I have not yet read David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite, though I have read his small book on theodicy and various articles of his, many of which can be accessed for free on www.firstthings.com. I find him to be an exhilarating writer and am often carried away by the beauty of his prose. Until now, however, I had the same concerns over his theological orientation as I have over Milbanks’. I was therefore extremely pleased to see him address these outright in the latest issue of New Blackfriars.
He responds to three evaluations of his work and it is his response to James K. A. Smith that I was most interested in. He contends that Smith has misread his intentions in The Beauty of the Infinite, and aligned him far too much with ‘Yale School’ tendencies which he had expressed dissatisfaction with but had perhaps not sufficiently distinguished his position from. Thus he flat out asserts that:
In my haste to dismiss the Enlightenment myth of a "pure reason," neutrally available to every reflective mind, undetermined by the particularities of language or culture, I seem not to have made it sufficiently clear that I was by no means calling into question the power of natural reason to discern many truths, to clarify its understanding of those truths, and to inform and receive nourishment from reasoned debate and reflection.
I have to say that this was music to my ears, coming as I do from a Roman Catholic perspective. I fully agree that there is no such thing as a “pure reason” but it seems to me that the rejection of this should not entail a rejection of the possibility of the human mind ‘naturally’ attaining truth. I think it’s all the more important for Catholics to remember that this is not a negotiable aspect of their faith.
Hart continues in the same vein when speaking of God‘s revelation:
He reveals himself in nature, in human reason, in human culture, in human religions: always now through a veil of sin and death, perhaps, but never unavailingly.
Hart, however, does not overstate the role of reason and his view of the analogia entis remains firmly within that established in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council wherein it was stated that:
For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.
This was the view followed by Przywara and, following him, Balthasar.
Thus Hart remarks (perhaps rhetorically overstating the case in my view) that:
Still, all that said, I grant that we are talking about a very great difference of degree indeed—as great, perhaps, as the difference between the self-love of the suicide and the self-love of the saint (who loves himself wholly and only in God).
On a separate note, I must say that I was also very pleased when Hart, in the best tradition of 1 Cor 15:14, called himself an “unregenerate primitive” regarding the resurrection, unequivocally asserting that the resurrection only makes sense if it is understood as a literally historical event occurring after the crucifixion. I am of the same opinion and must confess myself completely befuddled as to what some theologians are really saying when it comes to the resurrection (Rahner in The Foundations of Christian Faith springs to mind). I often find myself exasperated at such equivocations and just want them to say outright whether they believe the resurrection really occurred in history.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
D.B. Hart on Reason
I have not yet read David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite, though I have read his small book on theodicy and various articles of his, many of which can be accessed for free on www.firstthings.com. I find him to be an exhilarating writer and am often carried away by the beauty of his prose. Until now, however, I had the same concerns over his theological orientation as I have over Milbanks’. I was therefore extremely pleased to see him address these outright in the latest issue of New Blackfriars.
He responds to three evaluations of his work and it is his response to James K. A. Smith that I was most interested in. He contends that Smith has misread his intentions in The Beauty of the Infinite, and aligned him far too much with ‘Yale School’ tendencies which he had expressed dissatisfaction with but had perhaps not sufficiently distinguished his position from. Thus he flat out asserts that:
In my haste to dismiss the Enlightenment myth of a "pure reason," neutrally available to every reflective mind, undetermined by the particularities of language or culture, I seem not to have made it sufficiently clear that I was by no means calling into question the power of natural reason to discern many truths, to clarify its understanding of those truths, and to inform and receive nourishment from reasoned debate and reflection.
I have to say that this was music to my ears, coming as I do from a Roman Catholic perspective. I fully agree that there is no such thing as a “pure reason” but it seems to me that the rejection of this should not entail a rejection of the possibility of the human mind ‘naturally’ attaining truth. I think it’s all the more important for Catholics to remember that this is not a negotiable aspect of their faith.
Hart continues in the same vein when speaking of God‘s revelation:
He reveals himself in nature, in human reason, in human culture, in human religions: always now through a veil of sin and death, perhaps, but never unavailingly.
Hart, however, does not overstate the role of reason and his view of the analogia entis remains firmly within that established in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council wherein it was stated that:
For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.
This was the view followed by Przywara and, following him, Balthasar.
Thus Hart remarks (perhaps rhetorically overstating the case in my view) that:
Still, all that said, I grant that we are talking about a very great difference of degree indeed—as great, perhaps, as the difference between the self-love of the suicide and the self-love of the saint (who loves himself wholly and only in God).
On a separate note, I must say that I was also very pleased when Hart, in the best tradition of 1 Cor 15:14, called himself an “unregenerate primitive” regarding the resurrection, unequivocally asserting that the resurrection only makes sense if it is understood as a literally historical event occurring after the crucifixion. I am of the same opinion and must confess myself completely befuddled as to what some theologians are really saying when it comes to the resurrection (Rahner in The Foundations of Christian Faith springs to mind). I often find myself exasperated at such equivocations and just want them to say outright whether they believe the resurrection really occurred in history.
He responds to three evaluations of his work and it is his response to James K. A. Smith that I was most interested in. He contends that Smith has misread his intentions in The Beauty of the Infinite, and aligned him far too much with ‘Yale School’ tendencies which he had expressed dissatisfaction with but had perhaps not sufficiently distinguished his position from. Thus he flat out asserts that:
In my haste to dismiss the Enlightenment myth of a "pure reason," neutrally available to every reflective mind, undetermined by the particularities of language or culture, I seem not to have made it sufficiently clear that I was by no means calling into question the power of natural reason to discern many truths, to clarify its understanding of those truths, and to inform and receive nourishment from reasoned debate and reflection.
I have to say that this was music to my ears, coming as I do from a Roman Catholic perspective. I fully agree that there is no such thing as a “pure reason” but it seems to me that the rejection of this should not entail a rejection of the possibility of the human mind ‘naturally’ attaining truth. I think it’s all the more important for Catholics to remember that this is not a negotiable aspect of their faith.
Hart continues in the same vein when speaking of God‘s revelation:
He reveals himself in nature, in human reason, in human culture, in human religions: always now through a veil of sin and death, perhaps, but never unavailingly.
Hart, however, does not overstate the role of reason and his view of the analogia entis remains firmly within that established in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council wherein it was stated that:
For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.
This was the view followed by Przywara and, following him, Balthasar.
Thus Hart remarks (perhaps rhetorically overstating the case in my view) that:
Still, all that said, I grant that we are talking about a very great difference of degree indeed—as great, perhaps, as the difference between the self-love of the suicide and the self-love of the saint (who loves himself wholly and only in God).
On a separate note, I must say that I was also very pleased when Hart, in the best tradition of 1 Cor 15:14, called himself an “unregenerate primitive” regarding the resurrection, unequivocally asserting that the resurrection only makes sense if it is understood as a literally historical event occurring after the crucifixion. I am of the same opinion and must confess myself completely befuddled as to what some theologians are really saying when it comes to the resurrection (Rahner in The Foundations of Christian Faith springs to mind). I often find myself exasperated at such equivocations and just want them to say outright whether they believe the resurrection really occurred in history.
2 comments:
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Brendan Sammon said...
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David,
Nicely said. I too enjoy reading Hart's prose, which flows like a river of fine wine.
Still, as I'm sure you'll notice when you read his brilliant Beauty of the Infinite, he does have a tendency to spew forth streams of vinegar, that reduce a thinker to Hart's own judgments rather than treating them generously and on their own terms (cf. his treatment of Lash in the section entitled Salvation).
I entirely agree with you on the resurrection matter, and can't imagine it being anything but a real, physical, extra-mental encounter. I see it terms of Desmond's ontology: as the fullest of God's self-disclosure, the resurrection ruptures every category, even that of 'experience' and 'historical experience'. Thus, it wasn't so much a person to person encounter, as it was a person to over-flowing-person encounter. As the overfullness of personhood, the risen Christ is never exhuasted by one mode of interpeting it, which does not mean every interpretation is valid - the rejection of a real, extra-mental resurrection must itself be rejected since it assumes bad faith in the apostles, and an ungrounded view of human nature. But I do see the resurrection as a fullness that invites a plurality of valid interpretations.
I guess this is why I don't think we can rule out the kind of Kantian-Heideggarian interpretation attempted by Rahner, who, like Kant is trying to understand how the event of the resurrection effects the a priori conditions of knowledge, which for Rahner is also our being. Still, I'll have to go back to the Foundations and bear in mind your remarks.
Thanks for your piece. -
September 6, 2007 at 1:04 AM
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DJW said...
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Hi,
Interestingly enough, Hart acknowledges in the same article that he has on occasion overstepped the bounds of charity and has been needlessly polemical. He also, however, defends precisely his treatment of Lash against Gerard Loughlin's complaints. And he also reiterates that he nowhere in the book argues for a "peaceful rhetoric" which ought always and everywhere to be inoffensive. Still, it's comforting to see this sort of mea culpa from him over this issue as I've often seen him attacked as being extremely arrogant (even in person, although I'm unable to judge that for myself). His tone in his responses to his critics is extremely charitable, even deferential.
As for the issue of the Resurrection, I agree with to a point with those who argue that it cannot be viewed as a 'historical' event if by that they take it to mean just something else that happened to occur in the life of Jesus (and the entire world). Of course, the resurrection is a 'one-of-a-kind' event which will constantly elude our attempts to grasp its significance in its entirety but I'm still uneasy about quite what theologians are arguing when they say the resurrection wasn't historical and all too often they are somewhat reductionist views (i.e. Schillebeecx at one point seems to reduce it to 'an experience of forgiveness' on the part of the disciples). You make a very good point about the possibility of different interpretations which cannot exhaust its meaning and thus an experience of forgiveness was an element, but not the only one. I think Marion's notion of a "saturated phenomenon" is also of use here (perhaps quite similar to Desmond's view) - the resurrection is an event which confounds our expectations and exceeds that which we are able to conceptualise.
As for Rahner, I don't mean to suggest that his approach can't be helpful it's just I basically don't know what he's saying! I just appreciate less equivocal explanations, I guess, and if a theologian is going to advance some particular interpretation I think he should do the reader the service of setting out clearly whether he believes the resurrection occurred as a real encounter with the risen Jesus. -
September 6, 2007 at 8:55 AM
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2 comments:
David,
Nicely said. I too enjoy reading Hart's prose, which flows like a river of fine wine.
Still, as I'm sure you'll notice when you read his brilliant Beauty of the Infinite, he does have a tendency to spew forth streams of vinegar, that reduce a thinker to Hart's own judgments rather than treating them generously and on their own terms (cf. his treatment of Lash in the section entitled Salvation).
I entirely agree with you on the resurrection matter, and can't imagine it being anything but a real, physical, extra-mental encounter. I see it terms of Desmond's ontology: as the fullest of God's self-disclosure, the resurrection ruptures every category, even that of 'experience' and 'historical experience'. Thus, it wasn't so much a person to person encounter, as it was a person to over-flowing-person encounter. As the overfullness of personhood, the risen Christ is never exhuasted by one mode of interpeting it, which does not mean every interpretation is valid - the rejection of a real, extra-mental resurrection must itself be rejected since it assumes bad faith in the apostles, and an ungrounded view of human nature. But I do see the resurrection as a fullness that invites a plurality of valid interpretations.
I guess this is why I don't think we can rule out the kind of Kantian-Heideggarian interpretation attempted by Rahner, who, like Kant is trying to understand how the event of the resurrection effects the a priori conditions of knowledge, which for Rahner is also our being. Still, I'll have to go back to the Foundations and bear in mind your remarks.
Thanks for your piece.
Hi,
Interestingly enough, Hart acknowledges in the same article that he has on occasion overstepped the bounds of charity and has been needlessly polemical. He also, however, defends precisely his treatment of Lash against Gerard Loughlin's complaints. And he also reiterates that he nowhere in the book argues for a "peaceful rhetoric" which ought always and everywhere to be inoffensive. Still, it's comforting to see this sort of mea culpa from him over this issue as I've often seen him attacked as being extremely arrogant (even in person, although I'm unable to judge that for myself). His tone in his responses to his critics is extremely charitable, even deferential.
As for the issue of the Resurrection, I agree with to a point with those who argue that it cannot be viewed as a 'historical' event if by that they take it to mean just something else that happened to occur in the life of Jesus (and the entire world). Of course, the resurrection is a 'one-of-a-kind' event which will constantly elude our attempts to grasp its significance in its entirety but I'm still uneasy about quite what theologians are arguing when they say the resurrection wasn't historical and all too often they are somewhat reductionist views (i.e. Schillebeecx at one point seems to reduce it to 'an experience of forgiveness' on the part of the disciples). You make a very good point about the possibility of different interpretations which cannot exhaust its meaning and thus an experience of forgiveness was an element, but not the only one. I think Marion's notion of a "saturated phenomenon" is also of use here (perhaps quite similar to Desmond's view) - the resurrection is an event which confounds our expectations and exceeds that which we are able to conceptualise.
As for Rahner, I don't mean to suggest that his approach can't be helpful it's just I basically don't know what he's saying! I just appreciate less equivocal explanations, I guess, and if a theologian is going to advance some particular interpretation I think he should do the reader the service of setting out clearly whether he believes the resurrection occurred as a real encounter with the risen Jesus.
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