Advent Reading
The Synod of Bishops held in October 2008 was dedicated to “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.” Yesterday the Vatican released Pope Benedict’s “Apostolic Exhortation: Verbum Domini,” that reflects upon and presents the deliberations of the Synod.
It is a long document, touching upon many dimensions of its subject, and geared to meditative rather than to speed reading. I think it would make excellent “lectio” for Advent, both for individuals and small groups.
Here is but a “taste:”
This “condescension” of God is accomplished surpassingly in the incarnation of the Word. The eternal Word, expressed in creation and communicated in salvation history, in Christ became a man, “born of woman” (Gal 4:4). Here the word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. His unique and singular history is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity. We can see, then, why “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction”. The constant renewal of this encounter and this awareness fills the hearts of believers with amazement at God’s initiative, which human beings, with our own reason and imagination, could never have dreamt of. We are speaking of an unprecedented and humanly inconceivable novelty: “the word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14a). These words are no figure of speech; they point to a lived experience! Saint John, an eyewitness, tells us so: “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14b). The apostolic faith testifies that the eternal Word became one of us. The divine Word is truly expressed in human words.
The patristic and medieval tradition, in contemplating this “Christology of the word”, employed an evocative expression: the word was “abbreviated”. “The Fathers of the Church found in their Greek translation of the Old Testament a passage from the prophet Isaiah that Saint Paul also quotes in order to show how God’s new ways had already been foretold in the Old Testament. There we read: ‘The Lord made his word short, he abbreviated it’ (Is 10:23; Rom 9:28) … The Son himself is the Word, the Logos: the eternal word became small – small enough to fit into a manger. He became a child, so that the word could be grasped by us.” Now the word is not simply audible; not only does it have a voice, now the word has a face, one which we can see: that of Jesus of Nazareth.
The rest is here.
I just read the section on the eschatological dimensions of the Word of God. It confirms my sense that the Catholic Church today suffers from a severe eschatological deficit, and that this is true in particular of Benedict’s theology. The paragraphs stress that the Word of God incarnate is the last word, the definitive fulfilment of God’s saving revelation. But it makes no mention whatever of the future. It makes no mention of Jesus opening up the eschatological horizon of hope, of the Kingdom. In his Jesus book the Pope likewise de-eschatologized the idea of the Kingdom by identifying the Kingdom with the present of Christ as the autobasileia.
“Christ as the autobasileia”
What is the autobasilelia?
“What is the autobasilelia?”
I don’t know either. Is it a Benedict neologism? It means “self-kingship.” But the prefix “auto-” works in Greek kind of like “se-” in Latin. It could mean “kingship legitimized and conferred by oneself,” like Charlemagne putting the crown on his own head because he didn’t think anybody else was important enough to do it.
Don’t know. I’ve just read the introduction. Thanks be to the immortal gods, the Latin edition is only 150 pages and several seem to be blank.
The term — “autobasileia” — originates, I believe, with Origen: Christ is the kingdom of God in his own person. As Benedict and Kasper and many others use it, it signifies that Jesus Christ in his life, death and resurrection fully reveals and accomplishes God’s creative and salvific purpose. Hence for the Church to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” receives a Christological specification: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
The conclusion of the prayer after the “Our Father” at Mass (at least in the Latin) preserves the eschatological tension: “Dum exspectantes beatam spem et adventum Domini nostri Jesu Christi.”
The table of contents is at the end of the document. (Maybe everybody else already knows this.) The part about the eschatologica ratio is section 14.
I don’t see dum in the text of the mass. I hope they didn’t forget to use the historical present with dum. I hate it when people do that.
Caro Felapton,
you are helping me to learn that as I grow “senior,” I ought not to quote from memory. The text reads: “exspectantes beatam spem et adventum Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi.”
It was dumb of me to insert the “dum!”
I like dum. Dum spiro, spero. Dum tacet clamat. Dum vivimus, vivamus. Dum vita est, spes est. And what all disciples should say: Dum vivimus servimus.
And departing form dum to dulce, we should send to future W’s, the words of Erasmus: Dulce bellum inexpertis. War is sweet to the inexperienced. Which leads us to that military call of Horace to the lie that it is by Owen: Dulce et decorum est pro patria.
Which leads us to “DA”……….
“The patristic and medieval tradition, in contemplating this “Christology of the word”, employed an evocative expression: the word was “abbreviated””
Some might say fanciful. There is no evidence that Paul found this sense in Isaiah. Fr. Fitzmyer (in the Anchor Bible) translates: “For the Lord of hosts will carry out his sentence on the earth with rigor and dispatch.” The NAB offers: ” for decisively and quickly will the Lord execute sentence upon the earth.” Here is the NJB: “for without hesitation or delay the Lord will execute his sentence on earth.” Finally Fr. Byrne (in the Sacra Pagina series): “for it is by completing and curtailing that the Lord will carry our his word upon earth.” There are difficulties of detail as the variety in translations suggest, but it does not help to take the occurrence of “logos” as a reference to the Word. Willful interpretation makes woeful sense. For further light I recommend Fitzmyer’s notes.
He used this same expression a few Christmases ago: http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2006/12/gods-sign-is-simplicity.html
“Willful interpretation makes woeful sense.”
I really like that turn of phrase. And it raises a question for me. At the heart of the understanding of scripture as presented by this text is the idea that scripture must be read within the both the wider interpretation of the beliefs and practices of the church, and more narrowly the tradition of magisterial interpretation. At one level, this seems entirely right. Scripture is created by the churches and so should be interpreted by the churches. However, it strikes me that at times, the churches have good reason to claim something like this:
“So, um, regarding that interpretation of this text…never mind, we goofed on that one.”
I am sure that church leaders would come up with better language. We have discussed various occasions when magisterial teachings have changed. Does anyone have any good examples of where magisterial biblical interpretations have changed?
Joe
It is my understanding that very few passages in Scripture have been given a definitive interpretation by a Council or by a Pope speaking infallibly. The passage in question is not one of them. However in Galileo’s day it was held by the popes and Holy Office, evidently not infallibly, that Scripture taught that the earth does not move. I don’t know as even JP II ever went so far as to say that the magisterium had misunderstood Scripture on this point.
Thanks for the meaning, Fr. Imbelli.
Aquinas says somewhere that a Scriptural text can have more than one true meaning, and as I remember he wasn’t just talking about metaphorical interpretations of literally true ones. Sorry, I can’t remember where he says it.
If there are more then one valid interpretations of some Scriptural texts, does this mean that exegesis is more of an art than a science? Science deals with implications, with necessities, with either/or’s. Exegesis seems to go beyond that. Does that make it an art? If so, how do you establish criteria for such an art (beyond consistency of new interpretations with established beliefs)? Hmm.
Ann,
Pope Benedict has consistently spoken of the necessity and insufficiency of “historical-critical exegesis.” The whole third section of Part One of the present document on “The Interpretation of Sacred Scripture in the Church” sets out important pointers that can guide our ongoing discernment.
My thought is, as you suggest, that such interpretation is more akin to an “art:” the art of discernment. That does not mean it is arbitrary or subjective (in the invidious sense). Hence it transpires in the Christian community, and involves “Dialogue among pastors, theologians, and exegetes.”
Further, the third section of Part Two reminds us that “The Liturgy is the Privileged Setting for the Word of God.” Not the class room nor the scholar’s study. I certainly do not intend any anti-intellectualism here. We are all indebted to scholars such as those Joseph Gannon invokes in his comment above. But it is in the liturgical proclamation of the Word that Scripture ceases to be only a document of the past, and becomes living and active, penetrating like a two-edged sword.
Finally, when I retire :-), one of the goals I would love to undertake is a prolonged study and meditation of what Thomas Aquinas has to say about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I sense that they are relevant to what we are discussing. Have you come upon any fine treatment of Thomas on the gifts?
Benedict says that in Rom 9:28 “we read: ‘The Lord made his word short, he abbreviated it’” I should like to know how His Holiness derived that “reading” from the Greek text or in whose translation he found it.
Fr. Imbelli,
I like your adverbial dum in the prayer. I think the insertion of it was a point of good style.
Just remember if the conjunction dum introduces a temporal clause and the verb in the main clause is in a past tense, you have to use the historical present in the subordinate clause. So, for example, if you want to tell your students that last night while you were grading their exams a bottle of tequila jumped down your throat of its own accord, you should say Pridie vesperi dum probationes vestras corrigo, ampula tequilae tota mihi per guttura ultro siluit. Then they’ll understand perfectly.
I’m still reading the introductory sections of the document, but it kind of seems like this stuff is all old hat. What’s the point? Why does Benedict keep repeating this stuff at us? Was there really a need for another two hundred page document which basically just rehashes high school catechism class?
I’m still reading, though. Maybe I just haven’t got to the profound part yet.
Whenever I read Augustine’s theory of the trinity, (that the Father speaks and his expression is so perfect that what is spoken not only represents but becomes the thing spoken) it seems to me that the idea here is that the Trinity is a sort of theological quine. A quine is a computer program which reproduces itself. The theory of quines is pretty simple but has a lot of implications. The capacity of an entity to express itself implies, all by itself, some interesting properties.
I don’t think I have anything useful to say on the subject yet. I only propose it as an interesting question, for philosophers like Ann Olivier. What, if anything, does the theory of fixed point combinators tell us about the Divine Economy?
(Yes, the concept is named in honor of Willard Van Orman Quine.)
Felapton,
I am with you about the rehashing of stuff we already know. Which makes it all the more confounding why Bob gives it his usual excessive praise. As far as the Trinity of Augustine you are right in calling it a theory. Even Augustine would have been surprised at how so many took it as gospel when Augustine was searching to explain it.
What the bleep!
Fr. Imbelli,
I wouldn’t say this is a “fine” treatment, but I found this book on the indwelling according to Thomas in the library the other day and am for the present under its charms: http://books.google.com/books?id=DktGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=froget+aquinas&hl=en&ei=tkjfTLTHDYSdlgfggKWZAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Fr. Imbelli, thanks for the link and thoughts. Edifying as always.
Reading the criticisms above–about an apparent “eschatological deficit,” about the opening part of the document being a “rehash” of what we already know or something akin to a “high school catechism” class–I’m reminded of the well known joke about how one day the Holy Father was seen walking on water and the next day’s headline was, “Pope Can’t Swim.”
Felapton –
I don’t know what fixed point combinators are. My knowledge of symbolic logic reaches only as far as first order propositional logic and a bit of relational logic, and my knowledge of math systems is almost nil — primitive considering what has been done the last hundred years. I did check that out combinators at the Stanford online encyc., and it seems obvious (given what I can understand of the article), that the ideas of quines and all the other stuff could be extremely useful in clarifying some theology.
Carnap was a believer, and he used the notion of recursion to try to describe God’s infinite immensity. (Actually, before I read about the Carnap project, I did a little article about assigning degrees of perfections to the elements of aleph-null, then multiplying those by the next larger transfinite number, and multiplying those by even larger ones . . . on and on to the Continuum (?) to try to get a clearer picture of God’s immensity. Not a proof, just a description.
Would you say that the reduction process that that article speaks of is the opposite of recursion? If so, yes, I can see it being used to clarify the notion of the Logos as the product of a quine. You really ought to get into theology more :-)
@Ann Olivier: I have an impression that philosophers and mathematicians are saying the same thing but using different terminology. In computer science, we define things in terms of “programs” but philosophers seem to stick to propositions. For example, I have heard philosophers call “”Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation” yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Quine’s Paradox.
But I’m confused because programs are really sets of commands and propositions are declarative statements. So what is the relation between them? Or am I just allowing myself to be confused by grammar? Maybe the distinction between imperative and indicative is something that only seems fundamental when you speak a language with distinct moods for the two. Is it possible for a language not to have distinct moods for imperative and indicative?
I’ll look at the Stanford Encyclopedia article on fixed point combinators. I think I understand the principle of recursion as it applies in mathematics, but in semantics it’s much harder. For practical, approachable exercises in semantic recursion, I like part 3 of Raymond Smullyan’s “Satan, Cantor, Infinity”. Really, I like the whole book a lot.
Interesting that Carnap was a believer.
Now I’d like to withdraw the objection that the document is all old hat in favor of something more precise.
It looks like sections 6-22 are a specimen of the genre called “theological meditation.” A theological meditation (istm) attempts to convince by means of the warrant “If all of these disparate phenomena (scriptural quotations, historical events, liturgical customs) can be explained by the Gospel of Christ, then we may conclude that the Gospel of Christ is true, or at least that it is likely to be true. To this end, the meditator presents a sequence of theological statements, scriptural and Patristic quotations and liturgical allusions. I think this is a valid warrant and there’s certainly no denying Benedict’s theological and scriptural resources are impressively vast and his skill in stringing them together considerable.
But I think it would be good to nail down a little more precisely what justifies proceeding from theological statement to scriptural quotation. Sometimes, the justification is simply “This quotation is a proof text” as when the author says that it is wrong to steal then refers to Exodus (Deut.) “Thou shalt not steal.” Sometimes, the theological statement is explaining the scriptural quotation, as when Benedict says “Here we come to understand fully the meaning of the words of Psalm 119: ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’”
But a lot of the time the point of the quotation is completely unclear (section 12):
Jesus thus shows that he is the divine Logos which is given to us, but at the same time the new Adam, the true man, who unfailingly does not his own will but that of the Father. He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Lk 2:52).
It almost seems like Benedict has some exegetical principles completely foreign to the way anybody else thinks. Or even that he just wants to show us how much he knows and doesn’t particularly care if he’s making sense.
I think a factor in this phenomenon is that the Letter to the Hebrews is a sort of theological meditation and, in the best tradition of theological meditation, the author is pretty cavalier about taking scriptural quotations out of context, and about throwing them in gratuitously, whether they’re really to the point or not. Maybe this is because the “Letter” is pretty clearly meant to be read aloud. But the habit of using scripture this way seems to have stuck in the Church, and here these many centuries later we’re all still sitting around scratching our heads saying “What is this doing here? What does it have to do with the subject? Is it supposed to support the thesis? How?”
I’m interested in the practical impact of this document on the liturgy and our Church, since I’m not well schooled in theology or biblical studies. (But I’m learning alot by following along here.) Was this document the opportunity for Pope Benedict to decide whether or not to implement the Synod’s recommendation that the Office of Lector be revitalized and expanded to women?
I’m disappointed if His Holiness chose to pass on this opportunity.
I also recognize that, taking the long historical view, the Pontiff’s praise of the contribution of women to Scripture study is noteworthy, since 50 years ago women could not get degrees in Catholic biblical studies.
Benedict 16 did not write this document.
Father Giorgio Zevini S.D.B., a professor in Rome, wrote it.
Felapton,
Do you see any link between the quotation of Luke 2:52 and what preceeded it? I see these links of meaning immediately:
-Jesus was truly incarnate
-Jesus in His human nature did what was favorable to God
Felapton –
AWWWK! Indeed, it wasn’t Carnap who did the work on the immensity of God, it was Cantor. Carnap wasn’t a believer at all, at all. But one of the members of the Vienna Circle was. If I remember correctly Schlick, who was Catholic. .
“Is it possible for a language not to have distinct moods for imperative and indicative?”
Felapton –
I don’t know about natural languages (I suspect there are none without both), but certainly the language of the logics Wittgenstein considered in the Tractatus doesn’t. It’s all about propositions. In fact, the main reason he rejected that work was because in it he took the position that there was only one basic form of language which both the languages of logic and natural languages could be reduced to. He came to see that that was much too simple, that there are many “language games”, so he rejected a good deal of the Tractatus.
Try his Philosophical Investigations. Wonderful ruminations on language uses. Also notes taken in one of his classes have been published. Alan Turing was an auditor, and the exchanges between Wittgenstein and Turing are fascinating (at least the parts I understand of them). Turing quit the class when Wittgenstein obstinately insisted that it makes no difference if there are contradictions in a math system. Crazy, I tell you.
As to computer languages being sets of commands — hmmm, Really good question. I suspect the logicians would say they aren’t, but then you have this problem: where are the commands? I suspect you’ll have to include the design of the hardware (the gates) as well as the nature of the electrical current in an answer to that. You really can’t reduce computing to the program. I’d guess it’s the current that is the command. But how is the action of the current translated into analogues of assertions?
What an interesting paradox that is! But since “Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation” itself has no subject, so it isn’t a proposition, and therefore the phrase can’t be either true or false. When placed in that sentence/proposiiton as the subject, can the resulting apparent sentence be said to be a proposition at all? Hmmmmmm. Back to recursion.
Anyway, I think that given how the mathematicians and logicians have clarified the meanings/natures of “infinity” they have a great deal to offer the theologians. And a lot to confuse them too. For instance, to me that notion of reducing formulas to the simplest helps to think about the intimacy of the relationship of Logos to Father. Seems just short of identity. And, the mathmaticians seem to have some wild notions of identity, which I would guess might help in trying to think about the Trinity.
Do get into all this, Felapton, and then explain it to me :-)
“Dum” has its place but it never should be used with a participle (ugh!), only with a finite verb. I am shocked, shocked to find it used with a participle on this blog.
As for Carnap and Schlick (Moritz?), they were both members of the Vienna Circle and subscribed to logical positivism according to which apparent statements about God are literally nonsensical and hence best thought of as pseudo-statements. Schlick, as I recall, was a Czech of Protestant background. I recall reading somewhere that Wittgenstein thought that Carnap was crude. Carnap would probably dismissed the latter parts of the Tractatus as nonsense.
I have not been idle. The nearest to the Pope’s reading of Romans 9:28 that I have been able to find is from Pelagius (yes, that Pelagius) on the passage. What Benedict takes to be the abbreviated Word Pelagius takes to be a reference to the New Testament “because everything seems to be summarized in it.”
J.D.G. Dunn translates Rom 9:28: “…for the Lord will complete and cut short and will perform his word on the earth.”
The problem, as Dunn indicates, is to determine the force of what he translates as “will complete and cut short…”, and he gives a useful survey of interpretations. His conclusion is: “However the phrase is rendered, it must have in view God accomplishing his purpose on a (temporarily) diminished Israel.”
Joe Gannon: Yes, the question is how to interpret Rom 9:28, with its citation of Is from the LXX, but you had asked about Benedict’s translation, and I thought it useful to indicate that it is not without precedent. The KJV translates: “For he will finish the worke, and cut it short in righteousnesse: because a short worke will the Lord make vpon the earth.” Douai-Rheims is more literal: “For he shall finish his word, and cut it short in justice; because a short word shall the Lord work upon the earth.”
I agree, of course, that in Paul’s meaning, logos here has nothing to do with the Logos incarnate, but it is understandable that the Latin authors would be struck by the phrase “verbum abbreviatum or breviatum” and adapt it to various purposes. For some it referred to the Creed, an abbreviated statement of the faith; for some it pointed to a difference between Christianity and Judaism, with the many particular ordinances of the latter left behind in the simpler, briefer Christian dispensation; for others it referred to the Incarnation, another way of putting the “emptying” of Phil 2..
I have come to refer to such reflections on the Scriptures as offering insights occasioned by the reading of the Bible within the vital context of the Church’s life. Especially when we lack that living context, say, of an actual sermon of Augustine or sf someone else, we don’t catch the nuances, e.g., whether something might be meant only half-seriously, or ironically. Think of the misunderstandings that can arise when a posting on this blog is taken seriously when it was meant humorously. Avoiding such contretemps is even more difficult when a millennium or more separates us from these authors.
Undoubtedly a number of hands were at work in the compilation of the document which, after all, draws upon the reflections and deliberations of the Synod, as the quotes and footnotes testify.
However, the voice is certainly the voice of Benedict, and behind him, the magisterial studies of de Lubac. Those interested might consult de Lubac’s “L’Ecriture dans la tradition,” translated as “The Sources of Revelation” (poor title!). There is a long section on patristic and medieval meditation on “The Abridged Word.”
Prof. Gannon –
Yes, I was referring to Moritz Schlick. But I do wonder what his views about God were. There was a lot of disagreement in the Vienna Circle about basic principles, and although Schlick was the founder of the group he even refused to sign its 1929 Manifesto. They were all hugely influenced by Wittgenstein, who, though he did say that talk about “the mystical” was “senseless/sinnloss”, did not equate that word with “contradictory”. (“Sinn” was Frege’s technical term for one basic sort of “meaning”.) Their anti-metaphysics position was quite different from Wittgenstein’s. He stopped going to meetings, but he continued to talk with Schlick afterwards, and Schlick, with Ramsey, helped persuade Witt. to go back to being a philosopher.
He (Witt.) became obsessed with Tolstoy’s interpretaton of the Gospel of St. Johm, and apparently remained open to “the mystical” as he called it. As I see it, sometimes his talk about “the mystical” parallels the talk of mystics such as Eckhardt, not to mention some theologians’ insistence that God-talk is meaningless because He is so different from us..
Fr. Komonchak
It seems clear that the KJV translates the textus receptus of the NT, which has been “corrected” to be closer to the LXX of Isaiah, and the Douai Rheims translates the Vulgate which comes from a Greek text of the same character. I agree with you that it is natural that people should try to make sense of the only text they have. I do think, though, that today we should follow the best text that critical scholarship and philological method offers.
Fr. Imbelli
Thanks for the reference. Benedict may well have derived his interpretation of of the passage from a reading of de Lubac, whose book sounds interesting.
Ann Olivier
If memory serves, Wittgenstein distinguished between what is sinnlos and what is mere Unsinn, in the Tractatus, I mean. Carnap did not make the same distinction. As for Schlick, the Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that he held that all propositions are either analytic or synthetic a posteriori. That does not seem to leave room for any sort of theology. But perhaps he agreed with Wittgenstein in distinguishing the sinnlos from mere Unsinn.
The eschatological defecit in current church teaching is a major problem, not to be trivialized.
I’ve just read a brilliant piece by L. Barmann, “Theological Inquiry in an Authoritarian Church.” In: G. Magill, ed. Discourse and Context: An Interdisciplinary Study of John Henry Newman, 1993. He quotes Newman’s last great theological utterance, the preface to the 1878 edition of The Via Media of the Anglican Church: “theology is the fundamental and regulating principle of the whole Church System. It is commensurate with Revelation”, “theologians being ever in request and in employment in keeping within bounds both the political and popular elements in the Church’s constitution, – elements which are far more congenial than itself to the human mind, are far more liable to excess and corruption, and are ever struggling to liberate themselves from those restraints which are in truth necessary for their well-being”.
Barmann adds: “One does not find before the nineteenth century popes who issued encyclicals and magisterial instructions every few months on every topic under the sun and intended as frameworks for all legitimate theological discussions among Catholics. Such practice has preempted the authentic theological development within the Church which Newman envisioned, and has created a more or less continual crisis of authority for some of the best and brightest in Catholic intellectual life.”
I want to defend adverbial dum with the participle. An essential point in Latin style is to sound good when read aloud. If dum or quidem or enim or etiam improves the rhythm of the sentence, I see no reason not to put it in.
Somewhat off topic, I asked the question “Is it possible for a language not to have distinct moods for imperative and indicative?” and then realized subsequently what a tremendously stupid question it is. Because English, of course, originally had no imperative. The verb “shall” meant to be commanded to do something and “will” meant to want to do something. The simple English future eventually got put together from the unused parts. One almost never needs to command oneself to do something or to inform others of what they want to do. That’s how we ended up with “I shall, you will, he will, we shall, y’all will, they will.” So, yes, a language can easily use the future for imperative. In fact, the Ten Commandments are in the future indicative.
A problem with eschatological theology is that the empirical evidence the speculation is based on is somewhat wanting.
Mainstream Judaism, for example, affirms the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, but the subject is rarely discussed in Jewish Scripture. If you ask the Jews why the Babylonian Talmud gives about ten times as much ink to correct hand-washing as to the immortality of the soul, they usually say it’s because not much is known about the resurrection of the dead, but hand-washing is pretty well understood. The Sages decided to stick to what they know.
As King Solomon put it: “Even the fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.” (Prov. 17:28)
Eschatology indeed comes to us in the form of unverifiable speculation and imaginative fantasy. But demythologization allows us to discern the core emphases of the eschatological messages of Jesus and St Paul. How does a Christian live in the unstable world, with its earthquakes, wars, famines, plagues, and daily news of the deaths of friends and acquaintancs? Answer: in confident hope in the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God, which is already being prepared in the daily good deeds of Christians, who treat every day as a gift or bonus, a precious occasion to give witness. These good deeds of faith are the “seed” from which the mighty mustard tree of the Kingdom springs up. The Talmudists are thus right to stress daily deeds, and to refrain from speculation about the life to come; but when the horizon of the life to come is dimmed or reduced to individualist worries about limbo and purgatory and hell and getting to heaven then the life of the community in the present is also depleted.
So yes, everything about the future of the individual and of the human race is obscure — and God’s promised future is not something we can map in temporal categories at all perhaps. Nonetheless, the eschatological structure of human existence, as existence in hope, is very clear, and is intrinsic to the Eucharist as well (and a clue to celebrating it joyfully). This message became quite luminous at the time of Vatican II, and now it has become opaque again.
Joseph O’Leary,
Here is a paragraph from the third part of the document:
“We need, then, to discover ever anew the urgency and the beauty of the proclamation of the word for the coming of the Kingdom of God which Christ himself preached. Thus we grow in the realization, so clear to the Fathers of the Church, that the proclamation of the word has as its content the Kingdom of God (cf. Mk 1:14-15), which, in the memorable phrase of Origen,[313] is the very person of Jesus (Autobasileia). The Lord offers salvation to men and women in every age. All of us recognize how much the light of Christ needs to illumine every area of human life: the family, schools, culture, work, leisure and the other aspects of social life.[314] It is not a matter of preaching a word of consolation, but rather a word which disrupts, which calls to conversion and which opens the way to an encounter with the one through whom a new humanity flowers.”
It sounds to me like “an existence in hope.” But I agree that the “eschatological” thrust of Christian faith/hope needs to be highlighted in our praying, preaching, teaching, living.
That is one reason I regret the translation of the prayer after the “Our Father” at Mass: “as we wait in joyful hope.” To my mind the translation of the same phrase in one of the antiphons for the Liturgy of the Hours better expresses the eschatological dimension: “we await the fulfillment of our hope:” expectantes beatam spem (no “dum!”).
As for Newman, with his exquisite sensibility and balance, he recognizes the rights and responsibilities of the three constitutive functions of the Church, and their inevitable tension:
“Truth is the guiding principle of theology and theological inquiries; devotion and edification, of worship; and of government, expedience. The instrument of theology is reasoning; of worship, our emotional nature; of rule, command and coercion. Further, in man as he is, reasoning tends to rationalism; devotion to superstition and enthusiasm; and power to ambition and tyranny.
Arduous as are the duties involved in these three offices, to discharge one by one, much more arduous are they to administer, when taken in combination. Each of the three has its separate scope and direction; each has its own interests to promote and further; each has to find room for the claims of the other two; and each will find its own line of action influenced and modified by the others, nay, sometimes in a particular case the necessity of the others converted into a rule of duty for itself. “
The Venerable Bede composed an abbreviated psalter in which he allowed one verse to stand for the whole (multum in parvo). As Bob Imbelli points out alluding to DeLubac that use of “abbreviated” is not uncommon in patristic or medieval Latin. In that usage, abbreviated stands for compression.
Felapton
English had no imperative? What English lacked was a future tense. Look in any Old English grammar. It all goes back to our linguistic ancestor, Indo-European.
As for the future in the decalogue, it is there because in Hebrew the verb is in the imperfect aspect–the one denoting incomplete action–and such forms are often conveniently translated by verbs in the future tense.
But really I think you speak in jest, so I have decided to take nothing you say seriously.
Fr. O’Leary
I would render “exspectantes beatam spem et adventum Domini nostri Jesu Christi” by “awaiting the blessing for which we hope, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The “et” as one says in the trade, is epexegetical. What do you say?
Oh, right. I mean, English had no need for an imperative, because a verb like “shall” which means “to be commanded to do something” can supply the need in the indicative.
Aha, you are right about the Hebrew imperative too. It is only permitted in positive commands.
It is true that I am hilariously funny; but I do occasionally speak in earnest.
Fr. Imbelli quotes Ben. 16: “Thus we grow in the realization, so clear to the Fathers of the Church, that the proclamation of the word has as its content the Kingdom of God (cf. Mk 1:14-15), which, in the memorable phrase of Origen,[313] is the very person of Jesus (Autobasileia). The Lord offers salvation to men and women in every age.”
Fr. Imbelli –
In the first sentence “the Kingdom of God” seems to be the end point of hope — Heaven, the whole thing. But later it is said to be “the very person of Jesus”. But this changes the meaning of the phrase significantly — Jesus is not exactly the whole of Heaven.
Why do theologians think it’s OK to make these sorts of identifications that really don’t involve identities? It seems to me they (and especially the early theologians) do this sort of thing regularly. It just confuses the faithful. (Sorry to be so testy, but I’ve been wanting to get that off my chest for years.)
Ann,
Your “testiness” is mildness itself compared to the really testy folk.
I confess I do not see where “heaven” is explicitly referred to. The Marcan reference is, of course, to Jesus’ proclaiming of the kingdom. For the Pope’s fuller development of the theme, you can consult his “Jesus of Nazareth,” chapter 3.
“Heaven” is the fully realized kingdom of God, when God will be “all in all,” as Saint Paul says. But it is already inaugurated in the paschal mystery of Jesus. Hence Jesus is “autobasileia:” the one in whom God’s reign is established.
Or am I missing your point?
Father Imbelli –
If Jesus *is* the Kingdom, He would not need to proclaim it == He’d just need to make Himself present to His hearers.
It’s the over-simplified language that irritates me. As one who is squarely in the rationalist medieval tradition, it drives me up the wall, actually. Such theological talk is probably short-hand to those who know theology, but I”m just learning. Or maybe I’m just transferring my irritation at Jean-Luc Marion’s nonsense to the rest of you guys. He seems to belong to the John Caputo “weak theology” school I’m just learning exists — it derives from Derrida and his nonsense. All that stuff about “beyond being” that can’t be talked about, but then they go one for hundreds of pages about it. Sigh.
Untortunately, I think they really are trying to deal with God as mystery, and I freely grant that there are contradictions that have to be faced. But why don’t the theologians just say, “We just can’t answer that yet”? Or, “Yes, there are still serious problems with that”. Maybe the theologians of weak theology (I’ll resist calling them “weak theologians”) can develop some sort of logic of exceptions to deal with the mystery of God, but in the meantime they drive me to distraction. And i suspect many non-believers feel the same way about old-fashioned Christian theology.
Ann,
isn’t “making oneself present” a human process that involves speech of various sorts — parables, teachings –, actions — healings –, and the final making present of Eucharist through death and resurrection?
Ann,
The following propositions occur to me:
1) Eternal life is knowing God
2) Jesus is the fullness of what God means–the “logos”–so to know Jesus is to know God
3) Knowing Jesus happens over time and in human freedom
I don’t see a contradition between:
a) Jesus preached the kingdom and brought it, and
b) it happens to each and all of us over time
“Basileia tou theou,” usually translated as “the Kingdom of God,” means in many cases “the Reign of God,” and when Jesus announces that it is “at hand,” he means that God is about to exercise his royal power for salvation. Jesus is the one in whom he exercises this saving power, so there is nothing contradictory in Origen’s referring to Jesus as in himself the basileia.
Fr. Imbelli –
I’m really denying two things. First, “the Kingdom of Heaven” when used in the senses above is not a univocal term. It’s meaning changes.
Second, making oneself present is not necessarily a process, and even when it is what is known at the beginning is not the same as what is known at the end. At the beginning of a process it is simply a presence. Yes, Jesus did become more fully present to us through a process in which His presence became more complex, fuller, if you will. So His presence at the beginning is not the same as His complex presence at the end, though there was some continuity of parts throughout the process.
To identify the beginning as if it were identical with the end — when you’re talking about a human process — is to over-simplify. To know Jesus at the end of the Gospels is to know much, much more about His presence than to know Him simply at the beginning. True, He remains the one, identical Jesus throughout — but we don’t know Him in His fullness, not even by the end of the Gospels.
That Jesus uses words to make Himself known during the process of revealing Himself in the world is no problem at all so long as we see that each new saying, each new parable adds to our knowledge of what He is.
I’m not denying the process at all. But I am denying that to know Jesus at the beginning of a process is the same thing as knowing Him at the end.
“2) Jesus is the fullness of what God means–the “logos”–so to know Jesus is to know God”
Kathy –
I don’t find any problems with your other statements, but to say that in knowing Jesus we “know God” is ambiguous. In knowing *something* of what Jesus is we know *something* of what God is. Only God know what God is fully.
(This is the same old problem of the transcendentals that we talked about not long ago — the thread that included considerations about the immensity of God.)
Sorry, but autobasileia does contradict the teaching of the historical Jesus and of the Jesus of the Synoptics; even in John, Jesus points ahead to a future that somehow goes beyond him — “the Father is greater than I” — I am ascending “to my God and your God” etc. Origen conflated Jesus and the Kingdom and Benedict is enamored of this conflation, as was Karl Barth, who also talks of the autobasileia. Barth never got around to writing his Eschatology, which is to be regretted, as it might have corrected the inflationary Christocentrism/realized eschatology of his later period.
One can say that in the mission of Jesus God’s Kingdom is breaking into the world, but the primary emphasis of the Kingdom message is oriented to God’s future. The tendency to identify Jesus and the Kingdom goes hand in hand with a tendency to identify the Church and the Kingdom — which subtly reimposes the structure of medieval Christendom on the faith and aborts efforts to renew it by retrieving the structure of New Testament Kingdom expectation.
Ann Olivier is right that we do not know Jesus in his fulness. I wrote once that the Logos in Jesus goes in quest of itself in all the other manifestations of Logos throughout nature and history and other religions (this was quoted by Jacques Dupuis). Dominus Iesus (2000) again tends to close any eschatological gap between what the Church proclaims about Jesus and the full knowledge of Christ that we strive toward in interreligious dialogue. It denies any complementarity between the Gospel and other religions, taking a massively inclusivist approach to the other religions, so that anything they have we have and anything they can do we can do better.
Ann,
Thomas A. says (in many places) “Man in his intellective powers participates in the Divine knowledge through the virtue of faith.” (ST I-II. 110. 4) And Scripture says “we have the mind of Christ.” (I Cor 2)
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
“For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
This same letter later says “Our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away…For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Cor 13)
I take this to mean that we really know the truth but in a kind of outline or tracing of the glorious full reality–”dimly, as in a looking glass.”
Kathy –
I agree with everything you say, and I can’t think of a better text to explains our partial knowledge of Jesus than the text from Paull that you quote. I can’t figure out why you seem to think we disagree.
Joseph O’Leary,
Barth may not have gotten around to write his “Eschatology,” but Pope Benedict has.
As with Newman, the truly catholic thinkers recognize the need to retain the different dimensions of the mystery in life-giving and soul-stretching tensiveness. Hence the eschatologocial tension of already and not yet.
Jesus is already the realization of the kingdom in his glorified humanity; his ecclesial body must still be brought to its fulfillment. And the eucharist is the privileged means for this realization (Newman again!).
This is the ontological novum of the gospel. Noetically, we can learn much about the fulness of the mystery in respectful ecumenical dialogue with others. Even on dotCommonweal.
Ann,
I mean to suggest that the knowledge of God of which we are capable by grace is an appropriation, in shadow or outline, of God’s own self-knowledge. Does this sound right?
Cathy –
Hmm. Saying such knowledge is as sketch or even outline presents no problem to me because that implies that our knowledge is indirect, that is, symbolic of Him somehow, and also that it is incomplete.
But to me the connotations of the word “appropriation” are very different from those of “sketch” or “outline”. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Latin meaning “proper to”, and in no way is God’s knowledge of HImself *proper* to me. On the contrary, what my knowledge of Him is, is a gift. So I dislike the word on that score. If those theologians added some qualification, I wouldn’t object so much — maybe.
Also, in English, anyway, the verb means to take something to be one’s own *to the exclusion of others having it*. Again, this is contrary to my belief. I do not know God to the exclusion of others knowing God. Saying that flat-out contradicts the dogma of the communion of saints.
I can’t say exactly why, but I suspect that the word is being used as a substitute for the words “participation” and “participates”. But those words bring in the host of problems implicit in Plato’s theory, a theory which I think ultimately leads to an identification of God and creaturef. Some theologians and mystics don’t seem to mind that, but I can’t imagine a bigger mistake. But I grant you, there are threads in the Gospel which might lead to such thinking.
But just what do those theologians under consideration mean by the term? I find it quite confusing. Next they’ll be saying that knowledge of God “subsists* in me. (That was nasty of me.)
Ann,
As I mentioned above–
Thomas A. says (in many places) “Man in his intellective powers participates in the Divine knowledge through the virtue of faith.” (ST I-II. 110. 4)
Kathy ==
In Plato’s participation theory individual things are said to be identified with the forms of different sort, and there is a hierarchy of forms with the One, True, Good, Beautiful (God) at the top. This implies that creatures “participate” ultimately with God, that is, are really identified with Him in His being. This is fine with lots of the theologians, especially some of the mystical theologians, but I think that the theory has been a dreadful one for the Church historically. Even Thomas, as you point out, used that terminology and, so far as i can see, never got entirely away from Plato’s mistake. One more reason to object to “appropriation” of God’s knowledge as our own.
“Barth may not have gotten around to write his “Eschatology,” but Pope Benedict has.” Yes, but it is a very disappointing book, focussing on the 4 last things of traditional eschatology rather than on any of the perspectives opened up by Vatican II, or by liberation theology, or by the New Testament whose eschatology has been so richly rediscovered over the last 118 years.
“As with Newman, the truly catholic thinkers recognize the need to retain the different dimensions of the mystery in life-giving and soul-stretching tensiveness. Hence the eschatologocial tension of already and not yet.”
Precisely my critique is that individualistic and realized-eschatology dimensions are being inflated at the expense of the communal and future-oriented and liberation dimensions stressed by the Council.
“Jesus is already the realization of the kingdom in his glorified humanity; his ecclesial body must still be brought to its fulfillment. And the eucharist is the privileged means for this realization (Newman again!).”
No mention here of justice or peace, of the sighs of suffering humanity, which the Council put in the first sentence of its most prominent document. The critique that Ratzinger is a man of the sacristy means that he ignores the wider reaches of the Gospel (for instance, severing the link between the message of Jesus and Isaiah’s longing for peace and justice).
Joseph,
For Advent reading replace “Verbum Domini” with “Caritas in Veritate”, and have a happy thanksgiving — wherever you are.
Ann,
According to St. Thomas, it’s the human intellect that knows God in faith. The particular human intellect is (ineluctably) the agent of human knowing. But, grace elevates the intellect, and charity quickens it, so that the knowledge is sure. It’s nascent, but sure.