Tag: Scripture

A First-Class Encounter with the Devil?

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark, STL

Hollywood is fascinated with the Devil. Every year it seems there’s a new film about possession, the occult, or demonic infestation. The public – i.e. normal people – eat it up: clearly, we are fascinated too. And that’s just what the Devil wants.

I have never dealt with anything like demonic possession or infestation directly, though I have priest friends who have. If you had any doubt, let me assure you, all that stuff is plenty real. And yet somehow, so many of the people who flock in droves to see blockbuster hits about these things might also believe they are real – and they don’t do anything to change their lives in response to the terrifying world of Hell and its inhabitants. There is one simple reason: they have mistaken these second-class encounters with the Devil for first-class ones.

The Devil, when most successful, stays most hidden. It is hard for him, as he loves to show off – and ultimately, there is always some tell-tale sign of his wicked presence, even if we can’t quite notice it. Eventually, like Odysseus sailing away from the cyclops, he will simply have to tell you that it was him – he wants all the credit, you see, all the glory. He can’t have a quiet victory, not in the end. He has to taunt his opponent.

But he is willing to wait, at least sometimes, staying quite hidden. Ironically, things like possessions and infestations and apparitions are part of this overall strategy. By making so many people aware of his activity in these extraordinary phenomena, he deceives a great number: they think that this is the point of the Devil’s work, namely, to make things float around a room, to take control of someone’s body and mind, to make himself appear in fantastical shapes. Well, it isn’t. While we look at the “bright and shiny things,” our attention is diverted as the real goal is accomplished, slowly but surely – temptation leading to sin: a first-class encounter with the Devil. When one is really distracted, thinking not only that extraordinary manifestations of the Devil are first-class encounters, but that they are in fact the only encounters, one will likely not even recognize temptations to be temptations, thus not seeing sins to be sins. Game, set, match.

Finally, the one who does not believe in the Devil at all is likely to be quite firmly grasped in his wicked clutches – and one day, he will let that person know definitively who won his soul from God. And then they will be miserable together forever.

The truth is that the Devil is boring. Sin is boring too. God, and virtue which leads to God, are interesting when rightly seen, as their “horizon” is infinite love, while the Devil is just a creature, and sin leads only to creatures, all finite, many quite unloving. Friendship with the Infinite One – a first-class encounter with God, the life of charity – now that is worth more than a few hours at the cinema to sit back and enjoy… it is worth an eternity of fixation, and a life of self-sacrifice.

The Trinity Matters: Processions

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark, STL

See the Introduction here.

The argument begins simply: “From God I proceeded.” (John 8:24) Question 27 is the foundation for the Treatise on the Trinity, and this appeal to authority – in this case, Divine Authority – is the point of departure. God has said it, therefore we believe it, as God does not lie and is never confused or ignorant.

It must begin this way, as we will see later in detail; for now it suffices to say that what can be known about God by reason alone does not include real processions of the sort which we are about to discuss. God must in fact tell us there are processions in Himself. With that, let us begin.

Article 1 establishes the presence of procession in God. Article 2 demonstrates that one procession is rightly called “generation” (of the Word, or the Son). Article 3 shows that there is another procession in God, that of the Holy Spirit. Article 4 determines that the procession of the Holy Spirit is not “generation” but “spiration.” Article 5 proves there cannot be more than two processions in God (and thus not more than three Persons).

The “sed contra” of Article 1 has already been laid out – John 8:24 tells us that procession exists in God. We move now to the body of Article 1 (the “respondeo” or “answer”) before looking at the objections (which is the proper way to read the Summa, by the way) and the other Articles.

Thomas again begins with Scripture. The Bible uses Names for God which imply procession (like “Son”) but it is not immediately clear what kind of procession this is. A procession, in general, is a kind of “issuing forth” of one thing from another – the way a son proceeds from a father… But now we see the two great errors which are possible: Arianism and Sabellianism.

Arianism sees the Son as a creature of the Father, and the Holy Spirit as a creature of both – this would be procession indeed, but this position empties the Son and the Holy Spirit of Divinity. (Thomas again appeals to Scripture to explain why Arius was wrong, specifically 1 John 5:20 for the Son, and 1 Corinthians 6:19 for the Holy Spirit… I hope it is sufficiently clear by now that Thomas’s theology is deeply Biblical; we are not even half-way through Article 1.)

Sabellianism (also Modalism) sees the Son and the Holy Spirit not as creatures but simply Names predicated of God the Father acting in certain ways. When the Father is Incarnate, He is called “Son.” When He sanctifies human souls, He is called “Holy Spirit.” In other words, the Son and the Holy Spirit are only logical distinctions – they are not really distinct from the Father. Thomas appeals to John 5:19 and “many other passages” to rebut this… This simply is not what we get from Christ’s teaching in Scripture.

The common error is to see procession as “outward” – something existing in creation. With Arius, it is the beings themselves which are processed outwardly, while with Sabellius the outward effect which proceeds from Divine operation in creation indicates the Name to use.

This is not the kind of procession which allows for the Trinity of Catholic Faith. The processions of the Trinity are interior processions.

The most evident analogy is with our own mind (an analogy developed at length by St. Augustine in his book on the Trinity frequently called the “psychological analogy”). We think of a thing by conjuring an idea – but the idea remains within our mind until we speak it by the word, the concept, by which we are understanding it. In God, procession is like this – it is not procession as according to bodies, such as a son proceeding from a father, or heat proceeding from fire.

You can look at Objections 1 and 3 on your own. Objection 2 is worth a look here, as it really touches the heart of the major obstacle to making sense of the Trinity, namely, Divine Simplicity. After all, what proceeds from a thing is distinct from that whence it proceeds – but God is perfectly simple. How? Well, in an intellectual procession, the more perfect the procession is the more closely united is the concept with the mind. In other words, the better a thing is known, the more it is one with the intellect. God knows perfectly – so what He conceives of must be perfectly united with Him by Essence. (We will see a similar argument about power later – the more power a cause has, the more the cause will be replicated in the effect… the better the teacher, the more able the students will be to teach what they are learning. Coincidentally, this is part of why Jesus did not write a book. But we are getting sidetracked…) The point is that the Word is perfectly understood by the Father and is therefore perfectly One with Him.

So much for Article 1. There are processions in God which remain within God, the most easily grasped being the intellectual procession of the Word, Who is perfectly united with the Father because the Father perfectly understands the Word. On to Article 2: is any procession in God called “generation”?

The “sed contra” is Psalm 2:7 – “This day I have begotten Thee.” (To “beget” and to “generate” are the same.) So, at least one procession in God is called “generation.” But why?

There are two kinds of generation – the kind which makes something new (fire making more fire) which brings something into existence out of non-existence, and a kind which is proper to living things which generate other living things which have the same specific nature (unlike a man producing a hair on his head – but like a man producing a man). The latter normally includes the “making” of the first kind of generation; a horse generates a horse, a man generates a man, and so on. But maybe there could be something which lacks the aspect of “making” and has only this latter kind of generation… This is the Father-Son relationship. This generation is from a living principle (the Father, Whose operation of understanding is the “force” of this generation), it is a generation of similitude (due to how understanding works, as explained above), and that which is being understood is God Himself, the Divine Essence (the same nature as the Generator). So this is living generation but without creation. (Nerds may look at Question 14 for more details.)

Objections 2 and 3 are very important and very helpful.

Objection 2 notes that our own thoughts are not called “generation.” So, why should God’s thought in this case be called “generation”? Well, our act of understanding is not the same as our own substance – this is not the case with God. We produce thoughts that are not ourselves; but for God, anything in Him is Him.

Objection 3 argues that what derives its existence from another will exist in a subject, meaning, it is not self-subsistent – for example, a horse generated from a horse will exist in the physical universe, as part of that universe. So, since God is self-subsistent, there can be no generation in Him. Well, the created universe is Thomas’ counter-example: it does not exist in a subject. Creation exists in itself, due to the power of God. So, the Word, Who derives or receives His existence from another (the Father) by interior procession, does not need to subsist in another, just like creation does not need to.

Article 3 is relatively simple. The “sed contra” points to Scripture for the grounds for arguing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from God but is not the Word (John 15:26 and John 14:16 respectively).

The intellect has an interior procession, and so does the will. In the will, the object of desire moves us towards that object by a kind of impulsion. In God, the intellectual procession generates the Word; the procession of the Will of God gives us the Holy Spirit. This is the procession of love.

Objections 1 and 3 are good to look at.

Objection 1 states that, if we admit of more than one procession in God, we could be setting ourselves up to say that there are infinite processions in God, which is unreasonable. Thomas’ response is very important (and essentially constitutes the argument of Article 5)… Only the intellect and the will can have interior processions, so there cannot be more than two.

Objection 3 is possibly the strongest counter-argument yet. The claim is that intellect and will are the same in God, due to Divine Simplicity. Therefore, there cannot be a difference in the procession from the Divine Intellect and Will… So, there can be only one procession. Thomas admits that the Will and Intellect of God are the same, but Thomas says that there is a priority between intellect and will, with intellection preceding willing, logically even if not really; in God, this priority can only be logical – one must know what one loves, but since God is not doing this “step by step” it is in a single moment… and yet, there really is this logical priority, so there can be distinct processions. (Nerds might like to recall the insistence of Thomas on the priority of the intellect in human acts, over and against Bonaventure and later Scotus, Ockham, and then the long line of nominalists and voluntarists… Interesting how this connects, no?)

Article 4 gives us the first appeal to something other than Scripture – rather, it is an appeal to St. Athanasius, who says that the Holy Spirit is not begotten (or generated).

The intellect has an interior procession because some similitude exists in the intellect (I think of the apple, and something like an apple is in my mind – I think of myself, and something like myself is in my mind – and the better the conception in my mind is, the more like the thing itself that it is a conception of will it be… in God, as we saw, this conception is perfect, and therefore is God Himself, God the Word). Well, with the will it is a bit different. Instead of similitude, we speak of inclination, or a kind of wanting (or loving). When we have an object in our will, we are inclined towards it – we want it, we desire it, we love it. God, by loving Himself, has an interior procession in His Will. What thus proceeds is the Holy Spirit, so called because “spirit” implies a kind of living impulse. The procession is therefore called “spiration” rather than generation (see Objection 3).

We’ll leave the Objections alone.

Article 5 is within our grasp, as we’ve already indicated the argument. The “sed contra” is particularly blunt at this point – Thomas simply says there are only two Persons Who proceed, and thus there are only two processions.

As we have said, the intellect and the will are the only faculties which can have interior processions. Other faculties or operations will have exterior processions or no processions at all – sensation, for instance, requires activity outside the intellectual nature. Thus, there can only be three Persons in God, in accord with the Intellect and Will and unproceeded Principle, the Father.

The Objections concern the following claims: 1, that power has procession; 2, that goodness involves procession; and 3, that fecundity of operations would multiply the processions of Word and Love.

As for 1, power is exercised on another, so it is an external operation. As for 2, the goodness of God belongs to His Essence and is not an operation like understanding or willing, and so the Goodness of God is simply involved in the processions of the Word and Love. As for 3, God understands all and loves all by one simple act – therefore, there is no possibility of multiplying the processions of Word and Love.

We made it! Question 27, done! Believe it or not, we have already pretty much laid out the entirety of Trinitarian theology in seed form. The rest is largely just unpacking what we have just done.

Next up, Question 28: relations of origin…

The Trinity Matters: Introduction

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Eamonn Clark

The story goes that an old Irish priest was getting ready for his homily on Trinity Sunday. In Ireland at the time, on this Feast, the annual tithe of peat moss was made, to supplement the priest’s salary. He would need it for the fires throughout the coming winter. He ascended the ambo to preach that Sunday, and said, “As you know today is Trinity Sunday. That means it’s time to make the tithe of peat. If I don’t have peat, the winter will be dreadful, etc.” When asked later by a friend why he didn’t preach on the Trinity, the priest said, “Well, they all believe in that… They don’t all believe in making their tithe of peat!”

It should go without saying that, being the highest Mystery of our Faith – God Himself – the Trinity matters. However, as Rahner aptly pointed out in his important book on the subject, the Trinity has nonetheless somehow been slipping into practical irrelevance in the lives of believers. One must ask not only whether people do not believe in “tithing peat” and other such appropriate responses of parochial commitment anymore – but if they even really believe in the entire center and ultimate point of Christianity, which is the Triune Godhead as such. Or, instead, is it the case that, after so many preachers simply assuming “they believe it,” they are rather actually some kind of Sabellians or Arians, even if unknowingly? (Many are.) What effects could that have on the spiritual life, for individuals, and also for the whole Church and world? (Enormous ones.) And what exactly is the doctrine of the Trinity anyway? (Three Persons in One God.) Is it even really coherent? (Yes.) Is the doctrine demonstrable from reason alone? (No.) Do the missions imply a subordination of the Persons? (No.) Etc.

We will be walking step by step through the Treatise on the Trinity by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, starting with Question 27 of the Prima Pars and going all the way through to Question 43… At the end, I will introduce you to the most relevant debate occurring right now in Trinitarian theology (over Rahner’s famous “grundaxiom” – “The Immanent Trinity is the Economic Trinity, and the Economic Trinity is the Immanent Trinity”) and perhaps give some additional reflections on the visible mission of the Son (the Incarnation) as it relates to the mysteries of His public life and ministry.

Have no fear! I will break down the language piece by piece and sift through all the normal queries. As St. Augustine said, this part of theology is the most dangerous, but it is also the most fruitful… It’s worth the effort.

Astute and zealous readers might want to brush up first on Divine Simplicity (Question 3) to see what is immediately at stake in this topic (basically, if something is not perfectly simple, viz., without parts, then it’s not God – such a thing would have had to be put together by something else which existed prior to it). Other Questions might be helpful to read too (11-14, 18-20, 22, 25), but Question 3 is enough to see the major “obstacle” at hand. I will help you through the rest.

I hope you enjoy this upcoming series, and may God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit bless you and keep you always… Happy Trinity Sunday!

Main image: The Jordan River, near the Baptismal Site, the lowest place on Earth – where all Three Persons were encountered by distinct visible missions.

The Logic of the Resurrection

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Eamonn Clark

The meaning of human existence was definitively determined and confirmed about 2,000 years ago in a little cave just outside Jerusalem when a dead man suddenly came alive again. Nobody saw the event itself – it was secret. Only its effects were perceived, just as this same man’s public miracles had been… in the midst of confusion, or chaos, or darkness, or in some kind of hidden or invisible circumstances. But the effects were perceived clearly. And yet frequently, their meaning was not perceived.

To see the Risen Christ after the torture and death He endured only days earlier evoked principally two emotions – fear and joy. The fear came from the natural confusion of seeing someone alive who had died. The ambiguity which such a situation presents is overwhelming to the psyche – and even most sincere believers in the Resurrection today would no doubt still be startled by this kind of encounter. The bridging of the worlds of the living and the dead calls for such an “unnatural” in-betweenness, a characteristic of the Christ which is hammered home numerous times in the pages of the Gospels. This should be no surprise when we believe He is both God and man, already a great mystery of “contradiction” and “ambiguity.” He was baptized in the “middle” place. He touches “unclean” things. He lives near cities but not in them. He is evasive physically and rhetorically. He is a shape-shifter. He is a gatekeeper.

The joy, in part “unleashed” or magnified by the fear, comes from perceiving that this gatekeeper has opened the way to Heaven in the Resurrection somehow in Himself, which is the meaning of the event. And a primal spiritual instinct ought to urge one not only to desire such an opening, but also to sense that the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth actually matches with this desire in a way that nothing else could. In other words, the story of Jesus is too good not to be true; human minds are not capable of devising a story like this – in fact, everything in our natural powers tends to fight against making these sorts of deep and universal existential claims that hinge on particulars, like the sort that would depend on an individual man in a real historical time and place. Our natural sensibilities prefer a God that is more like a cosmic soup or a distant watchmaker – not a Person, let alone three Persons. The “scandal of particularity” is deeply unsettling when rightly perceived. That is what happens when order, the Logos, involves Himself with the mess of the universe – there is a disruption, including in the chaos of our souls.

This was recently demonstrated to me after some discussions with defenders of a certain Easter article in the New York Times. I don’t intend to launch into an apologetic critique of the article – you can read such a thing here – I only mean to note the stubborn insistence that somehow the Resurrection, to a Christian, could be something other than what it is plainly preached as being by the apostles: a physical reanimation of the individual Jesus of Nazareth. The gymnastics used to get around this while still ferociously clinging to the title “Christian” were what really struck me. It occurred to me that this is precisely what that dreadful curse of Isaiah is all about – seeing without perceiving, hearing without understanding – even in the midst of claiming the masthead of Divine approval.

This is also basically what occurred during the public ministry of Christ, but in a slightly different way. While the folks I was talking with were through and through American leftists and therefore deeply opposed to any kind of nationalism, the same false Messianic paradigm which has seemingly always plagued the Jews since they entered Canaan was at work in them as well: the Messiah is a politician. For these leftists, the point of the Christ is by and large to advance laws and policies propping up public welfare programs, globalism, non-judgmentalism, and instant gratification of hedonistic desires. (The “economic Christ” and the “therapeutic Christ” are present as well.) For the Jews, it was and is about Jewish nationalism. Even today they are waiting for a singular figure to rise up to destroy the Palestinians and usher in a glorious Jewish peace in Israel, of course, with the Temple rebuilt. (Have they forgotten about Julian the Apostate’s miraculously disastrous attempt to rebuild the Temple, even before the Al-Aqsa mosque occupied the very spot?)

Peter was really willing to die for Jesus on Holy Thursday – until he realized that this is not the Messiah he had signed up for. The predictions of death were clearly not metaphors or exaggerations… but he did not yet understand that neither were the predictions of resurrection. He had been thinking like men, not like God. His paradigm of Messiah qua warlord-politician was ruined when Jesus submitted to the soldiers, and so Peter too was ruined. It turns out that in some sense he really did not know the man. “How will Jesus lead the war against those dreadful Romans now?” He will indeed lead a war against Rome, but in a spiritual way that shows even them Divine mercy and love.

All this brings me, oddly, to the Book of Jonah. When read correctly, there is hardly a book in the Old Testament which more bluntly and richly explains the Christ’s agenda in such a short space. Of course, we read Christ speak about the “sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12: 38-41) – a clear reference to the Resurrection – but there is more to it than that.

Jesus Christ is the New Jonah – not only in the sense of “fulfillment” but also of correction. See if you can find some paradoxical connections to the Gospels in this summary.

Jonah so deeply hates the Assyrians (Gentiles) that he would rather die than tell them that God loves them. After all, they have historically been at war with Israel. But even before he turns to obey God’s command to preach in Nineveh, Jonah is a successful evangelist. Sleeping on the pagan sailors’ boat during a storm as he is disobediently running away from Nineveh as far as he can, he awakens to tell them that he is the cause of the danger. With this short sermon alone, they all become fervent devotees to the God of Jonah, probably, we can infer, much to Jonah’s displeasure. These new fervent worshipers of the God of Israel commend the soul of Jonah to that same God’s care, asking that his blood not be on their hands as they throw him into the sea to meet his fate. While Jonah wishes for death, he seems not to get it, although we are left wondering if he died in the belly of the whale and yet rose again. His prayer therein is not repentant – apparently he finds no guilt in himself – but he does offer obedience. He is spit onto land again and preaches a five word sermon in Nineveh which simply threatens destruction. He does not say what is wrong with Nineveh, he does not say how to avoid the impending punishment, and he does not even mention God. The entire city converts, which Jonah is furious about. He sits outside the city waiting to see what will happen, and a plant grows over him. The shade is wonderful, but soon a worm eats the plant and it dies – Jonah wishes for death again, selfishly complaining to God about His mercy on Nineveh but not on the plant. God disagrees. The end.

Christ loves the Gentiles so much that He wants to die for them. Start the reinterpretation there. The end of the story is the real kicker for Jewish nationalism… According to St. Augustine, the worm which attacks Jonah’s plant represents Christ; the plant represents the Old Covenant and its favors. (Think of the cursing of the fig tree during Holy Week.) It was there for a while due to God’s own superabundant favor, and now it disappears, making everyone equal under the sun. The “Jewish moment” is over. It was only a pedagogue, mainly about the fidelity of God to His promises. Now a greater promise must be fulfilled… And keeping this in mind, many of the parables and activities of Christ are split wide open to a new logic, along with more understanding of the offense taken at the Lord’s attitude toward the Nations. (The workers who are late to the vineyard, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the discussion with the woman at the well… all these and more lend themselves in part to the exploration of this theme.) The Jews are not special in themselves: salvation is for everyone, even the descendants of the wicked Esau and Ham. The Temple curtain has been torn from top to bottom, as God made His escape from Jerusalem out into the Nations. The Lord’s own garment, woven from top to bottom, has not been torn, while He died just outside the Holy City, shedding His Blood upon the new doorpost and lintel which is broad enough for the whole world to enter in and receive the safety of God’s protection from everlasting death. That blessed Plant, the Cross, will protect us from the heat of Hell’s fire, which will make us wish for another death that will never come.

There should be no question of the historical existence of the person of Jonah. We hear about him in 2 Kings 14: 23-25 – where he delivers a prophecy which will, ironically, be reversed by Amos (Amos 6: 13-14) – and a hermeneutic of faith urges us to read the Sacred Text open to the astounding and miraculous intervention of God in the history of the Chosen People. Compared to the Paschal Mystery, the miracles contained in the Book of Jonah are mere shadows. Trying to “demythologize” these or other miraculous signs without a serious reason to suspect a metaphorical intention on the author’s part indicates an unhealthy attitude towards Divine Providence and an under-appreciation for the significance of the New Covenant. Perhaps the single biggest problem among basically orthodox theologians today is a fear of being “fundamentalist” with regard to the run-up to the Incarnation. As if it were somehow naive to believe as the Jews of 1st Century Israel believed. What we need in order to appreciate the kerygma as fully as possible in this life is the shameless acceptance of full-throated and unabashed Judaism as the real preparation for the advent of the Messiah. That is not my opinion – it is what God actually wrought upon the Earth. He chose to enter into a people who at least believed these things were generally real, literal history. After all, how can we really understand and appreciate the silent and invisible things of the New Covenant on Calvary if we can’t even acknowledge the reality of some thunder and smoke on Sinai? I don’t mean to impute sin to those who hesitate here; I only mean to say that such hesitation is typically unnecessary, inappropriate, nonsensical, and can render theology and even the spiritual life quite sterile. The most carefully planned event in history was the Incarnate Word’s earthly life. We should read the Scriptures with this in mind, no?

In its extreme, this program of “demythologization” prevents the entrance into the spiritual life. Creation is through the Son, the Word. It follows that human existence – and all of creation – is in some profound sense itself a story, or a myth, as it were, into which God Himself enters as the central character, first indirectly, then directly, now half-directly, later to be fully direct once more when the story is finished. Without acknowledging the need for a Savior who will open the way to eternal life by redeeming one from sin and overcoming death, there is a fundamental frustration of what God designed humanity for. The story wouldn’t really make sense. Without faith, it is impossible to please God – one must believe He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him, in particular through grace and personal love, even if this is only dimly perceived (cf. Hebrews 11:6). The tendency to fight one’s own deepest in-built supernatural longings is a self-imposed darkness – a rejection of the Light which is already shining in all creation. We are always free to destroy ourselves in this way, and we always will choose to do so without God’s special mercy. Even with every indication and sign available – including countless miracles, visions, and wonders down to our own day – without His ongoing support and personal “invasion” of the Canaan of our souls, we would drown in the misery of our self-absorption and fixate on God’s created gifts rather than on the God Who is giving them. So let no man boast except in the Cross and its Victim. Jesus rose from the dead. No more gloomy despair from Qoheleth is warranted: in the light of His Resurrection, and in this light alone, by which He has drawn all the Nations to Himself, human existence, and each person’s own individual existence, at last make sense. Anything to the contrary is a chase after wind. And we should be able to see that.

Fire in Paris… My Mixed Emotions

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Eamonn Clark

Yes it is sad that the Cathedral of Notre Dame burned down. It is good that it seems it will not be entirely destroyed and that many important things inside the building were apparently rescued. It even seems that nobody was hurt (granted I am writing this as the story is still unfolding). I squirm at the sight of the images of the fire, and I would have prevented it from happening if I could have.

Here is the thing.

I have been to the cathedral plenty of times (I used to live not far away and have occasionally visited Paris since). There is just no denying that the priorities at Notre Dame were backwards. And to anyone who has gone there to try to pray, you know what I mean. It has been, for a very long time, a place 99% dedicated to tourism, and 1% to prayer. I recall one afternoon when I was in the chapel in the far back end of the ambulatory, where the Blessed Sacrament was. There were perhaps 2 or 3 other people with me. After a little while, for no apparent reason, some guards came all of a sudden and told us we had to leave and re-join the Kabah-like crowd of tourists circling the nave. I suppose they were setting up for something, but that was extremely frustrating and disappointing nonetheless, and I bet it happened all the time. I recall there also being a large commercial operation near the entrance, selling various memorabilia. It always unsettled me to see… Of course it is not quite on par with the money-changers at the Temple whom Our Lord attacked twice, but it was not at all appropriate. Misplaced priorities.

And now this symbolic heart of the French Church – and in many ways the European Church – is practically destroyed. What an apt metaphor. People indeed have marveled at the “culture” of the Church through this splendid building. Well, now that is gone, for the time being. What will be done? What leg is there to stand on except faith? A fine leg indeed – much stronger than wood and stone, even beautiful wood and stone.

Recall that Europe was not always the mainland of Christendom. It was once North Africa… It produced saints like Augustine, Cyprian, Cyril, and on and on. Today it is not like that, if you didn’t know. Nor is Turkey, which was also once a booming epicenter of Christian orthodoxy and apostolic zeal. Europe is quickly becoming like these places. There have been attacks on several French churches in the past few weeks. St. Sulpice, another incredible Parisian church, was also on fire just last month. I am not an apocalyptic conspiracy-theorist, so I won’t go there – but that God has allowed all of this should be cause to stop and think a bit. Why are we so concerned to preserve these churches? Is it just because they are nice pieces of eye candy, or is it for something more?

This will be an immensely important chance for the French clergy to capitalize on vast swarms of media attention which they are about to encounter, and the momentous effort which will surely go into the restoration of this magnificent church. Let us pray that they use the opportunity not only to do and say the obvious, but that they also point to the Tabernacle not made with human hands… Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Our Lady of Paris… Pray for us.

The Historical-Critical Exegetes: A Brief Summary of the Consensus in the 41st Century

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Herman Von Voelkenhausen
Catholic University of Cologne
St. Benedict XVI Chair of Theology
April 12, 4019

+JMJ+

Before outlining the views of the majority of contemporary scholars on the historical-critical tradition of the 19th and 20th century, it is worth first mentioning the traditional view of that school from which our own views have arisen and evolved beyond.

Writers of the 22nd century onward who reflected deeply on the historical-critical phenomenon, scattered as such writers are, assume that the exegetical school was simply directly inspired by Spinozistic and post-Kantian ideals to re-envision the Scriptures in a radical way, breaking with the cumulative conclusions of the ages and the clear teaching of the Church. These exegetes supposedly became immensely popular, even holding chairs in the most distinguished theological faculties of Europe, where they would really speak and teach their students directly. Their lectures and writings were the real motion towards a culmination in the “Jesus Seminar,” the fullest expression of the movement, which was followed by a number of special disciples who gradually unpacked the wisdom contained therein in the midst of the larger academic community that turned to join the historical-critical movement in this final phase of critical scholarship.

We must now pause and admit that all of this seems rather childish to us, but to the majority of theologians and historians from the year 2100 until well into the 3800’s, this simplistic position was simply taken for granted. It is no wonder; due to the limited knowledge of the 19th and 20th century which was available to the early authors, we cannot expect very much accuracy on their part. The advent of the internet came only near the very end of the 20th century, and immediately afterward came that dark cloud of Fake News, which persisted well into the mid-22nd century. With such imprecise methods of research and communication, we should be inclined to go easy on those who first attempted to react to the historical-critical phenomenon. The tradition which took their analyses in good faith, it is true, has less excuse insofar as their means of investigation increased in quality, but those authors were hindered by the all-too-natural allure of continuity and the professional risk of speaking out too boldly.

The first point which nearly all authors now make is that of the difference between the “historical exegetes,” and the “scholars of faith.”

The exegetes are the real human beings at the center of the scholarly movement traditionally placed in the 19th to 21st centuries (although it seems increasingly likely that these early dates are fallacious). Many of them, it is granted, really did exist as human beings. But it matters very little what these men really were in their historical lives – it mostly matters that they existed. For instance, whether or not some sayings of Rudolph Bultmann were actually spoken by him is largely irrelevant; what really matters is that a tradition developed which sees him in connection with such sayings.

The “scholars,” then, are the writers in the minds of those who received their teachings and modified them. We encounter the scholars in the writings which are associated with them by name.

Immediately the question is raised – how were these writings produced? “The books bear the names of the authors themselves,” it is objected. As foolish as it sounds to us, it was once unthinkingly presumed that, since an exegete’s name was attached to a text that he must have actually written that text himself. The prevailing theory today is that while some writers did indeed exert a kind of influence over the writings that bear their names, in almost every case we see a kind of pseudepigraphy.

A fundamental body of writing in the historical-critical tradition will serve as a fine framework for an introduction to the methods we are using today to analyze this period of theology. This collection of books was traditionally presumed to be the work of a single author, but now the agreement is that it actually is an amalgamation of several written traditions under the redaction and collection of later theologians. First, there is the Kuenen source, or K. Next, the Graf source, G. Third, the Hupfeld source, H. Finally, the Reuss source, R. Over time, a careful redaction on the part of later German exegetes over the coming decades would piece these writings together to form what the historical-critical tradition, and those who uncritically write of its history, has called the collected works of Julius Wellhausen.

Perhaps there really was a Julius Wellhausen, but the “historical exegete” is, in any case, less important than the significance of the “scholar” represented in the popular imagination of the academy of the 20th century. For those first disciples of the masters of the historical-critical tradition, such as Wellhausen was to those who followed in that tradition, they really were seen as true scholars, important figures who somehow had advanced the theological milieu towards a new era.

It should be noted that the most recent quest for the historical Albert Schweitzer has come up largely empty. There is now, however, a broad consensus that he was not born in Alsace-Lorraine, but in Tübingen – to place his birth in an as-then recently annexed part of France was a clever narrative device used to broaden the appeal of the historical-critical movement beyond Germany in the long-term. That is to say, there was a value of a kind of “academic annexing” being imposed on the narrative of the Schweitzer character during the period of redaction of the earlier records of his life. It is well established that he did spend time in France, but to place his birth and childhood in anywhere but Germany finds no support except the primary texts themselves, which, as we have said, have changed the narrative to suit their own ideological agenda.

In the 19th century, the time for historical-critical exegesis was ripe, as there were expectations in the air for such a movement, after the Prussian myth of Schleiermacher had taken hold of the European imagination. (The Schleiermacher-myth was distinct from but related to the Prussian myths of Fichte and Kant, all of which were zealously absorbed and appropriated by the “Hegelian Community.”) Eventually, this all culminated in the well-known “Jesus Seminar” Event. While most scholars agree that there really was a Jesus Seminar, there is little consensus beyond three points: that the Jesus Seminar was formed around the year 1980, that it preached an apocalyptic doctrine about the coming end of traditional Biblical theology (with itself as a central catalyst), and that it ended in a shameful demise.

An example will serve us well to illustrate the attitude of current scholarship on post-Jesus Seminar thought. Virtually all historians of theology today recognize the minimal “historicity” of the writings of Bishop Spong, that is, Spongian authorship. Instead, various radical publishing houses collected the reports of various moderate pieces of scholarship on the part of Bishop Spong, and they published books under his name. Why? Clearly, these publishing houses had their own theological agenda which they were willing to advance, even in the face of such enormous ridicule. Their reflection on the meaning of Spongian theology prompted them to take a courageous attempt at promoting work largely inspired by his own teachings but which was itself a radical development of them. This is a standard model for the era.

The writings of all the post-Jesus Seminar theologians are typically dated to the late 21st to early 22nd century. It was a common pious mentality of devotees of the historical-critical exegetes, and especially those following the Jesus Seminar, to view the writings traditionally attributed to figures such as Bishop Spong, Bart Ehrman, and Paul Bradshaw as being written much earlier than they really were. It has been firmly established, however, that Bradshaw did indeed write his work first, and Spong and Ehrman based their writings on his, and upon other accounts of the Jesus Seminar and the tradition it represents. Furthermore, these three works draw on a common source, “Q,” (from the French, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” – “What is it?”) which links them together. They are altogether in a different tradition, however, than the Reza Aslan tradition, which is decidedly more “spiritual” than historically minded in its presentation.

Of course, as is well-known, current academics consider many of these texts to have been compiled by the communities which gathered around these figures. The Spongian community, the Aslanian community, and so on. (Bradshaw, it is true, perhaps did actually write his own works – but it is altogether clear that he himself could not have come up with the idea that John was unaware of an Institution Narrative – this was a later redaction by the publishing house.) The growing majority also views most of the writings attributed to Bart Ehrman actually to be complete forgeries – fully dishonest, albeit clever, pseudepigraphy. (Several editions and translations of his work have also left us wondering what the “true” or “original” texts were in the first place – the recent unearthing of hundreds of copies of the text “Jesus Interrupted” in what is thought to be a 25th century Siberian landfill may prove to be a crucial discovery to aid us in getting to the bottom of this vexing problem. My own forthcoming work “Misquoting Bart Ehrman” will investigate this data at length.)

The motivation for our project is simple: it is altogether unrealistic that such men would have really existed, taught, and written as they are traditionally have thought to have done. Their doctrines are too systematically bizarre and radically incoherent to have been the products of single authors; it is altogether unthinkable that, even given such bad scholarship, they somehow gained wide acclaim to the point of wielding true academic and intellectual authority. Therefore, what was at stake in the 19th and 20th centuries, and what was carried on by the disciples of historical-criticism in the centuries which followed, must be studied under a hermeneutic which takes the spirit of the tradition seriously while retaining the position that such fantastical theories themselves were not taken literally by those who first originated them. It was only later generations of devotees of historical-critical exegesis who, in their zeal, took these traditions to be literal works of Biblical scholarship.

Post by: Eamonn Clark (NB: Faith is a gift – let no man boast… Let us pray for souls who lack such a great grace to see and know the Living God!)

The Heterodoxy We Need

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

I am sure it is a startling headline. Yes – it is shameless clickbait. I won’t apologize.

I do not think we need more bad teaching on faith and morals, viz., the heterodoxy which is contrasted with orthodoxy. We need more right teaching on marriage and anthropology… That’s the “heterodoxy” contrasted with homodoxy.

Allow me to define my neologism.

Homodoxy (n.) – The ideology which supports, casually tolerates, or downplays the disordered nature of same-sex activity, attraction, or public policy which promotes such; adj. homodox; “The homodoxy of the German bishop was being imposed upon the diocese.”; “The thought that clericalism is the root of the abuse crisis strikes me as homodox.”

The sense in which I use the word “heterodox” here is, therefore, a double-entendre… It is both a diversion of belief with a somewhat dominant mindset in Western culture and in many areas of the Church. It is also in support of exclusively heterosexual activity, attraction, and public policy which promotes such.

Names give power. Categories help control people and situations. Maybe this one will be rhetorically helpful. While there is more than one kind of position which might fall under this definition, and we should always try to understand the precise nature and motivation of some person’s erroneous or bizarre point of view, there is certainly a real current of pro-gay thought which can be called such.

It should be done out of charity – well-tempered, assertive, and tactful charity.

Have a good Sunday…

Seven False Messiahs – Which one do you believe in too much?

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Eamonn Clark

The little writing I have been able to do outside of normal work has recently been quite fruitful. Allow me to share a schema which identifies seven false messianic paradigms (or expectations of what the Christ is supposed to be or do)… We all gravitate toward one or more of these, and it is the task of the Gift of Understanding to correct these errors (crushing our little mental idols of God), leading us toward the truth rather than imitations of it.

The Messiah is not primarily about any of the following things: politics, rubrics, therapeutics, economics, theatrics, academics, or aesthetics. He is concerned with each, but only halfheartedly, as it were. One can easily identify an “antichristic” figure who would fulfill each of the seven the way we are inclined to desire… But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Politics – This is the paradigm which dominates the Gospels, and its zenith is found in Peter. The Messiah will throw off Roman rule and usher in an age of peace in Israel, and there will be a big Jewish party in Jerusalem. When Peter tells Jesus he is ready to die for Him, he really means it: he will die for this cause which he has fallaciously projected onto Jesus. When he discovers in the Garden of Gethsemane that the political Messiah is not Jesus, his whole world of hopes and dreams collapses – this is not the Messiah Peter signed up for. It is also not a Messiah which can be legitimately invoked to sanction any prudential legislation which a state might have to produce. The things that are God’s are God’s, the things that are Caesar’s are Caesar’s. The Christ does not deign to sanction public policy which exceeds the boundaries of the Ten Commandments – it is beneath Him.

Rubrics – The Pharisees will immediately come to mind with this word, “rubrics.” This is correct, but it is not sufficient… The thought that the Messiah is supposed to keep everyone in line extends beyond the Torah, written and oral, and into normal human behavior as well. Why does God allow people to do evil things? How can grace come through wicked ministers? Isn’t this what the Messiah is supposed to fix? No, no it is not. The Messiah is not these people, after all, and His glory is behind the cloud.

Therapeutics – The encounter with the rich young man is one example of a search for a Therapist-Messiah. Those who merely want the Christ to affirm them rather than challenge them are falling prey to this trap. The Messiah has not come to bring peace, but a sword. The world of discipleship is not a “safe space,” it is a continual high-stakes battle against sin and self-confrontation for the sake of deeper conversion of heart. “Spiritual but not religious” is the apex of this calamitous paradigm.

Economics – The crowds are like the Devil… They want the Messiah to turn stones into bread. The feeding of the 5,000 prompted the crowd to try to take Jesus away to make Him their king (John 6: 15). They are hoping for an endless Divine buffet, not of the Bread from Heaven, but of literal bread. It turns out that the Divine medical clinic was not in the cards either, though such arrangements would certainly have improved the temporal quality of life of, well, everyone. But civic works, as nice as they are, are not what the Christ has come for.

Theatrics – We’ve had the bread, so what about the circuses? Again like the Devil, the crowds always want a show. They want signs… meaning spectacular outward manifestations of Divine power. But this didn’t work for their forefathers in the Desert, and it will not work for them either, for miracles not only aren’t the point of the Messiah, they do not even of themselves suffice to create faith.

Academics – Those who regularly pray the Office of Readings might recall St. Francis Xavier’s scathing critique of the scholars in Paris… Surely, to turn the Christ into a mere object of study and intrigue is a deadly error. We might think of Herod as a prototype, who loved to listen to John the Baptist, but would not repent, and who longed to see Jesus for some time out of curiosity (which plugs into theatrics as well). The Messiah has not come simply to be an interesting point of debate, He has come for something greater. To reduce faith to study and learning is, therefore, a colossal error. Faith is the result of grace.

Aesthetics – Finally, we have a kind of catch-all error. In general, the Messiah has not come to create a certain kind of experience of God. “Stop holding on to me,” the Risen Lord tells the Magdalene… The Kingdom is not of this world, it is of eternity and consists in grace – it is a silent and invisible reality, at least for now. No fire or storm or earthquake is necessary. While we might point to some ancient errors and movements as examples of aesthetic errors, surely we can acknowledge some in our own day, such as certain attitudes which can surround the liturgy (with both libs and trads) or spiritual growth in general, such as I have discussed elsewhere. The Messiah is not about creating certain feelings or experiences, nice as those may be.

More false paradigms could possibly be added, though these will suffice for today. It is also a worthy endeavor to explore various combinations of these errors to see what kind of behavior and mindset they cause when working in tandem, such as with so-called “moralistic therapeutic deism“… But I will leave that to you the reader to do for yourself.

What, then, is the Messiah really about? In what does “messianics” really consist? Well, it is partially concerned with the 7 things above… But only indirectly. Christ is concerned with economics, for example, but it is not the primary mission. He is really concerned with how people relate with laws and protocol, but again, that is not the fundamental point.

The Messiah is Revelator and Redeemer. He gives us doctrine ordered to salvation, and then He actually offers us that salvation through Himself. All other activities of the Christ center around and are ordered to revelation and redemption – showing the way to God, or helping us to walk it. That road is narrow, but its gatekeeper is the real Christ… The wide road has a different gatekeeper, who also is concerned with politics, economics, and so on, albeit in a direct and fundamental way – it is the Devil, or the antichrist, wherein we see fine temporal “leadership,” but a terrible eternal friend.

Scripture and the Crisis – Part 4

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Eamonn Clark

See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. We’ve looked at homosexual cliques and various kinds of cover-ups. Now we turn to the Second Book of Samuel to do some psychology.

2 Samuel 13

In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. [Incest is wrong, in part, because a general allowance for it would cause such intense love so as to blind the lover – and the beloved would be too frequently present. And how blinded Amnon becomes.]

2 Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. [The exterior illness is a sign of the interior illness. His repressed feelings, which have not been dealt with by appropriate counsel and prayer, physically hurt him. How will this tension be resolved? We shall see…] She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. [Like the average creep, Amnon is a secret admirer, held back only by societal expectations. Unlike the average creep, his desire is for something particularly wrong in itself – relations with his half-sister. What does the perverse aspect of his obsession do but tend toward guaranteeing its severity? After all, perversion doesn’t usually “stick” with people who only dabble with it… They go “all in,” so that it might become normalized in their mind.]

3 Now Amnon had an adviser named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. [As many therapists are, no doubt. But many times, therapists are sought when only God and His grace will suffice.] 4 He asked Amnon, “Why do you, the king’s son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won’t you tell me?”

Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.” [Confession of such deep, dark secrets can attach a person to the therapist. It creates an inordinate trust… Unless one is confessing to God, that is! But now, Amnon is in Jonadab’s hands.]

5 “Go to bed and pretend to be ill,” Jonadab said. “When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’”

6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.”

7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.” 8 So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. 9 Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat.

“Send everyone out of here,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. 11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.” [An appropriate intimate social situation – which is reminiscent, we should notice, of the Mass, despite clear differences – is distorted and turned into an inappropriate sexual intimacy through a violent exploitation of the victim… Does this sound familiar?]

12 “No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her. [Tamar is the precursor to such saints as Maria Goretti – she is not only concerned for herself, but she is also concerned about the sin of the rapist and the glory of God in Israel, even going so far as to offer marriage as an alternative to this immediate gratification. She is a paragon of feminine holiness. Amnon’s desire is surely due in part to such devotion – and that goodness has been twisted in his mind from something to be enjoyed through spiritual friendship into a mere source of carnal and egoistic pleasure. The exertion of himself over Tamar is a pathetic and disordered attempt to revel in her own goodness and innocence.]

15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!” [Tamar’s presence now represents Amnon’s egregious sin to him. His fleeting pleasure has passed, and now he is faced with the shame he has brought upon her and himself – and he cannot deal with shame upon himself through repentance, so he becomes zealous for “appropriate separation,” shall we say. Those who wonder how a certain former cardinal could have led the charge against sex abuse – while working to make sure that bishops themselves were not included as being held accountable – can perhaps find here a similar psychological phenomenon at play.]

16 “No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”

But he refused to listen to her. 17 He called his personal servant and said, “Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her.” 18 So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing an ornate robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. 19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornate robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went. [Here is a great symbol for victims of abuse, no doubt.]

20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman.

21 When King David heard all this, he was furious. 22 And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar. [There is perhaps excuse for delayed action, as this all happens within the same family… Whatever the case, the analogy fails with clergy, who are not closely united by flesh and blood but rather by common offices and mandates. The diocesan bishop does not take the place of King David – he does not let “brother priests” behave in this way – nor “brother bishops.”]

23 Two years later, when Absalom’s sheepshearers were at Baal Hazor near the border of Ephraim, he invited all the king’s sons to come there.24 Absalom went to the king and said, “Your servant has had shearers come. Will the king and his attendants please join me?”

25 “No, my son,” the king replied. “All of us should not go; we would only be a burden to you.” Although Absalom urged him, he still refused to go but gave him his blessing.

26 Then Absalom said, “If not, please let my brother Amnon come with us.”

The king asked him, “Why should he go with you?” 27 But Absalom urged him, so he sent with him Amnon and the rest of the king’s sons.

28 Absalom ordered his men, “Listen! When Amnon is in high spirits from drinking wine and I say to you, ‘Strike Amnon down,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I given you this order? Be strong and brave.” 29 So Absalom’s men did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered. Then all the king’s sons got up, mounted their mules and fled. [Things ultimately do not end well for Amnon, who never repented, it seems, but rather presumed to be in good standing with his brother, going for cocktails after not speaking with him for two years. And yet, should we think that Absalom’s tactics were justified? He took justice into his own hands and murdered his brother – a member of the royal house.]

King David mourned for Amnon, and then Absalom ran away and eventually tried to usurp the throne, ending with his own dramatic death. Those who are overly zealous to stamp out evil among their brethren are indeed running a similar risk as Absalom – to retaliate rashly, occasioning the swelling of pride and presumption which ends with spiritual ruin.

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Thus ends our little series on “Scripture and the Crisis.” If you enjoyed, please subscribe and share! I will soon begin a similar ongoing commentary on the Gospel readings throughout the week – not necessarily Sundays, but just the ones I find particularly appealing to write on, specifically for the sake of showcasing the kind of theology which I am hoping to help revive and advance… Stay tuned.

Prophets in Israel

Christian Renaissance Movement2 Comments

Eamonn Clark

A little prophetic history to mull over on your Monday…

When Israel entered Egypt, it took them 430 years to escape and get to Canaan. Solomon’s Temple is around for about 430 years. After the Exile, Malachi is the last of the prophets, for… about 430 years, up until John the Baptist (or arguably the ones giving us any of the Lucan canticles – but really John is the culmination of the prophetic tradition).

What does this mean? At least 3 things…

1 – God has a plan, and it involves patterns. Numerology is not necessarily “superstitious,” and it deserves serious consideration in the study of salvation history. God knows that we like patterns and that we are inclined to look for them and understand things by them, so it stands to reason that He would use them, just like other natural inclinations (like mythic archetypes, bodily communion, etc.)

2 – These ages are mirrors of each other in some way. I leave that for your own reflection… Deserts, places of prayer, spiritual patronage… and those things’ beginnings and ends.

3 – You can’t fake being a prophet in Israel. One would think that if you could, it would have happened at some point in 430 years. But it didn’t. Prophets were truly extraordinary teachers and preachers with the grace of God ensuring the success or at least the authority of their prophetic career.