Analytical Table of Contents: Robinson, Spiritual Combat Revisited

SUMMARY

[Under Consideration]

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue: Spiritual Combat Today

Asceticism, or spiritual combat, is the name for the efforts that we make to cooperate with grace to become holy. Holiness is the struggle to overcome the division in our nature.  We want what is holy and good and at the same time we are attracted to sin. In spiritual combat we fight our personal sin and strive to grow in the virtues.  Spiritual combat is an essential aspect of the Christian life.

Part One: Spiritual Combat

We are created to live in eternal happiness with God. This is the meaning of life! In order to obtain this happiness, we must, with the help of God's grace, grow in virtue and reject all that is sinful in our lives. To be perfect we must seek holiness by engaging in spiritual battle with ourselves in an effort to remove everything from our lives that stands in the way of our goal. The four weapons of spiritual combat are: (1) humility and self-distrust (2) practice of the virtues of hope and confidence in God, (3) spiritual exercises which are the systematic efforts we undertake to cooperate with God's grace, and (4) the practice of prayer.

C.1    First Principles

There are five principals which apply to the spiritual life. We must grow in knowledge of God and about ourselves. This means that we must admit that we are completely dependent upon God and that He exists and is beyond our ability to conceive. As created beings, we depend entirely upon His providence for our existence. We are in the end, nothing without God. We must love God because He is deserving of love. We must hate anything that prevents us from obtaining God. This hatred, if it applies to persons, at the same time commands us love the person and bring them to Christ's mercy. We must subject ourselves to God and serve our neighbors. Our submission is the submission of a friend that offers himself out of love for his beloved. This is not the service of a slave, but the devotion of a son or daughter. We must renounce our own will and resign ourselves to the will of God. This resignation is particularly applicable to setting our own goals and in establishing our own moral standards: we must do neither. Finally, we must will all and do all for the glory of God.

C.2    Self-Distrust and Humility

C.3    Hope In God

C.4    Spiritual Exercises

C.5    Working for Holiness

C.6    Spiritual Exercises and Chastity

C.7    Prayer as a Weapon

Part Two: The Development of Prayer

C.8    Prayer in Context

C.9    The Practice of Prayer

Part Three: "What Is Very Plain"

C.10    Christ's Call and the Divided Heart

C.11    The Hardest of All Struggles

C.12    Perfection, Beatitude and Immortality

Epilogue: "And That Is Meant for Me"