The
Epistemic Priority of Christ: The mind-boggling reality consists in that God, the
Creator of all things, has become man. This is the truth that St. Anselm was
after, and Robert Sokolowski clarifies in a very important way. Anselm had said that God was “that
than which nothing greater can be thought.” Sokolowski
writes: “Anselm’s argument works explicitly with the contrast between being in
the mind and being in reality. This contrast, the two ways of being that it
distinguishes, are themselves deserving of further thought. But besides this
explicit premise for his argument, there is another, an implicit premise, which
the argument requires but which is not expressed openly by Anselm in chapter
two [of the Proslogian]. This implicit premise also contains a contrast. It
might be formulated as the statement that:
(God
plus the world) is not greater than God alone;”[3]
The
point Sokolowski makes is that the being of God is so different from the world,
that His Being (reality) would not be more because the world exists, nor would It
be less if it did not. That is to say, the Being of God as Creator of all things
is so different from the being of all things that they are incommensurable.
That is not to say that they are not analogous insofar as they are; but rather
to say that the way that they are is epistemically different. That is, you cannot know God the way you know things. Or better, you can, but that is not the way God is.
What
does that mean? That the Being of God is not part of the world
that we know by the experience of sensation, abstraction and rational thought. His humanity is, indeed, “part” of our world,
but His divine Person is not “part” but Creator of all of it. Nevertheless, His humanity was assumed by His
divine Person, and therefore, is it.
Being Creator of the world, and yet “in” it, He must be known – as incarnate
God in Jesus Christ - through the experience of ourselves as created images of
Himself and baptized into Him. We do this by transcending ourselves in the act of
faith as He is totally out of Himself as Son of the Father.
Romano Guardini says it thus: “The person
of Jesus is unprecedented and therefore measureable by no already existing
norm. Christian recognition consists of realizing that all things really began
with Jesus Christ; that he is his own norm – and therefore ours – for he is Truth.
“Christ’s
effect upon the world can be compared with nothing in its history save its own
creation: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’ What takes place in
Christ is of the same order as the original act of creation, though on a still
higher level. For the beginning of the new creation is as far superior to the
love which created the stars, plants, animals and men. That is what the words
mean: ‘I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be
kindled’? (Lk. 12, 49). It is the fire of new becoming; not only ‘truth’ or ‘love,’
but the incandescence of new creation…. Down, down through terrible destruction
he descends, to the nadir of divine creation whence saved existence can climb
back into being…
Guardini
then points out that this will demand a new way of knowing: “Now
we understand what St. Paul meant with his ‘excelling knowledge of Jesus Christ:’
the realization that this is who Christ is, the Descender. To make this realization
our own is the alpha and omega of our lives, for it is not enough to know Jesus
only as the Savior. With this supreme knowledge serious religious life can
begin, and we should strive for it with our whole strength and earnestness, as
a man strives to reach his place in his
profession; as a scientist wrestles with the answer to his problem; as one
labors at this life work or for the hand of someone loved above all else.”[4]
And
then, from my perspective, he makes an implicit reference to the spirit of Opus Dei as I understand it: “Are these directives
for saints? No, for Christians. For you.
How long must I wait? God knows. He can give himself to you overnight, you can
also wait twenty years, but what are they in view of his advent? One day he
will come. Once in the stillness of profound composure you will know: that is Christ!
Not from a book or the word of someone else, but through him. He who is creative
love brings your intrinsic potentialities to life. Your ego at its profoundest
is he.”
This
is totally the charism Escriva received existentially on October 2, 1928 which was not in the theological/legal structure of the Church, but which became so in Vatican II in 1964 [Lumen Gentium #31]. And
you will know Christ in the most profound intimacy with the most radical
realism because you will become Him, such that you will hear from the Father: “You
are my Son; you are Christ.” Escriva wrote: “When God sent me those blows
back in 1931, I didn’t understand them… The all at once, in the midst of such
great bitterness, came the words: ‘You are my son (Ps. 2, 7), you are Christ.’
And I could only stammer: ‘Abba, Pater! Abba, Pater! Abba! Abba! Abba!’ Now I
see it with new light, like a new discovery, just as one sees, after years have
passed, the hand of God, of divine Wisdom, of the All-Powerful. You’ve led me,
Lord, to understand that to find the Cross is to find happiness, joy. And I see
the reason with greater clarity than ever: to find the Cross is to identify
oneself with Christ, to be Christ, and therefore to be a son of God.”[5]
With
this in view, Pope Francis encourages “the fundamental role of the first
announcement or kerygma, which is the first proclamation that must ring out
over and over: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and
now he is living at your side every day to
to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” Since it is addressing the unique
ontological reality of the God-Man, it is “the principal proclamation, the one
which we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must
announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every
level and moment.”[6]
And as a result, “rather than experts in dire
predictions, dour judges bent on rooting out every threat and deviation, “we
should appear as joyful messengers of challenging proposals, guardians of the
goodness and beauty which shine forth in a life of fidelity to the Gospel.”[7]
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