Clear as Saint John of the Cross may be, he is so drastic that many people are convinced he is preaching a kind of Manichaean dualism, as if nature were evil in itself, as if creatures could never be anything but obstacles to union with God. But the strict logic of Saint John is unimpeachable. On the one hand he affirms, without reservation, that the desire of creatures as ends in themselves cannot coexist with the desire of God as our true end. We cannot serve God and Mammon. And when our minds