenge.
This one wants reconciliation, while the other wants to prove that the other person is wrong and deserves what he received!
For example, three people become members of the church council.
Each one has a good purpose. Without doubt, each wants the good of the church. But because they differ in style and method, they cannot work together. One likes to work cooperatively with the priest. Another says: All church administration belongs to us, and the priest has only spiritual work; he has nothing to do with projects, financial, administrative, or construction matters. Thus he clashes with the priest and with his fellow council member. One’s method is cooperation, while the other’s method is domination.
The Lay Councils are another example.
They are the same councils for more than a hundred years, with the same law, the same responsibilities, and the same election procedures. Yet now they cooperate with the clergy. In the past there were conflicts, divisions, and lawsuits. The reason is that the style has changed from what it was before, whether on the part of the clergy or on the part of the Lay Councils.
Let us take another purpose, which is reaching God…
It is one goal on which everyone agrees. But the means are many. Some want to reach God through monasticism, others through the priesthood, others through consecrated life, and others through service while living a stable married life, building society, and raising a new generation spiritually.
We say: Here there is diversity, not disagreement. But disagreement occurs when some see their own way as the only correct one, criticize the other ways, or even try to destroy them.
There can be coordination, integration, and cooperation among the various ways that all lead to the same goal. But conflict occurs among contradictory ways.
Let us move to another subject, the upbringing of children…
All people want to raise their children properly. This is a goal on which everyone agrees. But they differ in the method of upbringing.
Some give their children complete freedom, as happens in many Western countries. When the children grow up, their fathers and mothers no longer have any authority over them. They justify their method by saying that they want the child to have an independent personality that is not under pressure.
Another method is adopted by other parents in raising their children, namely complete strictness. The child does not go out except with permission, does not befriend anyone except with permission, and does not join a club or any activities. This restriction creates repression that will have harmful reactions in the future.
There is a middle way in upbringing between these two methods. It is neither freedom that leads to laxity nor strictness that leads to restriction.
A father’s method is to befriend his son, explain, teach, convince, and discuss.
There is no doubt that persuasion, although it may require time and effort, creates an inner motivation far better than commands and prohibitions, which are merely external pressures.
The upbringing of children, therefore, is a common goal. But some use authority and prestige, others use friendship and love, and others use freedom and passivity… They are different means for one goal.
The same applies to dealing with those who err:
We all hate error and take a stand against it. Here the purpose is one, but the means differ.
Some stay away from those who err, isolating themselves from them.
Others take the position of resistance, repay them in kind, hold them accountable for every mistake, and do not let errors pass easily or without accountability.
Others try to correct them and win them over, perhaps through love and patience, perhaps through confrontation and persuasion. The important thing is to bring them to God and to the right path and to win their souls.
There is another point I wish to mention concerning the goal and the means:
Very often the means itself becomes the goal!
The only spiritual goal is God. Prayer, fasting, reading, meditation, and solitude are merely means leading to that goal. Likewise, virtues are only means leading to the goal, which is God. But unfortunately, all these may become goals in themselves!
- A person reads the Holy Scriptures and spiritual books. The proper purpose is for this reading to lead him to love God and abide in Him. But reading itself may become the goal. What matters to him is simply to read, even without understanding, meditation, or spiritual exercises.
Or the spiritual goal may change along the way!
A person reads in order to become learned or to become a teacher, so that he may appear highly knowledgeable, able to speak on any subject about which people ask him. But where is God here? He has disappeared, so that the self may appear, and knowledge and learning may appear.
Just as reading can become a goal, so can solitude.
A person should seek solitude in order to find quiet, peaceful time to sit with God. If he does not sit with God during his solitude, then the true spiritual goal has disappeared. Solitude itself becomes the goal, even if the person spends it sleeping, bored, troubled, or struggling with distracting thoughts.
Or the goal of solitude may change and become the self.
A person sits in solitude merely so that people may say he is a solitary! Seeking fame or titles rather than God! Or solitude may give him an opportunity for people to seek him out, turning him into a spiritual guide or a giver of blessings they seek from him.
Therefore, a person should examine his goal.
He should make sure that the means leads him to it.
He should make certain that the goal is sound and spiritual, that he has not deviated to another goal, and that he uses the proper means that achieve his spiritual goal, so that these means remain only means and do not become goals.
The same applies to silence.
It is merely a means leading to two things: first, avoiding the sins of the tongue; second, through silence, giving us an opportunity for prayer and meditation. If a person is merely silent without any inner spiritual work, then silence has not achieved its purpose.
If he remains silent but replaces speech with gestures or signs expressing what he wants to say, then he is still at the level of one who speaks. If the faults he wished to avoid by silence are still present within him, only changing from sins of the tongue to sins of thought, then what benefit is there in his silence?
He became silent to avoid judging others, yet he still judges them in his thoughts. He became silent to avoid angry speech, yet anger still remains in his heart!
The faults remain. Silence did not prevent them; it merely transferred them to the heart and mind. In all this, the spiritual goal has not been achieved!
The same, or something similar, may be said about fasting.
Why do we fast? Is it merely for the sake of fasting, as though fasting itself were the goal? Or do we fast in order to enter a spiritual period that helps us reach God? We deny ourselves everything we desire so that we may learn to control the will, preventing it from sin just as we prevent it from food.
Do we ensure that our fasting leads us to this spiritual goal?
Or do we fast merely for the sake of fasting, without a goal, without a purpose, and without a result?
The same applies to prayer. What is its goal in our lives? What purpose does it accomplish? Do we pray in order to enjoy fellowship with God and speak with Him? Or merely to perform a duty, even if our prayers are without spirit, emotion, warmth, depth, love, or any sense of being in the Divine Presence?
May our prayers achieve their spiritual purpose, and may we feel in them that we are speaking with God and enjoying fellowship with Him.
Let us place prayer in its proper position. It is only a means leading to a goal, and we must strive spiritually to reach that goal.
The same may be said about the Psalms, the Tasbeha, and the hymns.
We notice that the more a person memorizes the Psalms and the Tasbeha, the faster he recites them. Accordingly, the easier it becomes for him to understand less of what he is saying. How easily a person may chant a hymn, or a section from the Psalmody, or recite a Psalm without reaching the depth of what he is saying. It is as though the hymn itself has become the goal, or the recitation has become the goal!
Here we ask: When shall we realize in the depths of our hearts and understanding the spiritual purpose for which the Psalms, hymns, and Tasbeha were established?
When will emotion, warmth, meditation, understanding, and the spirit of prayer enter into them? When will we care not for quantity but for depth—not for the number of Psalms, but for their depth and spirituality?
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