The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

Thesis Statement

In this paper I will discuss how seeking God and religion, will help man through his life struggles and compromises.

Introduction

        Thomas Merton can be seen as an author, monk, critic of society, and religious icon throughout the world. In his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton explores the tradition of religion and man’s search for dialogue with God. One of the moral themes in the book is man’s loneliness. For Merton, this deep-rooted loneliness was felt strongly as a child, as Merton he the death of his mother and father early in his life. As a child, Merton traveled between France, England, and the United States, which gave him contradicting exposures to Anglican and Protestant religions. Out of this confusion, Merton turned away from God rather than towards him, and in his late teen years he rejected all religious beliefs entirely. As a result, he created his own bitter mantra, in which he stated, “I believe in nothing.”

        Merton turned to intellect rather than religion to fill his loneliness. He studied literature and politics, but continued to feel lonely and isolated. Notably, one of the first impulses for Merton to pursue faith was the discovery of the book, The Spirit Of Medieval Philosophy, by Etienne Gilson. At first, Merton was reluctant to embrace the book, stating, “While I admired Catholic culture, I had always been afraid of the Catholic Church” (Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 188). Upon reading the book, Merton discovered the transliteration of God, and that “faith was something that had a very definite meaning and was a most cogent necessity” (Merton, p. 191). At the age of twenty-three, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism after finding what he perceived to be the ultimate truth within the churches doctrines. After his conversion, Merton withdrew from society in order to further pursue his search for true peace and fulfillment. At the age of twenty-six, following a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton took vows in the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of Trappist monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians, the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order. At the monastery, “the four walls of my new freedom,” Thomas Merton struggled to withdraw from the world, but eventually fully immersed himself in this new-found freedom.

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        Merton’s loneliness can be compared to that of St. Augustine’s, in which he struggled to respond to God’s spiritual call. Free will for Merton provided the opportunity for him to experience the loneliness of life without God, and then experience the true peace of life with God. Much like St. Augustine’s conversion, Merton first confesses to his derelictions of drinking and meaningless sexual encounters before his conversion to Catholicism. The two men are paralleled in their conversion by the path they take to finally find God. Each man’s loneliness was unable to be satisfied with intellect, sex, or alcohol, and ...

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