Shanks on the Intellectual Vocation

I just started reading Andrew Shanks's _The Other Calling: Theology, Intellectual Vocation and Truth_. It's excellent, so far! Shanks tries to work out what it would mean to see a "priesthood of all intellectuals" at work in the world. This may sound condescending or philosopher-kingish, but it's the opposite, as the paragraph below indicates:

As a priest, I am an intellectual forever seeking to relate intelligently, and so far as possible also intelligibly, to the very deepest concerns of a largely non-intellectual community. Or let us put it in more positive fashion: what term is there, untained, by condescension, for those who are not intellectuals? Although it is cumberson, let us perhaps say: 'the sal of the earth' - this at least has the merit of being biblical (Matthew 5:13). It is my responsibility to think not only on my own behalf - and not only on behalf of those to whom I am united by a shared education - but rather, in the most rooted and genuinely responsive way, as a representative of the whole prayer community to which I belong; and therefore in the most open, soul-searching communion with the salt of the earth. I am meant to help the members of that community, in the most all-inclusive fashion, poetically articulate their very deepest hopes, fears, regrets and resolutions for the future, in teh face of the highest truth we know, corporately reverenced as sacred. And so, in principle, my job is to be a solidarity builder, helping draw intellectuals and others, the salt of the earth, together into a real communion. That is to say: a communion bound together on the basis of an infinite aspiration to moral seriousness; an infinite demand for true self-questioning thoughtfulness, first of all in the sense of kindness; a maximally attentive liturgical appropriation of the corporate past.

This is no small task, but certainly worthwhile! I'd love to become more adept at the sort of "poetic articulation" Shanks describes, not least because I'd be able then to demonstrate that what I'm doing in attending grad school is actually important--not just to me, but to the church as well.

Oakes on Pure Nature

Edward Oakes, writing on recent discussions within the Catholic Church on limbo, has a very helpful synopsis of the debate concerning human nature, in which Henri de Lubac was a chief participant. This synopsis came a little late for me, since I was introduced to the topic through John Milbank's The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural, which I hardly understood when I first read it last Christmas--an appropriate time to read a book on the relationship between grace and human nature. (I also picked up a copy of one of Lubac's key works on the subject, The Mystery of the Supernatural, at Loome a couple weeks ago.) So, here's Oakes:

"Parallel to this debate on limbo was another one concerning “pure nature.” If we grant that God created us all with a desire for union with him, does that not imply an “obligation” on his part to grant us the fulfillment of that desire, since he created us for union with him? But does that “obligation” on God’s part not in turn undermine the concept of the gratuity of grace, which says that God is under no obligation to grant what is freely his to give? Hence the concept of “pure nature,” which was, as everyone conceded, a purely theoretical distinction, made solely to guard the concept of gratuitous grace. But, as far as de facto creation went, Augustine himself says, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” And does not Thomas Aquinas say that “every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine substance” (Summa Contra Gentiles III, 3)?

That of course is only one sentence from the vast sea of Thomas’ writings, and many other Thomists dispute the point, citing other texts. I cannot take a position on that debate here. All I want to say is that if Henri de Lubac is right in his book The Mystery of the Supernatural, then this conclusion inexorably follows:

It is said that a universe might have existed in which man, though without necessarily excluding any other desire, would have his rational ambitions limited to some lower, purely human, beatitude. Certainly I do not deny it. But having said that, one is obliged to admit—indeed one is automatically affirming—that in our world as it is this is not the case. . . . [Thus] the “desire to see God” cannot be permanently frustrated without an essential suffering. To deny this is to undermine my entire Credo. For is not this, in effect, the definition of the “pain of the damned”? And consequently—at least in appearance—a good and just God could hardly frustrate me, unless I, through my own fault, turn away from him by choice. The infinite importance of the desire implanted in me by my Creator is what constitutes the infinite importance of the drama of human existence.

This is hardly the place to resolve this extremely complex debate. I only wish to point out how many theological presuppositions come into play when theologians discuss the Eschaton in its relation to the sacraments, grace, free will, and sin (both original and personal)."

Narration and the Church

As the church, we must “realize that reality is about narration and that we must fully engage in the process of narrating our story in Christ passed down from the apostles in the church until he comes.

“Our relation to the world isn’t to assume a superior position over other narratives but to enter alongside and allow the extension of our Narrative to engage the alternate worlds and their narratives until the eschaton.”

So says David Fitch at the church and postmodern culture. What I like about these paragraphs is they already begin to practice what they preach: our narrative engages “the alternate worlds and their narratives,” not simply “the alternate worldviews and their narratives.” In other words, the way we narrate the world truly affects our interaction with the world itself. Our ideas matter, because they fuel our actions. If we believe the Christian narrative of a loving peace that has overcome (in part, though one day in full) the world’s violence, our interactions with other narratives will be formed by that same loving peace.

What do such interactions founded upon belief in a fundamental peace look like? First, I think they exhibit a quickness to actively listen, to fully understand what another person is saying and why they are saying it. Second, I think they exhibit a generous of spirit that seeks the good, rather than the questionable or heterodox, in what the other person says. Finally, they seek to embrace embrace that good and seek ways to show how Christ is himself the source and fulfillment of that goodness.