Milbank suggests that Thomas’s view on causation was more Dionysian than Aristotelian. That is, it was not external and prior to its effects, but rather is an “attribution to the original source of the ‘gift’ of the effect in its whole entirety as effect.” On this view, “a cause does not really ‘precede’ an effect, since it only becomes cause in realizing itself as the event of the giving of the effect . . . . Inversely, an effect does... Read more
The common description of theology as “faith seeking understanding” is often understood in a dualist fashion: Faith is the starting point, then reasoning takes over on the basis of faith, and through that process of reasoning, faith reaches understanding. Milbank suggests on the contrary that for Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas, “faith seeking understanding” means that “reason itself is faith seeking understanding.” He says that this is fundamentally an eschatological rather than an epistemological point: “Reason for now can only... Read more
According to Scheeben, created spirit is inhibited not only by matter but by other matter-like obstacles, particularly by potentiality and the composite (form/matter, act/potency) character of created things. Created spirit is “material” in comparison with the free and unihibited simplicity of divine spirit. (more…) Read more
Matthias Scheeben’s nature/supernatural scheme depends on the assumption that matter is ponderous, an obstacle and obstruction to the free operation of spirit, an enslaving massiveness, gross and crass. Scheeben wrote before the revolution of twentieth-century physics, so we can forgive him for not thinking out the implications of quantum physics or relativity. Still: Had he never seen a dancer, or an acrobat? Had he never listened to a string quartet and pondered what it means for sheep gut to hale... Read more
N. T. Wright has recently been telling people they’ve got personal eschatology wrong. Heaven is not the final destination for the saints, but they will be raised in transfigured bodies to inhabit a newly united heaven-and-earth. That this causes jaw-dropping astonishment is itself jaw-droppingly astonishing. Hasn’t anyone ever read the Apostles’ Creed? “Life everlasting” comes after “resurrection of the body.” But then you pick up a book by a traditionalist Catholic who celebrates the beatific vision with such (often moving)... Read more
Scheeben says that what is natural to one being may be supernatural for another. Immortality is natural to angels, “a pure spirit, whose entire essence is on a higher plane, because no opposition between matter and the principle of life has place in him.” For men, immortality is supernatural, since “one component part of his essence, the material body, is continually on the march toward dissolution.” Which raises several questions: Is “matter” inherently “opposed” to the “principle of life”? Why?... Read more
Matthias Scheeben makes explicit the troubling underpinnings of the nature/supernatural distinction. When we are refashioned by grace “on the model of the higher, divine nature,” we enter into a “new, special relationship with God, who now draws near to man in His own essence, and not only as Creator of a nature foreign to Him.” Two things: First, isn’t man created on the “model” of a divine nature? What else does the image of God mean? Second, whyever should we... Read more
Can unbelievers know truth? The whole question has been distorted by failing to ask, Which unbelievers? In what circumstances? In what stage of unbelief? The New Testament shows the Jews who reject Jesus as blind, but also shows them being blinded, or blinding themselves. To give a zero-sum answer to the question of the knowledge of unbelievers is to give a timeless answer. But unbelievers aren’t timeless, so any zero-sum answer is pretty useless. Read more
My son Woelke pointed me to a piece in Slate on the resignation of Tim Goeglein, who resigned recently as the White House liaison to religious groups, after it was revealed that he had stolen material for published columns over the past several years. What tipped off Nancy Nall Derringer, the reporter to broke the story, was an allusion to Rosenstock-Huessy, which Goeglein took, complete with a misspelled first name, from an essay by Jeffrey Hart. Derringer writes: (more…) Read more
At the chiastic center of John 9, the Jews interrogate the blind man’s parents, threatening them with expulsion from the synagogue if they confess Jesus. Why do the parents appear? The answer goes back to the disciples’ question at the beginning of the chapter: Jesus says the parents have not sinned to cause blindness. At the center, though, the parents hesitate when confronted by the Jews, in order to stay in the good graces of the leaders. As Jesus says... Read more
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