"It was only infinite goodness that moved Almighty God to create the world of nothing, and particularly to create man after His own image and similitude, consisting of a frail earthly body, which is the prison of an immortal, intellectual spirit, to the end that by his understanding, which is capable of an unlimited knowledge, and by his will, which cannot be replenished with any object of goodness less than infinite, he might so govern and order himself as thereby to arrive unto the end for which he was made, to wit, eternal beatitude both in soul and body in heaven, the which consists in a returning to the divine principle from whom he flowed."
— Augustine Baker (1575–1641) · English Benedictine Monk✦ Cannot Be Replenished with Less Than Infinite
Baker begins at the very beginning — before the fall, before the furnace, before the need for redemption — with why we were made. The will cannot be satisfied by anything less than the infinite. Not will not — cannot. The architecture of the soul was designed for God alone. Everything less leaves a gap. Augustine of Hippo's restless heart. Guyon's center that draws by gravity. Baker grounds it in creation itself.
And the destination: a returning to the divine principle from whom he flowed. The river running to the sea — Guyon's image, now confirmed by Baker as the original design. We came from God. We return to God. The journey is a homecoming.
"God was pleased to the natural vast capacity of man's understanding and will to add a supernatural light, illustrating his mind to believe and know Him, and divine charity in the will, which was as it were a weight to incline and draw the soul, without any defect or interruption, to love God, and Him only.
So that by a continual presence of this light, and an uninterrupted exercise of this love, the soul of man would in time have attained to such a measure of perfection of union with God in this world, as without dying to merit a translation from hence to heaven."
— Augustine Baker (1575–1641)"Divine charity in the will was as it were a weight to incline and draw the soul to love God, and Him only."
— Augustine Baker · The same weight Guyon described — love as gravity, drawing the soul toward its centerA weight. Guyon said the soul falls toward its center by the weight of love. Baker says the same — divine charity is a weight that inclines and draws. Two authors, two centuries, one physics of the soul. And Baker adds something Guyon did not: this weight was part of the original design. Before the fall, the soul was already drawn by love's gravity. The restoration is not the addition of something new. It is the recovery of something original.
"Hence it appears that the means to happiness, and the end itself, are essentially the same thing, to wit, union of the spirit with God, and differ only in degrees.
And the union which Adam during his state of innocence did and would always have practised was in a sort perpetual, never being interrupted. For, loving God only and purely for Himself, he had no strange affection to distract him.
So that creatures and all offices towards them served as steps to raise Adam to a more sublime and more intimate union with God; the which was both his duty and his present happiness, besides that it was a disposition to his future eternal beatitude."
— Augustine Baker (1575–1641)"The means to happiness, and the end itself, are essentially the same thing, and differ only in degrees."
— Augustine Baker · The morning devotion and eternal beatitude are the same union at different intensities✦ Steps, Not Distractions
The journey and the destination are the same substance. Union with God now and union with God in eternity differ only in degree. The morning devotion in Caldas da Rainha and the eternal beatitude in heaven are the same union at different intensities. Guyon said it: the presence becomes habitual, and what was temporary becomes permanent. Baker says it from the foundation: the means is the end.
And Adam in innocence contemplated God in all creatures, not instead of creatures. They were not distractions. They were steps. Every reflection on them raised him to more intimate union. The packing, the driving, the ordinary hours — in Adam's innocence, these would have been steps toward God, not away from Him. And that is what the restored soul is learning to recover.
"It is thrilling to read Augustine Baker's Holy Wisdom, how he strives to sit right in the middle of God's thoughts and reach out for the truth. The writers in the century were bold, not commercial like they are today — they paid the price to sit next to God and allow Him to reveal what they wanted to know. They are greatly loved by God as a result."
Less Than Infinite
The will cannot be replenished with any object of goodness less than infinite. The architecture of the soul was designed for God alone. Everything less leaves a gap that nothing created can fill.
Love as Weight
Divine charity as a weight to incline and draw the soul. Baker and Guyon across centuries describe the same gravity. The weight was part of the original design — not added in restoration but recovered.
Means and End Are One
Union with God now and union with God in eternity are the same thing at different degrees. The morning devotion and eternal beatitude differ only in intensity. Creatures are steps, not distractions.