“When the divine command comes to a butterfly, “Fly!” it feels no burden, no fear, no guilt. It just does what it has been made to do: it flies—and sings to the grace of God with every flap of the wing. It has the new nature of a flier that it didn’t have when it was a larva in the cocoon. That is what Scougal means by the “vital principle” of true religion in the soul. But when the divine command comes to the larva in the cocoon, “Fly!” it does not fly. Instead it has three options for how it can respond. 1) It can sink in despair and say, “I can’t fly! There is no hope for me!” Or 2) it can soar in self-deceit and say, “I am flying! See, there is the ground way down there.” Or 3) it can do what St. Augustine did and cry out, […]