It troubles us, I think, that we would do a good thing for someone so that we could receive a reward. That seems selfish--not loving. It feels like we have mixed motives. So we put out of our minds the staggering, unblushing promises of rewards and seek to live a life of love -- of doing good for others, making sacrificial choices, without thinking of any benefit to ourselves because that feels better to us. We think it's more godly, more pure. We don't want to think that there's anything in it for us. We've been deceived!
When would a reward be a bad thing? When shouldn't we seek a reward?
There are different kinds of rewards. It is the rewards that "have no natural connection to the things you do to earn them and are quite foreign to them" that are wrong.
For example: Money is not the natural reward of love. So if you marry someone for his money - that's wrong. But if you marry someone for the reward of being able to be together, in love for your whole life...that's pure. That's not selfish, but the proper reward of love.
If a general goes to war to get a higher position for himself, that's not the natural reward, that's selfish. But if he goes to war and fights well for victory, that's not selfish, that's the natural end, that's what he is fighting for. Victory is the proper reward for battle just like marriage is the proper reward of love.
Proper rewards are not just tacked on to the activity, they are the activity in consummation. Love in consummation is marriage; the consummation of fighting a battle is victory. Rewards that are the natural, highest, best outcome --are not selfish but right and true, proper rewards.
Reflection #5 on C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory
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