New Wineskins Spring 2008

VOLUME III t NUMBER 1 t SPRING 2008

NEW WINESKINS Matthew Motyka, S.J.

When Lies Are Truthful

Emmanuel Foro, S.J. Homily for the thirty-first Sunday

in Ordinary Time C Scott W. Hodgman

Grace and the Christian Pursuit of Perfection

Anthony Wieck, S.J. The Textual Hermeneutic of the East and the

Iconic Hermeneutic of the West Amanda Pelle

Lines that Divide

Amy Richardson 2 Kings 4:1–7: The Flowing of Oil and

Unfolding of Power Sean Felix

To shine the inner light

IHS A Journal of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

NEW WINESKINS New Wineskins is a collaborative effort of Jesuit and lay students at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. The ideas expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

All articles and materials contained in New Wineskins, the Journal of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, are the intellectual property of the authors and may not be reproduced or used without the written consent of the authors.

Please direct comments, letters to the editor, and student submissions to: wineskinseditor@jstb.edu

ISSN 1941-9570

Cover Design by Oliver Putz Layout and Typesetting by Molly McCoy

Š Copyright 2008 The Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

NEW WINESKINS Table of Contents When Lies Are Truthful

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Matthew Motyka, S.J. analyzes the ethics of truth in a variety of contexts.

Homily for the thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time C (Nov. 4, 2007)

Emmanuel Foro, S.J. joins Zacchaeus in his sycamore tree to learn about bearing good fruit.

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Grace and the Christian Pursuit of Perfection: The Unified Self as Image and Likeness of Divine Unity in Gregory of Nyssa

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The Textual Hermeneutic of the East and the Iconic Hermeneutic of the West

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Lines that Divide: Church, Universities, and Political Boundaries

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2 Kings 4:17: The Flowing of Oil and Unfolding of Power

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To shine the inner light: A guided meditation on the Christ the Light Cathedral

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Scott W. Hodgman explores an Eastern patristic theology of the imago dei and unified self.

Anthony Wieck, S.J. contrasts Christendom’s two major approaches to conceptualizing the divine.

Amanda Pelle discusses political divisions within and among religious communities with an eye to furthering ecumenical dialogue.

Amy Richardson discovers a message of empowerment for the marginalized in the story of Elisha and the widow’s oil.

Sean Felix leads us on a spiritual and aesthetic journey into the heart of the new cathedral of the diocese of Oakland.

Editor’s Foreword Ah, the lightness of spring. We feel the cool, fresh morning air; we hear a chorus of chirping birds; and, we see cherry trees blooming. Indeed, we are now in the season of Easter, as it calls us to experience a newness of life and to re-examine how it is that we perceive God’s existence within our daily experiences—whether it is in the large events or those that could easily pass us by unnoticed if one were not paying particular attention to the details.

During the Passion of our Lord, we heard Jesus say to Pilate, “‘You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’

Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:37–8). Easter Sunday, then, has us confront the truth of the Empty Tomb. As we grapple with the mystery of the Resurrection, we hear Jesus say to St. Thomas on Divine Mercy Sunday, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29). And two thousand years later, we are seeking to discern God’s presence within our lives, especially as we hear Jesus not only call out to Zacchaeus to come down from his tree, but indeed, to realize that we are all Zacchaeus—that is, we are all called to enter into the mission of Jesus Christ, by letting him continually grow in our hearts and minds. It is most reassuring that we are not alone in this endeavor, as we have two thousand years of history to help guide us. We have the early church leaders who began to articulate what it means to be human, who the person of Jesus Christ is for us, and how God’s grace shapes us and brings us into communion with God and with one another. These early writings led to a growth in different traditions—the Latin West and the Orthodox East—and the dialogue between these two traditions provides for a greater depth of nuance and perception to encounter God’s truth. Indeed, such dialogue can be a sign of hope in today’s world, where we often find ourselves polarized along political lines.

When we speak of being one in Christ, we must strive not to let either religious or political differences create a rift so large that we can no longer hear one another; rather, we ought to see our differences as a gift—that is, the potential to find a harmonious relationship with the Other.

From such harmonious encounters with the Other, we not only gain greater insights into their perspectives of truth, but we can further nuance our own understandings. From such harmonious encounters we can also gain a greater understanding of our own gifts, especially those that might be hidden to us and which our various communities help us to see, develop, and utilize for God’s greater glory. But, we must also appreciate that the various communities to which we belong are not simply aggregates of individuals, but are defined and created by the physical structures and spaces in which we gather to foster the building up of community. When we speak of finding God in all things and places, we acknowledge the specific forms in art and architecture that help us learn who we are, both individually and communally, and the truth of God’s continual presence within our lives of faith.

The editors of New Wineskins certainly hope that the articles within this issue provide a means for you to further grow within your own understanding of the Resurrection of our Lord and that you continually experience the blessings of belief in the Risen Body of Christ. br. lee s. colombino, s.j.

Editor in chief †Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Editorial Staff

Lee, John, Bobbi, Wendy, Jon

Wendy Arce is a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies at the GTU. Her fields of interest include Social Theory, Sociology of Religion, Latino/a Theologies and Film Studies. She plans to conduct research in immigration issues, religious experience among new immigrants as well as the role of film in culture and society. She aspires to teach in a university context and work towards change that benefits the Latino/a community in the U.S. and beyond.

Jon Barber is a second-year MA student, pursuing a major in Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions.

His academic interests include Interreligious Dialogue, Comparative Theology, Zen Buddhism, and the writings of Thomas Merton. His Master’s Thesis compares the poetry of San Juan de la Cruz with the travel journals of Japan’s Matsuo Basho. Jon plans to graduate in May 2008.

Br. Lee S. Colombino, S.J., is a member of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus. He is in his second year of studies in the Master of Theological Studies program at JSTB, with a focus in Art and Religion. To complement the philosophical-theoretical aspects of this discipline, he is also taking studio art classes at the University of San Francisco. He is reluctant to articulate a favorite medium as he enjoys working in both 2-D and 3-D. Bobbi Dykema Katsanis is a doctoral candidate in Art and Religion. She is currently a Newhall Teaching Fellow at the GTU, and will next year be a DAAD fellow at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität in Jena, Germany, working on a dissertation on early Lutheran propaganda. Her essay on Magdalene imagery in the German Reformation recently appeared in Interpretation, and she has also published a chapbook of poetry. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Jason.

John Mark, S.J., is a member of the Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus, and a first-year Master of Divinity student at JSTB. He has previously studied education and philosophy, and holds a J.D. in law. His academic interests include narrative theology through literary fiction and Ignatian spirituality.

When Lies Are Truthful

By Matthew Motyka, S.J. Truth and Circumstances

For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’

(John 18:37–8) In the imperfect world standing by truth requires effort and commitment. Our knowledge of the world is always fragmentary, and we are compelled to act in this world by making assumptions about the truth. As Sissela Bok has argued,1 we must make choices all the time even though the whole truth is not available to us. This fact should not be an excuse for making choices that undermine our intellectual capacity of evaluating and comparing the options we have for acting in the world. The difficulty with defining truth has sometimes resulted in extremist attitudes. Some argue that, because truth is so difficult to attain, it is never permissible to lie. Others take a completely opposed stance and claim that, since the whole truth is not possible, all attempts at truthfulness are doomed to failure.

The attitudes according to which lying is never justified regardless of the outcome are qualified as deontological. By contrast, the positions that take into account only the consequences of an act are denoted as teleological. In reality, however, it is rare to find pure forms of deontology or teleology; rather, most ethical schools operate by combining the elements of both approaches. In ethical practice, one is less confronted with the abstract idea of truth in Plato’s sense, but rather Acting in the world requires making practical with “communicating what is due to a person or to a number of decisions based on what we are able to persons in a certain set of circumstances.”2 Thus, instead of looking understand in a concrete situation. for the whole truth, we have in mind the good of the neighbor and of the community in the given circumstances. Deontologists fear that this attitude might lead to a growing disregard for the commitment to truth. Yet we must act all the time, and acting in the world requires making practical decisions based on what we are able to understand in a concrete situation.

1 2

Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Stamford Terrace, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978), 4–5.

Bernard Hoose, “Proportionalism: A Right Relationship among Values,” Louvain Studies 24 (1999): 40–56.

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While looking at truth in its relation to concrete situations we need to clarify the distinction between truthfulness and truth. In this context the question whether one lies or not is not resolved by establishing the truth or falsity of what one is saying. We must determine whether the statement has been issued with the intention to mislead. If it appears that the person’s intention was to tell the truth to the best of his or her knowledge, then we deal with the intended truthfulness If we respond to an evil act by and not a lie.3 In this case when the intention was truthful but the outcome an act of the same nature, we false, we speak of falsity. On the other hand, when a person intentionally contribute to the privation of good. evades the truth, we deal with falsehood. Bok argues4 that it is possible to make an inquiry into truthfulness and falsehood without accepting the assumption that epistemology precedes ethics, that is, our full understanding of the situation does not necessarily precede our ethical choice. Applied ethics should work in conjunction with epistemology, basing its analysis on the material available in a concrete situation.

A lie is thus a message that intentionally misleads others. Are there any circumstances in which intentional deception is morally justified? I will argue that there are situations in which telling a lie is a preferable alternative. The criterion for doing it is the readiness or deservedness of our interlocutor to receive the truth in our estimation. In other words, we must withhold the truth from those who, we think, are not ready to bear it, and we do not owe the truth to those who compel us to truth telling by violent means. First we will look at a few thinkers who ascribe to the deontological perspective that does not justify lying under any circumstances. Then we will analyze cases where lying might be a preferable solution than truth telling.

Augustine: Truth vs. Human Sympathy The thinker who has had the strongest influence on the development of the deontological attitude toward lying is Augustine of Hippo. He defines a lie as having one thing in mind and uttering another with an intention to deceive. Although he acknowledges that there are different categories of lies, he sharply denounces any form of lying: “To use speech, then, for the purpose of deception, and not for its appointed end, is a sin.”5 Augustine wrote two treatises explicitly on the subject of lying: De mendacio (On Lying), and Contra mendacium (Against Lying). In the first treatise he establishes a hierarchy of lies. He distinguishes eight categories of lies starting from the lies against religious truths and ending with the lies that are not harmful to anyone but, on the contrary, might protect someone from harm. Even though Augustine accepts different degrees of gravity in lying, he condemns all lies. The eighth category, according to him, contributes to evading the real problem, which is not necessarily that of lying. The wrong of this situation resides in the fact that someone intends to commit injury and nobody dissuades him from doing it. Preventing one sin by another (in this case by a lie) is not an acceptable solution.6 3 4 5 6

Bok, 6.

Bok, 13.

The Enchiridion, quoted in Bok, 32.

Augustine writes in De mendacio ”The question here does not concern lying; rather, it is whether harm should be done to any person, not necessarily through a lie, so that defilement may be warded off from another person.” In Bok, Appendix, 251.

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Contra mendacium was written against the actions of some Christians who pretended to become followers of Priscillianism in order to spy on the members of this heretical movement.7 He clearly disagrees with this way of proceeding, “Therefore, how can I suitably proceed against lies by lying? Or should robbery be proceeded against by means of robbery, sacrilege by sacrilege, and adultery by adultery?”8 Augustine’s idea here is that evil must be treated by good. If we respond to an evil act by an act of the same nature, we contribute to the privation of good. In Contra mendacium he gives an example of a seriously ill patient, who, if told the truth of his son’s death might not survive the impact of this news. There are three possible answers to the father’s inquiry about his son: “he is dead,” “he is alive,” or “I don’t know.” Two of them are false; one is true. If we choose to tell the truth and the man dies, the popular opinion might accuse us of homicide.

Yet, Augustine argues, we should not give in to the pressure of “human sympathy.” In the situation of such pressure we must protect ourselves with the image of the triumphant Christ in his “intellectual beauty.” By contemplating Christ’s luminous good one takes strengths in overcoming one’s fear of the truth. Reinforced

by Christ’s truthfulness one can see the possible lie as a temptation and despise it.

The main reason for this almost stubborn commitment to the truth at the expense of “human sympathy” is Augustine’s anxiety about undermining the general good in its wholeness. He fears that one evil act will proliferate into a multiplicity of connected acts: “little by little and bit by bit this evil will grow and by gradual accessions will slowly increase until it becomes such a mass of wicked lies that it will be utterly impossible to find any means of resisting such a plague grown to huge proportions through small additions.”9 Augustine’s theological fear of spoiling the beauty of the created world leads him to this rigid attitude regarding human individual circumstances. His stance is inspired by the idea of perfect communications between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

As Alberto Bondolfi has suggested,10 Augustine’s view of deception is deeply theological.

The conviction that the Trinity is a perfect community of love and truth makes him see one who lies as an outsider. A deceiver ruptures the integrity of his nature as imago Dei. The communicative character of human language must mirror the truth, which has its source in God. In this sense deception, besides causing harm to the neighbor, is above all a transgression against God himself. This exclusively theocentric perspective ignores particular conditions that might cause one to choose deception rather than truth.

7 8 9 10

Bernard Hoose, “Towards the Truth about Hiding the Truth,” Louvain Studies 26 (2001): 63–84.

In Bok, Appendix, 252.

In Bok, Appendix, 254.

Alberto Bondolfi, “Non dire falsa testimonianza,” in Verità e veracità, ed. Bernardo Marra (Napoli: ATISM, 1999), 46–47.

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Aquinas: Hierarchy of Lies An adaptation of the Augustinian views on lying is found in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.11 The difference, however, is substantial. Thomas proposes different distinctions from the typology of lies established by Augustine and offers three criteria for dividing lies. The first is according to “their nature as lies” and proposes a division into “boasting” which “goes beyond the truth” and irony which “stops short of the truth.” The second distinction is made “with respect to their nature as sins.” Here we find three categories: when we have an intention to injure another, Aquinas calls this kind of lie mischievous. If the lie aims at some good, be it pleasure, Aquinas names it jocose. Finally, if the intent of the person is to help or save another, this is an officious lie.

The third classification is based on the relation of lies to some end and clearly reflects different degrees of gravity in the sinfulness of lies. The most serious infractions are those that enter the category of mischievous sins. They encompass the sins against religious doctrine, ones committed for the sake of injury without benefiting anyone, and then ones that benefit someone at the expense of another’s injury.

Subsequently, Aquinas includes a “pathological” lying with the intention of lying for pure pleasure (by habit), which, in the previous distinction, belongs to the jocose type. Eventually, we find all types of officious lying have some benefit in view. This hierarchy shows that there are sins which are more easily forgivable than others: “Now it is evident that the greater the good intended, the more is the sin of lying diminished in gravity.”12 We see in Aquinas’s thought an attempt at justifying certain kinds of lying. However, the fact that he encloses all sorts of lies under the label of sin is problematic. He does not break away from Augustine’s take on the issue of lying. The fact remains that lying regardless of motivation is sanctioned as a transgression even though it might ultimately maximize good. At the same time, however, the clear hierarchy in the gravity of sinfulness in lying could be seen as a step toward a “decriminalization” of lying in particular circumstances.

Kant: Truth as Duty The thinker who epitomizes most recognizably the deontological stance on lying is Emmanuel Kant. In his “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Benevolent Motives,” Kant replies to the French intellectual Benjamin Constant who has criticized his absolutist stance.13 Refuting Kant’s statement that “It is a duty to tell the truth,” Constant writes, “To tell the truth it is thus a duty: but it is a duty only in respect to one who has a right to the truth.

But no man has a right to a truth which injures others.”14 Kant firmly opposes Constant’s provision on truth.

Echoing Augustine, he declares that lying causes harm to the unconditional duty to tell the truth in general terms, even though at first glance it might seem that lying results in some good. Thus, Kant sees truthfulness in statements as a formal duty of each individual toward everyone in society. The sense of duty here does not 11 My quotes of the Summa come from the sections reprinted in Bok, Appendix, 255–261.

12 In Bok, Appendix, 257.

13 Immanuel Kant, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Benevolent Motives” in The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, ed. and trans. L. W. Beck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 361–365.

14 In Kant, 361.

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take into account any possible injury that telling of truth might cause. Lying always harms, be it an individual human being or humanity at large. Furthermore, lies degrade the source of law itself.

Commenting on the case of a murderer to whom we tell a lie in order to protect the potential victim, Kant says that by telling a lie we make ourselves legally responsible for all possible consequences. If we told a lie and by chance the victim left the hiding place and the murderer met her or We need to accept that in this him outside, we might be liable for the death of this person. On the other hand, if we imperfect world the nature of told the truth, there would always be a possibility that the killing might be prevented truth is partially veiled. by some other circumstances. However, if we had told the truth and the person was still murdered, we would not be held morally accountable for having contributed to the person’s death, since we spoke the truth. For Kant, whoever lies must be legally responsible for all unforeseen consequences.

Bonhoeffer: Truth outside Eden Kant’s stance on lying is hardly practicable in the real world. Culture is in fact the fruit of the consensus between sincerity and composure. If, as Kant advocates, each member of a social group disclosed his or her sincere feelings on every occasion, we would have a very disturbed world. Social interaction would consist of violent confrontations between competing claims for truthfulness. The whole truth is not available to us, and we must act prudently by taking into account the complexity of reality. The degree of knowledge varies among people; some have more experience than we do, and some, less. We need to accept that in this imperfect world the nature of truth is partially veiled. In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains: I think that here, under the guise of honesty, something is being passed off as ‘natural’ that is at bottom a symptom of sin; it is really quite analogous to talking openly about sexual matters. After all, “truthfulness” does not mean uncovering everything that exists.

God himself made clothes for men; and that means that in statu corruptionis many things in human life ought to remain covered, and that evil, even though it cannot be eradicated, ought at least to be concealed. Exposure is cynical, and although the cynic prides himself on his exceptional honesty, or claims to want truth at all costs, he misses the crucial fact that since the fall there must be reticence and secrecy.15 Bonhoeffer is saying that, to make our reality livable, we must accept its truth. By accepting its imperfection we must be able to overlook the squalid aspects of reality. There is no point in reminding others all the time about the flaws of their conduct which they cannot often avoid.

The idea of truthfulness in the concrete world is explored in Bonhoeffer’s treatise “What Is Meant by ‘Telling the Truth’?”16 He defends here the claim that truthfulness is relational in nature. To be true our statements must differ according to whom we address them and what is their subject matter. It is, to some extent, what Benjamin Constant said when challenging the unconditional duty of truth telling. Everybody 15 Stanley Hauerwas, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Truth and Politics,” http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/ reflections_volume_6/hauerwas.htm 16 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “What Is Meant by ‘Telling the Truth’?” In Bok, Annex, 282–286.

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has a right to the truth, but not to truth that might be damaging or even death causing. For example, utterances of parents to their child and of the child to his or her parents will be different. The child’s speech will be characterized by openness whereas the parents will apply some restraint in their interaction with the child. The motive here is to conceal the truth in order to protect the child from a violent exposure to the reality that he or she might not be equipped to handle yet. In that sense, the parents are truthful to the situation of the child by avoiding transgressing the boundaries of the child’s reality.

Each social situation has its particular reality with its particular contents and limits. They are imposed on utterances, and only those utterances that respect this inner decorum are truthful. The right words to be said in a familial context differ from those in a public context. If we uproot the words from the situational reality in which they are meant to function, we strip them of truth. This happens, for example, if we force the private upon the public. Bonhoeffer illustrates this instance by the case of a child whose teacher asks in front of the class if his father comes home drunk.17 The child answers no to the question, for lack of experience in dealing with the situation in which he sees that the adult violates the private sphere by trying to expose his father’s weakness to the public. Although giving a deceptive answer, the child is more truthful to the life order than the teacher who appears to be disrespectful of the child’s right to protect his family.

By the same token, we may evaluate the lie uttered to a murderer entering a house in which the potential victim is hiding.

It is the murderer who violates our space by intruding into it and imposing his lawlessness. The urgency of the situation renders untruth legitimate. Telling a lie is the quickest and most efficient way of averting the threatening disaster. We have no time to act otherwise, as Kant would want us to do, in order to dissuade the murderer from committing his or her crime. We ought to act in the best possible way our life experience allows us. We do not owe the truth to someone who inflicts unfair violence on us. To be truthful to this type of situation is actually to say a lie; acting otherwise would imply being untruthful to ourselves by betraying the principle of charity toward a person in need of protection. A lie is thus a desperate solution but also an effective one.

Illness and Truth As we can see, then, lies are often less violent and destructive than naked, cynical truths. Sometimes people committed to telling the truth all the time cause devastation within their community, wound their neighbor, and ultimately enjoy watching those who “cannot bear the truth.” A situation requiring a great deal of sensitivity is the relationship between patients and doctors. In the case of incurable diseases, the truth 17 In Bok, Annex, 286.

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regarding the state of the patient sometimes puts a serious dilemma before the doctor. As Helmut Thielicke has shown,18 some argue that it is a duty to tell the truth about one’s health regardless of the consequences: since illness comes from God, it is up to God to decide how to end its course. Some, on the other hand, claim that withholding the truth might avoid a shock for the patient that would otherwise precipitate the illness and take away the hope necessary to spark the will to recover.

Thielicke reminds us that in evaluating a given situation, we must take into account the relation between the person and truth and between truth and the situation. Some statements may be correct but not true in a particular situation. Their truth depends on who says them The welfare of other human beings and our and in what context. If children utter generally accepted truths, they community must be the criterion for our are not treated with the same consideration as if they were said by an commitment to truthfulness. experienced person. Doctors should not avoid confronting the problem altogether; they need to represent the side of truth. The need “to be in the truth” does not mean, however, that they must tell the truth crudely. They must prepare the patient for the eventuality of death by leading him or her progressively to accept his or her illness. This may be achieved by doctors who have a truthful relation to the realities of life.

Doctors who are “in truth” must accept illness and death as a part of the mystery of the human condition. Only then can they communicate this existential reality to the patient. If they keep seeing illness as a test to their own professional skill, they will be compelled to lie to the patient. They will withhold the truth for fear of failure in curing the disease. If they accept the possibility of death, their role will be that of a companion to the patient. “Being in the truth” will consist in a progressive unveiling of the truth of death in doses that the patient can tolerate without the risk of loosing the courage required to face it.

Thus the truth is administered in such a way that the one who has the right to it receives it when he or she can bear it without a detrimental effect. In this situation, initial lies are justified provided the doctor has in mind a process of preparation and guidance to what appears to be ultimately the resolution of the predicament.

Conclusion: Lies Are Sometimes Truthful I have attempted to answer the question whether it is ever right to tell a lie. I conclude by saying that there are circumstances under which a lie is perfectly justified. According to the standard definition, lying is to say something different from what one has in mind with the intention to deceive. In an ideal world such a discrepancy could be avoided. Nevertheless, in the fallen world, lying might be one of the strategies to avert disasters at the hands of those who use violence in order to satisfy their desires. Confronted with brutal 18 Helmut Thielicke, “The Truthfulness of a Physician,” in On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, ed. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), 537–543.

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violence, or an abuse of power, we may use lies as a means of self-protection or protection of the neighbor.

By choosing to lie we are ultimately more truthful to the situation, which, by its own violence, requires our adaptation to its truth.

We have seen that truth does not always correspond to the correctness of a statement. It is contingent upon the situation. Lying happens above all if we betray the order of life. What can be said to an adult might not be suitable for a child. One patient might be ready for the truth of his or her illness; another might not be able to take it. We owe the truth to the context in which we happen to act. The welfare of other human beings and our community must be the criterion for our commitment to truthfulness.

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Matthew Motyka is a first-year M. Div. student and a member of the California Province of the Society of Jesus. Before entering the Jesuits, he studied and taught Romance languages at UC Berkeley.

Homily for the thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time C (Nov. 4, 2007) (Eucharistic communion and ethical demand— on St John’s stewardship Sunday)

by Emmanuel Foro, S.J.

Readings: Wis 11:22–12:2, Ps. 145, 2 Thes. 1:11–2:2, Lk 19:1–10 (Zacchaeus) Summary: Through patient/expectant attention, God calls each of us to conversion and freedom. In this freedom, “We can always help someone come down ‘from their tree’ in the name of the Lord.”

In last week’s liturgy, we saw that “God’s groaning” in the prayer of the poor is as powerful as God’s word,

which does not return to God without achieving what it went out to do (Is. 55:11). Today we see Jesus’ movement of looking up (as he often does with his heavenly Father when praying), in loving consideration of this chief tax-collector/big sinner whose riches do not prevent him from looking after Jesus. The following interpretation is quite allegorical. The historical context is about a classified sinner who expressed in action his desire to be in touch with a holy man in Israel: Jesus who was passing on that way.

In Jewish traditional symbolism, the tree represents inter alia, a school of learning.

Under a tree, one seeks the knowledge of God. When one is on top of the tree, there seems to be an indication of an excess of some kind—a manifest need of clarity or security, for instance.

A tree stands as a sort of universal symbol of life and soul, of unity of male and female, unity of past, present, and future, which dwells in the seed

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as potency. In our gospel story today, the tree of Zacchaeus (the “tree”/life of following after Jesus, the “tree” of sight/vision of Jesus) bears the seed of Zacchaeus’ rising to new life where he can now see the needs of the poor, and the glory of the God who overcomes barriers to make his home with us all. In that sense, it seems important to me to bring together two contrasting catholic understandings of the Eucharist: 1) the Holy God can be received only in a clean heart prepared to welcome God. 2) The Holy God overwhelms our sin when he comes to make a dwelling with us (within our earnest desire to work for conversion and perfection); we can never remain just the same as before when God appears to us. When we come to the Eucharist, we are therefore invited to an attitude of humble gratitude, because our “holiness” will never match up with God’s own glory; and our sinfulness will never outdo God’s power to save. The Eucharist is Jesus himself who comes to our heart-as-his-home. Are we prepared to open to Jesus? Are we willing to let him take the lead in our conversation about our status before God, and what we need to do to move forward? Coming down the tree, coming down the hallway to receive Jesus are both Eucharistic movements of the believer. St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (1Cor. 11: 27–30) develops for us the ethical understanding of the Eucharist when he says: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.” There is a blessing attached to our communion to the body and blood of Christ, which can turn into a curse according to our own inner disposition. This inner disposition should only be one of ongoing conversion to the mind and heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The First Testament known as the Law of Moses contains indeed a curse as Paul confidently asserts in his Galatians’ letter, taken from Jesus himself in John’s gospel (Jn 7:19): “Did Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you keeps the Law.” Freedom is at the core of religion, but it is freedom to do good by freeing others.1 We find several passages full of cursing words or invectives as common in all prophets: they generally have an oracle against unbelieving people, a Freedom is at the core of religion, but it warning for the elect and a promise of God’s coming to his own in a form is freedom to do good by freeing others. appropriate to each context. A concentration of these curses is printed in Deut. 27:15–26, and Deut. 28:15–19. Paul’s fundamental text is Deut. 27:26, which reads: “‘Cursed be he who fails to fulfill any of the provisions of this law!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’” As a prophet, Jesus also uses invectives (against the Pharisees—very often, against cities, and against the mindset opposed to the spirit of the beatitudes).2 In Jesus Christ we find happiness as freedom from the Law in a tougher law: the rule of compassion.

Our total freedom in Christ is indeed a freedom to follow on the Way, once made whole through the exposition of our vulnerability before the Lord, through coming down from the tree of distant 1

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Paul says in Gal. 3:13 that: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by being cursed for our sake since scripture says: Anyone hanged is accursed.” He gets this idea from Deut. 21:23 that says: “…God’s curse rests on him who hangs on a tree, you will defile the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.” To make this Law real, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate permission to remove Jesus’ body before night came over Israel on the day of Jesus’ death (Christian Good Friday).

Cf. Lk 6:24–26, Lk 10:13–15, Mt 11:20–24. We can understand the second Thessalonians’ letter in that light. In what we just heard (2 Thess. 1: 11), the disciples are invited to join in the apostle’s prayer that “our God may make you worthy of his calling.”

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observation of the law of merciful love. Communion, if some requirements were accidentally missing in the communicant’s soul, aims at giving us the strength to draw closer to God by healing us from self-enclosing or self-justifying attitudes. There is in this a lesson for all who suffer from low self-esteem, and those who observe this handicap-to-friendship in others.

The tree is also a symbol of security and prosperity besides knowledge.3 When Jesus curses a fig tree in Mt 21, he teaches about the faith that works wonders of justice, but also that he is himself the master of time and mission. Our sense of security comes to naught when the Lord decides that we should return. The Lord declares that the time of reckoning has come (the day of judgment of separation of good and evil—the same power he gives his apostles to bind and unbind).

To use Ancient wisdom we can recall how Absalom the son of David (2 Kings 18:9,15), was also in a tree (an oak tree), when the royal army found and killed him; and King David cried (2 Kings 19:1).

The loving Father wants all his children to be saved, forgiven, rescued, and made whole. The serpent is in a tree in Genesis 3 (and he is inadvertently allowed to take charge of the conversation). Jesus is on the Cross/ tree (taking the place of all the rejected) at the end of his life in order to provoke an outrage, an indignation that engages one in action of rescue of the suffering victims of oppression. The scene of Jesus on the cross is supposed to create abject repulsion and a radical decision to prevent such happenings in the future—an attitude opposed to the seduction by evil as self-creation in the Garden of Eden.

Zacchaeus is in a Sycamore tree, seeking an answer to the question: “Who is Jesus?” He found himself capable of goodness. What about me? Do I know the name of “my tree” of crisis management? Can I hear Jesus knowing me even in that tree as really who I am before God? Will I come down and help others through authentic appreciation of their gift? (Even tortured and denied dignity in his tree, God knows Jesus as His beloved Son, worthy of all praises).

In the autumn/fall, trees lose their leaves to regain them in the spring. Since we are in that season now, we know that the “leaf of sycamore”/Zacchaeus must come down to have new life in Jesus the grain of wheat that falls down to bear much fruits. The evocation of curses reminds us of a traditional term spelled “wrath of God.” Lavish love is the mode of being under which God relates to us. A certain integration of that idea can blur the reality of God’s wrath, which flares up at least twice in Jesus life: 1) the cleansing of the temple with a whip, and 2) the cursing of a fig tree. This reminds us to confess that “nothing remains Lord, unless you willed it!”; that is the form sometimes taken by the struggle for justice, without this truth concluding to the divine rejection of the rich forever. 4 God’s rejection would just mean a nullifying of divine tender compassion, and the several biblical prophetic appeals: “Return to the Lord!” Let the “trees” of our lives “bear fruits worthy of repentance,” and may our God dine with us today with a light of blessing on his face, as we receive the body and blood of Christ!

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Nathanael is called when he met Jesus from “under the fig tree” in John 1:48, symbol of his training in the Jewish Torah.

The quotation is from Wisdom 11: 25–12: 1, “And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you? But you spare all things, because they are yours, O LORD and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!”

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“Lord, you will show me the path of life and fill me with joy in Your presence.”

(Psalm 16:11) “So the body grows until it has built itself up in love” (Eph. 4: 16) “Zacchaeus is in a Sycamore tree, seeking an answer to the question: “Who is Jesus?” He found himself capable of goodness. What about me? Do I know the name of “my tree” of crisis management? Can I hear Jesus knowing me even in that tree as really who I am before God?”

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Emmanuel Foro is a Jesuit priest from Burkina Faso (West Africa). He is currently working on his STD in Systematic Theology at JSTB, and giving assistance at St John the Baptist Catholic Church in El Cerrito.

Grace and the Christian Pursuit of Perfection: The Unified Self as Image and Likeness of Divine Unity in Gregory of Nyssa

by Scott W. Hodgman Introduction This essay will examine how grace and freedom form a unity of power and will in human nature over and against its normally divided self. I will argue that this integrated self constitutes the transcendent Otherness of the Christian life when it achieves its end: the restoration of its likeness to God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. However, Christian life is a broad term.1 For this reason this essay requires qualifications if it is to achieve its end; thus, I will limit my treatment of the Christian life to that articulated by Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Moreover, I intend to use Saint Augustine’s notion of grace as a contrast to Gregory so that his fascinating thought comes more clearly to the surface. First, I will develop Gregory’s definition of the Christian life (Section III). This definition provides a backdrop to my examination of his thoughts on grace, specifically as the starting point of Augustine’s theology of grace significantly the Christian life. Following this, I will detail how grace is understood to informs Western theological traditions. operate in a person’s life such that the life affected becomes decisively an expression of the Christian life (Section IV). Finally, I will examine divine unity as Gregory understands it and use this as the referent for the transcendent Otherness for which the Christian life hopes (Section V). But, before this I will position this study in relation to Saint Augustine whose thought overshadows Western theological reflection (Section II). This value lies less in the opposition of an “Eastern” and “Western” patristic theologian, one against the other; this value lies in the fact that these theologians are loved and often claimed by both contemporary Eastern and Western theological traditions.2 In this way, 1

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Here I refer solely to the Christian life without explicating “spirituality” or Christian spirituality. This mode I maintain throughout the paper and ask my reader to keep the following in mind: There is no Christian life without spirituality or some sort of theological reflection. In this regard, I maintain the attitude that theology and spirituality form a pseudo-disjunction. In my opinion, the Christian life inextricably weaves itself warp and weft through theology and spirituality. That is, theology and spirituality constitute the Christian life insofar as the Christian life is a living witness of a person and a community’s attempt at articulating who this God is that Christians adore and experience. As Gregory underscores in his Letter 24: To Herecleianus the Heretic, there is a mutually supporting relationship between prayer and faith, doxology and doctrine.

The idea of Western versus Eastern Christian theologies has come under intense criticism recently. Pertinent to this essay’s treatment of Gregory of Nyssa are Sarah Coakley’s Re-thinking Gregory of Nyssa (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) and Lewis Ayres Nicaea and its Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). The limitations of this essay preclude a discussion of their argument in detail. Yet, the conclusion is worth noting especially as it relates to my juxtaposition of a Greek and Latin Father. In Coakley’s introductory essay, “Re-thinking Gregory of Nyssa: Introduction,” she notes the prevailing opinion that

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the juxtaposition of Gregory and Augustine presents a unique opportunity in comparison that furthers this systematic reflection on the Christian life.3

Augustine and a Theology of Grace At this point a brief outline of Augustine’s notion of grace and its relationship to the life of the Christian will be beneficial as a contrast to Gregory’s theology. Augustine, a younger contemporary of Gregory, was instrumental in the Latin-speaking Christian West in defining an idea of grace and its effect on the Christian life. More importantly, Augustine’s thought in this area—his theology of grace—significantly informs Western theological traditions and provides a foil for Gregory’s own thought. Augustine’s model in On Grace and Free Will can be summed up as: grace brings faith and faith leads to good works. Salvation then follows upon the life of faith and good works where God’s grace alone is responsible for good works.4 Specific to the interests of this essay, in Chapter XXXIII, Augustine sums up grace as the starting point with:

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Western theology (especially Trinitarian theology and ecclesiology) starts from a position of unity and simplicity then precedes to particularity and person. The Eastern trajectory, on the other hand, begins with particularity and person from which it constitutes unity and simplicity. She locates this issue fundamentally in de Regnon’s classic work on the Trinity and its characterization of a “Western” and Eastern” theology.

Yet, this is not always the case as Ayres ably argues in his book Nicaea and its Legacy. As a result, Coakley concludes that the “de Regnon paradigm” is open to the possibility of an East/West rapproachment.

Nonetheless, the Western/Eastern characterization serves some purpose given its reification in ecumenical and polemical discussions dating back long before the modern period and de Regnon’s paradigm. However, Coakley’s and Ayres’ arguments are point on to the ongoing development of systematic reflection and ecumenical dialogue and, in this regard, should remain close at hand while “Eastern” and “Western” are being employed in this essay.

Grace and freedom are explicit themes in systematic theology that allow theologians to articulate some sort of understanding of God, God’s relation to the world, and God’s activity within the world. However, theology is inseparable from spirituality; and some argue rightly that this is nothing other than a false disjunction of modernity. This essay then attends to the theology/spirituality distinction and serves as an example of the fact that this is nothing other than a pseudo-disjunction. This is possible because theology and spirituality are two sides of the same coin—the Christian life. Theology properly understood is nothing other than the articulation of an apprehension of the reality of God. The systematic theologian experiences this reality precisely through his or her spirituality as it is embedded in the Christian life. Consequently, systematic theology flowers from the ground of the systematician’s experience of grace. However, this ground of experience upon which systematic theology constructs its concepts often remains implicit in the systematician’s work. In most instances, grace and freedom comprise the systematician’s categories that point to the Christian life and religious experience in general. As Andrew Louth observes in Theology and Spirituality (Oxford: SLG Press, 1976; reprint, 2000), spirituality is “that which keeps theology to its proper vocation, [and] that which prevents theology from evading its own object.” The Christian life provides the matrix within which systematic theology must be embedded if it is not to fall into the pseudo-disjunction theology versus spirituality on one the hand; or, on the other hand, evade the question of who is this God in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). This resonates with Gregory of Nyssa’s own thought. Letter 5: To Those Who Discredit His Orthodoxy is an excellent example of this; and it is in this context that Gregory becomes an excellent source for contemporary theological reflection as theologians move past the pseudo-disjunction of theology and spirituality.

Granted, this characterization is a simplification of Augustine’s complex theology of grace; however, this is not necessarily a reductionistic move. There is development over time in Augustine’s thought and theology of grace, e.g., the change in emphasis from On the Spirit and the Letter to the paradigm Augustine expounds in On Grace and Free Will. However, his theology of grace matures into a stable paradigm reflected by his later writings. This paradigm follows On Grace and Free Will’s formula that grace brings faith, and faith brings salvation and good works are the actualization of grace in the Christian’s life.

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Forasmuch as in the beginning He works in us that we may have the will, and in perfecting works with us when we have the will….He operates, therefore, without us, in order that we may will; but when we will, and so will that we may act, He co-operates with us. We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or co-working when we will.5 In this brief passage, Augustine emphasizes that grace predicates the performance of every good act. Further, Augustine insists that it is grace entirely. It is grace in the beginning, it is grace assisting in between, and it is grace at the end delivering eternal life. God gratuitously bestows grace on whom God wills. Nothing done by humanity can prompt God to bestow this grace. There is human free will, but it is entirely in God’s hands, co-operating with God’s grace.

As contemporaries of one another, Gregory and Augustine were surprisingly similar in their models of the Christian life, grace, and free will. It is because they are similar that their differences are significant. At this point, Augustine’s views on original sin draws our attention. In his Confessions, he makes clear just how powerless humanity is without grace. In his own words, “I was held fast, not in fetters clamped upon me by another but my own will….The enemy held my will in his power and from it he had made a chain and shackled me.”6 Augustine’s will, by his own account, was ineffectual and powerless; this is the effect of original sin on all humanity.

In Augustine’s thought, humans are totally and completely corrupted; their nature is fallen and this, substantially, is original sin.

In Gregory’s thought, the primal fall while marring human nature, does not penetrate its essence—an essence that bears the image of God. This image may be darkened but it is still there, and the integrity of the living image plays an important role for Gregory. Having sketched Augustine’s model, I now turn to Gregory’s definition of the Christian life and his use of grace as its starting point.

Gregory on the Christian Pursuit of Perfection Gregory’s basic definition of the Christian life is the pursuit of perfection in virtue.7 Understanding Gregory’s model begins with understanding his meaning behind “pursuit.” Pursuit is an important word in his definition, for Gregory sees the Christian life progressing ever forward with no end. Gregory justifies 5 6 7

Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, vol. 5, Nicene and Post Nicene Father, Series 1 (New York: Christian Literature Publishing, 1886), 458.

Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1961), 164.

Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 27.

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this continuous progression in the first instance by quoting the apostle Paul. He notes that Paul, great in understanding as he was, never ceased straining toward those things that are still to come. Paul was ever running the course of virtue in Gregory’s mind.8 Additionally, he notes Gregory’s basic definition of the Christian that the opposite of something is usually found at the boundary where life is the pursuit of perfection in virtue. one thing ends and another begins.9 In this conception, opposite of good is where good ends and evil begins, as life is limited by death and light by darkness. This way of thinking, applied to the idea of continuous progression, produced in Gregory the notion, “stopping in the race of virtue marks the beginning of the race of evil,”10 and the antithesis of the Christian life.

The Christian life though is more than pursuit; it is the pursuit of perfection in virtue. For Gregory, perfection is the pursuit of the Good as opposed to evil. Simply put, the aim of the Christian life is to become like God who is Good.11 It is important for Gregory that pursuit of the likeness of God is scripturally commanded: “Therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This likening to God, in Gregory’s thought, is the pursuit of the ultimate Good over the lesser goods of this world. It is the pursuit of Beauty itself, over what is beautiful—the pursuit of Beauty itself is the pursuit of God. But Gregory also sees God as infinite. God’s divine and infinite nature sets the terms for the Christian life with its theme of continuous progression. There being no boundary to God, no limit or point where God ends, there can be neither boundary nor end to the pursuit of God. Yet this is no Stoic philosophy, for Gregory argues that, though the goal might be unattainable, it is nonetheless good to strive for those things which are good by nature. “Even if men of understanding were not able to attain to everything, by attaining even a part they could yet attain a great deal.”12 The third component in Gregory’s conception of the Christian life is virtue. The word virtue occurs about a hundred times in Gregory’s main work on the Christian life, the Life of Moses. In the Life of Moses, Gregory expresses the Christian aim as the pursuit of the likeness of God, and for Gregory this is achieved by the virtuous life.13 Gregory is convinced that Christian excellence is ethical as well as mystical, active as well as contemplative, and more progression than achievement. It requires constantly straining forward toward an ever receding goal.14 In this way, moral progress, which in Gregory’s thought is both “preparation for and a response to enlightenment, can never be arrested.”15 Ethical living (purification) and spiritual knowing 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15

Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 30.

Gregory employs philosophy and the sciences contemporaneous with his time to articulate his theology.

Gregory’s employment of philosophical categories in the service of biblical exegesis—perfected in the contemplative experience of God and consequently expressed in apophatic language such as seeing in the dark or grasping the ungraspable—is a characteristic feature of his theology that requires constant attention.

Otherwise, the reader can easily fall into the pseudo-disjunction theology versus spirituality and claim Gregory’s thought is nothing other than intellectual acrobatics lacking a firm foundation in the bible; or dismiss Gregory as a Christian theologian eliding the question of who is this God because Gregory employs philosophical concepts in a daring and speculative way.

Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 30.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 82.

Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 31.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 60.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 69.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 75.

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(illumination), especially as a faith response, define the Christian life.

Spiritual knowledge is a product of grace and synergy—a result of spiritual progression. In Gregory’s thought, constant pursuit in faith defines the Christian just as much as the knowledge bestowed by such a pursuit. “The aim of the Christian life is moral perfection that entails ontological transformation, and considered above all as likeness to God, who…is himself regarded not simply as virtuous but as virtue.”16 Because God is both knowledge and virtue the Christian life must participate in God, and for Gregory this is the perfect life in virtue.

Moral, contemplative, and ascetic living are all deeply interrelated in Gregory’s thought on the Christian life.17 The Christian life is precisely the pursuit of perfection; with perfection radically redefined as a constant growth in goodness.

Grace as the Starting Point Gregory, like Augustine, envisioned grace filling a person’s life. This grace then transforms that life into a Christian life and its lifelong pursuit of perfection in virtue. To understand the role of grace and its effect on humanity, it is first necessary to trace a series of ideas Gregory offers about humanity. Gregory’s first conception was that humanity has an inherent tendency to rise towards God and perfection. But humanity can not rise unassisted even though this natural tendency to do so exists. He accounts for this inability to rise with the effect of the primal fall. This effect, in essence, dooms humanity’s noetic mind with a grasping nature that binds it to the sensible world. Instead of contemplating God as is its natural inclination, the human mind desires sensible objects and pleasures over the Good. For Gregory, overcoming the noetic mind’s grasping nature is the starting point of the Christian life. This precisely defines the purpose of grace according to him. Grace converts the noetic mind from grasping sensible objects; and, in its freedom the noetic mind then takes flight in its natural ascent to God. Therefore grace is the first component of the Christian life even though the inclination toward God is pre-existent in humanity.

Gregory conceives then that an inherent tendency to rise towards God abides in humanity. “Given appropriate ascetic training, there is in the mind an upward orientation, a dynamic capacity to ascend.”18 Freed from its involvement in the senses, it would seek out something “other” to contemplate and grasp.

However, the impulse to grasp hold of objects is an inherent function of the noetic mind and something natural to humanity. In its highest form this grasping nature seeks after God, while in its baser form it seeks 16 17 18

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 81.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 61.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 43.

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the pleasures of the world. So, for Gregory, the human impulses or passions are not to be extinguished but purified so that the natural tendency to ascend is given wings to fly.19 Underlying and enabling humanity’s upward movement is the desire to behold ultimate beauty. Gregory Gregory conceives that an inherent tendency assumes desire is at the root of human craving for God.20 Further, for to rise towards God abides in humanity.

Gregory the power and tendency of the created spirit to mount upwards to its creator and source derives from the fact that it was created by God, like God and for God.21 This sentiment is echoed by Augustine’s Confessions, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”22 Nonetheless, Augustine considers most desires carnal and worldly, as his Confessions attest. “For my will was perverse, and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist habit it became a necessity.”23 This characterizes rather strikingly Augustine’s view on human desire and will. Original sin debases will so that lust is its only desire, and this lust necessitates carnal indulgence and worldly depravity. Even so, Augustine maintains some sense of human desire for God (as a function of grace) in tension with the depravity he attributes to human will and this corresponds, albeit dimly, with Gregory’s theology of desire.

But this should not be confused with grace, for although Gregory agreed with Augustine in that, “to those who think that the grace which he commends and faith in Christ receives, is nature, the same language is with the same degree of truth applicable: if righteousness comes from nature, then Christ is dead in vain.”24 The tendency to ascend, Gregory asserts, constitutes human nature and not a supernatural grace of God. Here we find a contrast with Augustine who believed the Christian will and its movement towards good is a result of God’s operation through supernatural grace. “He operates, therefore, without us, in order that we may will.”25 When compared to Gregory’s notion of an inherent tendency to rise, we see some of the tension between Eastern and Western Christian theological traditions, especially as this tendency wells up within human nature. Gregory is clear, though, that this tendency in human nature is because God fashions humanity in the image and likeness of God. Consequently, this creates an interesting correspondence between an Augustinian theology of grace and a Gregorian theology of desire, where both ultimately assert God as the efficient and final cause in human volition. However, this correspondence still contains a strong dissimilarity in that Augustine locates it in supernatural grace. Gregory envisions freedom caused not by supernatural grace but by God’s creative work.

The second concept forming Gregory’s model is that the noetic mind cannot rise unassisted even though there is a natural tendency in it to do so. The noetic mind has the capacity to ascend in a natural way from the sensible world towards the intelligible order, an order that Gregory considers a higher level of existence, and eventually to God as the ultimate end. But it cannot do so of its own accord, even though

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 59.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 55.

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 56.

Augustine, Confessions, 21.

Augustine, Confessions, 164.

Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 454.

Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 458.

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it functions best at this elevated level, functioning above the distracting influences of the sensible world.26 Without assistance, humanity possesses a “thick mind,” bound to look down to the pleasures of the flesh just as cattle look down to their pasture; both see their hunger’s satisfaction in this way.27 And if humanity, unassisted, is not being compared to cattle with their “thick The noetic mind’s grasping nature has to be overcome. mind,” then Gregory compares them to a stream flowing in every direction. This analogy he labels the “dispersed mind.” His comparison runs thus: a stream meandering through many differing branches does not have the same force as one channeled into a single course.

Channeled in this way, the stream is harnessed to potent effect. Likewise the noetic mind unassisted would disperse itself amongst those things which bring it transitory pleasure, retaining no power for the journey to the ultimate Good.28 There are other images of the noetic mind as a description of humanity’s condition but the message is clear. Set against its natural tendency to rise, lesser states mire humanity unless some assistance is given to overcome these thick, dispersed, distracted and wandering mental states.

This brings us to Gregory’s cause for humanity’s darkened state, the primal fall. The inability of humanity to rise above this world and find perfection in virtue derives from the noetic mind’s grasping nature and its bondage to the sensible world. The primal fall effects this oppression upon humanity. It turns the noetic mind towards the world, sensible objects, and pursuit of pleasures, i.e. away from God. Not only did the primal fall turn the noetic mind towards the world, it created a state of bondage for humanity. This echoes again Augustine’s thought that human nature, which is lost through Adam, is recovered through something other than itself.29 However, Augustine draws this effect out to a greater degree.

Knowing the problem, Gregory concludes that the noetic mind’s grasping nature has to be overcome. Overcoming this grasping nature sets it free to rise as it should. Towards this end, he sees grace as the instrument of freedom. Grace, in Gregory’s thought, converts the noetic mind from grasping sensible objects to rising in its natural capacity towards God. The mind flows in every direction like gushing water, and the love due to God is dispersed among other things. One is alienated from God and unable to use reason properly, notably from distinguishing a beautiful thing from Beauty itself. The mind must be converted from all this, which is precisely, according to Gregory, one of the implications of receiving baptism.30

26 27 28 29 30

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 44.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 35.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 36.

Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 455.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 58.

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It is important to realize that the noetic mind is responsive to grace and grace alone as a remedy for its fallen condition. Gregory is absolutely clear on that as is Augustine. The effect of grace is, among other things, “putting to death” the noetic mind’s tendency to grab in a snatching, ravishing sort of way.31 Grace, says Gregory, focuses on this aspect precisely because of the noetic mind’s responsiveness to it, especially in the guidance of scripture and baptism. Through such assistance, the noetic mind and hence humanity rises up in Christian excellence and enters into the presence of God, but without grasping God in an act of comprehension.32 Grace, then, frees the noetic mind from the enslavement that undisciplined passion exerts over humanity.33 With this enslavement ended, the noetic mind ascends on high, allowing humanity to embark upon the pursuit of perfection in virtue, participate in God, and ultimately arrive at its end.

Unity of Self as the Perfect Life Gregory offers numerous images for the perfection of the Christian life. Here, our intention is to examine the one that likens humanity to God through an undivided self. This also serves as a contrast to Gregory’s metaphors of a thick and dispersed noetic mind in the fallen state. First, though, we require a small detour into Gregory’s mirror metaphor for the noetic mind to fully grasp how the likeness of Divine unity impresses human nature. Gregory’s mirror metaphor describes the image of God in human nature; and, more specifically, how the noetic mind operates as the image of God in human nature and this is a crucial point of contact with Augustine. Within this image, the question is what are the likenesses between God and humanity? Also, what are the differences between God and humanity? Gregory’s mirror metaphor is the key to unlocking this mystery. When a person looks in the mirror, he or she sees an image of him— or herself. Is the mirror reflection exact? No; in some ways the image in the mirror is like the actual subject, and in other ways the image is dissimilar to the actual subject.

Between God and humanity, then, the mirror image discloses how humanity is like God and how humanity is different from God. Further, in this mirror image, those attributes that indicate likeness can be lost, resulting in no discernible similarity between God and humanity. The image is still there, but it is so distorted and tarnished that the similarity between the Divine and human nature is seemingly lost. The image never goes away, but it can be hard to discern the likeness if the mirror is askance, corroded, or dirty.

On the one hand, this is why Gregory describes certain characteristics as those which form the likeness of God in human nature: the virtues. These are the “things” that set the mirror right and purify its surface so the image can shine forth with clarity; and, in so doing, all that is alike between God and humanity pours forth into Creation. On the other hand, Gregory also describes attributes that are telling of the likeness in the image: unity of self. When the mirror is set right these attributes operate clearly and purposefully to shape human nature as the incarnate likeness of God in Creation.34 31 32 33 34

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 46.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 56.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 47.

See for instance Gregory’s On Infants Early Death, vol. 5, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series (New York: Cosimo, 2007). In this treatise Gregory beautifully expounds this theme, “When God had brought all things else upon the scene of life, man was exhibited upon the earth, a mixture from Divine sources, the Godlike intellectual essence being in him united with the several portions of earthly elements contributed

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Michel Rene Barnes notes in his work on Gregory that an ineffective will or a divided self characterizes humanity in its fallen condition.35 Barnes aptly characterizes Gregory’s understanding of human nature as “the experience of a consciousness divided against itself, that is, the The dynamics of salvation exemplify the experience of a divided will.”36 Often, conflicting desires plague human Holy Trinity’s unity and simplicity. nature and this leaves it ineffective and disempowered. This conflicted human nature subsisting in a person manifests as a divided self in his or her concrete existence. Also, human nature lacks the integrity to follow through on what it wills, even when its desire is simple. Here again, the person manifests a self unable to attain its goal because of its divisive human nature. According to Barnes, Gregory contrasts this divided self with the perfect existence evinced in the Holy Trinity: “The will does not fail to decide for the good, and having decided, the will has the integrity and strength to will the good it has decided for.”37 The Holy Trinity exists in perfect actuality. When, through the perfect life in virtue, humanity attains a likeness to God, this perfect existence marks human nature indelibly. In fact, this unity of self is nothing other than a statement of divine Otherness for which the Christian life hopes and participates in proleptically. Gregory’s Trinitarian treatise On Not Three Gods offers two trinitarian images that will help us understand what this might look like in humanity.

In On Not Three Gods, Gregory argues that the Godhead issues forth as a power from the Holy Trinity. That is, in the Godhead “power is a unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”38 He goes onto clarify this understanding as, “It issues from the Father, as from a spring. It is actualized by the Son; and its grace is perfected by the power of the Holy Spirit.”39 Further, “No activity is distinguished among the persons, as if it were brought to completion individually by each of them or separately apart from their joint supervision.”40 Power gives rise to action; and, correspondingly, in humanity this power that gives rise to action comprises our human nature.

Integrity, then, is power and activity united in such a way that the will to act arises and is actualized and brought to completion without conflict or divisiveness. The Trinitarian economy of salvation witnesses this preeminently; and, thereby, Gregory brings his point home descriptively through the economy of salvation.

Gregory notes that the dynamics of salvation exemplify the Holy Trinity’s unity and simplicity.

That salvation is brought by the Son and effected through the Holy Spirit is evident. Further, salvation

35 36 37 38 39 40

towards his formation, and that he was fashioned by his Maker to be the incarnate likeness of Divine transcendent power” (375).

Michel Rene Barnes, “Divine Unity and the Divided Self: Gregory of Nyssa’ Trinitarian Theology in its Psychological Context” in Re-thinking Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Sarah Coakley (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 57.

Michel Rene Barnes, “Divine Unity and the Divided Self,”, 49.

Michel Rene Barnes, “Divine Unity and the Divided Self ”, 57.

Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Edward R. Hardy, The Library of Christian Classics: Ichthus Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 263.

Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods, 263.

Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods, 263.

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is inconceivable apart from the Father who sent the Son and the Spirit. Yet, observes Gregory, “Scripture does not call them three Saviours.”41 Here, Gregory draws out from the cornerstone of faith, namely the Trinitarian economy of salvation that Father, Son, and Spirit act as one to effect humanity’s salvation. That they share the same nature or a Divine unity needs no further proof. If Father, Son, and Spirit are united in power and activity, then, says Gregory, they are united in nature and are not three gods. This brief exposition of Gregory’s argument for divine unity provides us insight into what unity of self might look like in human nature. In all God’s operations, there is never a moment of divided nature or will. “The integrity and effectiveness of the [Divine] wills…stands in direct contrast to the state of our human wills.”42 For the vast majority of humanity mired in its fallen state this is precisely the situation. However, when the noetic mind images God, and in that image there is a likeness within which it participates, then human nature realizes a unity of self. This unified self operates in the world in freedom and love—just as the Holy Trinity effects human salvation.

The noetic mind is the instrument through which materiality molds human nature or the image of God moulds and directs human nature. Gregory informs us that, “The mind, as being in the image of the most beautiful, itself also remains in beauty and goodness so long as it partakes as far as possible in its likeness to the archetype [the most beautiful and supreme good that is the Divinity Itself ]; but if it were at all to depart from this it is deprived of that beauty in which it was.”43 This passage frames two very important concepts and, by consequence, an important question. First, the noetic mind images God and in that image there is a likeness within which it participates if the noetic mind so chooses. Second, the noetic mind can choose not to participate in the archetypal likeness communicated within the image of God. In so doing, “The mind, setting the idea of good like a mirror behind the back, turns off the incident rays of the effulgence of the good, and it receives into itself the impress of the shapelessness of matter.”44 This shapelessness destroys the beauty of human nature “with which it is adorned through the mind.”45 This establishes contrasting potentials, whereby human nature either spiritually actualizes itself or falls into moral degradation. The former potential communicates true beauty proportionally through all of human nature.46 This includes the material part of human nature insofar as it derives its being from God, through the image contained within the mirror of the noetic mind.

The noetic mind, having lost its blessed simplicity communicates this throughout human nature; and, human nature mirroring this loss becomes dispersed and disorganized.47 What is beautiful and good withdraws as the passionate impulses replace virtue.48 Given Gregory’s understanding of human nature’s mutability, clearly we must ask ourselves how goodness and beauty absent themselves from the noetic mind and allow a divided self to reign over human nature? Gregory informs us that the noetic mind can just as 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods, 264.

Michel Rene Barnes, “Divine Unity and Divided Self,” 58.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, vol. 5, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series (New York: Cosimo, 2007), 399.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 399.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 399.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 399.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 399.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 408.

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easily follow the senses as follow God.49 In this case, the noetic mind serves the senses and sensual pleasures wherein passionate impulses arise. These passionate impulses obscure or tarnish the image of God so that the likeness is no longer discernible. In humanity’s embodied life, this absence of the likeness manifests as a slavish disposition, bondage to the passionate impulses, and servile homage to pleasures of the senses.50 This state Gregory characterizes as the “dispersed mind” or the “thick mind,” that is, a divided self. This, then, contrasts the fallen state of humanity with the Holy Trinity and the perfect life in virtue.

Conclusion In this essay, then, we have seen how Saint Gregory of Nyssa describes the Christian life. We were able to draw this description forward through the lens of grace and freedom such that two things were accomplished.

First, we were able to see how grace and freedom integrate human nature over and Passionate impulses obscure against the divided self that normally characterizes humanity. Secondly, this essay or tarnish the image of God. illuminates the place of grace in the Christian life according to Gregory. Consequently, grace takes its rightful place in the process of conversion and sanctification. When we consider the modern caricatures often projected onto the Church Fathers, the importance of this last point is apparent. Take for example Hilda Graef ’s introduction to her translation of Gregory’s commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes.

There is, nevertheless, one feature in both the treatises, which may perhaps shock the modern reader. It is the seeming assumption that it is entirely in the power of man to reach the goal of perfection. Gregory argues repeatedly that the mercy God will show to man is entirely dependent on the mercy man shows to his fellows; there is no mention of grace, which first enables man to show mercy at all. This is, indeed a defect of almost all Greek theology. But in reading these fathers we have always to remember that neither Augustine nor Pelagius had argued this subject when they wrote, and that, generally, the question of grace never arose in the East, because no particular heresy on this matter had been propounded there. Moreover, it is undeniable that Greek ascetical teaching was greatly indebted to Stoic philosophy, and that the emphasis on human effort learned in this school was not always fully balanced by the corresponding stress on Divine grace that should have been learned from St. Paul.51 To speak of a defect in Gregory’s thought or a lack of emphasis on grace is to grossly miss the mark when reading him. What we have is grace operating in different capacities. Instead of a supernatural grace erupting into human nature, we might say that grace operates supernaturally in the sacraments and from there transforms human nature. Thus, grace plays a prominent role in Gregory’s theology just as it does Augustine’s.

This, then, is a case where the distinction “Eastern” theologian versus “Western” theologian falls apart. The Greek Fathers, if Gregory is representative of them, are just as concerned with grace as the Latin Fathers.

49 50 51

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 403.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 402.

Hilda C. Graef, introduction to The Lord’s Prayer and The Beatitudes, by Saint Gregory of Nyssa (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1954), 19.

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Grace is the first cause in Augustine’s model as it is in Gregory’s; however, these causes are functionally different. For Augustine grace is the cause of love of God; for Gregory this love is inherent in humanity. For Augustine grace lifts the soul out of its depraved state; for Gregory grace assists the noetic mind in leaving the dispersed state. Similar as their use of grace is as first cause, they differ in their functional definition. Knowing this, it becomes clear how grace is the first principle of the Christian life for Gregory, even though the inclination to God is pre-existent in humanity. Gregory, then, grounds the Christian life on two pillars: The two pillars, therefore, of Gregory’s position are human faith and God’s infinity….

For Gregory faith is not a preliminary state, but the mental and spiritual condition of being perpetually open to and dependent upon the divine self-disclosure [grace].

Without faith [and therefore grace which is the cause of faith], for him, knowledge of and about God is impossible.52 Without grace to convert the noetic mind and to free humanity of its grasping nature, the Christian life is impossible. Better said, no life is Christian without first feeling the effects of grace, according to Gregory.

Moreover, without God’s grace or the pursuit of the perfect life in virtue a person is doomed to exist with a divided self in bondage to the material world. “In proportion to the greatness of what is desired, [mind] must be lifted up.”53 For something as great as God, the noetic mind requires God itself in the form of grace; otherwise the heights to which its innate desire wishes to ascend can never be scaled. No other thing, in Gregory’s thought, lifts the noetic mind and humanity with it so high.

52 53

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 67.

Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith, 41.

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Scott W. Hodgman began his research on Gregory of Nyssa as a graduate student in Religious Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently working on a comparative theology of desire and the spiritual senses seen through John 20:1–18 and Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum canticorum and De Vita Moysis at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

The Textual Hermeneutic of the East and the Iconic Hermeneutic of the West

by Anthony Wieck, S.J. Introduction Christianity has developed and flowered throughout the world over the last two millennia. From the time of Christ, Christians have grappled with the question of meaning in the universe, how to perceive things as they truly are, and how to recognize God in all things. Two principal hermeneutics developed from this quest for meaning—a hermeneutic that can be properly labeled “textual” and a hermeneutic that is “iconic” in nature. The former is more common to a Western view of truth seeking while the latter is more common to the East. According to the Western view, truth can be discovered most effectively through an individual’s quest for meaning, especially through the medium of written material; through books one learns from the insights of others and engages the world in a quest for understanding. In the typically Eastern view, truth is recognized and appreciated within a community. Here, truth is not geared to the individual as such but is meant to be a shared experience with a community of believers. Moreover, truth is communicated less effectively through books than through images. Images lead the beholder out of the self and into the realm of divine life, the realm of ultimate truth.

In this paper, I will endeavor first to explicate the Western textual view of hermeneutics as well as the Eastern iconic view.

Secondly, I will to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each of these hermeneutics. Finally, I will offer some suggestions for integrating a more iconic view into the Western tradition. My contention is that Western Christianity would benefit greatly from a more iconic view of reality and truth, one which would nourish souls considerably on their quest to discover the unicum necessarium, the “one thing necessary” to which Christ exhorts us.

The Western Textual Hermeneutic In the Western view, one approaches phenomena of the world principally through a book. Book learning is the choice vehicle of truth in the Western mindset. One learns through the text how to extract truth from the reality one experiences. This understanding is largely influenced by the personal experience of Augustine of Hippo, who at the time of his conversion heard the words “Pick up and read, pick up and read.”1 He opened up the Scripture text before him and found, in the words of St. Paul, relief from his anxiety and sinful 1

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998), 152.

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preoccupation. This story of Augustine reverberates through the ages in the West and becomes a model of hermeneutics. According to this model, each truth seeker must, like Augustine, have a personal encounter with a book, a text, or a Bible, to find deeper meaning. The world must be “read” by the knowledge-seeker.

Meaning must be wrested from a book.

Martin Luther takes up this line of thought and develops it in his own way. For Luther, the Gospel is the book of choice and a book which should be transmitted orally. He writes, “And the gospel should really not be something written, but a spoken word…This is why Christ himself did not write anything but only spoke.”2 Luther’s notion of truth, however, would not survive the onslaught of the post-Enlightenment era in the West. Luther’s active preaching was reduced to a perfunctory distribution of Bibles from the pulpit.3 Later, John Calvin would denote the individually discovered word as doctrine and discipline, and he would push for the elimination of all symbols in worship.4 In the Calvinistic view, the world conveys itself to us as text, which we are to decipher through our active intellects.

More and more the truth-seeker in the West begins to operate from a point of singular and individualistic interpretation. Søren Kierkegaard, and later Karl Barth, would exacerbate this isolation by defining the individual in opposition to society and the church.5 Another influential thinker in the West, Rudolph Bultmann, would later affirm that the text must be confronted simply and directly, such that the communal worldview, which underpins language, is exiled from the interpreting subject.6 This view reduces communal understandings of texts to illegitimate exaggerations that must be disregarded in order for true meaning to be found. Wittgenstein will add a linguistic approach to the textual hermeneutic, affirming that, “My own relation to my words is wholly different from other people’s.”7 Again, the community has no place here in correct interpretation of a text.

Due to the influence of the aforementioned thinkers and others like them, the West took a hermeneutical tack that placed all understanding of meaning and truth in the hands of the single interpreting self. We will later evaluate the positive and negative aspects of this approach, but suffice it to say for now that the individual is primary in this hermeneutic.

The Eastern Iconic Hermeneutic In the Eastern view, truth and meaning always have an iconic dimension, such that material words point beyond themselves to greater realities. Words are symbolic. And in the East, symbol means much more than something other than itself, as is typically understood in the West; symbols actually participate in the realities they convey.8 This is crucial to a proper understanding of an Eastern hermeneutic. Words of Scripture and, 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Ugolnik, Anton, The Illuminating Icon (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), 59.

Ugolnik, The Illuminating Icon, 60.

Tibbs, Eve, Lecture on Ch. 1: The Church, Section 1.4d: Ecclesiological Traditions and Approaches— Reformed [Calvinist], Week of 9/10/07.

Ugolnik, Anton, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic in the West,” in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 2, ed. John Meyendorff (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1983) 99–100.

Ugolnik, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic in the West,” 101.

Ugolnik, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic in the West,” 102.

Ugolnik, The Illuminating Icon, 45.

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by extension, liturgical texts and Patristic writings all are iconic in that they give concrete expression to ineffable, divine realities.9 The individual Orthodox theologian is an iconographer of sorts because through writing and other art forms Christian realities are conveyed which surpass conceptualization.10 Context is a very important consideration in an Eastern hermeneutic. One cannot properly understand the word and flesh out its meaning without being part of something greater. The Church, Church tradition, and liturgy provide a fitting context for interpretation. To comment briefly on each of these, liturgy provides the dramatic setting in which the word is acted out; the interpreting audience is engaged directly in the text through One cannot properly understand the word its performance and invisible realities are visibly re-presented there.11 and flesh out its meaning without being part Church tradition supplies a context of common understanding for the of something greater. text in question and allies the individual seeker with the insights of the great minds of the past, particularly those recognized as orthodox in their teaching by the Church. The Church herself provides the communal context in which the word is ruminated and understood; one does not hear the text in isolation but among the body of the faithful. We see that in this hermeneutic, the previously self-sufficient and isolated reader is submerged within a great listening audience. One’s personal interpretation only has value in the Eastern understanding insofar as it is part of a whole. This is so because faith itself is communal in nature and the sacred word is itself the property of the church. Various expressions and interpretations of the word are thus recognized within a symphonic whole. Anthony Ugolnik sum­marizes the hermeneutical aspects which effectively relativize the importance of the individual truth-seeker in the following quote: “The critical faculty must be exercised first in the interests of the Christian community. Secondly, the act to which the critical faculty is directed must involve the community in the service of the gospel. And finally, indispensably, the critique and the act to which it leads must itself be welcomed in the consensus of the community.”12 Context also includes the surroundings in which the word is proclaimed, especially those things that engage the senses. Here we referr to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches that are characteristic of Orthodox liturgical experience. All one’s senses are engaged in appropriating the word.

The Eastern mindset is profoundly incarnational in this regard and emphasizes a dialogical encounter with truth and meaning.

9 10 11 12

Harrison, Nona Verna, “Word as Icon in Greek Patristic Theology,” in Constructive Christian Theology in the Worldwide Church, ed. William R. Barr (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 58.

Harrison., 59.

Ugolnik, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic in the West,” 106, 112.

Ugolnik, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic in the West,” 115.

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We affirmed that words are iconic by their ability to convey a greater truth than they possess in themselves. Images can also be iconic by their conveying realities beyond themselves. The icon of icons in the Eastern mindset is the Incarnate Son of God. Here Eastern theology bases itself on the Biblical words of St. Paul, who affirms that Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). The Greek word for “image” here is eikōn.13 By looking at Jesus the man, one simultaneously contemplates God the Father, and hence understands Jesus’ words, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Christ, human nature is the vehicle of our perception of the divine, because both human and divine natures are united in one divine Person. All painted icons of Christ, similarly, are worthy of reverence because they convey to us the reality of the one whom they represent. This logic is based on the Incarnation, and has been dogmatically affirmed by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Not only icons of Christ but also icons of the saints convey a reality beyond themselves. They show us a figure imbued with grace, divinized by God. We are led through such icons to a contemplation of heavenly realities. We begin to realize that each man and woman is a living icon of God.14 Painted icons are meant to have a transformative effect upon us. Their purpose is not to evoke mere emotive or sentimental responses but rather to transfigure our feelings, passions, intelligence, and all aspects of our nature.15 To give but one example, exact proportion is neglected in the painted icon so as to help the viewer transcend rationalistic logic and the laws of life.16 We are not only witnesses to a transfigured universe in the icon but are called to participate in it.

All these aspects witness to the fact that in the Eastern mindset, truth is discovered primarily by prayerful contemplation and not by intellectual speculation. There is a certain apophatic dimension to Eastern theology that rejects concepts in the quest to appropriate a proper knowledge of God. As we learned in class, “The Eastern approach to faith does not consist of the rational appropriation of propositional truths, but rather implies a continuous living union with God, in Christ and through the Holy Spirit, an experience of new life which is not individual or subjective but sacramental and common to all the baptized.”17 In this experiential hermeneutic, prayer is primary and provides the key to developing a healthy relationship with God. Let us proceed now to a critique of both the iconic and textual hermeneutics.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Textual Hermeneutic The Western textual hermeneutic enjoys the strength of emphasizing the importance of individual discovery and the ability of the human intellect to discover truths not immediately evident in the world. The individual often engages in book reading, in seeing the cosmos through the lens of the written word. Theologically, the summit of book learning, in this view, can be found in the Holy Bible. One can discover through books of the Bible something of the purpose of one’s life and the unity of various parts of created nature as seen within a symphonic whole.

13 14 15 16 17

Payton Jr., James R., Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 188.

Ware, Kallistos, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 120.

Clendenin, Daniel B., ed., Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co., 2nd edition, 2003), 57.

Clendenin, 61.

Tibbs, Eve, Lecture on Ch. 2: Doing Theology, Section 2.2: The Relationship of Worship and Theology, Week of 9/17/07.

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The weakness of the textual hermeneutic is that while the word can point beyond itself to a reality beyond, in at least a propositional way, it does not convey that reality to the reader. There is an inseparable distance that remains. The experience is not realized in the heart and mind of the reader. Secondly, the reader remains isolated in the quest for knowledge. The engagement between reader and book reduces the purview of the truth-seeker to what that person can understand. Moreover, the reader has very little context within which to interpret the words on which one meditates. There is no communion with others within which the reader understands what is read. Understanding is thus highly fragmented and limited. Thirdly, there is little transformation that can take place in the reader when there is no enrapturing of the senses and mind in a vision greater than oneself. The divine remains unattainable and somewhat removed in the textual hermeneutic. Only what is graspable and mentally understandable is appropriated. One, in fact, descends upon the truth to appropriate it in this hermeneutic, instead of reverencing it. One considers the truth a problem to be solved rather than a mystery to be lived.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Iconic Hermeneutic The Eastern iconic hermeneutic effectively transports the knowledge-seeker to a world beyond one’s immediate environment. One finds oneself engaged with all the faculties of body and soul (not merely the mind) in a perception of reality that lies beyond. In this hermeneutic, God can be experienced as both personal and infinitely transcendent. One lives within a mystery here and does not seek to dominate it. Secondly, one’s engagement in a reality beyond oneself, in an iconic hermeneutic, challenges one to transport that symphonic view of how things fit together into the current world in which one lives. One thus engages the secular world in a different way than an intellectual engaged in a textual hermeneutic. The iconic viewer enjoys a vision of the telos, or goal, towards which we are to strive. The secular reality is no less difficult to transform for the iconic interpreter than the textual interpreter, but the vision of the former better sustains this arduous quest. Thirdly, in the theological realm, the iconic knowledge-seeker is able to witness God working in all things, and sees nothing as escaping God’s providence. Such a one understands that the power of God can suffuse and transfigure all materiality we experience, such that it can reveal the Creator fully. Last but not least, the iconic viewer enjoys a community within which reality is interpreted and understood. This community is a great support and can prevent errors of subjective and contradictory interpretation, as are often prevalent in Western Protestantism.

The weakness of the iconic hermeneutic is that it can discount too easily the truth found in personal quest. This can happen through the over-identification of the work of the Holy Spirit with the community as a whole and not with any individual. In reality, however, the great saints often had to work hard for recognition of their authentic personal charism despite resistance from the community at large, even the ecclesial community.

Rightly, these saints waited for ecclesial confirmation and neither presumed it or insisted upon it. Nonetheless they had to remain faithful to the original insights given them as individuals. Another weakness of the iconic hermeneutic is that it transports one into contact with the greater world beyond but fails to affirm the difficulty of the immediate experience lived by the truth-seeker, which is often one of suffering. To give a specific example, religious icons do not allow for representation of Christ’s suffering, even though such a representation could affirm and sustain the viewer as that person goes through a trial. This is a loss, I feel, to the art of iconography.

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Conclusion The West has much it can learn from the East. The iconic hermeneutic indeed offers some significant advantages. It offers community. It offers linear continuity with insights of the past. It protects from subjective and erroneous interpretation. It can enrapture and lead to a world beyond.

It can transform through its vision the material cosmos into a vast communicator of the divine. But most importantly, it provides us with new energy as Christians, motivating us to take part in the building of the kingdom of God. This is the crucial element lacking in a Western textual hermeneutic.

The iconic hermeneutic facilitates engagement with the world and the secular powers that govern there, helping transform them into Godly realities. The iconic view has the power to take hold of the Christian imagination and focus it in the service of the Gospel. It is a travesty to allow the Western imagination to be dominated by secular images we see in advertising and the like. Religious images, which convey to us a healing, transcendent world, must not be relegated to the church sanctuary. They should be visible in our homes, our workplaces, our vehicles of transportation, and thus be a constant reminder of the clarion call to preach the Gospel to all peoples at all times. Thus the fragmented, autonomous world in which we live can be gradually transformed by a synergy of grace and our personal effort into a creation that gives constant praise to the Father through the icon of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Anthony is a Jesuit scholastic of the New Orleans Province. A farm boy from Oregon, Anthony is looking to teach at a small Jesuit university in the near future. Anthony has taken several courses at GTU focusing on the relationship between the Eastern and Western Christianity. He is currently completing an STL degree in historical theology.

Lines that Divide: Church, Universities, and Political Boundaries

by Amanda Pelle

Ecumenism was on the agenda for the annual Krista Colleague conference last spring, a multi-

denominational, Christian foundation bringing together post-collegiate volunteers together to support and encourage sustained lives of service. While addressing ecumenism, we discussed that most often what impedes dialogue is not one’s denomination, but rather one’s political beliefs. What registered loud and clear in my ears was not necessarily which tradition a colleague comes from, but whether they described their service as “social justice” or “mission;” whether they worked with a community for the sake of improving dire situations or if they sought conversion. Before having heard of Robert Wuthnow and certainly without having read his thesis—an argument that shows a great contention between religious and political liberals and conservatives—I was experiencing the reality of divided political lines that exist within our faith traditions. In this paper, I will address Wuthnow’s analysis of the move from the tripartite division to the two-party system and then show how the two-party system is alive and well through an examination of several conservative and liberal Christian universities’ mission and value statements.

This analysis will show how religious restructuring has both affected and been effected by our religious educational systems.

Wuthnow explains that the shift from the tripartite division of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious and cultural identity has significantly shifted to a two-party The tripartite division of Protestant, Catholic system of liberal and conservative.1 He states that the movement and Jewish religious and cultural identity has hap­pened as two separate phases. First, the tripartite division was significantly shifted to a two-party system of deconstructed, creating a society ripe for the development of a liberal and conservative. new dividing line, already growing within the secular realm. The denominational lines of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish were more or less reliable identities. One’s faith background was closely connected to one’s neighborhood, political sway, socio-economic status, and social group. Since the 1950s and 1960s, however, those denominational lines appear less significant than the rise of individuals coming together under like-minded political views.

This happened within Christian and Jewish traditions due to an emphasis on the call to love and humility that promoted interfaith cooperation.2 In the larger society, regional migration desegregated religious ghettos and individuals began to interact with members of other traditions as they became neighbors, 1 2

Robert Wuthnow, The Struggle for America’s Soul: Evangelicals, Liberals, and Secularism (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989), 32.

Wuthnow, 32.

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coworkers, in-laws, and friends.3 Perhaps most dramatically, the civil rights and anti-war movements brought individuals together politically. The gap widened between those who valued personal moral standards and those who valued behaviors and social action.4 This divide became less and less about denomination as various traditions supported both conservative and liberal emphases. New social and political groups formed that followed this ecumenical trend, unifying conservatives across faith traditions under the issues of personal salvation and moral standards and liberals under social change and action issues.5 Higher education also played a role in the divide, as the more educated individuals tended to be less orthodox and more tolerant of other religions and religious ideas.6 Today we see that the liberal/conservative cleavage represents a problem within most denominations; one that continues to create a riff within worshipping communities and the wider church.7 I appreciate Wuthnow’s description of evolution of the political fracture within our religious traditions. What I find especially important is his acknowledgment of the mitigating factors within the polemic debate. One such factor that he offers, and which is undeniably true, is that regardless of how often people of faith side along political factors over denominational Liberal/conservative cleavage represents a lines, the reality is that “neither community is actually organized as a problem within most denominations. single party.”8 However, I would appreciate a deeper reflection on the ecumenical implications of his theory. Ecumenism is only briefly mentioned as one of the factors leading to the deconstruction of the tripartite division. What is implicit within the discussion, however, is the way ecumenism is stressed or not within various communities.

I looked at the descriptions and mission statements of ten Christian universities in the U.S., five of which are religiously liberal and five of which are religiously conservative. Both groups tended to use language that included multicultural studies/global realities as well as the inherent human dignity of all persons. They differed quite dramatically, however, in both how they described the importance of multicultural studies and the implications of inherent human dignity. The conservative schools spoke of multicultural studies in terms of mission and evangelization; they spoke of dignity in terms of the need for love and outreach. Oral Roberts University educates men and women with a “charismatic emphasis to enable students to go into every person’s world with God’s message of salvation and healing for the totality of human need.”9 Likewise, Biola University believes that the Lord Jesus Christ intends His church to be a multiethnic, multicultural and multinational body of believers. We have been called to respect, and when appropriate,

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Wuthnow, 33.

Wuthnow, 33–34.

Wuthnow, 34.

Wuthnow, 34–35.

Wuthnow, 24.

Wuthnow, 36.

Mission statement, Oral Roberts University, http://www.oru.edu/aboutoru/what_we_are_about. php. Accessed 6 December 2007.

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reflect the diversity of God’s kingdom throughout the world. As believers, we have a responsibility to spread the gospel through evangelism, missions and outreach.10 The liberal schools were more likely to use multicultural and dignity language in terms of social justice and the importance on drawing upon other cultural insights. For example, the JSTB states that “the rapidly changing face of the Church requires leaders who are adept at working with different cultures. Here students from more than 40 countries draw on the wisdom of each other’s experience.”11 Further, “Our commitment to social justice, characteristic of Jesuit tradition and spirituality, gives our programs an emphasis that connects students to the world around them.”12 Following in the Jesuit tradition, Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry “respects the dignity and gifts of every person and attends to the life-fulfilling dimensions of every culture.”13 Candler School of Theology stresses that they prepare leaders “to participate in ministries of justice and reconciliation.”14 The language the schools use each speak to similar goals in different ways and each stresses a value in common with those others who share a similarly conservative or liberal religious stance.

As Wuthnow’s theory suggests, the liberal schools emphasized more behavioral values such as the call to socially just action, as shown above. The conservative schools emphasized personal values such as salvation and fidelity to Jesus Christ and/or the church. For example, Biola describes itself in this way: “Biola University’s vision is to be an exemplary Christian university characterized as a community of grace that promotes and inspires personal life transformation in Christ which illuminates the world with His light and truth.”15 They also state: “We believe that there is truth; it is knowable and revealed in God’s inerrant Word.”16 Oral Roberts University includes in their founding vision that they are “a charismatic university, founded in the fires of evangelism and upon the unchanging precepts of the Bible…(and) as a result of the evangelist Oral Roberts’ obeying God’s mandate to build a university on God’s authority and the Holy Spirit.”17 These universities stress, throughout their mission and vision statements, the importance of fidelity to Jesus Christ and the church as well as the importance of mission and evangelization. They stress a direct relationship with God and emphasize the importance of prayer and knowledge so as to better promote God’s message and Christ’s church on earth. Franciscan University in Steubenville affirms that “the University commits itself to ongoing prayer so that it may 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Mission statement, Biola University, http://www.biola.edu/about/mission/, accessed 6 December 2007.

Mission statement, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, http://www.jstb.edu/glance.html, accessed 6 December 2007.

JSTB mission statement.

Mission statement, Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry, http://www.seattleu.edu/ theomin/, accessed 6 December 2007.

Mission statement, Candler School of Theology, http://www.candler.emory.edu/ABOUT/mission.cfm, accessed 6 December 2007.

Biola University mission statement.

Biola University mission statement.

Oral Roberts University mission statement.

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be humble before the face of God and receptive to those graces and blessings it needs to serve this mission.”18 The language of mission, evangelization, and God’s power fill their descriptions.

An additional trend is that the liberal schools tend to stress the value of studying in an ecumenical environment whereas the conservative schools tended to stress their own denomination. This makes sense since conservative and orthodox communities have more to lose by blurring their denominational lines.

This, then, causes me to suspect that ecumenism is predominantly a liberal value and could perhaps nuance Wuthnow’s theory. The liberal schools, regardless of their denomination, stressed the importance of educating ministers and leaders in an ecumenical environment. Union Theological Seminary describes itself in this way: “With roots that are firmly planted in the Protestant, Reformed tradition, the Seminary continues to reform itself in response to the changing needs of the world and an evolving understanding of what it means to be faithful.”19 They strive for “a critical understanding of the breadth of Christian traditions yet significantly instructed by the insights of other faiths.”20 Likewise, Candler “is grounded in the Christian faith and shaped by the Wesleyan tradition of evangelical piety, ecumenical openness, and social concern.”21 Eden Theological Seminary “is welcoming, inclusive and ecumenically diverse.”22 JSTB stresses their ecumenical context where “students can study with people of other denominations…where they can take classes with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and mainstream Protestants.”23 Alternatively, the conservative schools stress their fidelity to their particular denomination. Ave Maria “is known for faithfulness to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.”24 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary affirms, “Every professor of the institution shall be a member of a regular Baptist church; and all persons accepting professorships in this seminary shall be considered, by such acceptance, as engaging to teach in accordance with, and not contrary to, the Abstract of Principles.”25 I believe this analysis shows that each school has a target audience to whom they are addressing that is made clear through their language, presentation, and mission statement. Each school relies on the strong pull of religious conservative or liberal identity rather than simply identifying with all Catholics, Methodists, or Southern Baptists. As a liberal Catholic, I feel a stronger affinity towards and identification 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Mission statement, Franciscan University of Steubenville, http://www.franciscan.edu/home2/Content/ main.aspx?id=169, accessed 6 December 2007.

Mission statement, Union Theological Seminary, http://www.utsnyc.edu/NETCOMMUNITY/Page. aspx?pid=282&srcid=282, accessed 6 December 2007.

Union Theological Seminary mission statement.

Candler School of Theology mission statement.

Mission statement, Eden Theological Seminary, http://www.eden.edu/index.php/mission-purpose/, accessed 6 December 2007.

JSTB mission statement.

Mission statement, Ave Maria University, http://www.avemaria.edu/aboutus/, accessed 6 December 2007.

Mission statement, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, http://www.sbts.edu/about_us/Beliefs.aspx, accessed 6 December 2007.

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with the liberal schools regardless of their denomination than I do with any of the conservative schools, including the Catholic ones. Likewise, I would be surprised if a religious conservative did not resonate with the language used by the other conservative schools. Wuthnow’s theory is clearly demonstrated here, as we see how the lines that divide us denominationally have at once made us aware of the benefit of ecumenical dialogue and relationship. However, at the same time, these divisive lines have created chasms between members of the same faith tradition.

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Amanda Pelle is a third year MDiv student with high hopes of graduating in the spring. A graduate of Seattle University, she lived in Sitka, Alaska for 2 years with JVC before coming to fulfill her dreams at the JSTB. She is looking for a job in Oakland.

2 Kings 4:1–7: The Flowing of Oil and Unfolding of Power

by Amy Richardson

A certain day became a presence to me, there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day’s blow rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Variation on a Theme by Rilke (The Book of Hours, Book 1, Poem 1, Stanza 1), by Denise Levertov

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hat phenomenon occurs in our minds and hearts which causes us to transition from thinking I can not to fully believing I can? Maintaining a position of social influence certainly leads one to believe that social power equals ability to do what you desire. But, do those who lack social power also lack ability? The courage and faith of the widow in 2 Kings 4:1–7 convincingly declare no. Many interpretations of the widow’s oil story emphasize the ability and power of the prophet Elisha as he leads the widow out of despair to the fulfillment of the miracle that will save her life. However, when we turn our heads to look carefully at the widow, we see Elisha’s role in the story as quite minor and limited. Instead, the widow is enhanced through her desperate fight for justice, and the sincere, private, loving relationship she shares with God. A simple and slight shift of our attention away from Elisha and towards the widow illuminates the true source of her miracle.

The widow’s oil is one story in a collection of narratives within the Elisha saga.1 As the first story in 2 Kings 4, the widow’s oil introduces a group of four short stories (4:1–44) in which Elisha is directly 1

Scholars differ on the genre they assign to the Elisha stories. Burke O. Long refers to the story as prophetic legend focusing attention on the prophet and his miraculous deeds. 2 Kings: The Forms of the Old Testament Literature v. 10 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 50. T.R. Hobbs

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interacting with individuals. In contrast to the stories within 2 Kings where Elisha is interacting with kings and serving Israel as a nation, these stories depict Elisha interacting with Israelites, meeting the needs of the ordinary people.2 During the course of these What phenomenon occurs in our minds and hearts which causes personal interactions, some type of miracle occurs. us to transition from thinking I can not to fully believing I can?

Often Elisha is raised up as the central figure in these stories, revealing his prophetic power as miracle worker. Yet, more essential to the stories is a revelation of the loving relationship between God and those faithful followers in need. Instead of the all-powerful miracle worker, Elisha’s primary role is mediator and instructor. Yahweh works through Elisha the prophet for the good of the people.3 By focusing on the relationship between the widow and God in the reading of 2 Kings 4:1–7, the widow’s oil story sets the stage for a chapter highly concerned with the empowerment of the individuals with whom Elisha interacts.

In the very first words of the widow’s oil story: “Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets…” (4:1), we see that this story is quite different from the preceding narrative describing Israel’s attack of Moab (2 Kings 3). Also, we are introduced to a new character, the wife of a member of the company of prophets. She is the first character introduced and the first person to speak, giving her status as the central figure of the story. Her name is not given, which As this incredible story about a woman and her oil that kept might cause us to question her significance in the flowing is circulated and retold in ancient Israel, it becomes not middle of other stories overflowing with Elisha’s about a particular person, but every disenfranchised woman. name. The absence of proper names for characters in the Bible deemed to be unimportant is not uncommon. Nor should it go unnoticed as an injustice.

However, the absence of a proper name for this particular woman does allow our imagination to see her as representing more than just herself. In fact, she is able to become a representation of every woman.4 As this incredible story about a woman and her oil that kept flowing is circulated and retold in ancient Israel, it becomes not about a particular person, but every disenfranchised woman.5 As a reader in the 21st century, we can still recognize and relate to the universality of this unnamed woman.

2 3 4

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disagrees, stating that Elisha is never called a prophet, but only “man of God.” He believes the widow’s oil and other stories in 2 Kings 4 are better categorized as “problem to solution.” 2 Kings: Word Biblical Commentary v.13 (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985), 45. Norman Gottwald, along with Hobbs, argues that the genre is definitely not miracle, which he claims refers to the content of the story, not its form. The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1993), 122.

Philip Satterthwaite, “The Elisha Narratives and the Coherence of 2 Kings 2–8” Tyndale Bulletin (1998), 7.

Robert Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 71.

Adele Berlin describes three degrees of characterization: The Agent, The Type, and The Character. The widow illustrates The Type characterization. The information given about her is limited, and she has stereotypical characteristics that represent a class of people. In this case, the widow represents poor, indebted widows with children. Poetics of Interpretations of Biblical Narrative (The Almond Press, 1983), 32.

Burke O. Long believes the setting of this story is folk storytellers. It would have been included in oral or written collections among prophets, Elisha’s disciples, and ordinary people. Long, 50. Tamis Hoover Renteria argues that the purpose of retelling this and other miracle stories is the story’s triumph. Listeners would believe that the prophet cares about people’s problems and can do something about them. “The Elijah/Elisha Stories: A Socio-cultural Analysis of Prophets and People in Ninth-Century B.C.E. Israel” Elijah and Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective, ed. Robert B. Coote, Semeia Studies Seris (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1992), 100.

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As the first sentence continues, we learn that the wife’s husband has died, leaving her a widow with the responsibility of being the sole-caretaker of their two children. To further complicate her situation, her husband left her with an unpaid debt that she is now being asked to repay. However, she does not have the money to repay it. The widow explains to Elisha, “A creditor has come to take my two children as slaves” (4:1). In ancient Israel, some Israelite lenders permitted borrowers to pledge their children as slaves in the event that the borrower was unable to repay his debt. This practice was illegal, and the Yahwist ethic disapproved of it, yet it was still widely abused, as illustrated by the widow’s crises.6 Not only would the tragic reality of slavery for her children cause the widow horrific heartbreak, but her security would also be in jeopardy. With the death of her husband, the widow’s children, or at least the one that we later learn is a son, are now the heirs of his land and property. In turn, they are vital to her economic security. As the widow stands before Elisha, husbandless and debt-ridden, denied the opportunity to mourn her husband’s death, she is at the brink of being a victim of class and patriarchal abuse.

However, the widow refuses to be victimized. Instead, she desperately “cried” to Elisha for help (4:1). Why in her distressed state would she turn to Elisha? First, like other poor peasants burdened with debt, the widow would have had little connection to or trust in the monarchy. Instead, the local prophet would be where she could turn for help.7 Second, the widow displays a keen sense of wisdom in reaching out to the prophet. We know that her husband was a member of the company of prophets, a core group of Elisha’s followers. The followers maintained loyalty to the prophet and were physically and spiritually fed in return. Additionally, Elisha would assist the families of his faithful followers in their times of need.8 The widow is aware of Elisha’s loyalty and uses it to her advantage. Because he does not approach her to offer his assistance, she resourcefully goes to him with the full awareness that she needs to do something to protect herself and her children. She emphasizes that her husband “feared the Lord” (4:1), appealing to Elisha’s sense of obligation to one of his faithful followers.9 The story of the Shunammite woman immediately following the widow’s oil story further illustrates the relationship Elisha had to those loyal to him. The Shunammite woman regularly fed and housed Elisha (4:8–10). When the son with whom Elisha blessed her dies, she immediately goes to him, insisting that he come and bring the child that he gave her back to life (4:18–30). Elisha obeys and, through God’s will, is able to revitalize the child (4:31–37). Like the widow, the Shunammite woman finds herself in a desperate situation with no one coming to her aid. Instead, she goes to Elisha and demands the assistance that is rightly hers. Similarly, the widow turns to Elisha knowing that he will respond to her cry for help.

However, Elisha’s first response reverses the widow’s petition back to her: “What shall I do for you?,” he asks (4:2). This statement makes evident that Elisha did not have the power to simply undo the debt law about to be enforced on the widow. 10 In a sense, his question reflects his own desperation: What can I possibly 6 7 8 9 10

G.A. Barrois, “Decalogue,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible v.1, ed. Arthur Buttrick (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 810.

Hoover Renteria, 81.

Hoover Renteria, 109.

Robert L. Cohn, 2 Kings: Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2000), 25.

Moedechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmar agree stating, “The prophet could not stop a legal foreclosure…”. II

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do to help you? In fact, there is nothing that Elisha himself can do. Instead, as the story takes a dramatic turn, Elisha, acting as God’s mediator and instructor, begins to empower the widow to help herself. He asks what she has in the house, to which she responds that she has nothing except a jar of oil (4:2). In this incredulous response, we are reminded of the widow’s desperate situation; she has nothing. However, after a brief pause she is reminded that she does have a jar of oil. Oil was extremely valuable and considered a necessity in biblical times. It was used for food, anointing, sacrifice, lamps, and medicinal purposes. Most importantly, it was considered to be a gift from Yahweh. Oil was an expression of God’s goodness and would be taken away if Israel was disobedient (Deut 28:51).11 The fact that the widow already has even a little oil in her house is symbolic of God’s subliminal presence in her life, however hidden it may seem during these times of turmoil. Furthermore, given the value oil held in society, The widow’s possession of a owning it points to some degree of power amidst her poverty. Again, the widow’s small amount of oil symbolizes possession of a small amount of oil symbolizes the hidden, yet active presence of the hidden, yet active presence power stirring within her waiting to be released. Elisha picks up on the divine and of power stirring within her waiting to be released. powerful elements of the widow’s jar of oil as he continues to instruct her.

Not yet knowing what will occur, the widow is told by Elisha: “Borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not just a few” (4:3). Suddenly the story extends beyond the interaction between the widow and Elisha to include the entire community. In ancient Israel, the Covenant Code legislated the protection of widows. This law was sustained by the example of Yahweh who “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers” (Deut. 10:18).12 Not only did prophets assist widows in ancient Israel, but the community also exercised compassion through acts of charity and justice.13 In the act of lending vessels to the widow, the community fulfilled their charitable responsibility. At the same time, like Elisha, they became a source of empowerment for the widow. The miracle would not occur without their assistance. Participation in a community and, again, knowing whom to ask for help, strengthens the widow’s ability to transform her situation. Once the vessels are gathered, Elisha instructs the widow to go inside, shut the door behind herself and her children, fill the vessels with oil, and set them aside (4:4). Similar to the role of the community, the widow’s children are singled out as being another means to fulfilling the miracle. They become a source of power—this time people power—that the widow will utilize. Now that the widow has the support of Elisha, the community, and her children, Elisha’s final directions hints to what will be a private event as the widow fulfills her miracle.

The simple statement, “So she left him…” (4:5), marks the beginning of the climactic moment in which God’s love will enable the widow to cultivate her inner strength and produce a miracle to save herself and her children. As she leaves Elisha, he leaves the story. Here, at the story’s pinnacle, the actual “doing” of 11 12 13

Kings: The Anchor Bible (Doubleday Company, Inc., 1988), 56.

J.F. Ross, “Oil,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible v.3, ed. Arthur Buttrick (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 592–3.

Charles F. Fensham, “Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature” Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1976), 167.

O.J. Baab, “Widow,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible v.4, ed. Arthur Buttrick (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 842.

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the miracle will belong to the widow.14 The image of Elisha as the all-powerful miracle worker is challenged when the miracle is not the work of an influential, impressive prophet, but of a poor, marginalized widow.

Consequently, the source of miraculous power cannot be Elisha or the widow. The source is God. After the widow left Elisha, the narrator repeats that she “shut the door behind her and her children” (4:5). Reiterating the same statement from 4:4 emphasizes the importance of the miracle as a private, empowering event between God and the widow. The widow cried out to Elisha and the cry was heard by God. Elisha provided the necessary instructions and mediating role, but now, sheltered from the eyes of the world, God’s saving action for the widow is taking place.15 The children “kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring” (4:5). We remember the participation of the children and neighbors as empty vessels continue to arrive. Yet, most importantly, we are aware of the widow’s laborious activity in the actualization of the miracle. A close look at the structure of 4:5 draws out the comma between the action of the children and that of the widow. The text pauses for us to notice the tireless conviction with which the widow performs her actions. She pours the endless oil, vessel after vessel, with the unrelenting determination of a The image of Elisha as the all-powerful parent desperate to save her children. She does so with strong faith, having miracle worker is challenged when the believed Elisha’s instructions and now watching God’s gift to her unfold. miracle is not the work of an influential, The widow becomes empowered as her meager amount of oil multiplies impressive prophet, but of a poor, and the vessels are filled. Her authority increases on a social level now that marginalized widow. she will have the monetary means to repay her debt. At the same time, her fragile internal strength, silenced by her social position, grows and multiplies with every new vessel of oil filled. Her empowerment is made possible first by her brave initiative in asking for Elisha’s help, next by the generosity of her community and children, and finally by the love God shows her in her time of need which enables her to empower herself.

When all the vessels are full, she asks her children for more. However, the children inform her that all the vessels are gone. At this concluding point, “the oil stopped flowing” (4:6). Yet, the widow does not complain. Her acceptance of the oil’s limitation illustrates her unselfish intentions. She has exhausted the resources of the community with no intent of asking for more than they already charitably gave. Also, her initial cry to Elisha was not for excessive wealth, but simply enough to save herself and her children from injustice.

The ceasing of the oil also exemplifies the nature of God’s saving actions. While God’s love and power is unending, God’s gift is appropriate. The story of Elijah and a widow (1 Kings 17:8–16), often thought of as a parallel to the widow’s oil story, further emphasizes the aptness of God’s gifts. Elijah is instructed by God to go to Zarephath where he will be fed by a widow (17:9). Upon arriving he learns that the widow not only has no food for him, but also no food for herself and her son. In fact, she plans to use what little meal and oil she has left to eat one last time before she and her son die (17:12). Elijah 14 15

Hoover Renteria argues, “…help is never a hand-out charity. [Elisha]…does not elevate himself above them by performing miracles for them, but rather helps them to perform the miracles themselves.” Hoover Renteria, 117.

A reoccurring theme of the Deuteronomistic History is Israel’s cry for help followed by God’s saving action.

This theme occurred on large levels with Israel as a whole, as well as small levels with individuals. Chesung Ryu, Old Testament Methods: Pentateuch and Histories class lecture, 2 November 2006.

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tells her not to be afraid, but to prepare the food: “For thus says the Lord of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth” (17:14).

God provides for the Zarephath widow what is needed, but only until the rain returns. Again, God’s gift is intended to provide enough, but not excess. Both widows graciously accept God’s gift, not demanding more than is fitting.16 Immediately after the oil stops flowing, the widow returns to Elisha, “the man of God”, for final instructions: “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest” (4:7).

These last directions elucidate that the newly acquired full vessels of oil will save the widow and her children from despair. Moreover, this final sentence further clarifies the character’s roles. Elisha provides instructions, but the “doing” of the miracle again belongs to the widow. Now that the oil has been multiplied, she must first sell the oil to repay the debt. Furthermore, she will continue to sell the oil as she and her children live on what is left. While the story of the widow’s oil comes to a conclusion with this sentence, the active participation of the widow in securing her miracle continues beyond the last period.

The widow is forever changed by God’s love and her new sense of internal power.

Across the Atlantic Ocean and more than 2,500 years after the widow’s oil story was likely written, Farhia, a Somali immigrant, sits with her four children in an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As a single mother, Farhia fled Somalia with her children in the 1990s during the country’s civil war. They resettled in Kenya for several years until Farhia was able to migrate to the United States. However, with little money in her pockets, she could not afford to bring her children.

Tragically, she was forced to leave them behind. Farhia’s transition to American culture was not easy. She struggled with learning English and faced the daily discrimination suffered by immigrants. Farhia’s desperate desire to reunite her family fueled her unending search for work and Farhia was able to watch her own miracle help. Finally, Farhia obtained a job cleaning hospital rooms by day unfold as one by one she brought her children and offices by night. As she saved money, Farhia was able to watch to the United States her own miracle unfold as one by one she brought her children to the United States. I met Farhia when working with her daughter in a program for at-risk high school students. If bringing her children to the United States was Farhia’s miracle, then the full tuition scholarship her daughter earned to attend a prestigious college was that same life-changing miracle never ceasing to unfold.

16

For further comparison between 1 Kings 17:8–16 and 2 Kings 4:1–7, see Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis. He argues that the doubling of miracle stories in the Elijah and Elisha narratives emphasizes that the focus of the stories is not the individual power of Elijah or Elisha. Instead, because both can perform the same miracle, the skill must come from another source, namely Yahweh. Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives v.1, ed. Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis, with James S. Ackerman and Thayer S. Warshaw (New York: Abington Press, 1978).

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Farhia’s story lifts the widow’s oil narrative off the page and sets it in our contemporary world.

When we look beyond Elisha and raise the widow up out of silence, we lift up women all over the world who demonstrate courage and conviction in the face of persecution. Wise women who boldly seek help where they know they deserve it. Women who, against all odds, tap into God’s love to challenge life’s injustices.

Women who radiate inner strength. No more is the widow the unnamed woman; she is every woman. She is the victim become liberator, and the liberator says, “I can.”

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Amy is a second-year Master of Divinity student at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Before attending JSTB, she spent two years working for a college preparatory program for low-income high school students in Minneapolis. This past year she has found a great deal of joy working as a chaplain at Oakland Children’s Hospital. After graduation Amy plans to return to the Twin Cities with her husband to pursue a career as a high school teacher.

To shine the inner light: A guided meditation on the Christ the Light Cathedral

by Sean Felix

The Christ the Light Cathedral in Oakland presents an architectural design that seeks to combine the

illuminating principles and presence of Christ and the Church, with the possibilities of the illumination in the soul of the parishioners. I took the opportunity to see the cathedral during its construction and write a guided meditation piece with the building as a focus.

As you walk along the street, with Lake Merritt on your right, and feel the cool breeze wash over your body and the smell of sea and salt water, you round the corner and see a majestic conical blaze of light rising amidst surrounding office buildings. As you get closer, you see the sun reflecting off of the outer shell, which is composed of multiple glass panels. The light makes all of the buildings around it shine whilst reflecting their images upon its surface. But while the light is awesome, it does not repulse. Rather, it beckons you to come closer.

The cone of glass rises not from the street, but from a concrete base. The cone is not set back from the street. The complex actually runs directly up to the sidewalk, with stairs that run from the street into the beckoning opening at its front. The light draws you closer and you cross the street to approach the structure.

As you stand at the base, you look up to get a true sense of the scale. The glass rises up twelve stories above you. You try to count the many panels that compose the outer shell, but you lose track as the multiplicity of light fractures distract the quantifying exercise.

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Looking at yourself from the outside you realize that this building is a reflection of you.

The glowing glass is your outer self. It is your skin. It is the reflection of everything around you.

Your existence is a combination of the reflection of everyone and everything around you, while your personality is the light, which shines and illuminates while your existence reflects. You do not stand purely alone, and the multiplicity of the glass panels equates to the many facets of your outward personality. You are many things to many people.

Walking along its side, the structure becomes a solid wall of multiple mirrored windows, which runs alongside the street. Coming to the corner and walking further alongside, a second opening appears in the continuity of the glass structure. It mirrors the first in width and height. As the sun shifts, a shaft of light falls between the surrounding buildings and a vertical shaft of light illuminates the glass panels nearest to this new opening.

Combined with the initial opening you saw as you approached, you realize that these openings are your eyes onto the world. The world has seen your light and now you gaze back out at the world. You are no longer the illuminator and reflector of the world around you, but are an active observer. These eyes then gain a new form. The openings become your beckoning arms. Much as the light pulled you toward it from the street, and your light pulls others toward you, these openings allow them to come closer to you, and allow you to go deeper into yourself.

As the effect of the light wanes from your eyes, you are able to look closer at the construction of the shell. The glass panels are held fast by a scaffolding of steel beams vertically supported by bars, which run in regular intervals. They flow from above the cone itself as they reach into the sky, and down into the smooth concrete of its base. The vertical support is then bolstered by a wooden frame running the length of the structure, which braces the entire frame through connection to the interior structure.

The system of support structures, you realize, holds the building in place, like the system of muscles, tendons, and bones that run underneath your skin. You fall deeper into yourself as you think of this support beneath your skin. Your muscles allow you to move, your bones hold you upright to gaze upon the building. You feel the blood coursing through your veins supporting and feeding your entire system. Your lungs expand and contract pushing oxygen into your blood.

Every vertical bar is every artery. The Every part of the body works in concert to allow you to move, breath wooden frame is every vein. The metal and interact with your environment. You feel all of your parts working scaffolding is every capillary. in concert and as singularities. Each piece works with the other, but still functions on its own. Every vertical bar is every artery. The wooden frame is every vein. The metal scaffolding is every capillary.

Before going into the openings, you take notice of the interior structure of the building. There is a significant amount of empty space between the outer glass shell of the building and the interior structure.

From amidst this glass shell, the wooden interior rises like a newly birthed seed from the concrete soil, which holds it securely, but allowed it to break through its surface. The interior structure is composed of concentric wooden bands, lain one atop of the other, and a space on either side mimicking the openings in the outer glass shell, but defying expectations by making a dome shape as opposed to the exteriors cone shape. Wooden vertical beams support the concentric horizontal bands. The structure goes from a wide base, which narrows

To shine the inner light: A guided meditation on the Christ the Light Cathedral

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as it rises to a point. The support frame for the glass exterior connects directly to this interior structure and relieves the pressure of the glass exterior by transferring the weight into the dome structure.

You think of the seed rising from the concrete, and see the tree that is to grow from the steady nurturing of the light that pours into the glass panels surrounding it. The space between the outer skin and interior holds the heat fro gestation. Your eyes close and you think of yourself growing from the ground up. The steady light of your skin and the support of your bones is transferred to your self. Your mind and personality is the seed, which grows from the ground. You start wide from the ground, spread out to support the weight of your person. Your thoughts run from the bottoms of your feet, wide and strong on the ground, and narrow as you come to your head, the multiplicity of your person coming to a point within the larger whole. The openings are the space by which your personality is developed. The nurturing light and heat from your family and your community create you as a person. Your mind is the inner structure that supports the greater weight of your exterior existence.

The interior of the dome is an open space. On all sides the space of the dome is the antithesis of the cylinder of the exterior. Light pours in between the spaces of the wooden bands, relieving the interior of the expected darkness of an inner sanctum.

Looking directly up, the ceiling point of the inner cathedral is an oval shaped steel exterior with a smaller oval glass piece set in its center. The ovoid glass emulates the glass-paneled exterior by allowing light from directly overhead to fall into and illuminate the interior. The exterior glass cylinder has a steel and glass panel lattice at its top, which attaches to the roof of the dome via steel and wooden struts that run around the oval.

You have moved from your mind to the final inner space and sanctuary, your soul. This inner sanctum is not composed of any particular shapes. It has no true form; it is only empty space. But within this space is the truth, and this truth is not darkness.

It is emptiness with a form. And that form is your truth. It is that which gives shape to everything around it. And the light that illuminates this inner sanctum comes from above. The window at the top of the inner sanctum opens the soul to the heavens.

Though this window the light flows down

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into the soul, and the energy of the universe empowers you. It also allows you to see up into the true being of the heavens. In the inner sanctum the truth is revealed.

Your soul constitutes your whole being from the inside out, like the breath of creation expanding.

And as you leave your meditative state, your inner light flows back out into your body. Your soul first elaborates and structures your mind, the seedpod of the inner sanctum. Your mind reaches out and reconstructs your inner structures, your bones, organs, muscles and blood, which hold your glorious skin intact and supports you in your outer existence. The inner structures give way to the outer skin, which shines from the inner light of the heavens being breathed outward, and continues the reflection and the illumination of the world. Finally your arms and your eyes open, welcoming the world into your embrace, and looking on it with eyes that have seen the purity of the universe, and can see within everyone around you the loving potential of creation.

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Sean Felix is proud to be a native son of Washington, DC. Always being interested in the arts and the human soul, he got his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and has found his theological voice and ability to speak to people’s souls at the Jesuit School of Theology.

Illustration Credits Page 1

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maestà (back, central panel): Jesus Before Pontius Pilate. 1308–11. Tempera on wood panel. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy.

Page 3

Georges de la Tour. Le Tricheur (The Cheater). Oil on canvas, ca.

1633–1639. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France.

Page 6

Br. Lee S. Colombino, S.J. After the Fire. Clay, 2007.

Page 7

Br. Lee S. Colombino, S.J. La Pura Verità 03. Charcoal on paper, 2007.

Page 9

Goring and Straja. Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. 2005–06.

Photo by Emmanuel Foro, S.J.

Page 25

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933). St. Augustine. Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida.

Page 30

Andrei Rublev. Trinity. 1410. Egg tempera on panel.

Pages 43–45

Craig Hartman, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Cathedral of Light, Oakland, 2005–08. Photos by Sean Felix.

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JESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT BERKELEY 1735 Le Roy Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709