"'Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'tis for no other cause but quietness' sake.'"
Yorick's Sermon on conscience; Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., II.17 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 266).
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Levy on a crucial principle of complementarity
"the West and the East. . . . manifestly designate the same state-of-thing under wordings that merely sound mutually exclusive. 'The vision of God according to essence,' as Augustine conceives it, does not designate a vision of God that would comprehend uno intuitu the wholeness of the divine Being. Yet this type of vision is precisely what the Eastern Fathers reject when they say that no created mind will ever be able to contemplate the essence of God. Correlatively, the 'vision of God according to the energeiai,' as conceived by the Greek Fathers, does not designate the vision of an entity numerically different from the divine essence (God is uncomposed). Yet this type of vision is precisely what Augustine rejects when he states that operations and essence are one in God. Once again, it is worthwhile emphasizing, in opposition to Bradshaw, that this difference in the wordings is not due to Augustine's ignorance of the philosophical patterns that inspired the Greek Fathers, but to his original way of reassuming these patterns. The fact that the interpretations of Augustine and of the Eastern Fathers, despite their difference of approach, coincide from a doctrinal point of view, is probably the best tribute possible to the idea that dogmatic unity within Christianity does not imply theoretical uniformity."
Antoine Levy, O.P., "An introduction to divine relativity: beyond David Bradshaw's Aristotle east and west," Thomist 72, no. 2 (April 2008): 219-220. The Orthodox distinction between the ousia and the energeiai is what one must stress when one theologizes from that (or God's) side of "the divine relativity". But their unity (and therefore the visio Dei, i.e. essentiae) is what one must stress when one theologizes from this (or man's) side. "there is no third point of view" from which these two complementary, yet "mutually exclusive" perspectives can both be embraced simultaneously: "one must choose [either] one system of reference or the other", either the East or the West. Yet doctrinally, they are identical (229). Constitutive of this complementarity is what Levy calls "the Porphryian Principle" (196 ff.): the asymetricality of the cosmological relation grounded in the utter (but therefore immanence-enabling) transcendence of God ("a relationship from B to A, but no relationship from A to B" (200); "created beings are in-a-state-of-relationship, en skehesei, whereas God is foreign-to-any-relationship, askhetos" (209); etc.). And an insistence upon this asymetricality is as fundamental to the East as it is to the West. Or so Levy.
Antoine Levy, O.P., "An introduction to divine relativity: beyond David Bradshaw's Aristotle east and west," Thomist 72, no. 2 (April 2008): 219-220. The Orthodox distinction between the ousia and the energeiai is what one must stress when one theologizes from that (or God's) side of "the divine relativity". But their unity (and therefore the visio Dei, i.e. essentiae) is what one must stress when one theologizes from this (or man's) side. "there is no third point of view" from which these two complementary, yet "mutually exclusive" perspectives can both be embraced simultaneously: "one must choose [either] one system of reference or the other", either the East or the West. Yet doctrinally, they are identical (229). Constitutive of this complementarity is what Levy calls "the Porphryian Principle" (196 ff.): the asymetricality of the cosmological relation grounded in the utter (but therefore immanence-enabling) transcendence of God ("a relationship from B to A, but no relationship from A to B" (200); "created beings are in-a-state-of-relationship, en skehesei, whereas God is foreign-to-any-relationship, askhetos" (209); etc.). And an insistence upon this asymetricality is as fundamental to the East as it is to the West. Or so Levy.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Catechism on (say) Jer 31:33
"According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture ('according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church')."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #113: "Secundum Patrum adagium, sacra Scriptura principalius est in corde Ecclesiae quam in materialibus instrumentis scripta. Ecclesia etenim in Traditione sua memoriam Verbi Dei fert viventem, eique Spiritus Sanctus spiritualem Scripturae praebet interpretationem (« ...secundum spiritalem sensum, quem Spiritus donat Ecclesiae »)." For the adage of the Fathers, "Cf Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber ad Constantium Imperatorem 9: CSEL 65, 204 (PL 10, 570); Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentarius in epistulam ad Galatas 1, 1, 11-12: PL 26, 347."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #113: "Secundum Patrum adagium, sacra Scriptura principalius est in corde Ecclesiae quam in materialibus instrumentis scripta. Ecclesia etenim in Traditione sua memoriam Verbi Dei fert viventem, eique Spiritus Sanctus spiritualem Scripturae praebet interpretationem (« ...secundum spiritalem sensum, quem Spiritus donat Ecclesiae »)." For the adage of the Fathers, "Cf Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber ad Constantium Imperatorem 9: CSEL 65, 204 (PL 10, 570); Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentarius in epistulam ad Galatas 1, 1, 11-12: PL 26, 347."
Mighty God
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Third antiphon (to Ps 149), Morning prayer, Christmas Day, and often throughout the Octave of Christmas: "A little child is born for us today; little and yet called the mighty God, alleluia."
Source is of course Is 9:6, but cut back in such a way as to turn parvulus back into an adjective and heighten the contrast: "Parvulus enim natus est nobis et filius datus est nobis . . . et vocabitur nomen eius . . . Deus fortis. . . ." Hodie is borrowed from Lk 2:11.
One lovely parallel, taken out of context, is Dt 7:9: "the Lord thy God, he is a mighty and faithful God, keeping his covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, unto a thousand generations [(Dominus Deus tuus ipse est Deus fortis et fidelis custodiens pactum et misericordiam diligentibus se et his qui custodiunt praecepta eius in mille generations)]".
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Some Radnerian theological realism
"6. We cannot avoid repetition of the past’s mistakes
"This is an area where I have always sought to be prudent, looking at previous conflicts within the Church and within Anglicanism for indications of the way forward. My miscalculation, I think, has lain in my hope that we could in fact learn from our past mistakes! To acknowledge, as I now do, that we cannot so learn, however, is not an admission of despair. Rather, it is an embrace of the fact that faithful response to our conflict is not a matter of finding the magic bullet that will avoid the bad examples of the past. Faithful response, instead, is about confronting the sin endemic in our corrupted selves and ecclesial existences. This points us in very different directions than our usual strategic thinking, however well-informed by history. In short, the Christian historian is not after Thucidydes’ wisdom on this score, but rather Jesus’ own facing into the Last Days: you know what will happen, so be prepared, love and endure (Mt. 24:3-13)."
Ephraim Radner, "What I have learned these past five years: reflections in Advent, 2008," Anglican Communion Institute, Inc., http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/?p=342#more-342. Words of wisdom from a professional historian with first-class credentials. The allusion may be to The Peloponnesian war I.i.22 ("if [my history] be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content"), I.v.123 ("'There is . . . no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present'" (speech of the Corinthian delegation to the Second Congress at Lacedaemon)), and so forth (trans. Crawley & Feetham, GBWW, 2nd ed., vol. 5, pp. 354, 379). "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" the first edition of the Oxford dictionary of modern quotations attributes to Santayana (Life of reason (1905), vol. 1, chap. 12). I have not looked any harder than this.
"This is an area where I have always sought to be prudent, looking at previous conflicts within the Church and within Anglicanism for indications of the way forward. My miscalculation, I think, has lain in my hope that we could in fact learn from our past mistakes! To acknowledge, as I now do, that we cannot so learn, however, is not an admission of despair. Rather, it is an embrace of the fact that faithful response to our conflict is not a matter of finding the magic bullet that will avoid the bad examples of the past. Faithful response, instead, is about confronting the sin endemic in our corrupted selves and ecclesial existences. This points us in very different directions than our usual strategic thinking, however well-informed by history. In short, the Christian historian is not after Thucidydes’ wisdom on this score, but rather Jesus’ own facing into the Last Days: you know what will happen, so be prepared, love and endure (Mt. 24:3-13)."
Ephraim Radner, "What I have learned these past five years: reflections in Advent, 2008," Anglican Communion Institute, Inc., http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/?p=342#more-342. Words of wisdom from a professional historian with first-class credentials. The allusion may be to The Peloponnesian war I.i.22 ("if [my history] be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content"), I.v.123 ("'There is . . . no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present'" (speech of the Corinthian delegation to the Second Congress at Lacedaemon)), and so forth (trans. Crawley & Feetham, GBWW, 2nd ed., vol. 5, pp. 354, 379). "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" the first edition of the Oxford dictionary of modern quotations attributes to Santayana (Life of reason (1905), vol. 1, chap. 12). I have not looked any harder than this.
Friday, December 26, 2008
How the sermon got into the Stevinus
"I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing as a sermon to have got into my Stevinus."
Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., II.15 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 254). How much restraint I must exercise, as I reread Tristram Shandy, you can't imagine.
Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., II.15 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 254). How much restraint I must exercise, as I reread Tristram Shandy, you can't imagine.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Elliott on "The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism" (1893)
"The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our opportunity. Denominations, and 'creeds,' and 'schools,' and 'confessions' are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, and little men can demolish them. This new nation cannot but regard with disdain institutions hardly double its own short life, and yet utterly decrepit; cannot but regard with awe an institution in whose life the Great Republic could have gone through its career nearly a score of times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at the freshness of perennial religion, and must soon salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people's minds, or are being thrust out. It is not against the religion of men's ancestors, but against each one's religion of yesterday, as unsteady as it is recent in acquisition, that we have to contend--we who speak for Him who is of yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever.
"Consider then, how it is with our noble-hearted friends: in their case it is religion wandering here and there in search of a church. How many earnest souls are about us, weary of doubtful teachings, glad to hearken to, ay and to believe, any one who promises them relief.
"See, too, and admire, how their religious instincts strive after organic life. As Calvinism dies, Christian Endeavor is born and counts a million members in a day--good works making little of faith, as at first faith made little of good works. See that while Methodism leaves the slums and is petrifying in lordly temples and in universities, the Salvation Army scours the gutters it has turned from with loathing."
Walter Elliott, "The missionary outlook in the United States," Catholic world 57, no. 342 (1893): 759 (http://tinyurl.com/8xh2jz). I am less interested in the Catholic triumphalism than the largely Newmanesque (?) insight into "The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism". How contemporary (if unoriginal) some of this sounds!
"Consider then, how it is with our noble-hearted friends: in their case it is religion wandering here and there in search of a church. How many earnest souls are about us, weary of doubtful teachings, glad to hearken to, ay and to believe, any one who promises them relief.
"See, too, and admire, how their religious instincts strive after organic life. As Calvinism dies, Christian Endeavor is born and counts a million members in a day--good works making little of faith, as at first faith made little of good works. See that while Methodism leaves the slums and is petrifying in lordly temples and in universities, the Salvation Army scours the gutters it has turned from with loathing."
Walter Elliott, "The missionary outlook in the United States," Catholic world 57, no. 342 (1893): 759 (http://tinyurl.com/8xh2jz). I am less interested in the Catholic triumphalism than the largely Newmanesque (?) insight into "The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism". How contemporary (if unoriginal) some of this sounds!
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