Category Archives: Systematics

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Theology: The Ways In and the Ways Along

Theology is a journey, in a number of senses. First, it takes time to speak of God. As we go on speaking of God through our lives, we learn how to do it better, more faithfully–in the best instances, being taught by God how best to speak of him. (This is unlike God’s own knowledge of himself, in which he knows himself and all things instantaneously–or to use the technical term, ‘non-discursively.’)

Second, theology treats a number of different realities. Most basically, these are (i) God and (ii) all things in relation to God; but more expansively, these include God’s attributes (power, wisdom, love), God’s activities (existing, creating, redeeming), and God’s creatures (the universe, humanity, time). As one moves from speaking of God in himself to God’s activities and creatures, one journeys across a whole expanse of topics: God’s life in three persons; the creation of a reality other than God; the relation of the human creature to his Creator; the downfall and restoration of these human creatures; and so on. Where does one begin this journey? To speak simply, for Aquinas, we begin with whether there is a knowledge of God to speak of in the first place, a theology separate from human knowledges; for Calvin, we begin with the paradox that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves is intertwined: it is not entirely clear which gives rise to the other.  Hans Urs von Balthasar, on the other hand, gives the remarkable suggestion that we ought to begin with beauty, and goes on to structure the first part of his theology around the glory of God. And yet, he writes, “God’s truth is, indeed, great enough to allow an infinity of approaches and entryways” (The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, Seeing the Form, p.17). Where one begins is not as important, he would argue, as how one proceeds along the journey.

And this brings me to my third sense of theological journeying, the one I now consider the most important. It is the journey of the theologian him- or herself–taking “theologian” here in its broad, patristic and monastic sense as the one who knows God personally,  as in Evagrius of Pontus’ famous statement that the theologian is the one who truly prays, and the one who truly prays is a theologian. We journey as we come to know God more deeply; in this process, we begin in our child-like steps by seeing things from our perspective, focusing on what most directly pertains to us; as we progress, however, we begin to see things from the other side, from God’s perspective and his reality. We might begin to know God from learning how to pray, from a proof for his existence, or hearing of his deliverance of Israel through the exodus. As we mature, we begin to see God and all things in the broader, truer perspective: prayer is part of the whole life of the person saved by Christ; God’s existence is but one of his many entrancing perfections; Israel’s exodus has meaning in relation to all of God’s other activities, looking both backward and forward.

In both his Summa theologiae and his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Aquinas compares the theologian to the architect. The architect sees the art of building from its highest cause, as it envisions the completion of a building. As someone who sees the big picture, the whole purpose, he directs the workers to this end. The theologian is someone who sees not just the art of building, but all things from their highest cause, which is God. All creatures have their end and their purpose in God, and the theologian is the one who sees all things in this light. But of course, we do not usually have this perspective, for any number of reasons; it is a perspective that must be attained through paying attention well, consciously and intentionally and in that pattern of paying attention well that is called the Church.

And so finally, the kind of journeying that makes a theologian is a spiritual journeying. It is a journey of overcoming our natural understanding of God and arriving at a proper, spiritual understanding (1 Cor. 2:12-16). This demands not only the cognitive efforts ingredient to other disciplines as well–though it does require these; theology demands a spiritual effort, or better, a spiritual grace. We must be given to understand God as he is, as Spirit, and this grace works an inversion of our usual way of understanding reality. Augustine’s De trinitate is, among other things, just such a spiritual journey. Augustine is leading his reader away from understanding God the Trinity as a material, creaturely reality, to understanding God as he is, as Spirit. This journey begins in the images of the Trinity in Scripture, and, while not leaving these biblical pictures behind, progresses to increasingly spiritual (i.e., immaterial) images of God in himself, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God as he truly is. The person who is spiritually immature stumbles at this point; he or she, in Augustine’s words, “can only think of masses and spaces, little or great, with images of bodies flitting around in his mind like ghosts” (De trin. 7.11).

The journey that is theology, though it begins in many places, proceeds toward the same end: God himself. Coming to know God as God truly is is the most beautiful, the most arduous, the most rewarding adventure to be undertaken by us human creatures of this loving God. Its difficulties arise from many facts: our own entanglement in the realities we are studying; the limitation of our knowing by sin and by our creatureliness before the Uncreated; the infinity of God himself, and so the endlessness of our knowledge of him. But its reward is to gain nothing less than God himself, nothing less than what and who we are made for.

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Aquinas on the Resurrection of the Body

I’ve run across a couple interesting sets of comments from Aquinas’ commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, regarding the resurrection of the body in Paul’s letter. In the first, Aquinas denies that the resurrection is in any way a natural occurrence; in the second, he discusses the kinds of perfections the resurrected body will experience.

This is the first set, on 1 Cor. 15:37-38, “And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body”:

Here it appears the apostle makes a comparison: when the human body is laid to rest in the ground, there is a kind of going to seed; but when it rises again, there is a coming to life. Because of this some are of the opinion that the resurrection of the dead is natural, since the apostle compares the resurrection to the sprouting of a seed, which is a natural occurrence. For they think that there are active seminal powers for the resurrection in the dispersed dust into which the human body is dissolved. But this does not seem to be true. For the dissolving of the human body into its elements takes place just as with other composite bodies, and so the dust into which human bodies are dissolved has no more active power than any other dust, where it is clear that there is no active power to compose a human body other than what is in human seed; rather, the dust into which human bodies are dissolved differs from other dust only according to God’s arrangement, as though these dust particles are arranged by the divine wisdom, in order that human bodies may once again be reconstituted out of them. Thus, the sole active cause of the resurrection will be God, though to this end he employs the work of angels to gather the dust… To conclude, the apostle does not here mean to prove that the resurrection is natural because a seed naturally sprouts, but he means to show, by way of a certain example, that the quality of the bodies of the risen and of the dying are not the same, and he does so because, in the first place, the quality of a seed and of its sprout are different. (Super I ad Corinthios 15.5.969)

And the second, on 1 Cor. 15:44, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body”, on the meaning of a “spiritual body”:

We see four things that proceed from the soul to the body, and they are more perfect to the degree that the soul is more virtuous. First indeed, it gives the body its being (dat esse); thus, when it arrives at the height of its perfection, it will cause the body to be spiritual (dabit esse spirituale). Second, it preserves the body from corruption; thus, we find that the stronger people are, the less they suffer from heat and cold. Therefore, when the soul becomes as complete as it can be (perfectissima), it will preserve the body totally impervious to external influences (omnino impassibile). Third, it provides beauty and brightness; for the sickly and deceased become discoloured on account of a failing in the soul’s working in the body, and when the soul arrives at the height of its perfection, it will make the body bright and glowing. Fourth, it gives the body movement, and this the more easily as the power of the soul gains strength over the body. And so when it arrives at the peak of its perfection, it will provide the body with agility. (Super I ad Corinthios 15.6.988)

This last paragraph is quite interesting: Aquinas believes the resurrected body will be unable to suffer any harmful influence or be affected from outside; it will quite literally glow with health; and it will be quicker than our bodies presently are. He even believes that two bodies could exist in the same space if God allows it, just as the resurrected body of Jesus could pass through closed doors (John 20:26), although this won’t be automatically possible (Super I ad Corinthios 15.6.983). This is of course so much speculation, but one imagines that our resurrected bodies will have breathtaking qualities something like these.

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What is Spirituality?

What is spirituality? It is often a loose term, whose use justifies a lot of nonsense. Christians, however, have always had a good idea of what could be meant by “spirituality,” even where the word itself was absent. That is because Christians have a very definite idea of what the difference is between the Spirit and spirits. This is perhaps more important for us to recognize than past generations, because one of the effects of secularism is the loss of the sense of “true” and “false,” to the benefit of the “personally meaningful.” This distinction–between “true” and “false”–makes sense of Christian thought. One can’t make sense of the Bible without it: true and false prophets (Deut. 13:1-5); true and false gods (Ex. 12:12; Ps. 96:5; Is. 44:6-20); true and false Christs (Matt. 24:4-5); true and false religion (James 1:27); true and false spirits (1 John 4:1-6).

When Aquinas, then, comes to speak of makes a person “spiritual,” he does so by talking about the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, the true Spirit of God, separates a “spiritual” person from a merely “natural” person, or worse. These are his comments on 1 Corinthians 2:15, “The spiritual person judges all things.”

A person can be called “spiritual” in two senses. In one sense, with regard to the understanding being illuminated by the Spirit of God. For this reason, the Gloss says, “A person is spiritual who, obedient to the Holy Spirit, knows spiritual things faithfully and with the highest degree of certainty.” In another sense, with regard to the will being set aflame by the Holy Spirit. And the Gloss speaks of this sense as follows, “A spiritual life is that by which the Spirit of God has governance, guiding the soul, that is, the natural powers.” (In I Cor. 2.3.117)

Aquinas elaborates on this quite a bit in other writings, particularly in the sections of the Summa theologiae on the theological virtue of faith (2a2ae.1-16). It can put in a much more complicated way, but it can also be put much more simply: a spiritual person is that person illuminated by and set on fire by the Holy Spirit, or even more simply, a spiritual person is that person who has the Spirit of God. Anything else would be a false spirituality.

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Barth on God and the Whole Person

Since I finished the dissertation, I’ve been reading chunks of Karl Barth. In Volume I, Part 2 of his 13-part Church Dogmatics, he writes at length of the subjective side of revelation, what might be called the “appropriation” of the objective side of revelation, what Christ has accomplished for us (§16). How does it look, what happens when people get involved with what Christ has done for them? Barth’s answer is simple: the Holy Spirit. And because the Holy Spirit makes us share in what Christ has done, and not something else, this sharing has a definite form: Church, sacraments, Scripture, and preaching (I/2, 249) under the “mastery” of Christ (265ff.).

In light of my dissertation topic, however, I’m particularly interested in how Barth treats how individuals relate to God. One of the questions I tackled (briefly) was whether one or more “faculties” are central to this relation. Is there a decision of the will which is central? A passionate attachment? Does our intellect drive us inevitably to God? Do we have an appetite, a desire for God? Barth gives this answer:

 

But the possibility given us by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the possibility of a direct confrontation of the whole man by God. Man is confronted in the totality of his own possibilities, and therefore in all possible conditions and attitudes. In revelation, the whole man is addressed and challenged, judged and pardoned by God. In view of this totality of revelation to us we must not refer the revealedness in us to some obscure or even luminous place apart from our own experience and activity. We must not refer it to a place where we can exempt ourselves from all responsibility. We must not refer it to a place which enables us to count on the fact that God or “it” believes in us, from which we are therefore onlookers both of ourselves and God. In the presence of God there is no such back room. There is only the one well-known place for our physico-psychical existence, although it does include within it many alternative possibilities. It is in this totality that our existence participates in the divine possibility, or else we have no part in it. The point is that the whole area of our possibilities is again enclosed by the divine possibility. That is what we have to reckon with if we would understand our participation in this possibility… Again, we can and must know that all our experience and activity is involved in this standing before God. But we can never say how far this or that impression is our calling, this or that discovery our awakening, this or that decision our conversion, this or that conviction our faith, this or that emotion our love, this or that expectation our hope, and this or that attitude our responsibility and justification before God. For as participators in God’s possibility, all that we see and find is simply ourselves, and all the very selfish, very human states and conditions and attitudes in which we actually find ourselves. We never can and never will comprehend how far the concretion of our situation and our attitude is the concretion of our participation in God’s possibility. (CD I/2, 267-68)

Barth is making a polemic here against various certainties we might have. We cannot claim that an experience, a feeling, a decision guarantees our right standing before God–though these things may be signs of it. Sure. But I’m more interested in the way that Barth says God’s revelation claims all of us, the whole person: all our thought, feeling, emotion, attitude, habit, memory and desires. This means, though I’m not sure if Barth says this himself, that our salvation reforms all the pieces of who we are. But I wonder if saying this means we cannot also say, as would a Kierkegaard or a Blondel, that the will or action plays a central role in our relationship to God in a way that, say, memory does not. Our relation to God certainly does not exclude these other areas, but might there not be a kind of tiered relation, where the will or desire plays a key role?

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Readiness, Poverty and Jesus’ Return

Now that all that kerfuffle is done with, let’s talk about something different: this kerfuffle. Apparently Jesus was supposed to return today, according to the Bible–well, that and some inventiveness and poor math skills. We could be done with this by simply quoting Jesus’ own words, such as, “But about that day or hour no one knows” (Matt. 24:36), or “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him” (Matt. 24:50). But let’s make this an occasion for some fruitful reflection, because I think that the reactions of both sides show us something.

In a way, we’ve already dealt with the first side, the side ready to believe that if you get your math straight, you can pinpoint when Jesus is going to return, because the Bible is after all an elaborate code book. This side should take some time to meditate on Matt. 24-25. But the other side, the side which is all too ready to ridicule the first side–I have to include myself here–should be careful not to fall into an opposite error, an error more pernicious because it is more respectable: going about life as if Jesus certainly won’t return on May 21st, 2011. (Even though as I write this it’s already May 22nd in Britain.) This may just be a failure of readiness.

If there’s a lesson we should take from this, it’s what is contained in the first word of Jesus’ address in Matt. 24-25, “Watch!” (Although the verb is just that for “look!” or “see!” Blepō. Maybe “keep your eyes open!” would do.) This idea shows up all over this discourse: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (24:42; here “keep watch” is a different verb which means just that). “So you also must be ready” (24:44). “Therefore keep watch” (25:13).

The question that interests me is whether we are a people who are “ready,” a people who “watch.” And further, whether the kinds of lives we live disable our readiness. Let’s take a detour. A few chapters earlier, Jesus tells his disciples that “others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven” (19:12). How does someone remain single–“celibacy” is the fancy term–“because” of the kingdom of heaven? Because it is a sign, an image of what that kingdom will be like. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus says, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (20:34-35). Those few God calls to celibacy now look odd just because they’re ahead of their time: they are living how we all will when the kingdom comes.

In the same way, voluntary poverty is a sign of the kingdom of God. Paul writes, “What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who… buy something, should live as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29-31). For this reason, Paul could consider it all “crap” in comparison to knowing Jesus and his resurrection power (Phil. 3:8; a gentle translation of the word here). Because living in poverty is a sign of what the kingdom will be like, as odd as it looks now. What need will there be to buy and sell when we will already possess Everything we desire?

I fear that a Church which cannot be poor, a Church which shares the same affections as the world cannot see that this world is being gotten rid of in order for a new world to be born. Isn’t this half the point of the parable Jesus uses to close his discourse in Matt. 24-25? “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” 

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On Experience

It depends how you define it, but “experience” probably needs to play more of a role in theology than it does. How can it not? Taken at its broadest, “experience” simply means everything that happens, all that occurs, as it enters the field of human awareness. Thus, revelation itself is one particular form of experience–the experience of God showing himself; the reading of Scripture is an experience; praying, being baptized, and thinking about the Trinity are all experiences in this sense.

Typically, experience gets slagged, I think, because of two fears. They are two narrowings of the notion of experience. The first is the fear that granting “experience” a role means granting that an individual’s experiences shape their theology. But of course the individual–along with their experiences–shapes their theology: the real question is whether they are going to shape it apart from Scripture (and the Church and its tradition). So bad theology takes the form: “God for me is more like…” Good theology proceeds in the light of revelation, in the form given to it by particular individuals.

The second fear, closely related to the first, is that “experience” will form some kind of second (or third or fourth) source after and potentially against Scripture. It can. But it doesn’t have to. Certain forms of feminism want to leverage women’s experience against parts of Scripture. But if reading Scripture is itself an experience, then their relationship is a bit more complex. Experience is properly the all-encompassing web–from the human side, for experience too is a creature–within which the reading of Scripture is an event, a particular experience. And further, we should not assume we know what we are experiencing. Only after the resurrection, and then sometimes only gradually, did the apostles discover what they had experienced (John 2:22). Note the past tense. Put starkly, the unbeliever thinks they are experiencing life, but the Christian understands it is really death they know (1 Tim 5:6).

All this is to say: spiritual theology is important. And how did we get here? Well, any spiritual writer worth their salt–Augustine, Merton, those collected in the Philokalia–knows that we are often willing to deceive ourselves about what we experience. We only know in part the realities of which the Bible speaks (1 Cor 13:12). As Merton puts it, “Yet we act as if we understood sin and as if we were really aware of the love of God when we have never deeply experienced the meaning of either one” (A Search for Solitude, 23). And sometimes we know them plain wrongly: in 1966, Merton had an affair with a nurse. At the time he talked of the “mysterious, transcendent presence of her essential self,” but later he was able to see it as “incredible stupidity” (The Intimate Merton, 297, 336). The deception is not always so severe, and sometimes, when we are given the grace, we are able to see with gratitude-inducing clarity the traces of God’s work in our lives.

“Experience,” then, is not something that has to be excluded from theology; rather, it has only to be named. And it can be named as limited, healthy, destructive–more theologically, as “sin” or as “grace,” as “death” or as “life.” Indeed, so objective a thinker as Aquinas can say, that “anyone may know,” at least “conjecturally,” that “he has grace, when he is conscious of delighting in God, and of despising worldly things” (ST I-II Q112 A5). A theologian who does not experience the realities of which he speaks, who is not “delighting in God,” will write a theology that at best sounds oddly hollow, and at worst is false and destructive of faith.

But we must trust that Paul’s prayer is for us as well: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph 1:17-19a).