Swarthmore Peripateo (Vol 2, Issue 1)

Volume 2, Issue 1 | Fall 2013

Peripateo the Swarthmore College Journal of Christian Discourse

FINDING ONESELF BEYOND THE EMPIRICAL FENCE Nicholas Zahorodny searches for meaning in the creative love of God (6)

also in this issue : Joyce Tompkins struggles with faith and action in a world of privilege in “A Cross too Tight” (5) TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT Quitterie Gounot discusses the challenges of being a survivor of sexual assault as a member of a religious community in “Behold, I Stand at the Door” (11)

A Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, Swarthmore is a campus continually bustling with conversation. Discourse is central to an academic space such as this one. However, we have found that in this conversation, discourse genuinely involving faith is often scarce. Peripateo, then, was born in an effort to reconcile what is often considered a disconnect between faith and reason.

Here in Peripateo, we believe that there is truth to be found in the messages proclaimed

by Jesus. We believe that faith can be a part of intellectual discussion—not just as something that is observed from the outside, but also as something that is believed and practiced. And we believe that much of that conversation is rooted in genuinely asking questions and exploring ideas.

We believe that an understanding of God shows up in critical thought, in personal reflection, and in the creation of art. And so, we believe that God can be reflected in the critical analysis of motion, or personal pieces that explore challenges of life and faith, or art pieces like the ones that you may see here, and even in the very shaping of this journal.

“Peripateo” is a Greek word that can mean “to walk around in.” However, on the back cover, you will also find an end-title: Selah. “Selah” is a Hebrew word from the Psalms that does not hold a firm definition. It is often interpreted as a pause or a break in the middle of a song. It is a rest; for us, it is an invitation to stop and listen. We believe that both these concepts—to move around in and to rest in—are central to understanding ideas, as is the whole spectrum that lies between them.

So, we invite you to “walk around” in the ideas that are presented in this journal. To not just read them, but to allow yourself to really explore them: to agree or disagree, to wonder and question. And then, we invite you to sit and rest with these ideas as well.

Some ideas are harder to wrestle with than others, but we believe that they are all issues that deserve our time and thought. We invite you to read Quitterie Gounot’s piece, in which she shares the challenges of experiencing sexual assault as a member of a religious community. Or Joyce Tompkins’ piece, as she questions how to challenge comfort within the church with genuine service, and to what extent it is even possible. Or Tony Farias’ piece, which explores the issue of community through a reading of a recent interview with the Pope.

Join us, in Peripateo, as we struggle to understand these ideas and the many others that we encounter together. We invite you to walk with us, to sit with us, and ultimately, to question with us.

Yared Portillo Editor-in-Chief

Cover and background images by Sam Gutierrez.

1 | Letter from the Editor

Peripateo

the Swarthmore College Journal of Christian Discourse

IN THIS ISSUE Reading Marilynne Robinson: 3 Liberation through Tradition

Essays & Ar ticles

Editorial Staff

Yared Portillo ‘15

Michael Superdock ‘15 Kathryn Wu ‘14

by Danielle Charette

Finding Oneself beyond the 6 Empirical Fence

Roy Walker ‘16

by Nicholas Zahorodny

Meghan Huang ‘14 Nathan Scalise ‘16 Nicholas Zahorodny ‘16 Josh Gregory ‘15

A Defense of the Argument 15 from Motion

by Greg Brown

A Papal Perspective on 23 Community

Contributors

by Tony Farias

Abundant Life, Abundant Love, 27 and the Empty Tomb

by Nathan Scalise

“Visitors” 10

Ar t & Poetry

by Sam Gutierrez

Flowers of the Field 25

by Roy Walker

De las sombras 14

Greg Brown ‘16 Danielle Charette ‘14 Tony Farias ‘14 Quitterie Gounot ‘13 Sam Gutierrez ‘15 Nancy Yeon Joo Kim ‘14 Joy Claire de Aguilar Martinez ‘16 Nathan Scalise ‘16 Joyce Ulrich Tompkins Roy Walker ‘16 Nicholas Zahorodny ‘16

by Joy Claire de Aguilar Martinez

A Cross Too Tight 5

by Joyce Ulrich Tompkins

Behold, I Stand at the Door 11 Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

by Quitterie Gounot

Reflections on Worship 26

by Nancy Yeon Joo Kim

Editor-in-Chief Design Manager Business Manager Executive Editor Editor Design Business Editor Editor Editor Editor Poetry Editor

Reflections

Who We Are Peripateo seeks to reconcile faith and academia by engaging religious issues through an intellectual

lens. We believe that the message of Jesus Christ has powerful implications for our daily lives and the world at large. We aim to fuse creativity and

intellectualism in this journal to invite readers into a thoughtful discourse: what role does God play in our lives? What are the ways that a Christian

perspective both compliments and complicates an academic one?

Contact us at swarthmoreperipateo@gmail.com

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Reading Marilynne Robinson:

E ATION R I B TRADITION

L

through

Marilynne Robinson is the most unusual of contemporary fiction writers. She’s the only recent Pulitzer Prize winner I know of who also happens to be a staunch Calvinist, who regularly writes theological essays and has been known to preach on the side. Her version of old-fashioned Protestantism is central to her novels and has been central to my own reassessment of Christian history.

It’s strange for a Protestant to find herself in theological purgatory, but that’s my metaphor for my current limbo between the progressive “Mainline” denominations and my own desire for tradition. First and foremost, I desire a denomination that is liberal but apolitical. Lest that sound like a contradiction, by “liberal” I mean the general Protestant tradition, dating back to Luther, that derives its authority from the Bible and trusts everyday people enough to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Unfortunately, this style of Christian liberalism has mostly been eclipsed by today’s various Protestant churches, who seem determined to divide themselves into what I see as two broad camps. On one side are the dwindling mainstream denominations, like the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and American Baptists.

These are the older groups who composed the majority of American Christians until the 1960’s and were famously moderate—perhaps to a point of being elitist or complacent. On the other side are the evangelical and pentecostal denominations that have garnered so much attention since the 1970’s. These groups tend to prioritize a more personal relationship with Christ and usually lean toward social conservatism when it comes to politics.

What’s confusing is that the more politically “conservative” churches are actually the newest on the American scene, following in the wake of Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and other 20th century cultural crusaders. Meanwhile, the mainline churches that can trace their histories back a few hundred years have responded to the culture wars with an unapologetically progressive approach.

What’s someone like me, who’s searching for an apolitical but traditionalist faith, to do?

I was raised as a Congregationalist in a Connecticut meetinghouse, where the localism, small town gossip, white steeple, and reserved New England liberalism were about what you’d expect.

We read the Bible in Sunday school, but our Church education was quite lax, and you might even say, lacking. Still, Congregationalism

3 | Reading Marilynne Robinson: Liberation through Tradition

by Danielle Charette

has the charm of being what is arguably the oldest denomination in America. It is the faith that Alexis de Tocqueville credited with inspiring self-rule and democracy. During the First Great Awakening, Congregationalist ministers like George Whitefield insisted that, as members of the world’s “parish,” we are ultimately answerable only to God. I love the unpretentiously white sanctuary, the little doors on the pews, and the hymns that date back to Martin Luther. But lately, I’ve had trouble reconciling my own desire for a more traditionally “liberal” religious experience, one that emphasizes reading the Bible for oneself and accepting believers from all walks of life, with the overtly progressive political agenda of the contemporary United Church of Christ (the Congregationalists merged with the UCC in 1957). For instance, the national UCC promotes a fairly narrow view of “economic justice” and endorses controversial causes. Does today’s Congregationalism still leave room for liberal traditionalists?

The novelist and essayist, Marilynne Robinson, has brought me solace and perspective on this question. Her own Congregationalist faith is undergirded by an unusual zeal for the theology of John Calvin, which Robinson has managed to take to the mainstream.

Today’s UCC, which dates back to the Puritans, is still ostensibly Calvinist, but, as a kid, I never once heard Calvin’s name mentioned in church. Robinson’s work has served, so far, as my most comprehensive introduction.

In a nutshell, John Calvin and his followers, whose views are broadly synonymous with what is known as “Reformed theology,” helped propel the Protestant Reformation through the 16th and 17th centuries. Calvinists rely on the authority of scripture and the idea that once we’re called to salvation by God, grace is irresistible.

Of course, Calvinism is also famous for some dicier claims about predestination and mankind’s total depravity. Because Calvin emphasized that you cannot ingratiate yourself into heaven by good works alone, he concludes that, if you are saved, it is thanks to God, not your own doing. According to Calvin, God chooses an “elect” of the saved that transcends what individual believers do here on earth. For the most part, this problematic theology has receded into the background for mainline Protestantism, though the UCC’s official preamble “claims as its own the faith of the historic church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant reformers.” Unlike the Catholic or

Anglican churches, the UCC has very little institutional hierarchy, meaning that beliefs vary widely from congregation to congregation and from pastor to pastor. Most UCC-ers are free to leave Calvin’s landmark Institutes of the Christian Religion to gather dust in their seminary libraries. But that freedom wouldn’t exist without Luther and Calvin’s 16th century willingness to question Christianity’s status quo and dethrone papal authority.

Robinson reminds us of this freedom, which is, fundamentally, the freedom to live, worship, and read the text of the Bible for oneself. And, of course, the freedom to read and interpret serves as an important theme for a Pulitzer Prize winning author like Robinson. In her latest collection of essays, aptly titled, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Robinson connects her own love of reading and writing with the laws of Moses, the teachings of Calvin, and freedom of thought. For Robinson, Christian history and literary life are deeply connected. In her epistolary novel Gilead, for which she won the 2005 Pulitzer, Robinson imagines the musings of an elderly Iowa pastor, John Ames, who, as his health declines, composes letters to his young son. Ames meditates on the nature of family, American history, sin, grace, and the almost overwhelming beauty of the world. Left to another writer, the character of Reverend Ames might seem stodgy or out-of-touch. In Robinson, he is poetic and prophetic. He has become one of my favorite literary figures.

Ames combines a peaceful acceptance of death with a radical love for the world, especially the American landscape. In his last written words, John Ames admits that Gilead, Iowa “does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of love—I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence.”

This is Calvinism at its best: The earth-loving individual cedes his ultimate fate to God and treats salvation as the ultimate gift. Robinson manages to evoke Calvin’s regard for hope, beauty, and the liberality that she says comes from “unconditional generosity.” I re-read Gilead this summer in my own occasionally shabby but still wonderfully quaint small town and from there was inspired to tackle some Calvin. In light of Robinson’s ability to capture a warm, hopeful and domestic version of American Protestantism, I fancied that Calvin was talking about my backyard when he wrote,

“There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world, that is not intended to make men rejoice.” He certainly challenged my previous perception of the Puritans as 16th century killjoys.

Likewise, in her 1994 essay “Puritans and Prigs,” Robinson attempts to rescue the Puritans from their reputation as stern, witchburning radicals. She emphasizes their contribution to higher education and their focus on the fundamental mysteriousness of life.

In fact, she places Quakers under the Puritan umbrella and would likely add Swarthmore to the list of Puritan accomplishments.

When Americans scorn the Puritans, writes Robinson, “we make ourselves ignorant and contemptuous of the first two or three hundred years of one major strain of our own civilization.” Worse, we have become perfectionists who, convinced of our ability to shape society in our own image, disallow for the realities of sin and suffering and, at the same time, forget the need for repentance, forgiveness, and grace. I take this to be a critique of dogmatic conservatives and liberals alike. When we hitch our faith to some version of political perfection, we overlook what a complicated world we live in and, in turn, overlook how much religious work—the kind that transcends easy political answers—is necessary. Political obsessions are dangerous, from a theological point of view, because they quickly assume that mankind is at the center of all things. In contrast, Calvin comprehended how small human beings are in the face of the cosmos—and thus, how important it is for us to focus on generosity and grace.

Robinson’s efforts to revive Calvinist tradition within Mainline Protestantism has provided me a sense of guidance and structure within the modern church’s remarkably unstructured body.

Through Robinson, I am finding that a respect for church tradition can itself be liberating. Is it bizarre that a contemporary creative writer would inspire a college student to start reading John Calvin?

Absolutely. That’s the magnificence of Marilynne Robinson. r

Danielle Charette ‘14 Danielle is an Honors English major and Political Science minor from Durham, CT. She advises the middle school youth group at Swar thmore Presbyterian Church.

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A

by Joyce Ulrich Tompkins

CROSS TOO

TIGHT

I had a knotty problem. It was, in fact, a knot—a knot in the silver chain I wear around my neck each day. The chain supports a small silver Celtic cross from my pilgrimage to the Isle of Iona. The cross serves as a reminder for me of God’s presence in all things. It is a physical presence over my heart and a touchstone of both comfort and courage. Now, the knot obstructed the clasp that fastened the chain. Without untangling it, it seemed I couldn’t wear the cross.

What to do? I was running late, as usual. I tried unraveling the knot, but doing so on such a fine chain required more light, time, or patience than was available that dark morning. I considered going off into my day without the cross—after all, God is with me whether I wear this physical symbol or not. I considered taking the time to work at the knot, patiently and carefully, which would make me late for church and my Sunday to preach. Finally, I realized I could bypass the knotty clasp completely, so I put the chain around my neck and tied a second knot. It was a very tight fit, but it would work for today.

What does this mean? I can hear the voice of my old student, Adam: “It’s just a knot in a chain, Joyce.” He was always challenging me when I found theological significance in these small daily events. But look again, Adam, and listen to the larger story.

Just the day before, I had returned from an overnight retreat with students at Broad Street Ministry (BSM), where we had a tour of Center City with a man who had formerly experienced homelessness, then spent Saturday serving guests who were experiencing hunger or homelessness at Breaking Bread, a meal served four times a week at BSM. After a long and intense day, our little group gathered to share impressions and pray together about what we had observed and learned. The theme that came up for most of us was a knotty problem indeed—how to balance faith and action.

How do we connect these direct acts of ministry with our lives as students—studying, reflecting on our faith, worshiping God? How do we justify the privilege of our academic bubble with the hunger and need we know exists all around us? A knotty problem indeed.

I enjoyed my time at BSM, my interactions and conversations with the guests, the deep talk with students. But I am aware that my enjoyment of this time of service is in itself a symptom of my privilege. I was going home to a shower, clean sheets, and a healthy

5 | A Cross Too Tight

meal with my family in my warm house. The guests whose conversation I had enjoyed could anticipate no such luxuries. They would continue their day on the cold streets, unsure of their next meal, and certain only of a cold floor for their night’s lodging. My day of service had helped them with one meal. It had not solved the larger problem of their ongoing hunger.

What’s the point of my day of service if I only return to my life of privilege? What good is our discussion, our study of issues, our confession of complicity if we continue to benefit from an unjust system? I remember a student some years back who participated in our service project and then decided to drop out and live on the street. He claimed he wanted to be like Jesus, and I believe he was sincere. But, after a year, he was back. He had not solved the problems of the poor by becoming one of them. He realized that he had to convert his anguished compassion into education and focus that education on a career that would change the system. He graduated and became a teacher.

Those of us who claim faith in a compassionate God have a knotty problem we must wear every day. Somehow we must balance our acts of service for the poor with an ongoing personal work that will make a lasting difference. I continue to believe in the value of these regular days of service, even though they are insufficient. It is so easy for campus ministry—or congregational life—to become too comfortable: singing, praying and wrangling about theological doctrines in an easy Christian bubble. The cross we wear should be a bit too tight, chafing the neck, catching in the threads of our clothing, calling us short in those moments when we forget the bigger picture. But we should wear it every day. It is a comfort, yes. But with its knotty chain, it is also a reminder of the costs of discipleship. A part of that cost is to wrestle with the knots, even while we are wearing them in the world. r

Joyce Ulrich Tompkins Joyce is an Episcopal priest, mother and campus chaplain at Swar thmore whose chief claim to fame is having once memorized the names of all the Patristic heresies as well as the vegetable preferences of her children in alphabetical order.

Finding

ONESELF beyond the EMPIRICAL FENCE

by Nicholas Zahorodny ‘16

“No,” my friend replied, shaking his head, “I still don’t understand what you mean.”

That made two of us. I knit my brows together and paused, a bit embarrassed. The question seemed so fundamental, and yet the answer rolled around in my mind like some impetuous boulder, an unwieldy idea unwilling to be hammered out into words. With a sense of my uncertainty, he pressed the point by posing his question a second time.

“I mean, don’t misunderstand me. I agree completely with most of the main teachings; the Ten Commandments, even the Beatitudes sound fine. But wouldn’t everybody act more or less the same if there were no religion and instead most of the same rules were held on a purely secular basis? Let’s assume that these rules were widely followed and respected. What would be the difference?

What does Christianity really have to offer that can’t be recreated in a secular framework?”

In an attempt to avoid losing face, I blurted out a hastily constructed response, but after a bit more back-and-forth both of us parted dissatisfied. From time to time over the course of the next year, however, his question would return to harry me. Like a petulant homunculus crouched in the corner of my room, it would scratch, ever insistent, upon the doors of my mind. Every now and again, I would grant it entry, and in this way I pieced my answer together one fragment at a time.

The Christian faith, in a word, reveals man fully to himself, a feat far beyond the scope of our current secular culture. Whereas modern secularism must accept circumscription by the physical world, the mystery of man’s interiority lies far deeper than the revolution of atoms or the evolution of apes. In order to unearth the fundaments of his own being, man must bravely leap beyond the confines of the mundane in a heartfelt recognition of his true origin. For in so doing, he rediscovers not only himself but all of humanity, united by a common identity, by the shared destiny of a people called to fullness through the love of the Father and the Passion of His Son. Before beginning, of course, the reader may rightly demand some clarification of a concept as sprawling and ambiguous as “secular culture.” Certainly, modern secularism eschews the notion of a comprehensive canon of beliefs to which all of its members

must adhere; and as a result, opinions range vastly on many important issues. Such a state of affairs should not, however, surprise the reader. For the distinguishing feature of secular thought is not an affirmation, but a denial, not a presence, but a profound absence. It marks out a zone within which man is free to move as he pleases but beyond which, into the realm of the spirit, he may not tread.

He may search out, for example, the laws that order the cosmos but not the Lawmaker from whose mind they sprung. In this way, a basic secular perspective shapes ideology more like a fence than a trellis, confining growth but not guiding it. In a fortuitous turn, however, this reality allows one to pursue the subject under consideration without engaging each of the countless secular commentaries on the question of human nature. Instead, we may content ourselves to trace an outline of the boundaries of secular thought, as it currently exists, and in this way to note its limitations.

This limits-based approach to defining modern secularism and establishing its relevance to our question reveals without much surprise that the perspective of its culture is largely empirical. With its intellectual roots in the work of British Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment scholars, empiricism altered academic culture by advocating for a much more concrete approach to knowledge.

Thinkers from Bacon to Hume, dissatisfied with abstract, often a priori1 methods, emphasized the primacy of sensory experience in determining truths about the world. In this way, they set in motion the construction of a boundary between the physical and the ethereal, through which the status of inquiry involving the latter was greatly marginalized.

Their new, secular perspective, centered as it was upon observation and experimentation, oversaw the ascendency of the scientific method and the subsequent series of advances that has culmi-

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nated in contemporary technological society. With the increasing like Schopenhauer2 and Camus3, that have preached the virtues of presence of scientific progress in everyday life, empirical verifica- authentic lives built upon principles of compassion or community tion has become a sort of gold standard for accepted truths. also deserve special mention here.

For this reason, propositions appearing to contradict empirical It is true, therefore, that empiricism has elevated man’s knowlfindings tend to die swift and oft-deserved deaths beneath the cur- edge of the natural world to dizzying heights and enabled him, rent of mainstream opinion. For proof, consider the fate of geocen- through technology, to alleviate a great deal of human suffering. tricism. Many other truly amazing theories, though, such as quan- It is also true that secular ideologies and mindsets have not infretum superposition, may through empirical research be accepted on quently aligned themselves with the causes of compassion, justice, as solid a basis as 2 + 2 = 4. The body of truths susceptible to such and truth. Unfortunately, however, within a Christian framework research therefore forms both a core and a sort of limit to secular they suffer from a dire incompleteness­—a necessary inability to knowledge. Let us, then, in keeping with the purpose of this article, engage with mankind’s origin in the creative love of God. Without map the breadth of the empirical approach to our question and such an engagement, man’s life and experience prove to be waverdiscover its insights on the subject of the human person. ing shadows of their divine potentiality. For only in the mirror of In the empirical tradition, man is simply evolution’s most suc- faith can man behold himself as he truly is, and thereby grow in the cessful project. All of his distinctive characteristics, his bipedal fullness of the grace to which his Creator has ordained him. form, his prodigious intellect and ability to reason, have therefore The history of this ordination begins, as one might expect, in developed as instruments by the Book of Genesis. From its which he might promulgate the first chapter, the auspicious For only in the mirror of faith can man species. Although held on a less nature of humanity’s origin sturdy basis, some evolutionreveals itself in a way that inbehold himself as he truly is, and thereby ary psychologists suggest that forms the reader of his unique grow in the fullness of the grace to which qualities such as the capacity position in the order of creation for altruism and even for love as well as of the deep, foundahis Creator has ordained him. itself are oriented toward the tional relationship with God same ends. Through these adthat defines his life. In principio, aptations, man has risen from humble beginnings to his current as is written, the Almighty creates from nothing an entire world. position at the apex of the animal kingdom. Note, however, that he He orders that light be made, divides night and day, separates earth rules from within this kingdom and not from beyond its walls. For from water and heaven from earth. The shutters of this new stage all his advancement, man remains an animal, in most essential in- He throws wide open to the light of life. He populates the world stances little more than a hairless, thinner-skulled, larger-brained with whales and birds, green herbs and wild beasts. Then, at creape. ation’s zenith, God creates man. This marvel is not detailed, like Empiricism does encapsulate much of importance in the secular the rest, before being passed over in favor of even greater works; perspective, and yet it may be more accurately considered an inner for whereas all creation preceding man is good, he alone is called gate, through which the secular may still step but beyond which very good. Cast not in the mold of a brute, man shines forth from nothing can be known with certainty. It is therefore worth paus- his summit as essentially different from his fellow creatures. Esing for a moment to consider the brighter regions of this outer sentially different because God creates him, and only him, in His zone. For, although some do conceive of themselves and others own image! This divine image contains a reason and a will oriented through a narrow, Darwinian focus, many others, without deny- specifically towards a life of love lived, as shall soon be discussed, in ing the science, hold much more enlightened views. The secular communion with the Father. With this unparalleled addition, the humanists, who acknowledge the vastness both of human potential Creator’s work at last achieves its completion. Only now does He and of human ethical responsibility, spring immediately to mind rest on the seventh day, fully satisfied with the fruits of His labor. as champions of a more complete modern secular outlook. Others, The uniqueness of man’s position in the universe finds further

7 | Finding Oneself beyond the Empirical Fence

grounding in the second chapter of Genesis’ more detailed account of the creation of Adam. Here, God sculpts mankind from the “slime of the earth.” The use of “fashioned” in this passage, suggests a remarkable degree of personal attention on the part of the Creator. Remarkable because, in contrast to the intimate involvement conveyed by this word, much of the remainder of creation finds expression in less involved verbs, like “make,” or even passive forms, like “be made.” The reader can imagine in this passage as nowhere else, God reaching down to touch His creation with, if an anthropocentric metaphor might be permitted, His own hands.

Yet, the connection between man and his Creator manifests itself even more deeply in chapter two verse seven, which describes God breathing “into his face the breath of life”4. This shockingly close contact between God and man at the origin of human existence, a closeness paralleled nowhere else in the creation story, presents the image of a God that opens himself personally and intimately to humankind. As Father Benedict Groeshel affirms, “The Creator of all has breathed life into us, including a unique capacity for sharing in his divine life for all eternity.”5 It likewise calls man to an acknowledgment of himself as a creature rooted first in God, not by coincidence, but by the intentional bonds of an entirely unmerited love.

Nowhere in Genesis can one find a people bound without exception to a transient reality in which self-proliferation constitutes the ultimate end of human action. Nowhere either can one find a world order whose gears turn upon an axis of blind desire, a world in the context of which mankind cannot possibly strive for anything above or outside of itself, anything pointing to a destiny beyond this life. For the nature of man’s creation testifies to a divine and loving intention on the part of his Creator, a fundamental orientation that alone possesses the power to fulfill a human life.

In keeping with this attitude of divine love, God carved out an exalted station for His most precious children, whom He has called from the beginning into a special relationship with Himself. Man therein finds an explanation of his own nature as founded in his condition as a child of God, a creature transcendent, called always into communion with his Father.

Nowhere does the nature of this communion call become more clearly revealed than in the New Testament ministry of Jesus Christ. Unifying men and women in the midst of deep differences, the radical love of His ministry reveals what it means to respond to this divine call. To respond faithfully means to open oneself to the

love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, and thereby to find, at last, the perfect grace that flows from a deep communion with God. It is a relationship whose importance to our humanity transcends all possible conditions of circumstance or birth. Consider briefly the men and women that opened themselves to Jesus’ ministry during the time of His life on Earth. Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, poor fishermen, encountered Jesus on the Sea of Galilee6. This miraculous experience of God’s presence exploded the status quo of their lives as they “left everything” to follow Christ.

From here, the list of those touched by Jesus’ love only grows: Mary Magdalene, formerly a prostitute7; Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax collector8; the Roman centurion of great faith9; the Samaritan woman at the well10; the Good Thief at Calvary11; and countless of the sick and crippled cleansed of their afflictions through the illimitable mercy of Christ. In each instance, one finds a loving confirmation of the sentiments of St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”12 Tax collectors like Zacchaeus acquired their wealth through fraud, charging higher rates in order to keep the difference for themselves, and were widely despised as traitors complicit with the Roman oppressors. The centurion commanded a legion actively maintaining said oppression. The Samaritan woman was marginalized not only on account of her poverty, like Peter and Andrew, but also in three additional respects: once as a woman, again as an unmarried woman, and once more as an ethnic minority. God’s love for man, therefore, is not contingent upon gender, ethnicity, cultural background, socioeconomic status, or even past deeds. Educational attainment, cognitive ability, personal interests and hobbies also fall into the same category. As important as they often are to us, God does not love His children on account of such things. He cherishes us simply because we are His, because He made us to know Him and to share in His inner life.

Finally apprehending in some aspect the divine love of the Son, and of the Father revealed through the Son, these men and women chose to respond with a yes. It was this heartfelt submission and affirmation that opened their lives to the grace of God. Transcending the differences in their respective conditions, they all managed to grasp the common anchor of their existence, the sustaining love of Jesus that is directed in a real and personal way towards every human being. Such is the common underpinning of our human identity, the full redemption of the human spirit. The intimacy of

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the Father in the beginning thus returns in the flesh through the compassionate ministry of His Son. And yet, how strongly can we trust in this relationship? With what degree of confidence can we devote our lives to a friendship with God? One finds the most powerful answers to such questions contained within the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Reading through the beginning of the Passion narrative, it is not difficult to imagine the raw emotional intensity of Jesus’ nighttime vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane. Alone in the darkness, He pleads with God that His life might be spared, and yet, even shedding tears that fall to the earth like “great drops of blood,” He submits to His Father’s will. In this moment of acceptance, Jesus offers Himself up as a sacrificial lamb, so that humanity might once again be reconciled to the Father. To suffer and die for the sake of another, freely, humbly, and without bitterness, is the highest act of love imaginable, and Jesus Christ has so suffered and died for us. Not only does Jesus sacrifice Himself, but He consents to die an agonizing and ignominious death, crucified, like some common bandit, on the wood of a cross. To His tormentors and executioners, to all the sinful rabble of humankind, He never ceases to extend His loving mercy. ”Forgive them, Father,” he cries out in the clutches of a gruesome and undeserved death, “For they know not what they do.” We must remember that Jesus’ Passion is not some distant historical happening. He did not die for some people in some place at some time in the past. He suffered for each one of us personally, died for each one of us personally, for the believers and the nonbelievers, for the pious and the profane, in order that all might one day find their way back to the loving embrace of the Father. The relationship He thus seals with this act of boundless love shines as a true archetype of fidelity and trust. It is that same relationship, that same capacity for communion with God that stands at the center of our nature.

And yet, one might still harbor justifiable doubts in such a promise if Christ’s crucifixion had been His final end. The divine bond between man and God would have been severable by death, its power withered beneath the shadow of the grave. The transcendence of any aspect of human nature would have appeared utterly impossible. Death, however, did not conquer Christ, but on the third day fell prostrate before Him in the glory of the Resurrection.

That Christ truly rose from the dead serves as a Christian’s strongest assurance of the immortal, transcendent nature of the love relationship binding God and man together. Through the miracle of the Resurrection, Jesus opens for humanity the possibility of a fulfillment of this relationship, namely a joyous reunion with the Father in heaven. He reminds us that we are not limited to this world, in which our mortal lives flicker ever so briefly. Rather, His love shepherds us upon a pathway that extends to embrace an eternity. This high destiny, implanted at the heart of our nature, of an end to exile, of a return to the Father, should seem so lofty as to be unattainable. Yet in the Resurrection of Jesus, we may always find hope.

A brief outline of the conflict between two competing worldviews, secularism and Christianity, has hopefully at this point been established. The secular certainly performs well within its limited sphere but quickly proves itself ill equipped when confronted with

9 | Finding Oneself beyond the Empirical Fence

the deeper questions of human existence. Knowledge possible only through hundreds of years of empirical methodology, for example, has resulted in the development of technology that has revolutionized standards of living across the globe. Evolutionary theory continues to provide humanity with a powerful tool for understanding biological and even psychological changes over time. When man searches for his inner calling, and the full significance of his life, however, secularism can only shuffle its feet. Here, Christianity completes the picture. Beginning from Genesis, it presents a relationship with God as integral to man’s essence. The nature of this relationship, as further revealed through the ministry of Jesus Christ, is one of unfailing love, a love that calls man towards a life worthy of a final reunion with his Creator.

This reality demands acknowledgement, not merely as some theoretical body of truths to be apprehended by the mind, but as a vital presence to be woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. As most eloquently conveyed in the Gospel of John, “I [ Jesus] am the vine: you are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.”13 To strive to trust always in the light of Christ’s love allows us to participate actively in a relationship with God that leads us home through sin, suffering, and even death. Once we understand who we truly are, creatures called into a deep and eternal communion with God, our lives will surely “bear much fruit,” watered by the fount of life and love itself. In a perhaps surprising paradox, we bear our brightest light into this world only upon realizing that, by God’s love, we transcend it. r

Endnotes 1. A priori: knowledge or methods not based on experience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 2. See World as Will and Representation 3. See The Rebel 4. Genesis 2:7 Douay-Rheims 5. Healing the Original Wounds 6. Matthew 4:18-22 DR 7. Luke 7:36 – 50 DR 8. Luke 19:1 -10 DR 9. Matthew 8:5 – 13 DR 10. John 4: 1 – 26 DR 11. Luke 23: 39 – 43 DR 12. Galatians 3:28 DR 13. John 15:5 DR

Nicholas Zahorodny ‘16 Nicholas is a Ukrainian Rite Catholic from Westfield, NJ and plans to double-major in philosophy and economics. In his less serious moods, he enjoys puns, anagrams, and leisurely after-basks with Regal Rye tea.

Sometimes he sleeps in until 7:30AM.

“VISITORS”

by Sam Gutierrez During my time here at Swar thmore, I’ve been to many of my friends’ homes. This photograph was taken at my friend’s house when I visited him during fall break. There are very few acts of trust more intimate and more vulnerable than opening up one’s home to another. In the New Testament, there are countless occasions when Jesus visits people in their homes—he heals, he drinks, and he comfor ts.

The willingness to let someone into such an impor tant area of one’s life is a trait that I admire very much. You get to see some baby pictures, enter his room, and meet the family. Each encounter is a glimpse fur ther into the clockworks that form his identity. A friend once told me, “You don’t truly understand a person until you see them at his or her home.”

Swarthmore Peripateo | 10

BEHOLD, I STAND at the DOOR

by Quitterie Gounot

11 | Behold, I Stand at the Door

“

If Christian communities truly want to be the body of Christ, we must care for our hurting members. If we are not reaching out to religious victims of sexual assault, who will?

”

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT When we think of the needs of sexual assault survivors, medical care, both physical and mental, is typically the first thing that comes to mind. Such care is undeniably important, but there is another form of care that is all too easily overlooked: spiritual care.

During my sophomore year, a fellow Swattie sexually assaulted me, and he left me feeling spurned and abandoned by God. Through his actions, he set in motion my hardest spiritual crisis to date.

It is common for victims to begin asking “why?” in the wake of trauma. This question had a particular urgency for me as someone who grew up in a religion that taught me everything had a purpose. Was this mindless suffering part of God’s plan? How could it be?

What God could be so cruel as to demand such pain from God’s own child?

In the aftermath of my assault, as I struggled to understand what had happened to me, the only explanation I found

was that God must be punishing me. Although I was rather inexperienced at the time, I had made out with a number of boys, and I had been increasingly curious about sex.

When the “feelings” came back after the assault, I saw in them the confirmation of my “punishment hypothesis.”

I was so innately depraved, I reasoned, so drawn to sin, that God had to destroy the temptation in my heart. The fact that even a soul-crushing encounter with the dark side of human desire was not enough to turn me away was just proof of how perverse and beyond rescuing I must be.

It was when I came across an article in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) last May that I realized just how wounded my outlook was, and how deeply hurt I had been spiritually.

Asked whether being at a religious, specifically Catholic, institution made it harder to open up about experiences of sexual violation, a brave Notre Dame alumna, Shea Streeter, said

“yes.” She explained, “When there’s no language for yes, there’s no language for no.” I burst into tears upon reading those words because Streeter had articulated what I had been feeling for the past two years.

How could I begin to talk about what happened to me when the Church in which I was raised would have considered these acts wrong in themselves, even if I had consented to them?

I struggled to do so much as name them; just speaking those words felt too shameful.

Shortly after my assault, I was asked if I had been raped.

I said “no” because what I thought of as “sex” had not occurred. I was told I should feel lucky that I was spared that experience, and indeed, I share the asker’s relief. Truly, my heart goes out to those people who have had to endure and process that specific ordeal. Beyond the obvious trauma, I know about the value sometimes invested in perceived sexual “purity,” particularly that of women and (continued on next page)

Swarthmore Peripateo | 12

girls, and the stigma attached to “impurity,” especially in certain truths: (1) It’s hard and will probably keep being hard, but (2) I religious circles. I know how much a notion like “virginity” can need God and the Church in my life. complicate a survivor’s healing.

On one hand, I feel like my particular religious background led Yet, no matter how hard I tried to tell myself that I was “lucky” me to an idealized vision of sex and did not give me the tools I or how I labeled my own experience, I still felt a terrible sense needed to understand the realities of sex, coercion, and the differof loss. I felt like my innocence had been shattered and some- ence between the two. On the other hand, however much I drag thing precious taken from me. I kept telling myself that “it wasn’t my feet, I always feel inexplicably, overwhelmingly at home at even real rape” and “it wasn’t a big deal,” but my body and mind church. Nothing compares to the strength and grace I receive from wouldn’t let it go. I had panic attacks every time I so much as saw the body of Christ, both as a sacrament and as a community. No my assailant’s shadow on our tiny campus. I had restless fighting matter how much I fight with God, even if I stop going to church dreams every night. Everything was a trigger; I felt like I had so or talking to God for a while, I keep coming back. Of course, I much fear that I was bound to drown in it. Even after those more understand that it is not the case for everyone, but I feel deeply apparent symptoms of trauma began to subside, my spirit wouldn’t that the Church is where I am meant to be, even when I am at a let it go. loss to say why. If nothing else, Where was God, I wonI hope my persistence can serve I felt like I was pounding on the door of dered, when I kept saying “no” as a reminder to myself and oththe Church, but no one wanted to hear me ers that perfection belongs only over and over again, but my assailant just kept going? Where to God, and it’s okay to struggle knock. was God when I left my body through faith. and watched from above, paraI am sharing my story belyzed and terrified, as this person I thought liked me hurt me? How cause I want other religious victims or survivors of sexual ascould anyone pretend that this God cared about me? sault to know they are not alone. I am speaking up because I want The very practice of faith made me angry. After all, my as- Christians who think that there are no rapists in their midst or that sailant, like me, was very involved in campus religious life. The sexual violence is an issue that only affects certain kinds of people way he passed for a model Christian and Swattie infuriated me, to realize how different the truth looks. I am breaking the silence especially after I talked to several women with stories like mine. because I want clergy members and religious advisors to see that I learned the hard way that a person’s professed religious identity there are people out there with a tremendous need for healing and could offer no guarantee of that person’s values. to recognize they have a role to play in that process. If Christian I did not think I had a right to turn people who knew both of communities truly want to be the body of Christ, we must care for us against him and did not know where to get the spiritual support our hurting members. If we are not reaching out to religious vicand counseling I so desperately needed. The one person to whom tims of sexual assault, who will?

I tried expressing my distress told me they could not believe me. I Over the past few months, I have been talking to a number of felt abandoned and betrayed by God all over again. victims/survivors of sexual assault who were raised in religious As my perpetrator and I started taking turns attending religious traditions sometimes quite similar to and sometimes rather differevents, and the tension between us became more apparent, we were ent from mine. I have heard similarly heartbreaking stories over both urged to talk it out, forgive each other, and essentially, stop and over again. Of course, our experiences vary. Some people de“disrupting” the religious community. I did not understand why I cide it’s best for them to leave faith communities in which there was made to feel guilty for another person’s actions. I thought God just does not seem to be a place for them. Some stay and struggle, was on the side of justice and fought alongside the weak, but was often quietly. Some have told me that their faith is stronger after it really so? How could God still love him? How could others stand assault than it ever was before. These experiences all warrant reby him? I found Christianity suffocating; I felt like I was pounding spect. I do not pretend to speak on behalf of anyone else here, but I on the door of the Church, but no one wanted to hear me knock. am carrying quite a few people and their stories within me. I hope Over time, with prayer, help, and support, my anger has started that my words will honor them, their pain, and their strength. giving way to forgiveness. Even as I struggled to forgive my asIf you are a victim/survivor of sexual assault, whatever your sailant, I realized that I had been forgiving those people whose challenges, I promise there is hope. If you are religious, and faith actions and reactions compounded my hurt. I came to accept that is one of the pieces of your former self to which you are struggling forgiveness is a process, not a one time thing I should hurry to to hold on, you are not alone. Please know that there are others on check off my list. More concretely, I have had a hard time praying and off campus, myself included, who are suffering and healing the Our Father because of the line “Forgive us our trespasses as with you. r we forgive those who trespass against us,” so I have been saying Quitterie Gounot ‘13 the prayer for another survivor who shares my difficulties, and she does the same for me.

Quitterie is spending a year studying philosophy and law in I am slowly finding peace and healing. I now see that God never Paris, and feels blessed for this oppor tunity to live closer to actually left me, even if it felt that way. Faith is still a struggle her family and learn more about French life. She is thankful to for me, but it has started looking up since I accepted two radical her friends and fellow advocates who inspire her to speak up.

13 | Behold, I Stand at the Door

We are always being haunted by something— an angry spirit, a ghost of a mistake.

We sense it behind us: stalking.

The presence of its eyes lingers on our backs, burrowing deep down beyond muscle and bone, drilling, and chilling the soul.

DE LAS SOMBRAS

By Joy Claire de Aguilar Martinez

It flees to a realm just beyond the ring of light, to the shadowed sphere around street lamps.

We feel it there, crouching in the dark, waiting for us to press deeper into the night.

Its soft footfall behind us is drowned out by the sound of our own steps quickening to the pace of the pounding in our chest.

Or, we pretend it’s something else; it’s only an overstuffed coat hanging in the darkest part of our closets.

And, in our beds too terrified to move, we forget that in only a few steps, with only the flick of our wrist, Light will rush in consume the dark and banish every shadow to Hades.

Photo by Sam Gutierrez.

Swarthmore Peripateo | 14

Photo by Sam Gutierrez.

15 | A Defense of the Argument from Motion

a defense of the

ARGUMENT FROM

MOTION

By Greg Brown

When I was first introduced to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways, I was unimpressed. I was a junior attending Catholic high school, and, at the time, I did not believe in God. Aquinas’ arguments had some intuitive appeal, but there were too many reasons to be skeptical. The universe could simply have had an eternal past, I thought, but Aquinas’ arguments assumed that it had a beginning. Not to mention, the need for things “in motion” to be “moved by another” was hopelessly archaic, for Isaac Newton showed that inertial motion requires no external force. I could dispense with Aquinas’ arguments by simply believing that things have always been in motion and that, since motion is relative to a particular reference frame, there is no difference between motion and rest.

These objections, I now realize, miss the

mark—but perhaps I should back up a bit.

Who was Thomas Aquinas? St. Thomas (1225 – 1274) was one of the most prominent philosophers, not just in the Catholic intellectual tradition, but in all of history.

His project was to systematize Christian thought using the recently recovered works of Aristotle. He is notorious today not for the comprehensive nature of his philosophical system, but for his Five Ways, a set of demonstrations of the existence of God located at the beginning of the sprawling Summa Theologica. The stature and credibility of these arguments has, however, substantially diminished since the time of their writing. Early modern philosophers eschewed classical Aristotelian metaphysics, which were the philosophical medium of the medieval university, for a more (continued on next page)

Swarthmore Peripateo | 16

mechanical conception of the world. David Hume and Immanuel Kant, by some accounts, decisively refuted Aquinas’ Five Ways in the early 18th century. Today, they seem like quaint pieces of history from a simpler and less advanced era, to which New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett need only pay lip service.

As a consequence, some might regard the Catholic Church’s claim that the reality of God can be known through natural reason as more than a little odd.1 Perhaps the dogma is a dated article from a credulous era, but I would disagree. Part of the problem, I will venture, is that Aquinas’ arguments are often presented as though their force (or, perhaps, lack of force) should be obvious. I hope to avoid this sentiment: regardless of the soundness of Aquinas’ argument, some analysis and clarification will be required for any modern reader to understand it. I will argue that Aquinas’ First Way, given a fair assessment, is eminently defensible. I will use the text of Aquinas’ argument to clarify its relevant metaphysical claims and basic structure. I will also try to probe the limited sense in which Aquinas’ argument can contribute to our understanding of God. Aquinas’ First Way, called the argument from motion for reasons which will become clear, was influenced by Aristotle, who first developed it in his Metaphysics. Aquinas writes:

this everyone understands to be God.2

Aquinas’ argument likely seems obscure, so let’s unpack it.

Aquinas repeatedly uses the terms actuality and potentiality. A central thesis of Aquinas’ philosophy is that things in the world are composed of actuality and potentiality (also, act and potency).

These terms are, I think, less abstruse than they sound. One speaks of what something actually is, as opposed to what something has the potential to be. For instance, I hold my hand out and it is actually open, so to speak of something’s actuality is just to speak of its present state of affairs, what it is. To say, then, that my hand has the potential to be closed is simply to speak about what state of affairs it could obtain but is not presently actual. My hand’s potentialities depend on what it is as a hand; a tree does not have an analogous potential to be “closed.”3 Aquinas uses these ideas to formulate his principle of motion (or causality), “Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality.” The first important distinction to make is that for Aquinas, as for Aristotle, motion refers to what a modern reader The first and more manifest way [to know of the existence of would call change, and, as such, is neither strictly Newtonian nor God] is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident relativistic, but refers to a more general phenomenon.4 Returning to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. to the previous example, when I close my hand into a fist, my hand Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for has changed. Local inertial motion was part of that change, but nothing can be in motion except when it is in potentiality to the change was not just inertial motion; there were also changes that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves of a chemical and conformal nature. This is why Aquinas says that inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the “motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from poreduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But tentiality to actuality.” Any change, such as the closing of my hand, nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except is an instance of what was previously possible becoming actual. by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actuSo far, what Aquinas has said is not particularly controversial. ally hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be This Aristotelian characterization of change even has an intuitive actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not ring to it: a change simply is a case of what is transforming into possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality what could have been, a shift from one state of affairs to another. and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different re- There is, however, another clause in Aquinas’ principle of motion. spects. For what is actually Aquinas says that “whatever is hot cannot simultaneously Changes—motions, reductions from poin motion is put in motion by be potentially hot; but it is tency to act—only occur when they are another.” To avoid misundersimultaneously potentially standings, it would be prudent caused. cold. It is therefore imposto translate this as, “whatever is sible that in the same rechanging is changed by anothspect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and er.” This latter formulation will remind us that we are referring to a moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is more general type of change, like the shaping of clay on a pottery in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which wheel, rather than, for instance, a baseball’s being “in motion” as a it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also result of being hit by a bat. Furthermore, changes occur “by somemust needs be put in motion by another, and that by another thing else in act.” In other words, changes—motions, reductions again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there from potency to act—only occur when they are caused. would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; David Hume famously denied this premise, saying, “As all disseeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they tinct ideas are separable from each other, and as the ideas of cause are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only and effect are evidently distinct, ‘twill be easy for us to conceive because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is neces- any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the next, sary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive

17 | A Defense of the Argument from Motion

principle.”5 Hume denies that causes and effects are necessarily connected. First, we should note that the separability of ideas of cause and effect does not quite meet the characterization of change that Aristotle and Aquinas have provided. In formulating the principle of motion, Aquinas does not refer to events. For instance, if one hears a gunshot followed by a scream, then—though we might wonder—it is plausible to say the ideas are separable: the scream could occur without having been caused by the gunshot. But recall the paradigm case of causality in Thomism: the clay on a pottery wheel is shaped because it is acted on by the potter’s fingers. The hands and the clay can be considered as “distinct ideas,” and certainly one could find other means to shape clay, but there is nevertheless a disanalogy from the contingency of the gunshot and the scream. The causal relationship is one of unity: while the hands act on the clay, both of which being separate substances, skepticism about the cause of the change seems less warranted.

But let us grant, for the sake of argument, that Hume’s criticisms are at least relevant in some sense. Hume says that one can always imagine a change6 occurring not by something else in act, but by nothing at all. This seems indisputable. In fact, we regularly observe effects without observing causes. The problem with Hume’s argument is that these observations or imaginings do not themselves imply that any effects lack causes.7 Imagine, for instance, that something wildly spontaneous and implausible occurs: a large stone appears on your desk “out of nowhere.” Rather than suppose that such an event had no cause, you would try find what its cause was. You would likely countenance bizarre and far-fetched explanations before admitting that the stone appeared for no reason.8 In the end, you would likely say, “I just don’t know why it appeared”— not, “It appeared for no reason.” This is not just because, as the Humean might say, our minds have been conditioned to associate cause and effect. The fact is that there is simply no valid inference from an image of a stone’s appearing to the stone’s appearance lacking a cause, since such an image is indeterminate between an apparent lack of cause and an actual lack of cause, and as such tells us nothing about what is really happening.

But does Hume’s argument show that it is possible and logically consistent for an effect to come about without a cause? The motivation here is that, if the negation of the principle can be held without logical contradiction, even without having any example of a genuinely uncaused event from which to draw, then the principle is not necessarily true and need not be accepted. This move—the claim that consistent conceivability implies real possibility—is dubious, however. Aristotle, for instance, may have consistently held that the earth was at the center of the universe, but he was nevertheless wrong on that point. The earth simply is not and could not be at the center of the universe; it’s impossible and would contradict what we now know about the universe. The advance of science, though, isn’t what made it impossible; it was impossible all along, whether or not anyone knew about it. An idea’s conceivability, then, does not entail its real possibility. An imaginable event, even a consistently imaginable event, like an uncaused occurrence, may be nothing but a vacuity, with no clear bearing on an otherwise sound principle.9 Leaving Hume aside, one might object that we already have

Photo by Sam Gutierrez.

Swarthmore Peripateo | 18

examples of uncaused events. Physics’ description of radioactive decay, for example, has ruled out Aquinas’ principle of motion.

Radioactive decay shows that some changes occur randomly. The theory cannot predict when a radioactive atom will emit a particle; it can only give an average rate of decay over time, an isotope’s half-life. Therefore, radioactive decay occurs without a cause. But the conclusion here does not follow, for it depends on an equivocation as to the meaning of “cause.” The principle of motion does not require that changes occur deterministically, since indeterministic events are not necessarily uncaused.10 Radioactive isotopes are not homogeneous substances which, as a brute, inexplicable fact, emit particles at semi-regular intervals. Rather, we know the empirically discovered patterns of radioactive decay to follow from the structure of radioactive atoms—a complex topic, but a matter which does not preclude causality by a long shot. The indeterminacy of a stochastic model for radioactive decay (or similar phenomena) does not show that the phenomena they describe do not have underlying causes. It just reflects the fact that proximately descriptive theories do not need to make reference to causes.

Much more could be said on the principle of causality,11 but for now we can grant it and ask: how does Aquinas get from an Aristotelian understanding of motion to a first mover? Consider the two examples Aquinas offers. The first is the burning of wood; the second, the movement of a staff by a hand. As has been implicit in my treatment so far—and perhaps in contrast to a more modern paradigm of causality—the motions that Aquinas is referring to are both simultaneous and instrumentally dependent. What does this mean? The combustion in a piece of wood is simultaneous to its being acted on by fire, and its doing so depends entirely on the activity of the fire. Similarly, the movement of a staff is simultaneous to the movement of the hand and depends on the movement of the hand in the sense that, without the hand, the staff would not move. Hence, “whatever is in motion is put in motion by another.”

That which is changing changes only because it is being changed by something else.

The requirement that motion be imparted by something else in motion naturally suggests a causal series. Consider, for instance, a stationary line of cardboard boxes on the floor. You push them at one end, and the rest of the boxes move. The last one in the line is moved by the one adjacent to it, that one moved by the one adjacent to it, and so on. While stationary, each box has the potential to move and actually moves only as the box next to it is pushing. The box next to it, then, is “in act.” But that box was also stationary until moved by the box next to it. Such is the case with every box; each is moved by something else that is moving simultaneously. Furthermore, the motion of each is, to repeat, instrumentally dependent on that of the others; the only reason that one box has any the power to move the next is because it is being moved itself. None of the boxes in the series have an intrinsic power to act. For this reason,

19 | A Defense of the Argument from Motion

Aquinas would call such a series essentially ordered. The changes are not just simultaneous to each other but rely on the others’ action.

The causal efficacy of one box is due only to its being acted upon, so its causal efficacy is derived from the previous box.

Perhaps we can now see where Aquinas is going: “If that by which [something in motion] is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand” (emphasis added). Aquinas aims at a contradiction: each element in a series like our cardboard boxes lacks an intrinsic capacity to act; each derives its causal power from the previous box. But if we suppose an infinite chain of causes, simultaneously existing but each having only derived causal efficacy, then there should not be any causal efficacy in the series at all. But this is absurd, for the cardboard boxes do move. So there must be some element which does have intrinsic causal efficacy; call it a first mover.

In order to be first, such a being could not be moved by another. It is a mover which need not move, an agent which can act on others without changing itself. This is Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover.

A metaphor might be helpful: there is an image of a grizzly bear in a mirror. You follow the reflection only to find another mirror, in which the bear is reflected yet again. You continue along a series, finding an image at every step. Each image exists, however, only because there is actually a bear at the end of the series. While each reflection is derived from the actual bear and would go away the instant the bear stepped aside, the bear has its own intrinsic capacity to produce an image.

Returning to the previous example, one might object, of course, that the series of cardboard boxes does not move on its own, someone might say, but it could and does move because I push it: is not man a first mover? The response is that, in a sense, man is indeed a first mover.12 But man is not a first mover in the sense of being an absolute source of non-derivative activity, for man moves because parts of him move other parts, none of which have primary, intrinsic efficacy. Man still cannot act without moving, or changing himself, and so is not a true terminus of an essentially ordered series.

We may also dispense with another common objection, encapsulated by Richard Dawkins. Lumping together Aquinas’ First, Second, and Third Ways, he claims, “All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it.

They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”13 The accusation is one of special pleading: why arbitrarily exempt God from the principle that everything has a cause? But Thomas Aquinas does not make such a claim in the first place. The principle of motion states that every change has a cause. The premise allows that that which does not change (if

such a thing exists) need not have a cause. Further, it is misleading nature is limited: we can know that Pure Act exists, but the nature to say that God has been “invoked,” for while Aquinas does end of Pure Act is puzzling to us—what does it mean for something with, “and this everyone understands to be God,” he is aware that to be purely actual, to lack any potentiality? As such, Aquinas dehe has only shown that a first mover exists; the identity of the first termines many of God’s traditional qualities by way of remotion, mover with God requires further argument, which he offers in the based on what we know He is not, as well as from His effects.

Summa’s subsequent pages.14 Such limitations also require the application of St. Thomas’s It is to such considerations that we now turn. What follows other famous doctrine of analogy. Terms can be predicated univocalfrom the existence of an Unmoved Mover? In the language we’ve ly, equivocally, or analogically. A term is univocal when it is applied been using, unmoved means unable to change, so a principally un- in the same way in separate instances, as when we use green to say movable being, in Thomistic terms, must have no potentialities: it that a leaf is green and a book is green. To use a term equivocally must be purely actual. Aquinas accordingly characterizes the Un- is for uses to lack any common meaning: a rock is hard and my moved Mover as Pure Act. Allast test was hard. To use words ternatively, the Unmoved Mover If the Unmoved Mover were to stop acting analogically is to use them with might be referred to as Subsissimilar but related meanings, tent Being Itself: since it cannot on the world, change would cease, for each as when one says that one has change, it does not just exist but change right now must be caused by the come to see a proof in mathby its nature must exist. Unlike ematics. We mean that we’ve Unmoved Mover right now. those of created things, the Uncome to understand the proof, moved Mover’s essence (or real so see is not being used in the definition, in Scholastic terms) just is existence, for which reason visual, perceptive sense (for the math need not be accompanied Aquinas prefaces his five demonstrations with God’s name as given by visualization), but the use of the term in both cases is related. in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM.”15 Something substantial is preserved through disparate uses.

This may seem superficial, so why else should we believe that Let’s consider a couple of specific cases to see how these printhe Unmoved Mover is the God of Abraham? The argument, of ciples apply. Christians typically hold there to be one true God, but course, does not formally demonstrate that the Christian God ex- might not there be several Unmoved Movers—a unique one for ists. It only claims to show that a being like God exists. By showing each change in the world? We would have committed a quantifier that the Unmoved Mover bears a number of the qualities com- shift fallacy to assume otherwise. The stock example of a quantified monly attributed to God, it might become more reasonable to as- shift fallacy is the inference from “Everyone has a mother” to “Evsociate the two, but we could not in principle reach a level of for- eryone has the same mother.” In Aquinas’ argument, every change mal certainty, and so the argument does not eliminate the necessity leads us to a first cause, but does every change leads us to the same of faith and hope. first cause? This dilemma is not fatal. For two things to be numeriSometimes what is implied is that cosmological arguments, cally distinct, one must possess some attribute that the other lacks. even if they were to succeed, only suffice to show that a minimal- One would need to have some potentiality relative to the other— ist deism is reasonable. Recall though that the Unmoved Mover but if the argument succeeds, then any first cause must not have as it is construed here could not be quite like an Enlightenment any potentiality whatsoever. So any “two” first causes would in fact watchmaker. We used the metaphor of a bear in a mirror: the idea be one: there could be no distinguishing Pure Act from Pure Act. is that if the bear steps aside, the image vanishes. Likewise, the idea Here we employed negative theology: we can’t observe two given is that if the Unmoved Mover were to stop acting on the world, first causes to see if they’re the same, but we can consider what a change would cease, for each change right now must be caused by first cause could not be (lacking) to determine what God is (one). the Unmoved Mover right now—the argument does not allow that What of the doctrine of analogy? Analogy plays a substantial the universe was “set up” at some point in the past and has been role in arguments for those “hallmark” attributes of God: omrunning on its own ever since. The divine attributes are no small nipotence, intelligence, will, and goodness. Such topics require a topic, so here I just hope to demonstrate the general process by thorough ontological account of the attribute in question, and as which they might be established from our conclusions so far. I’ll such cannot be defended at length here. For instance, does our first outline two approaches that are indispensable to Aquinas’ theology. cause have a will, or is it a lifeless cosmic principle? First, one has to The first is negative theology. We do not directly sense God, and know what one means by will, and only then can we discuss wheththe argument certainly has not given us a complete understanding er will could be predicated analogically of the first cause; such a of God. Such is impossible for limited intellects. We can affirm discussion would be a foray into the broad discipline of philosophy some true propositions about God, but our understanding of His of mind. I will sketch the question of goodness as another example.

Swarthmore Peripateo | 20

Both analogical predication and negative theology play into the way in which we call God good. Aquinas held that good is always analogically predicated.16 For instance, what it means for a cat to be “good” is different from what it means for a tree to be “good.” It might be good for a cat to eat healthily and grow muscular, while it would be bad for the cat to lose all of its hair by coming in contact with a nasty chemical. It’s good for a tree to grow—although, its growing manifests itself differently from that of the cat—but it might be necessary for the tree to lose its leaves in the winter.

What is preserved between usages of good is the notion of thriving relative to what a thing is; a cat is good if it succeeds at being a cat, and a tree is good if it succeeds at being a tree.

The issue when considering the question of whether God (as philosophically encountered) is good crops up in the fact that we don’t know what would make God “a good God,” for God’s full nature is ineffable. We know that, however goodness is predicated of God, it must be analogical (for goodness is always analogically predicated). This is where negative theology comes in: a thing (like a cat or a tree) is bad inasmuch as it lacks what it ought to have according to what it is. A cat is bad inasmuch as some injury immobilizes it, but it is, rather, a good for a tree to remain firmly rooted in the ground. But from what we have said before: God is Pure Act, and God has no lacks (or potentialities). As such, it seems like we are constrained to predicate a limitless goodness of God—even if the notion, without the aid of revelation, remains murky.17 This account has been brief—and, no doubt, controversial. It is intended as an example of the role of analogy in determining God’s attributes. There is much more to be said on such topics and others.18 My hope is not to convince, but to spark interest and show that some knowledge of God might be possible by natural reason—as, of course, we should expect if God created us, endowed with intellects, with the purpose of knowing Him. r Endnotes 1. Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2: DS 3004; Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum 6. See also Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. 32-33. Vatican: Libreria Editrice. Vatican 1995.

2. Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, Ia, Q. 2, Art 3, http://www. newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm, last accessed 11/11/13.

3. Oderberg, David, Real Essentialism, ch. 4, New York, NY: Routledge, 2007.

4. Feser, “The medieval principle of motion and the modern principle of inertia,” p. 4-17, in Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, 10, 2012.

5. Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 79f, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1978.

6. Hume is speaking more specifically of things coming into existence, with post-Scholastic thinkers like Leibniz in mind in particular, but one might suppose that his claim aims at change from one state of actuality to another as well.

7. Elizabeth Anscombe, “Hume on causality: introductory” 8. Davies, Brian, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, p.

37-38, London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006.

9. For a critique of modal metaphysics, see Ross, James, Thought

21 | A Defense of the Argument from Motion

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

and World: The Hidden Necessities, ch. 1-3, 8, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

Suppose radioactive decay is indeterministic. Then events can still be caused by radioactive decay. For example, setting aside the considerations specific to the interpretation of quantum physics, the death of Schrodinger’s cat would be caused by a random emission of a particle. Though its death would be indeterministic, it is still caused. But then, it does not seem that indeterminism and acausality are connected in the way they would need to be for such an objection.

Oderberg, David, ‘“Whatever is Changing is Being Changed

by Something Else”: A Reappraisal of Premise One of the First Way’, in J. Cottingham and P. Hacker (eds) Mind, Method and Morality: Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010: 140-64. See also Pruss, Alexander, The Principle of Sufficient Reason, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006, for a consideration of the principle of sufficient reason, which claims that every contingent fact has an explanation.

Immanent locomotion, or self-movement, is the defining, salient property of life for Thomas Aquinas. For a contemporary treatment, see Oderberg, David, ‘Synthetic Life and the Bruteness of Immanent Causation’, in E. Feser (ed.) Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, p. 206-235, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, p. 100-101, London: Bantam, 2006.

Feser, Edward, “The New Atheists and the Cosmological Argument,” p. 154-177, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 37, 2013.

Gilson, Etienne. Elements of Christian Philosophy, New York: Doubleday, 1960.

Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, Ia, Q. 5, Art 1, http://www. newadvent.org/summa/1005.htm, last accessed 11/20/2013.

A closer examination of God’s goodness, with relation to the problem of evil, God’s causality, and analogical predication can be found in Davies, Brian, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil.

Further reading: Feser, Edward, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, Oxford: Oneworld Publishers, 2009. Davies, Brian, Thinking About God, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010.

Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, Ex Fontibus Co., 2012, reprint. Oderberg, David, “The Cosmological Argument,” p. 341-350, in C. Meister and P. Copan (eds) The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, London: Routledge, 2007.

Greg Brown ‘16 Greg is from Durham, CT, and is planning to major in Mathematics. He enjoys reading, hiking, and playing cards.

A Papal Perspective on Community

by Tony Farias Pope Francis’ first sixth months in the Vatican have In the interview, three main themes stand out to me. First, humade waves within Catholic communities and in the mainstream mility is an essential virtue, not only for serving others before yourmedia. As head of the Catholic Church, and the proclaimed direct self, but for being able to value and take pride in the small things successor to Peter, the Pope directs the Catholic flock, bringing that you do and that are done for you. Second, beliefs grow the certain theological, moral, spiritual and social issues to the atten- most and values are strongest in harmonized communities where tion of members of the Catholic Church, as well as to the forefront members work in service of each other. Communities need to of the universal debate on faith. search for common threads in values and beliefs and focus on comFrancis has made much news, in particular, because of his ing together around that common ground. Third, Francis provides unique approach towards religious and non-religious communi- some advice to communities that want to grow. Communities must ties around the world. He has made himself more public than his think critically about what their strongest selling points are and predecessor Benedict XVI, demonstrating an emotional affection then advertise those most strongly at first, tailoring these points and personal touch that might become the distinction of his pa- according to who the potential members are. All of these themes pacy. For example, at World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, he resonated with me as I understand the role of faith in my life. I granted direct interviews on the also think they can provide an flight there, walking among the approach for us to become a Francis provides a road map for those seek- more united Swarthmore, truly crowd and celebrating mass on the beach at the event. He has ing to strengthen both their personal beliefs built around the values of “Civisited many leaders of other vility, Respect and tolerance for and those of the communities they are a faiths to speak with them and difference, Consensus-based part of. according to CNN, has become decision-making, Access, and the most spoken about man on Sustainability,” as President the internet. And, of course, the Chopp defines them.

Pope appears in a “selfie” taken with teenagers at the Vatican, lookHumility is the first step in building communities grounded in ing adorably puzzled into the camera. values, since it can be done by an individual. It is important not just Yet despite all his proximity to the people and his approachable because being humble keeps you from being a holier-than-thou ways, an in-depth, public interview with the Pope did not exist— type or because it keeps one closer to fellow community members, until now. He recently granted his first interview with the Jesuit but because, for Francis, many virtues flow from humility: patience, journal La Civilta Cattolica, which was translated into English by the ability to accept your flaws, and taking pleasure in the small their US counterpart, America. News of the interview made the things. front page of the New York Times and other mainstream media, at Francis exemplifies these virtues himself. When asked, “Who is which point I decided to read the original. In the interview, the Jorge Mario Bergoglio (the Pope’s given name)?” he answers Pope speaks widely of how he sees the Church’s current state and “a sinner ... is the most accurate definition. It is not role, emphasizing the Catholic Church’s mandate of the proclama- a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” tion of “Christian love and salvation, first and foremost.” This, as a According to Francis, being a sinner is integral central Christian value, appears to Francis to be essential in propa- to the condition of being human, even as we gating the message of the Church and building a strong commu- try to escape that condition. To judge oneself nity around shared beliefs. as being above it, or others for being sinners, To me, Francis provides a road map for those seeking to is counterproductive to growing in faith. In strengthen both their personal beliefs and those of the communi- community, we must realize that we will ties of which they are a part. These need not be just Christian be- err, clash with our own beliefs and with liefs, but the beliefs and values shared by a community—Swarth- the beliefs of others, but that it is human more, for example. What does Pope Francis say that can help for us and others to do so.

Swarthmore students, faculty and staff build a stronger value-based The Pope also speaks of the virtue of community? magnanimity, and how it is the grace

23 | A Papal Perspective on Community

that flows from humility. Magnanimity is the ability of being great of mind and heart, which to Francis means the ability to appreciate the small things. Only if we are humble can we do this. As he says, “Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are… That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others.

That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.” As a college student, it is important to “[appreciate] the small things in large horizons.” Personally, I am often eager to go out and make what I think are important, grand contributions to the world. I would like to leave campus and start a business, and tell myself that only then will I have made a difference. Many students and myself occasionally think of Swarthmore as insular, and that a change here won’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. The Swarthmore community becomes secondary, compared to what comes after it. Yet, one of the gifts of faith for building communities is the ability to be magnanimous, liberating oneself from the mindset that certain acts are insignificant or not valued by God. We can make a fundamental difference in a community right here, and should therefore focus on making a difference in our present community. Incorporating this virtue into one’s life gives a continual satisfaction and extra care in the small things one does.

Accomplishing small acts that try to build a community is a virtue in itself. Pope Francis highlights the contributions any individual can make to a community in day-to-day life. In the context of the Catholic Church, he sees community not only as something built by a central authority, but by all the members of the church.

The Pope highlights the theological value of “belonging to a people” and that “in the history of salvation, God has saved a people”.

The work and grace of community make the church holy. The Pope “[sees] the holiness … in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity.

This is for me the common sanctity.”

How can we achieve “common sanctity”? To me, the answer is service.

All of the examples Francis mentions, t h o u g h seemingly individ-

ual, are about someone serving others—the children need the support of the mother, the family the work of the breadwinner, parishioners the work of priests and nuns. Common sanctity flows from service and community­— according to Francis, one does not have to be a priest or have any particular religious affiliation to build it.

As a senior, when I reflect on my time here at Swarthmore, I see moments of both great community and disunity. On average, I think we have fared decently well as a campus community, but it is important that we avoid becoming a forum for exclusively debating the hottest current topics. As fellow students who share a common space, constant debate will tear us apart. Rather, we should all think of the ways of which we can serve each other and other members of the campus community, achieving common sanctity.

At the same time, it is not enough to just pay lip service to the College’s ideas of diversity, inclusion and community—we must actively reflect and ask ourselves what we are doing to fight for these ideals. I believe the Pope’s advice on how to serve the Swarthmore community would be to keep, above an open mind, an open heart to all, and to remember that community builds itself through humble yet magnanimous actions.

Francis’ third piece of advice is on how communities can attract new members or reincorporate members who have left it, so that it can grow. This speaks to the central Christian concepts of forgiveness and understanding. One of the things I appreciate about the Catholic faith is its advocacy on how its community and faith is open to all—the word Catholic itself means “universal”. Francis takes this universality one step further—the Church and all its members should also be charismatic, proselytizing and seek to bring back into communion those who have fallen out of it. The Catholic community should be “the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people.” It is the duty of all Catholics, instead, to “proclaim the Gospel in every street corner.”

Yet the Gospel and Jesus’s teachings are rich and diverse, and so the aspects of them to be highlighted to new members must be proclaimed using the discernment. “It is not necessary ... to speak of [all] the issues all the time”, according to the Pope. Instead, the Pope beckons Catholics to highlight love as the central doctrine of Christianity—all other moral teachings of the Church will follow after this. He uses a metaphor I very much like: “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds... And you have to start from the ground up.” Within the Church, the wounds are misunderstandings within the community, or of the Church’s its values and teachings. Pope Francis claims that what the Catholic Church has to offer—both its community and its teachings—is important to curing these ailments. Yet the cure is not always easy to accept or to understand, and so the Church must selectively discern which teachings should come first, because they are most pressing or easiest to understand.

How can we grow the Swarthmore community, attracting new members and re-engaging those who no longer believe in the val-

The Pope on screen in the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday. Photo by Josselyn Tufino ‘14.

Swarthmore Peripateo | 24

ues the college promotes? By following Francis’ road map—let us focus on common ground first, things that we as a campus can for the most part agree on. I believe values of inclusion and consensusbased decision making are strong enough here that all other values that we strive for will have to be pursued through the lens of those.

Therefore, if we are to uphold inclusion and consensus-based decision making and focus on them first, we cannot divide our campus or take actions destructive to inclusiveness—we need to get better at treating the wounds of exclusion before we move on to the “blood sugars”.

In the end, the interview left me thinking about how I will build a community grounded in values, based on the advice provided by this very wise man. In my life, I have learned that the only way to grow in my convictions is with others—in the words of John Donne, “no man is an island sufficient unto himself ”. Community is really how we achieve a growth in the values that we feel might be

important to us—whatever those might be. Change will not take root until we humble ourselves, find a way to provide service to the community and its beliefs, and seek to keep the community united.

Pope Francis provides a convenient road map on how to do so, one that many and I are deeming not just applicable to Catholics and Christians, but to everyone. r The full interview with Pope Francis can be read online for free at www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview.

Tony Farias ‘14 Tony Farias is a senior Computer Science and Economics major and a great fan of and believer in the Swar thmore community.

FLOWERS OF THE FIELD

by Roy Walker

As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.

Psalm 103:15-16

25 | Flowers of the Field

Reflections on Worship

by Nancy Yeon Joo Kim

As I was preparing to spend my summer and fall abroad, my spiritual life was the last thing on my mind. The closest I got to actually thinking about it was deciding that I wanted to bring both my Korean and English Bibles with me.

Over the summer, I stayed with my aunt in Seoul and rotated among my aunt’s church, friends’ churches, and my uncle’s church.

I didn’t feel the need to settle down, to grow close to people in the church community, or to get involved in activities. I’d be leaving in three months anyway. And, to be frank, it felt kind of nice to be free of any obligation to the church—no church orchestra, no translating sermons, and no need to help with youth group.

The summer passed without much thought about my spiritual life, but with my arrival in Madrid came the inevitable time to face my unconscious, or maybe not so unconscious, effort not to find a church community. Spain is culturally a Catholic country, although only about 20-30% of the population practices the religion. This meant that it was very difficult to find a Protestant church, which, unfortunately, served as a convenient excuse for me to just listen to online sermons in my room. After all, I was spending the day listening to His words, right? But under the surface, I knew that something about this form of isolated worship service wasn’t giving me what I needed spiritually.

A few weeks into my semester here, I had a light bulb moment while flushing out this conflict with one of my friends. Listening to sermons online to fit my schedule and to accommodate my reluctance to search for a church community might have supplied me with spiritual knowledge, but where was my service? What was my role in this one-person service? After all, there is a reason it is called a “worship service.” Before serving my needs, worship is, first and foremost, a form of presenting myself to God and serving Him with others. In fact, the Korean phrase for “going to worship, “예배드리러 가다” (yae-bae-deu-ri-ruh gah-dah), literally means “going to give service.” Then I realized that when I “give service,” it should not be based on my convenience. Listening to a sermon in the evening because the flea market happened to open at the same time as the morning service does not follow the spirit of giving service.

Humbled by this realization, I asked around, and it turned out that the church that a friend had attended during her time abroad was two doors down from my house! That Sunday, I walked over to the church, entered, and was welcomed. I sat down near the front and soon the praise started. Most of the songs were new to me, and

it was strange praising in Spanish. Nonetheless, I was immersed in the message of the lyrics, because I had to concentrate to understand their meaning. It was refreshing to not just sing the words without thinking about the lyrics, which is what often happens when I sing songs in English. Then, the last song came on, and I still remember the emotion that filled my heart as we sang “You’re Beautiful” by Phil Wickham in Spanish. I was singing one of my favorite praise songs in a foreign country and in a foreign language with people from all over the world, praising the beauty of the one and the same God! That feeling...words are not adequate to describe it, but the least I can say is that it was incredible, amazing, and marvelous. In His love, God had provided a place of worship for me. I only had to set aside my laziness and desire to serve my own needs in order to see it.

Then I realized: worship (or “giving service”) does not necessarily mean that you have to literally be serving during church by teaching in Sunday school or being in the praise team. You can serve in a metaphorical sense as well: the giving of service involves giving of yourself to become one with the community to share how amazing God is through praise. All week, God reaches out to enter my room, my house, my school, and all other parts of my life.

When I go to church on Sundays, I symbolically enter His house.

Attending a worship service is a way to remind myself that He deserves all of me.

I still have some time left in Spain and have no idea where my life will take me next, but even in my fears and worries about my future, I can pray. I pray that I will always remember not only how God prepared a way for me and how he prepared people in my life to support and guide me, but also that He will continue to do so.

He goes many, many steps ahead of me to prepare a way that is good. This is why I am excited to share my praise with others and to join others in “giving service” to the loving Father. r

Nancy Yeon Joo Kim ‘14 Nancy is a special major in Literary Translation who is studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. She has been away from home for almost seven months, and while she has discovered how much she loves traveling, she can’t wait to return home and to Swat.

Swarthmore Peripateo | 26

Abundant Life, Abundant Love, and the

Empty Tomb

by Nathan Scalise What do you think of when you see a cross? The cross is the most ubiquitous symbol of the church and one of the most recognizable images in the world. It’s so common that I sometimes wonder if the cross’s origin as a means of execution has been forgotten, or at least overlooked. It was the electric chair of Ancient Rome, an instrument designed with precisely one purpose: death.

Just substitute “electric chair” (or simply “chair” if you have to make the syllables work) everywhere that the cross is mentioned in discussions of Christianity, and you’ll get the sense of how odd this feels. Next time you see someone with a cross on a necklace, think of how strange it would be to see an electric chair in its place.

When I hear people sketch out the story of salvation, the cross is often the climax, and the resurrection almost feels like a denouement.

Within Christianity, it only takes a look at a hymnal or a list of praise and worship songs to give you a sense of how often the cross is mentioned. I did a quick count in the index of the hymnal used by both my home church and the church I attend while at Swarthmore (The Celebration Hymnal) and under the heading “Christ: Atonement, Crucifixion, Suffering and Death,” there were 66 hymns. Under “Christ, His Resurrection,” there were only 22.

The fact that there were three times as many entries in the former category says something.

Looking at the story of Jesus’ life as it is presented in the Gospels, most of it tells of him teaching, healing and generally interacting with people. He does miracles, feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and angers the religious and political authorities. Then, in the space of just a few chapters, those authorities have him arrested, crucified, and just as quickly, his tomb is found empty. He appears to his apostles and several other followers, and finally, the resurrected Christ ascends to heaven.

There are two main questions that I want us to wrestle with.

First, what is emphasized at the cross and the empty tomb respectively? Secondly, how does focusing on one or the other affect faith?

27 | Abundant Life, Abundant Love, and the Empty Tomb

At the cross, the focus is on three things: Christ’s love, human sin, and Christ’s suffering. Christ’s death on the cross is necessary because of human sin, possible because of Christ’s love and made complete through Christ’s suffering. Furthermore, the magnitude of God’s love is demonstrated by the magnitude of His suffering.

That suffering is a large part of what makes the cross so powerful. The idea that God understands human suffering in an experiential way can be a tremendous source of strength when one is suffering.

There’s a significant portion of Christian theology that’s devoted to explaining both why the cross is necessary and why God would be willing to be crucified. Explanations of why it’s necessary are generally focused on the Law, as laid out in the first five books of the Bible1. Taking the rules laid out in these books as binding for all humans and understanding “sin” to be the breaking of the Law, a legal argument for human guilt is formed. The Apostle Paul outlines the argument in Romans: “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”2 and “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”3 In other words, all people have sinned and sin implies death as a necessary consequence. As a result, guilt and death are necessarily tied into discussions of the cross, which is the means through which the legal penalty is satisfied. Second, the explanation of why it’s possible focuses on the utterly incomprehensible nature of God’s love.

As the scriptures referenced above show, in a Christian framework, humans are guilty of sin. More accurately, we’re guilty, but we’re pardoned. And, as the second half of Romans 6:23 explains, we’re pardoned because of God’s love as shown through Christ.

Guilt is an extremely powerful emotion; think of a time that someone tried to persuade you with some sort of a guilt-trip and the effect that it had. It’s not easy to move forward in life while constantly being reminded of one’s guilt. Moreover, the fact that God’s love is incomprehensible makes trying to understand its magnitude a really mind-bending exercise. That attempt at comprehension can lead to a deep sense of awe and worship and reverence. It can be wonderful, but it can also be a really easy place to get stuck. Jesus told the disciples to “Love one another as I have loved you.”4 The call on the disciples is not just to ponder how Christ has loved, but

rather to show that love to people. It’s a twofold call to contemplation and action.

Lastly, the cross is easier to comprehend than the resurrection.

People who accept the historical existence of Christ generally don’t deny that he was crucified—the argument is over what happened next. Additionally, thinking about death and what may or may not happen afterwards is uncomfortable and often painful. Furthermore, the idea that something or someone could return from the dead, that death could be defeated is completely and utterly unheard of. I’ll admit to the fact, from a strictly rational perspective, it’s rather crazy. More accurately, it’s humanly impossible. I can’t explain the “how” of the resurrection as anything other than an example of the omnipotence of God. But, that’s part of what makes the resurrection important.

Counting the number of fatalities in one of the copies of the New York Times floating around campus will give a rough sense of the amount of physical death that occurs in the world daily. Moving to a more metaphorical death, the world is full of brokenness: relationships, people, governments and all sorts of societal systems.

Death is, essentially, the ultimate form of brokenness. Different parts of the physical body stop working and when enough essential parts have broken for the whole body to stop working, what we think of as death occurs. Physically, you can be alive and still have lots of things inside you that are in need of healing. The same is true spiritually and emotionally. We don’t have to have reached the final stage of brokenness to need to be put back together. We can be partly or even mostly dead without being completely dead, and in those states we still require some measure of resurrection to be fully alive.

An empty tomb is, in and of itself, a strange object. Typically, Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantan empty grave is waiting for a dead body; it’s a place of sadness. ly.”5 So what does “abundant life” really mean? “Abundant” means Tombs are places of death, and thus, even at the empty tomb, death marked by great plenty or amply supplied (Merriam-Webster onis acknowledged. Yet, in contemplating the empty tomb, death is line). We supply ourselves with things that we need, so abundance is secondary to life. In Christian circles, it’s often said that Christ connected to having our needs more than met. Acknowledging the was “born to die,” and there’s truth in that. However, it is similar connection between abundance and need is an important step in to describing a square as a rectangle—while it’s technically accu- understanding what “abundant life” means and looks like. If Christ rate, it omits the square’s most remarkable trait. Christ was born had come with “abundant food,” as he does on a few occasions to die, but He was born to dein the Gospels, (Mark 6:30-44, feat death. While death gets its Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 9:10It fills that space with so much life that the place at the empty tomb, it’s im17, John 6:1-14; Mark 8:1-10, mediately secondary because the space can no longer contain it, the space Matthew 15:32-39) then he’d tomb’s not supposed to be empty bring so much food that everyoverflows and that abundant life spills out and the obvious question, “Why one’s needs were met, and then into the world, in the same way that Christ is it empty?” is more salient than some. Abundance is more than the fact that it’s a tomb. A tomb walked out of the grave and into the world. enough, in fact, it’s so much is empty because the person to that it overflows. As Jesus says whom it belongs is alive. Usually, in Luke 6:15, “Out of the abunthis is because the person hasn’t died yet. In Christ’s case, it’s be- dance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Therefore, the “abundant cause he’s been resurrected. The tomb had been filled, but now it’s life” that Christ brings is a life of joy—“I have said these things empty, and this empty tomb is a place of joy, not sadness. to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete”6—and of peace—“the peace of God, which surpasses At the empty tomb, I want to ask the same two questions as at all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ the cross—why is it necessary, and why is it possible?

Jesus”7—that is so deep and plentiful that it spills over out of us Dealing with the second question first, the resurrection is a mir- and is shared with others. Abundant life does exactly what Christ acle. It’s an example of the supreme power of God. Just as God’s did at the tomb. It enters into a space that is dead and then it fills love is incomprehensible, so is His power, and while power is less it with life. But it doesn’t just fill it with life. It fills that space with personal than love, contemplating it brings a different but roughly so much life that the space can no longer contain it. The space analogous set of potential risks and benefits. It can lead to a won- overflows and that abundant life spills out into the world, in the derful sense of who God is, but it can also lead to getting stuck same way that Christ walked out of the grave and into the world. in a world of thought divorced from action. Omnipotence means Overflowing requires being filled first, and being filled with life that God can make things like the resurrection happen. Personally, requires healing the things that are broken and resurrecting the I take the resurrection as an example of what omnipotence really things that are dead. Abundant life is built on resurrection. We means, and, since I believe in an omnipotent God, I find this to be live in and through Christ, and He lives because of the resurrecsufficient. That’s not to say that I don’t wonder how God actually tion. But that fact can easily be missed in all of the discussion of did it, but the fact that I don’t know how he did it doesn’t make it sin, suffering and death that surrounds the cross. The story doesn’t any less possible. end on Good Friday; in fact, it doesn’t even end on Easter Sunday.

For me, the necessity of the empty tomb is somewhat more Death gets its moment, but life gets the last word, and it’s still self-evident than the necessity of the cross. We want life, but we speaking. Resurrection isn’t something that just happened once; it’s live in a world that is full of death, both literal and figurative. something that Christ makes possible for everyone to experience.

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I want to be a part of a Christianity that, instead of telling people how Christ died, shows how he lived; that ministers to the sick, the hungry, the homeless and to the modern day equivalents of tax collectors and Pharisees, that brings resurrection and abundant life into the places inside ourselves, in our lives and in a world that is full of brokenness. I want to be a part of a Christianity that practices abundant life, that spreads a message of love, justice, hope and eternal life, and that loves, works for justice, hopes, and lives in a way that—though it is a shadow of eternal life—makes me want to experience the real thing. That’s something worth examining, worth questioning and worth living for—now excuse me as I try to find a way to put an empty tomb on a necklace. r Endnotes 1. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

2. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Romans 3:23). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

3. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Romans 6:23). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

4. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 ( John 13:34-35) Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

5. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 ( John 10:10). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

6. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 ( Jn 15:11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

7. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Php 4:7). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Nathan Scalise ‘16 Nathan is from Brewster, MA and is currently searching for the 25th hour of the day.

When not running or eating, he basically lives in the Lang Music Building.

Sam Gutierrez ‘15 Josh Gregory ‘15 Josh, from Philadelphia, PA, is an Honors Religion major. He is an avid pilgrim.

Hi, my name is Sam. You can find me either staring blankly at a window or daydreaming my time away.

Find their piece on page 10 Joy Claire de Aguilar Martinez ‘16

CONTRIBUTORS & STAFF

Meghan Huang ‘14 Meghan is a Psychology major from Elkins Park, PA. Her favorite things include raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, warm woolen mittens, and puppies.

Yared Portillo ‘15 Yared is a Latin American Studies special major from Santa Maria, CA. She previously wanted to special major in adventuring. This is her sentimiento face.

Joy is mostly from the Outer Banks of Nor th Carolina, and will soon be a special major in English Education. She enjoys a lot of things that are the color blue, like the ocean and blueberries. She one day hopes to retire in Hobbiton.

Find their piece on page 26

Michael Superdock ‘15 Michael is from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and he plans to major in Computer Science.

He takes pleasure in the finer things in life, like bird watching and fireside chats.

Roy Walker ‘16 Roy is an Economics major with a minor in Statistics from York, Pennsylvania.

He enjoys country music, random spor ts, and drawing flowers.

Find their piece on page 25

Kathryn Wu ‘14 Kathryn is a penguin-loving biology enthusiast from Torrance, California. She is often spotted climbing trees, falling asleep, or singing Disney songs.

29 | Abundant Life, Abundant Love, and the Empty Tomb | Peripateo Contributors and Staff

Selah.

Pause. Breathe. Think of that.

May the path rise to meet you and surround you with good yet to be done.

May your hands grasp onto love and establish peace.

And when you are weary, may the Spirit overflow its banks and bathe your feet in grace.

Selah

‫סֶלָה‬

‫סֶלָה‬