Class August 28 (Feast of St. Augustine)
When
we misuse the environment in any of its manifestations –physical, social, economic,
family, it is because we have not identified it as an extension of the humanity
of Christ that is “compenentrated” with the divinity creating it. We have lost the
sense of creation.
Fifteen years after the economic collapse of Communism in 1989,
Benedict XVI summed up the state of the world. He said: “The essential problem
of our times, for Europe and for the world, is that although the fallacy of the
communist economy has been recognized – so much so that former communists have
unhesitatingly become economic liberals – the moral and religious question that
it used to address has been almost totally repressed [i.e., God]. The unresolved issue of Marxism lives
on.”
What rankles many of our observant orthodox Catholics in the pew is the
pope’s apparent hewing to the media line of the environment in general and
global warming in particular when the vital issues of abortion, gay marriage,
on-going contraception, the lucrative trade in body parts, etc. go unaddressed
with the urgency that was exhibited in previous papacies.
My take is that the pope is after something more profound and urgent
than today’s and tomorrow’s blood curdling moral atrocity, namely, Atheism and our unconscious presence in a
structure of sin. We are horrified by moral
atrocity, but we know it to be an atrocity. But what happens when you are a
being with a transcendent destiny and an internal longing for the Absolute and
you are offered a Norman Rockwell picture of the American family at
Thanksgiving dinner and everything seems relatively OK. Walker Percy wrote:
show me that Rockwell picture “and I’ll show you the first faint outline of the
death’s-head.
“God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be
good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning
with God’s goodness and bounty, all the folks healthy and happy, but something
is missing. What is this sadness here? Why do the folks put up with it? The truth
seeker does not. Instead of joining hands with the folks and bowing his head in
prayer, the truth seeker sits in an empty chair as invisible as Banquo’s ghost,
yelling at the top of his voice: Where is
it? What is missing? Where did it go? I won’t have it! I won’t have it! What
this sadness here? Don’t stand for it! Get up! Leave! Let the boat people sit
down! Go live in a cave until you’ve found the thief who is robbing you. But at
least protest. Stop, thief! What is missing? God? Find him!”
In the Rockwell picture, we may have religion, and grandma and the good
self. What is this “urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural
revolution”
that Francis is talking about? And how
does it take the form of attending to global warming, and the sundries of
inattention and damage to the physical and social environment, the culture of
consumerism, an economy of profit, lonely individualism? What is he really
talking about? I respond: The humanity
of Christ. That is, when he is talking about the environment, the economy, the
social ecology, he is talking about Jesus Christ as Creator and Creation at the
same time. He perceives the world as not simply “there” but “there” as relation
from and to the Creator Who has also become part of His own creation and who
shows us, in living out His humanity – which is created – how we are to see
things with realism and live with them.
We are atheists unawares. We
have lost the sense of creation. Francis
sees that “humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and
one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject
who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains
control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish
the scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a
technique of possession, mastery, and transformation [my emphasis]. It is
as if the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless,
completely open to manipulation…. We are the ones to lay our hands on things,
attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring
or forgetting the reality in front of us. Human beings and material objects no
longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become
confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or
unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers, and
experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply
of the earth’s goods,…” (106).
Francis continues: “It can be said that many problems of today’s world stem from the
tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims of science and
technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of individuals
and the workings of society. The effects of imposing this model on reality as a
whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but
this is just one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and
social life. We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for
they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping
social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain
powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality
decisions about the kind of society we want to build” (107). “Epistemological paradigm
We see “things” as “formless. We are not dealing with a world that has
been created by God Who is really Creator, i.e. of a God Who creates ex nihilo (out of nothing). Rather, we
are treating the world as “thing” that God has created out of a pre-existent something. And therefore, God is the
Supreme Being, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfection Itself and Final Cause
of all that is in the world. And, although He is first and most, He is still in
the world as part of it since He does not give it being.
This is not the God of the Old Testament, nor the God of Jesus Christ.
He is not the Creator ex nihilo, and
therefore the God Who would be even if nothing else was. So different is the
being of God and the being of the world, that if the world were not, God would
not be less; and that the world is, God is not more. What we mean by “is” for
God is “otherly other” than what “is” means for anything
created.
More clearly, Robert Sokolowski writes, “In our natural and original
experience, the world is first presented and taken as the encompassing whole,
as the ultimate context, enclosing both necessities and contingencies.
Everything, both the divine and the non-divine, is subject to the rhythms and destiny
of the whole. But through biblical revelation, through the events and teachings
presented in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the new understanding of
God was gradually brought forward, and
we were taught that the divine is to be found neither in the stars nor in the Canaanite idols, but in
the God who could be all that he is in goodness and perfection even if the world
did not exist. A new distinction between the divine and the non-divine was
introduced, one that deepens and transforms the distinction between the gods
and the profane that was known to paganism… God is hidden not just because of
human psychological limitations, but because he is not one of the things in the
world.”
Francis’s
Vision of the World in Laudato ‘Si” : Jesus Christ as the center and
meaning of all creation.
“99. In
the Christian understanding of the world, the destiny of all creation is bound
up with the mystery of Christ, present from the beginning: “All things have been created though him and for him” (Col
1:16). The prologue of the
Gospel of John (1:1-18) reveals Christ’s creative work as the Divine Word (Logos).
But then, unexpectedly, the prologue goes on to say that this same Word “became
flesh” (Jn 1:14). One Person of the Trinity entered into the
created cosmos, throwing in his lot with it, even to the cross. From the
beginning of the world, but particularly through the incarnation, the mystery
of Christ is at work in a hidden manner in the natural world as a whole,
without thereby impinging on its autonomy.
“100. The New Testament
does not only tell us of the earthly Jesus and his tangible and loving
relationship with the world. It also shows him risen and glorious, present
throughout creation by his universal Lordship: “For in him all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:19-20).
This leads us to direct our gaze to the end of time, when the Son will deliver
all things to the Father, so that “God may be everything to everyone” (1
Cor 15:28). Thus, the creatures of this world no longer appear to us
under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them
to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers
of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are
now imbued with his radiant presence.
If Christ is the center and meaning
of the totality of creation,
and He has entered His creation as part, and central part, then the relation of
the creature to the Creator must take its meaning from the relation of Christ’s
humanity to His divinity. Chalcedon gives us the metaphysical structure of the
Person of Jesus Christ: one divine Person, two natures, divine (uncreated) and
human (created). The meaning of creation must be taken from that relation: “one and the same Christ only begotten Son our Lord, acknowledged in two natures, without
mingling, without change, indivisibly, undividedly, the distinction of the
natures nowhere removed on account of the union but rather the peculiarity of
each nature being kept, and uniting in one person and substance, not divided or
separated into two persons, but one and the same son only begotten God Word,
Lord Jesus Christ, just as from the beginning the prophets taught about Him
and the Lord Jesus Himself taught us, and the creed of our fathers has handed
down to us.”
Ratzinger on Constantinople III
(680-681):
“In the manuals, the theological development after Chalcedon has
ordinarily come to be little considered. The impression thus frequently remains
that dogmatic Christology finishes up with a certain parallelism between the two natures of Christ. This impression
has also been the cause leading to the divisions since Chalcedon. But in effect
the declaration of the true humanity and the true divinity of Christ can retain
its significance only when there is clarification also of the mode of unity of
the two natures, which the Council of Chalcedon has defined by the formula of
the `one person’ of Christ, at that time not yet fully examined. In fact only
that unity of divinity and humanity which in Christ is not parallelism,
whereon stands
alongside the other, but real compenetration
–
compenetration between
God and man – means salvation for humankind. Only thus in fact does that true
`being with God’ take place, without which liberation and free do not exist.”
“The same query returned at the third Council of Constantinople
(680-681) after two centuries of dramatic struggle, marked most often also by
Byzantine politics. According to this Council, on the one hand: the unity
between the divinity and the humanity in Christ does not in any sense imply an
amputation or reduction of the humanity. If God joins himself to his creature
–man/woman – he does not wound or diminish it: he brings it to its plenitude.
But on the other hand (and this is no less important) there remains no trace of
that dualism or parallelism of the two natures which in the course of history
was frequently judge necessary to defend the human liberty of Jesus. Such
studies forgot that the assumption of the human will into the divine will does
not destroy freedom, but on the contrary generates true liberty. The Council of
Constantinople has analysed concretely the problem of the two natures and one
person in Christ in view of the problem of the will of Jesus. We are reminded
firmly that there exists a specific will of the man Jesus that is not
absorbed into the divine will. But this human will follows the divine
will and thus becomes a single will with it, not, however, in a forced way but
by way of freedom. The metaphysical duplicity of a human will and a divine will
is not eliminated, but in the personal sphere, the area of freedom there is
accomplished a fusion of the two, so that this becomes not one single
natural will but one personal will. This free union – a mode of
union created by love – is a union higher and more intimate than a purely
natural union. It corresponds to the highest union which can exist, the union
of the Trinity. The Council explains this union by a saying of the Lord given
in the Gospel of John: ‘I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will,
but the will of the Father who sent me’ (Jn. 6, 38). Here the divine
Logos is speaking, and speaking of the human will of Jesus in the mode
by which he calls his will the will of the Logos. With this exegesis of
John 6, 38, the Council proves the unity of the subject: in Jesus there are not
two ‘I,’ but only one. The Logos speaks of the will and human thought of Jesus
using the ‘I;’ this has become his ‘I,’ has been assumed into his ‘I,’ because
the human will has become fully one with the will of the Logos, and with it has
become pure assent to the will of the Father.
My Comment: It is most important to observe that the
two “wills” are “wills” of the One Person Who wills as both God and man. The
wills, as the natures, are ontologically distinct, the one being uncreated ,
the other, created. They are not separated as two persons, nor elided as one,
the divine abolishing the human. Rather, they are both wills of the same divine
Person, Who alone could do such a thing because, as Creator, divine and the
human are
not in competition. This is the supreme insight of Robert
Sokolowski and Robert Barron projects it through
all of his writings. If
they were in competition, they could never be the same Person. But Chalcedon
(451) declares this as the ontological architecture of Jesus Christ Who is,
Himself, the revelation of not only Who God is, but who man is. Ratzinger wrote
: “in
my view, Chalcedon represents the boldest and most sublime simplification of
the complex and many-layered data of tradition to a single central fact that is
the basis of everything else: Son of God, possessed of the same nature as God and
of the same nature as us. Chalcedon interpreted Jesus theologically. I regard
this as the only interpretation that can do justice to the whole range of
tradition and sustain the full impact of the phenomenon itself.”
Therefore, the
humanity of Christ is not an instrument of His divinity as an instrument
of His Persona, but it is His very Persona: “Feel Me and see; for a spirit
does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Lk. 24, 39-40).
Therefore, realism and the truth about the world is intimately connected to the
truth of Jesus Christ. And, as we know, “no one knows the Son except the
Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son
chooses to reveal him” (Mt. 11, 27); and “no one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draw him” (Jn. 6, 44); and “This is everlasting life, that
they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus
Christ” (Jn. 17, 3). And, since like is known by like, we can know who a person
or thing is only by becoming that person or thing. And since Christ has
revealed Himself to be constant prayer to the Father as the relation of
Self-Gift, only if we pray can we be able to say, “You are the Christ, the Son
of the living God” (Mt. 16, 16).
Francis writes “Laudato ‘Si”
because the misuse of the environment reveals that we have culturally turned
back on ourselves “and ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since
‘the technological mind sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of
facts, as a mere given,’ as an object of utility, as raw material to be
hammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere ‘space’
into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference.’ The intrinsic
dignity of the world is thus compromised. When human beings fail to find their
true place in this world, they misunderstand themselves and end up acting
against themselves” (115).
Knowing
Creation àß Knowing Christ
Why Do We Have Such Trouble Keeping the Creation of the World in Focus?
Because the Creator of the world is not part of the world, but would be even if the world were not. It is the same question that
Christ asks the disciples: Who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am?
The human faculty of a human person does not will; that is,
wills do notwill. Persons will. So also, if that human will is the
will of a divine Person, it is the divine Person willing with a human faculty,
not the human faculty. And yet, at the same time, that human will is not abolished
by the fact that it has been assumed by a divine Person. On the contrary, the
human will as the entire human nature of the historical man Jesus (whose only
Person is the Logos) now achieves the autonomy and freedom of the divine
Person. The human will does not lose its freedom by saying Yes to the will of
the Father. It achieves the supreme freedom of self-gift that is its
ontological “construction” as image of God. Hence, there is no antagonism between
the divine and the human because in the creating Prototype, it is the same divine
Person working in the irreducibly distinct (created and uncreated) natures.
Of major importance is that they are not in
parallel. The divine and human wills are not in parallel. They “compenetrate”
The conclusion that
must be drawn is the identity of all creation with the humanity of Christ. The
entire material cosmos is an extension of that created humanity (body and
soul). Hence, creation is not a “thing,” nor an “object.” It is a relation to
the Creator. It is no thing in itself. It is not a “substance.” It is a pure receptivity in relation to the Ipsum Esse of the
Creator.
Barron on the
meaning of being creature, and therefore being world and environment:
“Our consideration of Thomas’s
Christological method revealed that knowledge of God and the human are correlative:
God’s ecstatic otherness is disclosed precisely in the measure that the human
creature becomes self-forgetful. In Christ’s perfect obedience, the ever
greater and always stranger love of God pours forth. Following Heidegger, Paul
Tillich explicitly states that the human relationship to God is the lens
through which the creaturely relationship in general can be understood. A human
being can know, feel, and describe the dynamics that characterize all finite
being in relation to the infinite. The full expression of the human in rapport
with the divine is, for Tillich, Jesus of Nazareth, especially in the obedience
and self-surrender of the cross. In that moment of utter transparency to the
divine in love and obedience, the crucified Christ reveals what the creature
ought to look like in the presence of the unconditioned reality of God. It ishter
efore fr om the standpoint of Christ that Tillich reads the ontology of the
creature, concluding that the finite
thing is most itself when it is least itself, in sheer transparency to the
unconditioned ground of being.”
I move to Barron in
1996: “All of Christian life begins with Jesus because in him we see the
meeting of two ecstasies, that of God and that of the human being. For Thomas the most impressive and powerful
aspect of the Incarnation is its surprise. God’s decision to join us human
beings in our own flesh, in time and space, in all of the weakness and
suffering of our finitude, is something in the presence of which astonishment
is the only proper response. God must be a reality stranger, more powerful,
more wonderful than we can imagine. Though God needs us not, through God is
utterly self-sufficient. God nevertheless goes out of himself, in an unheard of
ecstasy, and become one of us. There is, in all of this, says Thomas, en excessive, ever greater quality.
“And the human being Jesus
Christ, in perfect obedience and openness to this ecstatic
God, forgets himself,
goes out beyond himself in love, gives himself in a sort of imitation of divine
ecstasy. And in this radical self-emptying, Jesus does not lose himself; rather
he becomes most fully himself, finding his deepest identity in union with God.
This meeting of the ever greater, evermore surprising God and a
self-transcending human being is the event of the Incarnation and the icon that
presides over all of Thomas spirituality… God is not a being like other beings
in the world…God is is not even the highest or supreme being, that God is
rather being itself [Ipsum Esse], ungraspable, unknowable power. …
“It is from the same point of view that Thomas
interprets the act of creation. Creation is not an act at the beginning of
time, not a once-and-for-all emanation from God; the life and being of God. The
world is totally dependent, from moment to moment, on the sheer generosity of
the Creator. Aquinas calls this creation
ex nihilo, creation from nothing. When we recall the Christological roots
of Thomas’s theology, this teaching takes on great spiritual power. To be a
creature means to be ‘nothing,’ that is to say, pure openness and obedience in
the presence of the creator God. And, as the icon of Christ reveals, in this ‘nothingness,’
in this ecstatic abandon, the creature most fully discovers herself. Various
denials of the doctrine of creation ex
nihilo are unmasked by Aquinas as sinful attempts to avoid obedience. To
deny the creator God is to live the illusion that one can find oneself apart from
total surrender…
See Barron handout “Thomas
Aquinas” on Creation as a Relationship (and therefore not a “substance.”
R. Connor
