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Here are my thoughts about Chapter Two, \u201cThe Treasure of Delight: Nicholas of Cuba on Infinite Desire,\u201d of David Bentley Hart\u2019s book \u201cYou are Gods: On Nature and Supernature.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a good example of one of my suggestions about reading a difficult book. Here is are the last two sentences of this chapter: \u201cIn Christ we see that the only possible end for any rational nature is divine because such also is its ground; apart from God drawing us from the first into ever more perfect union with himself, we do not exist at all. We are nothing but created gods coming to be, becoming God in God, able to become divine only because, in some sense, we are divine from the very first.\u201d (34)<\/p>\n
Now, stop and read that again. I don\u2019t know about you, but if I read that in a book by a thinker associated with a pseudo-Christian or New Age cult I would consider it confirmation of that thinker\u2019s heretical status.<\/p>\n
But, this has to be read in light of the whole chapter and even the entire book. And Hart is NOT generally considered a cultist or heretic and I have found him to be a challenging Christian \u201cconversation partner,\u201d so I will withhold harsh judgment for now.<\/p>\n
After all, remember, Athanasius famously said that God became man so that man may become God (paraphrased from memory).<\/p>\n
Throughout this chapter, Hart is continuing his argument that rational thought itself points to a divine end of the thinker. \u201cThat hunger for the infinite as infinite, which can never come to rest in any finite nature, is also the only possible ground of the mind\u2019s capacity for finite realities as objects of rational knowledge or desire.\u201d (25)<\/p>\n
Hart traces the line of Christian thinkers on whose \u201cshoulders\u201d he stands back to Gregory of Nyssa and on to Nicholas of Cusa and up to Maurice Blondel. I think he might have mentioned Catholic thinker Joseph Marechal (d. 1944). And what about Hans Urs von Balthasar? Anyway, clearly, Hart doesn\u2019t think he is proposing something entirely new.<\/p>\n
Also, in his defense, if he needs defending, in this chapter, including the final two sentences, Hart is expounding Cusa\u2019s philosophy\u2014epistemology and ontology\u2014if not his own. The whole chapter is worded in that way. Except here and there, there are hints that he is speaking also for himself.<\/p>\n
Now get this! On page 31: \u201cEven God could not create a rational will not oriented toward deifying union with himself, any more than he could create a square circle\u2026or a morally and intellectually competent supporter of Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think a major thesis of this entire book is this concise sentence on that same page: \u201c\u2018Pure nature\u2019 is an atrocity of reason.\u201d What would \u201cpure nature\u201d be? Nature devoid of the supernatural, of grace. Nature not becoming God. The context seems to indicate that by \u201cnature\u201d Hart means \u201crational nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, again, in this book as a whole and in the Introduction and first two chapters, Hart is arguing against any separation of nature and grace. But isn\u2019t he doing more than that? Hans Urs von Balthasar is well know for the same. Where is Hart transcending Balthasar if at all? Possibly in arguing that the human person\u2019s \u201cnatural\u201d end, \u201cfinal cause,\u201d is becoming God.<\/p>\n
On page 32 Hart wrestles with the issue of ontological difference between us and God. I can\u2019t quote even one brief portion of it here that would make any sense without quoting it all! And in it all, on that page, he is expounding Cusa\u2019s ontology of God and humanity. It sounds very dialectical. \u201cDifference\u201d but \u201cnot otherness?\u201d I wish Hart would just come right out and tell us if he believes the telos of a human person is becoming one with God\u2019s essence (identity). He seems to be pointing in that direction without quite arriving there (yet).<\/p>\n
I am still wrestling with Hart\u2019s argument in this book. All I can say for right now is that it is invigorating but only because I have a kind of implicit trust that Hart is NOT gnostic or New Age or esoteric in his ontology. But this I know: an esoteric \u201cChristian\u201d thinker like Rudolf Steiner or one of his disciples would take great encouragement from what Hart has said so far. So MIGHT an \u00a0LDS scholar or leader. Hart is being bold to the point of danger.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thoughts about \u201cYou Are Gods\u201d Chapter Two \u201cThe Treasure of Delight\u201d *Note: If you choose to post a comment here, make sure it is relatively brief (no more than 100 words), on topic, civil and respectful (not hostile or argumentative), and devoid of links or photos.* Here are my thoughts about Chapter Two, \u201cThe Treasure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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