I was in love with St. Augustine for a while. After years on my bookshelf, I finally managed to read his Confessions. Why did his writting appeal to me? It was introspective and personal. Pope Benedict in his prior role as Cardinal put it this way, "With Augustine ... the passionate, suffering, questioning man is always right there, and you can identify with him."
My current love affair is with Hans Urs von Balthasar. He was a prolific thinker and writter as well. Why did I fall in love with him? It was Richard Neuhaus' fault. I read the following commentary by Fr. Neuhaus on his writtings in an issue of First Things.
"He went in for heavy-duty intellection that is sometimes ponderous and exhaustingly discursive, but always adorned with dazzling erudition and rewarding one's effort with scintillating insights of a frequently counterintuitive nature. One spends pleasurable hours reading Balthasar not so much in an analytical mode as in surrendering oneself to the beauty of how his mind works and its adventurous probings of theological imagination. Reading Balthasar is in large part a meditative exercise bordering on the contemplative."
In the opening pages of volume one of Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics he observes that if man is to live in his original form “one must possess a spiritual eye capable of perceiving the forms of existence with awe. … a life-form which is determined … to bestow nobility upon a person’s everyday life itself.”
So began my desire to develop an eye capable of perceiving with awe the ordinary life I live and to believe it to be a noble endeavor.
I fall in love easily. The thing about love though, is that it is infinitely distensible.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Flannery O'Connor's "Yahwist" Fundamentalism
After reading Phillip Rieff (and his idea of personality arising only from a humble relationship with the absolute), I found what Robert Brinkmeyer said in The Art and Vision of Flannery O'Connor most interesting (at p. 29):
"Herbert N. Schneidau, in Sacred Discontent: The Bible and Western Tradition, argues that a profoundly skeptical and self-critical approach to reality characterizes the vision of the Bible and its prophets. Scheidau terms this vision Yahwist and says its central tenet is that an absolute gulf separates humanity from an all-powerful God. Quoting from Henri Frankfort, "Every finite reality is shriveled to nothingness before the absolute value which was God."
According to Brinkmeyer, O'Connor's vision of Christ is essentially Yahwist, "the Son of God characteristically arriving not with outstretched hand but with swinging sword." Only God's violence, according to O'Connor, can penetrate the hubris and blindness of the modern soul. This is the only surgery that can heal us.
We started reading Revelation with Matt Pozen last week, and the first chapters do depict Christ with a sword in his mouth (though also later as a "lamb"). Matt offered a good interpretation of the double-nature of the sword: Christ worries the complacent and comforts the worried.
Life presents its banes and benefices. But we need to "worry ourselves" more than we often do in order to lay ourselves open to divine action, which is creative and healing.
In this regard I note that von Balthesar in TheoDrama (vol III at p. 208) quotes Revelation in connection with the possibility of becoming a person, i.e., the possibility of a "conscious subject to rise above his natural level to that of the ("super-natural") person." Balthasar says,
"In positive terms, this presupposes that the created spirit, man, can be an image (imago) of God; negatively, it implies that he is deficient and needs to be perfected and given a "likeness" (similitudo) to God; such a likeness can only be imparted by God, in Christ. This deepening or elevation of the conscious subject does not alienate the latter from himself but enables him to "come to himself", a view consistently put forward by the Fathers. . . . When a man comes to God, he truly comes to himself for the first time. Held by God, the prime Person, man becomes genuinely personal. The truth of human nature is the divine truth. Person is the "new name" by which God addresses me (Rev 2:17) and which comes from "the beginning of God's creation" (Rev 3:14); it always implies a task, namely to be "a pillar in the temple of my God." (Rev. 3:12).
Why the reference to Revelation? This book's "prophetic" attitude of skepticism toward one's merits, and a consequent beating of one's breast, shows the only workable attitude toward the Almighty, Christ included. Only an attitude of humble consciousness of our sinfulness can lay ourselves open to be raised up by Christ to personhood. This seems to be one of Revelation's messages.
So, it seems to me that we become persons in fear and trembling, not through the "I'm OK, you're OK" of high self-esteem. We're not OK! Unless we are in "the way" toward Heaven, i.e., toward becoming a person, we are on a path to perdition, to dissolution and death.
Sounds like good, orthodox fundamentalism to me!
"Herbert N. Schneidau, in Sacred Discontent: The Bible and Western Tradition, argues that a profoundly skeptical and self-critical approach to reality characterizes the vision of the Bible and its prophets. Scheidau terms this vision Yahwist and says its central tenet is that an absolute gulf separates humanity from an all-powerful God. Quoting from Henri Frankfort, "Every finite reality is shriveled to nothingness before the absolute value which was God."
According to Brinkmeyer, O'Connor's vision of Christ is essentially Yahwist, "the Son of God characteristically arriving not with outstretched hand but with swinging sword." Only God's violence, according to O'Connor, can penetrate the hubris and blindness of the modern soul. This is the only surgery that can heal us.
We started reading Revelation with Matt Pozen last week, and the first chapters do depict Christ with a sword in his mouth (though also later as a "lamb"). Matt offered a good interpretation of the double-nature of the sword: Christ worries the complacent and comforts the worried.
Life presents its banes and benefices. But we need to "worry ourselves" more than we often do in order to lay ourselves open to divine action, which is creative and healing.
In this regard I note that von Balthesar in TheoDrama (vol III at p. 208) quotes Revelation in connection with the possibility of becoming a person, i.e., the possibility of a "conscious subject to rise above his natural level to that of the ("super-natural") person." Balthasar says,
"In positive terms, this presupposes that the created spirit, man, can be an image (imago) of God; negatively, it implies that he is deficient and needs to be perfected and given a "likeness" (similitudo) to God; such a likeness can only be imparted by God, in Christ. This deepening or elevation of the conscious subject does not alienate the latter from himself but enables him to "come to himself", a view consistently put forward by the Fathers. . . . When a man comes to God, he truly comes to himself for the first time. Held by God, the prime Person, man becomes genuinely personal. The truth of human nature is the divine truth. Person is the "new name" by which God addresses me (Rev 2:17) and which comes from "the beginning of God's creation" (Rev 3:14); it always implies a task, namely to be "a pillar in the temple of my God." (Rev. 3:12).
Why the reference to Revelation? This book's "prophetic" attitude of skepticism toward one's merits, and a consequent beating of one's breast, shows the only workable attitude toward the Almighty, Christ included. Only an attitude of humble consciousness of our sinfulness can lay ourselves open to be raised up by Christ to personhood. This seems to be one of Revelation's messages.
So, it seems to me that we become persons in fear and trembling, not through the "I'm OK, you're OK" of high self-esteem. We're not OK! Unless we are in "the way" toward Heaven, i.e., toward becoming a person, we are on a path to perdition, to dissolution and death.
Sounds like good, orthodox fundamentalism to me!
Indvidualism and Personalism
I always wondered at the source for this central passage in Gaudium et Spez (24):
"Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one. . . as we are one" (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.(2)" (emphasis added)
Here is what Emmanuel Mounier said in his Personalism (at pp 18-19):
"Other persons do not limit [the person], they enable it to be and to grow. The person only exists thus towards others, it only knows itself in knowing others, only finds itself in being known by them. The thou, which implies the we, is prior to the I-- or at least accompanies it. . . . But the person is only growing in so far as he is continually purifying himself from the individual within him. He cannot do this by force of self-attention, but on the contrary by making himself available (Gabriel Marcel) and thereby more transparent both to himself and others. Things then happen as though the person, no longer 'occupied with himself' or 'full of himself', were becoming able -- then and thus only -- to be someone else and to enter into grace." (emphasis added)
Mounier did battle against what he called Individualism. Here is what he said about it:
"Individualism is a system of morals, feelings, ideas and institutions in which individuals can be organized by their mutual isolation and defence. This was the ideology and the prevailing structure of Western bourgeois society in the 18th and 19th centuries. Man in the abstract, unattached to any natural community, the sovereign lord of a liberty unlimited and udirected; turning towards others with a primary mistrust, calculation and self-vindication; institutions restricted to the assurance that these egoism should not encroach upon one another, or to theri betterment as a purely profitmaking association -- such is the rule of civilization now breaking up before our eyes, one of the poorest history has known. It is the very antithesis of personalism and its dearest enemy."
Mounier said that the impetus for his Personalist Manifesto was the world stock market crash and a world lurching from war to war. His work was echoed in many respects by Gabriel Marcel. These thinkers sowed the seeds which blossomed in Vatican II, and are flowering even now.
"Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one. . . as we are one" (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.(2)" (emphasis added)
Here is what Emmanuel Mounier said in his Personalism (at pp 18-19):
"Other persons do not limit [the person], they enable it to be and to grow. The person only exists thus towards others, it only knows itself in knowing others, only finds itself in being known by them. The thou, which implies the we, is prior to the I-- or at least accompanies it. . . . But the person is only growing in so far as he is continually purifying himself from the individual within him. He cannot do this by force of self-attention, but on the contrary by making himself available (Gabriel Marcel) and thereby more transparent both to himself and others. Things then happen as though the person, no longer 'occupied with himself' or 'full of himself', were becoming able -- then and thus only -- to be someone else and to enter into grace." (emphasis added)
Mounier did battle against what he called Individualism. Here is what he said about it:
"Individualism is a system of morals, feelings, ideas and institutions in which individuals can be organized by their mutual isolation and defence. This was the ideology and the prevailing structure of Western bourgeois society in the 18th and 19th centuries. Man in the abstract, unattached to any natural community, the sovereign lord of a liberty unlimited and udirected; turning towards others with a primary mistrust, calculation and self-vindication; institutions restricted to the assurance that these egoism should not encroach upon one another, or to theri betterment as a purely profitmaking association -- such is the rule of civilization now breaking up before our eyes, one of the poorest history has known. It is the very antithesis of personalism and its dearest enemy."
Mounier said that the impetus for his Personalist Manifesto was the world stock market crash and a world lurching from war to war. His work was echoed in many respects by Gabriel Marcel. These thinkers sowed the seeds which blossomed in Vatican II, and are flowering even now.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Sin and Chaos in Dostoyevsky
In reading Crime and Punishment I was struck by the disorientation experienced by Raskolnikov following the murders. Here is how the last part of Part I of the book (Chapter VII) ends as Raskolnikov returns to his room after the murder:
"When he was in his room, he flung himself on the sofa just as he was— he did not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts…"
Raskonikov's mind and spirit have seemingly disintegrated into chaos. Dostoyevsky seems to be making the point that sin breaks down the created world into chaos and disorder, ultimately destroying the sinner, unless he repents and again submits to God's law. The suffering caused in this "fall" into chaos is excruciating, as is the struggle for repentance, but this is the only path upward to salvation. This is also the outline of the Christian story, with Christ as the salve who can lead us to salvation, just as he did, in the character of Sonia, for Raskolnikov. Only love heals and brings together what sin has driven apart and destroyed.
"When he was in his room, he flung himself on the sofa just as he was— he did not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts…"
Raskonikov's mind and spirit have seemingly disintegrated into chaos. Dostoyevsky seems to be making the point that sin breaks down the created world into chaos and disorder, ultimately destroying the sinner, unless he repents and again submits to God's law. The suffering caused in this "fall" into chaos is excruciating, as is the struggle for repentance, but this is the only path upward to salvation. This is also the outline of the Christian story, with Christ as the salve who can lead us to salvation, just as he did, in the character of Sonia, for Raskolnikov. Only love heals and brings together what sin has driven apart and destroyed.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The "New Freedom"
Reading that the Lutherans have okayed ordination of non-celibate homosexuals led me to think of the fundamental distinction drawn between Catholic and Protestant attitudes by Sister Rose Mary Gertrude, in her Renouncement in Dante:
"The mark that Catholics have put upon their poetry without deliberation, while children of the Reformation have unconsciously or deliberately omitted it, is the imprint of renouncement: the Sign of the Cross. Not otherwise may the reader distinguish the Catholic from the non-Catholic poet. The Jew and the Pagan have retained the old idea of sacrifice; and their poetry like that of the Catholic reflects the spirit of renouncement.
"The Reformation, from the first moment of its inception, substituted for the idea of personal sacrifice the belief that the death of the Redeemer was all-sufficing for those who trust and love Him. Altars were removed from churches, soon divorces were granted, the commandments of the old Church with their restrictions, were rejected as Pope-imposed shackles and there went abroad the idea that Faith alone was sufficient. A new Freedom was born, a freedom which meant absence of restraint to desire.
"Freedom to the old school of poets had meant absence of obstacles to the will. The domination of that will over every opposing force, even over personal inclination, was their notion of absolute human freedom. It is the Catholic definition of freedom today."
"The mark that Catholics have put upon their poetry without deliberation, while children of the Reformation have unconsciously or deliberately omitted it, is the imprint of renouncement: the Sign of the Cross. Not otherwise may the reader distinguish the Catholic from the non-Catholic poet. The Jew and the Pagan have retained the old idea of sacrifice; and their poetry like that of the Catholic reflects the spirit of renouncement.
"The Reformation, from the first moment of its inception, substituted for the idea of personal sacrifice the belief that the death of the Redeemer was all-sufficing for those who trust and love Him. Altars were removed from churches, soon divorces were granted, the commandments of the old Church with their restrictions, were rejected as Pope-imposed shackles and there went abroad the idea that Faith alone was sufficient. A new Freedom was born, a freedom which meant absence of restraint to desire.
"Freedom to the old school of poets had meant absence of obstacles to the will. The domination of that will over every opposing force, even over personal inclination, was their notion of absolute human freedom. It is the Catholic definition of freedom today."
Friday, August 28, 2009
How to Gain Self-Esteem?
I saw a review of "NutureShock", a new book on child development. It basically says that a lot of "accepted" thinking is poppycock. "A striking example is the latest research on self-esteem. As [the authors] remind us, the psychologist Nathaniel Brandon published a path-breaking paper in 1969 called "The Psychology of Self-Esteem" in which he argued that feelings of self-worth were a key to success in life. The theory became a big hit in the nation's schools; in the mid-1980s, the California Legislature even established a self-esteem task force. By now, there are 15,000 scholarly articles on the subject.
"And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn't improve grades, reduce anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly."
Another "guru" dethroned. (Brandon was a notorious cohort of Ayn Rand, by the way.)
So where does individuality and self-confidence come from? Here from Phillip Rieff:
"It is important to note that, in the development of Western culture, the meaning of discipline cannot be separated from its credal animus. [read: Judeo Christian heritage]. The conformity of action in mass organization is anti-credal. Deep individuality cannot exist except in relation to the highest authority. No inner discipline can operate without a charismatic institution, nor can such an institution survive without that supreme authority from a relation to whom self-confidence derives. Without an authority deeply installed, there is no foundation for individuality. Self-confidence thus expresses submission to supreme authority."
Rather "counter-cultural" thinking, don't you think? ONLY through adherence to our creed can we develop -- in our deep humility and guilt -- self-confidence and individuality.
(If you want a good example of charismatic authority personified, watch Monsieur Vincent, a 1947 movie which you can get at the public library. Then start to watch for them [I think we used to call them saints!].)
"And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn't improve grades, reduce anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly."
Another "guru" dethroned. (Brandon was a notorious cohort of Ayn Rand, by the way.)
So where does individuality and self-confidence come from? Here from Phillip Rieff:
"It is important to note that, in the development of Western culture, the meaning of discipline cannot be separated from its credal animus. [read: Judeo Christian heritage]. The conformity of action in mass organization is anti-credal. Deep individuality cannot exist except in relation to the highest authority. No inner discipline can operate without a charismatic institution, nor can such an institution survive without that supreme authority from a relation to whom self-confidence derives. Without an authority deeply installed, there is no foundation for individuality. Self-confidence thus expresses submission to supreme authority."
Rather "counter-cultural" thinking, don't you think? ONLY through adherence to our creed can we develop -- in our deep humility and guilt -- self-confidence and individuality.
(If you want a good example of charismatic authority personified, watch Monsieur Vincent, a 1947 movie which you can get at the public library. Then start to watch for them [I think we used to call them saints!].)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Personal Practice of Renunciation
I've learned something very important from Phillip Rieff, namely, that I recognize who I am only by "saying no" to instinct. This I do in the guilty knowledge (of what I know I am capable of) against the light of God's absolute moral authority.
"Knowledge derived from the authority of charisma is no intellectual acceptance of renunciations; rather, ordinary everyday charisma, the practical personal knowledge of all, is the personal practice of renunciation. We learn on our bodies." Charisma, p 40.
The opposite is therapy, the renunciation of all renunciations. The world we (are invited to) live in more and more offers therapy, urging us to give up giving up. But only in renunciation can we live into our ideal selves in the loving, awful moral gaze of the Almighty.
There is a poem by Caroline Giltinan ("Achievement") which captures this, I think:
"The biggest thing I ever did
Was all inside of me;
There was a battle hardly won
With only God to see."
"Knowledge derived from the authority of charisma is no intellectual acceptance of renunciations; rather, ordinary everyday charisma, the practical personal knowledge of all, is the personal practice of renunciation. We learn on our bodies." Charisma, p 40.
The opposite is therapy, the renunciation of all renunciations. The world we (are invited to) live in more and more offers therapy, urging us to give up giving up. But only in renunciation can we live into our ideal selves in the loving, awful moral gaze of the Almighty.
There is a poem by Caroline Giltinan ("Achievement") which captures this, I think:
"The biggest thing I ever did
Was all inside of me;
There was a battle hardly won
With only God to see."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)