On the Beauty of Human Relationships, Cultures, and States

Humans are, by their nature, social creatures. We are created to be in relation with other people; from our birth, we are dependent upon our family in order to actualize our potential; as we grow and develop relationships with other people, we truly find out who we are in ourselves. A person is a relational entity who can only fully express themselves, can only be themselves, when they are in communion with an other; they get to know themselves in that act of communion, when they find themselves in a participated unity with an other. They find themselves to be neither entirely different from that other, because they do not exist in total isolation from that other, and yet not identical to the other; the two are differentiated from each other not only according to how they relate to each other, but also in how they relate to the world at large (an experience they then share with one another).

We find Holy Scripture indicating this truth in many ways; for example, in its rich creation myths. “It is not good that man should be alone,” (Genesis 2:18). After making Adam, God saw that he needed a companion, someone Adam could relate to on the same ontological level. “So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man,” (Genesis 2:21-22). Eve, the first woman, comes out of Adam; she is one with Adam, and yet different, a help-mate sharing in Adam’s stewardship over the earth.

Why does our true personal nature reveal itself only in a proper communal relationship with others? Scripture again indicates the answer. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,” (Genesis 1:26). Humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, but what exactly do we see God to be like? God is Trinity, a oneness in expressed in three persons, three relational entities which are united in perfect communion and yet express themselves in three distinct manners. Because we are in the image and likeness of God, there is a fittingness for the incarnation, because humanity unites with its prototype. But there is more to this. “The ‘image and likeness’ of God in man implies, not only an openness of man toward God, but also a function and task of man in the whole of creation,” John Meyendorff. Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983), 140. We are called to be like God, to be in relational unity with the rest of humanity, to create the social bonds necessary for this unity to exist. Communion, and not isolation, is necessary in order to express the fullness of our human potential, even as in the Trinity it is through the communion and unity of the divine persons their reality is realized.

Family ties express the foundation of this human community. We come from two parents, sharing qualities from each, making them our own. We show ourselves as being distinct offshoots from our parents, and yet, look behind the obvious differences, we can find that we are not entirely different, entirely separated from them. Genetically speaking, save for mutation, we share one half of our own material makeup with our mother, and the other half with our father. Try as we might, we will never be completely different from them, even though our relative distinction is clear.

We find the Holy Family to have central importance in the life and work of messiah, starting with the call Joseph and Mary received to raise him, and ending with Jesus’ giving over of Mary, his mother, to John and through John, to all of us. “In revealing the Father’s love and humanity’s sublime calling, he made use of the most ordinary things of social life and illustrated his words with expressions and imagery from everyday life. He sanctified those human ties, above all family ties, which are the basis of social structures,” Gaudium et Spes in Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations. Ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1996), paragraph 32.

It is in this light we can understand how and why ancient Christians took the family to be in the likeness of the Trinity. They understood that the Father, in loving unity with the work of the Holy Spirit, brought Christ to the world, just as a father and mother come together in love and through their love, beget children. Love is not static; it is creative, within and without the Trinity. From this, we can understand why the family is the foundation of all society: human society is the realization of the family by the fact that it is in reality one large, extended family. The same qualities that are inherent in the family should be inherent with society: it should make itself into a loving unity working for the common good, each person having a unique role, each person having qualities which makes the family possible. If society can only be understood in relation to the family, then this means that a breakdown in the family will result in a breakdown with society. One of the grave defects of socialism lay in its breakdown of the family; there was nothing left it could create to justify why some lone individual, theoretically at war with everyone else, would want to give up this war and work for some common good. Raised in such a condition, raised without a proper appreciation of their immediate family, one will not form a proper appreciation of the human family. If the communion between a child with its family is no longer possible, a child raised in such a condition will have a difficult if not impossible time appreciating communion with others. But this truth goes both ways, one who does not realize the common good and the extended human family that one has in society will slowly lose sight of the meaning of family, even at its most basic unit. Why express any concern with one’s most immediate relations if we see the relations between two people to be primarily a relation of discordant opposition and not unity?

However, society is not one megalithic entity, even if humanity is, in its core, experienced through the interdependent but free encounter of relational persons. The communal unity of humanity must be understood as the basis for society, but freedom of expression must be seen as the basis for the variety of rich, distinct cultures. “The essence of society is not the external interaction of isolated individuals, not the collision of social atoms, but a primordially collective multi-unity. Outwardly, in the empirical layer of society, this multi-unity collectivity has two correlative expressions: the free interaction of the elements of multiplicity and the organizational unity of the whole,” S.L. Frank. The Spiritual Foundation of Society. Trans. Boris Jakim (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987), 169. Only through this freedom can human potential be actualized. It is in the free movements of the human spirit that beauty can be realized here on earth, while beauty is itself what makes life full and rich, a life worth living. We are called to generate beauty in all we do; we are all called to be artists, making the world a more beautiful place because of our very existence. In the matrix of world cultures, we find common methods of generating such beauty, a common language which allows the deep recesses of our heart to be expressed in such a way as to be understood and appreciated by all. “In its essence, culture is the search for the one thing necessary which leads us beyond the immanent boundaries in which we find ourselves,” Paul Evdokimov. “Culture and Faith,” in In The World, Of the Church. Ed. and Trans. Michael Plekon and Alexis Vinogradov (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 214.

Freedom, however, must not be confused with irrational anarchy. While we have the potential to act in many different ways, some actions enliven the spirit, others enslave it; a society understanding this tries to create those laws in which it believes the human spirit can be most free. “A freedom without law is anarchy and therefore the destruction of freedom,” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Values In A Time Of Upheaval. Trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 33.

In an ideal world, laws would not be needed; but it is only in an ideal world that we would know what actions would cause us harm, limiting our freedom, and what actions would keep it intact. Because, in actuality, we do not know the consequences of our actions, it is quite clear we live in fallen ignorance; but if this is the case, then what guarantees do we have that the laws, once enacted, will fulfill their duty, and produce that freedom which we seek? Sadly, we do not have any; we must use our reason to the best of our ability to predetermine those consequences, but reason is an imperfect tool, and the laws we create will thus show evidence of our imperfection, and even our fallen nature. The rule of law, which is good, could be turned into a tyrannical rule, where a law does not serves its purpose and must be removed. We must keep the rule of law for the sake of humanity, but we must know humanity is not made for the sake of law! “The social order requires constant improvement: it must be founded in truth, built in justice, and enlivened by love: it should grow in freedom towards a more humane equilibrium,” Gaudium et Spes, paragraph 26.

A culture which creates and generates its own rule of law with its own rule of government to protect that rule of law can be seen as the foundation of the state. As such a culture is a good, the state must be seen as a good. But they must only be seen as relative goods, because the final good will always be God. Hence any culture and the state or states it produces must be seen only to exist for a purpose, making the state relative in its value. But in that act, it is to become the outward expression of the social bonds inherent in human nature, allowing for human freedom to express itself in a just and beautiful society. The relative goodness of a state can only be declared in according to how well the state generates and perpetuates this profound human expression. Its failures to do so are failures in its goodness; in extreme circumstances, where it squashes the human spirit, the state no longer performs its function and must be understood as a relative evil, and must be resisted.

Thus we can begin to understand the relationship between a Christian with the state. A Christian exists in the world, and must act in the world, and must not seek to destroy the world, but to transform it to its proper end in Christ. Thus the Christian must not seek to destroy an evil state, but to transform it, to purify it. “The Christian service to the state consists in preserving its greatness while considering it inferior to God,” Hugo Rahner, Church and State In Early Christianity Trans. Leo Donald Davis, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 20.We realize our final end is in God, and that all states are relative, temporal goods; they are not our final end; we must not turn it into an idol. But this does not mean we cannot and should not love the state we live in; the state, in what good it does, in what freedom it provides, in what cultural matrix it allows human freedom to express itself, is a good and all good deserves to be respected and loved. But that love must be proper to the kind of good it is. We must not love the state so much that its purpose is lost, and love the state more than its purpose.

Our love for our state can cause us to consider our state as being better than some other state, for those qualities in it which we appreciate. This is not necessarily wrong; indeed, if it is done in a good natured way, rivalry between states can be a good. However, this rivalry must exist only with one express aim: for the improvement of all. Nicholas of Cusa, for example, tells us that this is true not only on a secular level. How we worship God and experience God cannot be limited in one way; such attempts will stifle the creative interaction with God, and the ever-increasing cooperation with grace which we seek in the Christian life. Therefore rivalry between states can help develop better relations with God. ”Perhaps as a result of a certain diversity devotion will even be increased, since each nation will endeavor with zeal and diligence to make its own rite more splendid, in order that in this respect it may excel some other nation and thereby obtain greater merit with God and greater praise in the world,” Nicholas of Cusa. De Pace Fidei, XIX. Trans. Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning Press, 1994), 70.

Yet, to appreciate this role, to appreciate the greatness of the state, to realize why a Christian cannot abandon it, we must realize that because the state’s foundation is from the humanity which generated it. Because humans are open in their very nature to the free graces of God, the state is also opened to them, allowing it to be a participant in God’s will and therefore directed, in part, by God. “The state (like all other social unions and relations) is the human incarnation (and therefore always only a partial and inevitably distorted incarnation) of the divine principle of truth which is grounded in Truth itself as it is revealed in the essentially moral spiritual life of mankind, the life of grace,” S.L. Frank, The Spiritual Foundations of Society, 102. When Sts. Peter and Paul declare state authority to be instituted by God, it can only be understood in this context. “Neither Paul nor Peter expresses an uncritical glorification of the Roman state. While they do insist strongly on the divine origin of the legal ordering of the state, they are far from divinizing the state itself. It is precisely because they see the limits on the state, which is not God and may not behave as if it were God, that they acknowledge its ordering function and its ethical character,” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger . Values In A Time Of Upheaval, 19.

A Christian is therefore called to take part in the development of the state, realizing that there are as many different ways as there are people for how this should be done. Politics, which deal with the government of the state, is important, but we must understand, like the state, it too has a limit, and unless we are called to political service, we must not let our lives be ruled by the temporal conditions of the politics of our state. We must work for their improvement, but we must understand that politics is itself only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. “Politics is the realm of reason – not of a merely technological, calculating reason, but of moral reason, since the goal of the state, and hence the ultimate goal of all politics, has a moral nature, namely, peace and justice,” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, ibid., 24. Moreover, we cannot be under the illusion that through politics we can transform the world into a utopia; while we seek for the betterment of the world, its pristine reconditioning is only to be had in the eschaton. But we must recognize a key danger that many fall into when dealing with politics: people often become party loyalists over and above the principles in which government should be run. We might believe in one ideal and put it forward above all others, but in doing so it is no longer holistically working for the betterment of humanity. What Sergius Bulgakov points out about how socialism works is true about any principle when it is taken to an extreme: it becomes so important that no other issues seem to matter. “The warmth of human relations is edged out by socially utilitarian rationalism, immediacy of feeling replace by the infamous adherence to ‘principle,’ so that the success of socialism and the growth of social solidarity are by no means accompanied by an increase in love or even sympathy and a decrease in enmity among people.,” Sergei Bulgakov. Philosophy of Economy Trans. Catherine Evtuhov (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 240. The problem becomes more apparent when the Christian puts a secular principle over and above the dictates of their religious faith. Christians can and should engage in politics, but they should not become its slave:

The Christian as such may be utterly deprivatized, commissioned to act publicly as an assessor on the world state (1 Co 4:9; Heb 10:30) – and in this sense he may be political: all the same, his existence cannot be classified in secular terms, and he himself cannot grasp in its totality, and so the Christian cannot be simply put into the “political” pigeonhole. Politics concerns him: as a ‘member’ under Christ, the Head, he is in profound solidarity with each of the Lord’s least brothers and must realize that he has an inescapable responsibility for the conditions under which they live.
-- Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Theo-Drama. Volume I: Prolegomena. Trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco:Ignatius Press, 1988), 39.

Moreover, as an actor in the world scene, the Christian must realize the temporal nature of the state, even of the culture they live in; there can come a time when a given state or culture has outlasted its purpose and must be respectfully put aside for something better, something greater. “Sooner or later, thought, art, and social life reach their own limits and then a choice is imposed: to be located in the infinity of their own immanence, to be intoxicated by their own emptiness, or to surpass their strangulating limitations and, in the transparency of clear waters to reflect the transcendent,” Paul Evdokimov. “Culture and Faith,” 201.The Christian must not be attached to the state; they must not find themselves attaching to the things of the world; they are to enjoy and appreciate them, yes, but in the end, they must go through an ascetical renunciation of all attachments in order to experience everything in their proper place, to see how all things point to God and participate in existence through God. Their beauty, which we must acknowledge, is but a reflection of the greater beauty that exists in God, a beauty that draws us to experience the intense love shared by the three persons of the Holy Trinity. In this way it can be said, “Intense love, purified by authentic asceticism, is our true destiny,” Paul Evdokimov, ibid., 205.

George MacDonald Quote

How could He be Father, who creating, would not make provision, would not keep room for the babbled prayers of His children? Is His perfection a mechanical one? Has He Himself no room for choice -- therefore can give none? There must be a Godlike region of choice as there is a human, however little we may be able to conceive it.

George MacDonald, "Man's Difficulty Concerning Prayer."

On the Morality Of War: In Essence And In Practice

On January 13, 2003, in his Address to the Diplomatic Corps, Pope John Paul II famously said, “War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.” There are many ways to take this comment. If these words are taken on their own, outside of the context of the speech it was delivered in, and out of the context of Catholic moral theology the Pope was espousing, John Paul II could be made out to be a complete pacifist. Certainly there are ideas being expressed which pacifists would agree with, but John Paul II could not and would not proclaim pure unbridled pacifism as the position Christians should take. We must look at these words as a description of the events which surround war. Humanity should seek for peace through justice. However, the world we live in, and with it the human condition we experience, is imperfect and fallen; sin has entered the world, and it seeks, like a cancer, to spread its corrupting influence throughout the world. Humanity can and must try to correct this evil through peaceful means. At times, these efforts are successful; sadly, at other times, they fail, and when they do, sin has overcome humanity: we have been defeated. The best thing we can do is to try to eliminate it, as if in a surgical operation, taking care to preserve and protect as many people as possible in these efforts.

In stating that there are times that war is required in order to protect humanity from evil, we must be careful. “War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations,” Pope John Paul II, ibid.War must be employed only as the last resort, when all other options have failed. Moreover, when war is necessary, this necessity must not turn a justified action into a worse evil; not only must war be justified in its cause, it must be justified in how it is waged. St. Augustine tells us that in waging war, the desire must not be war for the sake of war, but war for the sake of peace. “Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity, and waged only that God may by it deliver men from the necessity and preserve them in peace. For peace is not sought in order to the kindling of war, but war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace,” St. Augustine, Letter 189.6 in Nicene Post Nicene Fathers, Series I. Ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1994), Vol. 1, 554. Thus, when engaging combat, one’s motivation should not be revenge, hate, greed, or the like: one’s motivation should be to overcome evil, ultimately to turn an enemy into a friend.

Finding someone whose actions are motivated entirely out of pure goodness is difficult if not impossible, especially when talking about what motivates one to fight in a war. Just because a doctor might have greed as one motivation for why they perform medicine, if they are also motived out of a heartfelt desire to help people, we can recognize the good in what they do, even if it is not entirely selfless in intention. Thus we can and should recognize that if a soldier, in the heat of battle, loses sight of the bigger picture, if their original and over-riding motivation is good, we can recognize that good despite any concupisence guiding their action. In saying this, we must also recognize that there are limits as to how far a soldier can go; good intentions are not enough to justify all possible actions. History has shown us time and again good intentions have been behind some of the greatest acts of brutality the world as ever seen.

Catholic tradition provides us with some very broad-based guidelines for war. Anyone who looks at them knows how difficult it is to discern when they are being followed or not. Two different people with two different positions on a given war can and do use them to either justify or criticize that war. Thus one side or another, if not both, are abusing these principles. But, as S.L. Frank reminds us “In general, there is no moral truth that cannot be abused,” S.L. Frank, The Light Shineth in Darkness. Trans. Boris Jakim (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1989), 132. Their abuse does not remove their value; they have been established and explained so as to preserve the moral order. Only when they are followed under and with Christian love can they be effective. When Catholic teaching says that a war must be just in its cause (ius ad bellum), and just in its engagement with war (ius in bello), we must never separate the two, thinking the ends (a good cause) justifies the means. But the reason why these guidelines are broad is because in actuality war cannot be waged by strict literal a-priori rules, but must be enacted according to the situation. An a-prioi list of what is permitted or not permitted would be incapable of dealing with the reality of war, which, if it is to be engaged at all, must be seen as an extraordinary circumstance. “The genuine right moral solution is determined not by the observance of the letter of the moral law, not by soulless obedience to abstract general rules without attention to the concrete needs of real life – but only by love, the demands of which are always concrete,” ibid., 130.

So far it has been said that war is a necessary, but extraordinary, tool to be used to prevent the spread of great evil in the world, and it is a tool to be only used as a last resort. It is better not to have to wage war, “But it is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war,” St. Augustine, Letter 229.2 in Nicene Post Nicene Fathers, Series I. Ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1994), Vol. 1, 581 -2. When war is necessary, it must be and can only justly be waged under the dictates of love. It is to be an act of charity, trying to help overcome an evil and to make the world a better place for all. Moreover, the desired outcome of war must not be more war, but peace. Vladimir Solovyov points out that, historically, war has had its place in establishing peace. Not only does it create states with ever-increasing spheres of influence where peace reigns, “War unites more powerfully than anything else the inner forces of each of the warring states and at the same time proves to be the condition for subsequent coming together and mutual interpenetration of the opponents themselves,” Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good. Trans. Nathalie A. Duddington (New York: Macmillan Company, 1918), 392.

It is in this light we can understand why Scripture reveals to us many heroes who engaged in warfare, such as Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, and David. Indeed, David is considered a man after God’s heart (1 Samuel 13:13-14; Acts 13:22).David represented the ideal ruler in Scripture; there was none like him before, and only the messiah is shown to be greater, and the messiah was to be David’s descendent. David’s exploits are famous: he killed Goliath as a young man (1 Samuel 17); he waged many victorious battles against the Philistines (1 Samuel 18: 30), indeed saving the city of Keilah from destruction (1 Samuel 23:1-14); his kingship is established in war (2 Samuel 2 -5), and as king, he continued to fight for the sake of Israel.

Yet there is another side to the story. David, the man of God, in his piety wanted to build a temple to honor God. While this desire was good, David was told he was incapable of building it. David told his son, Solomon, the reason why he was not allowed to do so: “My son, I had planned to build a house to the name of the LORD my God. But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house in my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on the earth’” (1 Chronicles 22:7-8). On the one hand, David is the ideal king: he defended Israel in battle, and was directed by God to do so; on the other hand, by obeying God, God saw him unfit to build the temple. It seems as if there is something wrong here. How and why can God demand action out of David and yet consider him impure when he does as was commanded?

It is here that something more about the nature of war is revealed, and why war, while necessary, must be seen not as a good in and of itself, but a necessary evil if and when it is properly engaged. War can, in a relative sense, be seen as a good, but in an absolute sense, it must be and always is seen as an evil. It is a symptom of fallen humanity, and it would not exist in an ideal world. By saying a war is justified, we must not think we are saying war in itself is good; we must think of it as saying that all the options available to us are evil, but of those evils, war is the lesser of all possible evils and so must be waged. It must be seen as such a situation where it is impossible to sit back in quiet solitude, because a greater evil would prevail – sin can be sin in omission and not just commission. Christians know that our call to love our enemies comes from the fact that all life is sacred. But if we do not prevent tyrants from wholesale brutality, while we might have saved ourselves from the sin of directly killing a few people, in our lack of activity, we are guilty of the death of many more. True, we might, and even must try non-violent means of halting evil; but what are we to do when non-violent resistance fails? There is a sad truth which we must come to understand: life in our fallen world often does not leave us with morally pure, idealized solutions to the problems which face us. In such a situation we must act with selfless courage and boldness, and embrace the least morally repugnant choice:

Thus, in the Christian world of protecting our neighbors and the whole world from evil and easing suffering, our moral responsibility for the real effectiveness of our aid and the world can always compel us to employ (where there is no other possibility) worldly means of struggle, which are inevitably burdened with sin, that is, it can always compel us to follow a path that diverges (we shall see later precisely in what sense) from the path of inner spiritual perfection. In this sphere, Christian duty compels us to take the burden of sin upon our conscience, and not to observe our personal purity in a situation where we would be responsible by our inaction, for the triumph of evil in the world.
--S.L. Frank, The Light Shineth in Darkness, 127.

When we look at war in light of absolutes, Vladimir Solovyov is correct in saying, “war is an evil,” Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, 387. However, as he further elaborates, when looking at war in light of lived human existence, “Evil may be either absolute (such as deadly sin, eternal damnation) or relative, that is, it may be less than some other evil, and as compared with it, maybe be regarded as a good (e.g. a surgical operation to save a patient’s life),” ibid.. If we rightfully say peace is good, we must question what it is that we are striving for. “To respond adequately to this question, we must realize that peace cannot be reduced to the simple absence of armed conflict, but needs to be understood as 'the fruit of an order which has been planted in human society by its divine Founder', an order 'which must be brought about by humanity in its thirst for ever more perfect justice',” Pope Benedict XVI, Message For World Peace Day, January 1, 2006. Indeed, when justice, and with it, the dignity of the human person, is lacking in a nation, even if there is no armed conflict in that land, what might seem to be a time of peace turns out to be anything but peace. “As far as the right to life is concerned, we must denounce its widespread violation in our society: alongside the victims of armed conflicts, terrorism and the different forms of violence, there are the silent deaths caused by hunger, abortion, experimentation on human embryos and euthanasia. How can we fail to see in all this an attack on peace” Pope Benedict XVI, Message for World Peace Day, January 1. 2007. Thus, we must recognize, “that external peace is not necessarily a true good in itself and that it becomes a good only in connection with an inner regeneration of humanity,” Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, 401.

Looking at war in this way, one can see it accepts the criticism of war without following the errors of a purely pacifist approach (as was the problem, for example, in Tolstoy), but it is also not quick to fall into some of the simplistic rhetoric used to favor war, when war is a possibility we must contemplate. It recognizes that our lived experience often requires extraordinary means to deal with extraordinary crises. “Thus, for instance, every one will agree that, speaking generally, it is godless, inhuman, and unnatural to throw children out of the window on to the pavement. Yet in case of a fire, if there were no other means of extricating the unfortunate babes from the burning house, this terrible action would become permissible and even obligatory,” ibid., 387. War can become an obligation for nations when the world is being consumed by evil. Those heroes who take action must on the one hand be applauded for that action; we should grant them our respect and gratitude. Their moral virtues are obvious, especially their courageous self-sacrifice, not only for the benefit of their nation, but for the world. We must understand the consequences of this; we are not to glorify war and the violence that might be necessary in order to free the world from some greater evil, but the aims and virtues it is needed to bring about a just victory. War for the sake of war, violence for the sake of violence, is a deadly temptation. Because war is only justified as the lesser of all evils, we must remember that, in the absolute moral sense, it is still an evil, and “sin, even a morally obligatory sinful act always has unintended harmful consequences, which must be sensitively taken into account; the habituation to such acts tends to suppress this sensitivity,” S.L. Frank, The Light Shineth in Darkness,, 132. David was stained with blood, even though what he did was morally speaking, the right choice. War is not something we should take delight in, but it is something which we must acknowledge as necessary whenever evil thrives and gains uncontrollable dominance in the world.

If war is necessary, who is it that decides this necessity? On the one hand, it is the state, because it is only states with their leaders which have the right to declare war. It is the state which has been given the authority to execute justice (Romans 13:1-7). But in indicating this, it must also be said that the state is not to be turned into an idol. Its purpose is to execute justice, but there needs to be a spiritual core which transcends the state to keep the state in check and to determine if and when a state is violating justice. Ancient Rome brought peace to the world, but it turned the state into an ends instead of a means for justice. Early Christians resisted this principle, because they believed that God’s demands must be followed above the state, and the state must be willing to forsake its claim as an ends when confronted with Christ. “The state, even when surmounted by the cross, ceased for the Christian to be the supreme good and the final form of life,” Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, 395. By saying the state has the right to action does not say the state in its action is always right; when it is not, it must be confronted. Without a transcendent spiritual core to judge the state, there is no way of knowing if a war is justified, because when the war is declared just, this means that in principle their opponent is an evil state which is no longer to be obeyed. But who is it that determines this? Both sides will always accuse the other of being this evil state.

What are we to do at the end of war? Justice suggests that we are to show as much mercy as is possible to our enemies. “As violence is used towards him who rebels and resists, so mercy is due to the vanquished or the captive, especially in the case in which future troubling of the peace is not to be feared,” St. Augustine, Letter 189.6, 54. After victory, our work has not ended, but only begun: it should be the point where some justice is restored, leading to our spiritual renewal. Acknowledging that the enmity of evil rulers made war necessary, it is even more vital to establish friendship in victory, so that justice can prevent a habitual cycle of violence:

If we are to avoid descending into chaos, it seems to me that two conditions must be met. First, we must rediscover within States and between States the paramount value of the natural law, which was the source of inspiration for the rights of nations and for the first formulations of international law. Even if today some people question its validity, I am convinced that its general and universal principles can still help us to understand more clearly the unity of the human race and to foster the development of the consciences both of those who govern and of those who are governed. Second, we need the persevering work of Statesmen who are honest and selfless. In effect, the indispensable professional competence of political leaders can find no legitimacy unless it is connected to strong moral convictions.
--John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps.

But, this integration of states into a coordinated reality of peaceful co-existence must not only recognize friendly relations as a necessary condition to preserve this peace, but also the recognition of the differences that exist between nations and cultures. We must not look for one cultural outlook to dominate the world scene. Yes, goodness and virtue are necessary, but these can be incarnated in a variety of beautiful ways, and we must not limit the spirit of humanity into one cultural expression of them. “Nations must live and develop in their essential peculiarities as the living organs of humanity; apart from them its unity would be dead and devoid of content, and this peace of death would be worse than war. The true unity of mankind and the hoped-for peace must be based not upon the weakness and subjugation of nations but upon the highest development of their powers and a free interaction between nationalities which serve as a complement to one another,” Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, 396.

To sum up: war is in its essence evil, such that, “With the exception of savage paganism all religions condemn war in principle,” ibid., 386. But the world we live in is fallen, and we are often required in practice to do that which we would otherwise not be permitted to do. War, though in principle is wrong, in relative activity might be a necessity and an obligation; in such a situation, we can say war is a relative good – a good which is better than any other available option we have before us. When war becomes necessary, it should not be a thing of glamour, excitement and jubilation, but a time of sorrow, knowing that evil has prevailed upon the world and stained all of us so that we must need act in a manner which is inherently evil. Virtues expressed in war can be and should be honored, and soldiers should be recognized for the virtues they show in combat. When war is rightfully executed and brought to a just conclusion, then is the time for celebration. If asked when we are to know war is to be declared, and how we are to know the way to properly wage it, the sole answer we can give here is the answer of love. In love we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves, even if it means direct action which sullies our spiritual purity. In doing so, our love imitates the love of Christ: “we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us […] For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:20 -21).

Christian-Buddhist Dialogue

I want to encourage readers of The Well At The World's End to consider reading the texts I will be posting on the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue blog I created. The blog is for a class I am teaching this semester at Georgetown. It is an experiment and I want it to be successful. The texts will be written by students from my class, based upon the readings they have done for the week.

I want to encourage people to dialogue with the students, and the students with each other, by posting what they write online. For this to work, people will need to be willing to comment on what they say. I think if people do so, this experiment can be beneficial to everyone.

The Vision of God

To truly experience God, our eye of contemplation
Must turn its focus, and all its consideration
Deep within the soul to find what we have sown,
In hidden compartments, previously unknown,
Where our habits reside, flourish and reproduce.
Those unhealthy desires which once did seduce,
Have now left us, yet we continue in their snare
Until from all we wrestle free – an act we must dare.
Then and only then, what will be seen,
Is the soul in its glory pristine,
And God will be reflected within, because his image
Is what we shall encounter in our purified visage.

In Honor of the Feast of Saint Anthony the Great -- January 17

St Anthony the Great is said to be the founder of Christian monasticism. He was not the first ascetic to go out into the Egyptian desert, but his charismatic personality attracted followers, followers Anthony did not want and yet knew he had to take care of for their own well being. He became their spiritual father by default. He set up simple monastic rules for them to obey and occasionally gave personal guidance and exhortation to those who desired it. But for himself, he desired a simple, quiet life. In the end, he did not want to be put above others, he did not want to be considered great – he saw that the path to friendship with God required a combination of love, humility, and personal holiness. Yet it is because he put these so well into practice that he became a great beacon for others, an example for all of us to follow, and not just to those who, like him, feel a call to the religious life.

“Abba Anthony said, ‘I no longer fear God, but I love Him. For love casts out fear’ (John 4.18),” The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Trans. Benedicta Ward (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publishers, 1984), 8. St. Anthony felt called to go out into the desert, to live alone, in order to feel closeness with God. When he heard a sermon on Matthew 19:21, he believed Jesus was speaking personally to him, telling him to go sell all he had, and to come and follow wherever Jesus would lead. Yet, he felt afraid, as do most young people going out living on their own; he did not know what it is he was to do or accomplish “When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was best by accidie, and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, ‘Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do with my affliction? How can I be saved?”ibid., 2.

The answer he was shown was simple: prayer. Why prayer? Because prayer leads us to God, opens us to God, allows us to grow in our love of God. Prayer does not change God, does not make God more loving, but changes us, makes us more loving and more capable of being loved, that is, more capable of feeling that love which is already there. Through prayer, Anthony was able to remove all fear from his life; even death did not frighten him – he knew to live was to be with Christ, to die was to be with Christ; either way he was with Christ, with his love. What else is there that he could want?

“Abba Anthony said, ‘I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, “What can get through such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me, “Humility,”’” ibid., 2. Many of us seek an exaggerated sense of glory for one’s life; that is, many of us desire to be above all others at their expense. It is not wrong to desire excellence in our work. We should feel a sense of satisfaction when achieve it. What could be wrong is how we take it: do we turn glory as its own end, as an idol? Satan tempted Christ with glory, and Christ turned against it. The world continues to snare many with this sham; Hollywood, with its self-congratulatory awards ceremonies represents one such example. Humility keeps us stable in life; it shows us that we should not be so full of ourselves that we push everyone else away. Moreover, humility allows us to realize our own faults and weaknesses, showing us why we need to rely upon others, showing us why we cannot accomplish everything by ourselves. We need others, and when we accept them, they act as the arms of God in our life. If we turn them away, we are really turning away from God.

St Anthony had two experiences which humbled him, shaping and perfecting his spiritual life. He believed he was the first Christian to become and ascetic and to seek a quiet life in the desert away from the temptations of the world. Pride made him think that this made him the best of all monks. He was wrong on both accounts. “It was revealed to him in sleep, however, that another more worthy than he dwelt in the deeper recesses of the desert and that it was his duty to seek him out,” St. Jerome, “Life of St Paul the Hermit,” in Early Christian Biographies. Ed. Roy Deferrari (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1952), 229. It was because of his love of God that he accepted what he was told without complaint: he went out and found this man, St Paul the Hermit, whom he embraced as a long lost friend. More important than his experience with St Paul, Anthony learned that his spiritual equal was not, as he would have expected, a monk living in the desert. “It was revealed to Abba Anthony in his desert that there was one who was his equal in the city. He was a doctor by profession and whatever he had beyond his needs he gave to the poor, and every day he sang the Sanctus with the angels,” Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 6. It is not a monastic life that makes one great; it is the simple love for God manifested in the way we treat and respect others which makes us great.

The last mark of the great friend of God is their piety and holiness. Many people confuse this to be a life without temptation, a life without struggles. If Jesus struggled and resisted temptation, then we should realize that we are no greater than he, and we too will face such trials and tribulations in our life. Indeed, not only are we going to, we must in order to grow and become the one God wants us to be. St Anthony understood this when he said, “Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven […] Without temptations no-one can be saved,” ibid., 2. As a child learning to walk must develop muscles, so we, spiritual children, must develop ourselves and find out who we are through temptation; even as a child will stumble but never give up until they can walk on their own, so we too we shall stumble, but should never give up until at last we have reached spiritual perfection. We should not give in to despair when we falter, but rather look into the times we do not, because it is in our little victories that we know perfection is possible.

Holiness is not to be found in someone who has hid themselves from the world, fearful of the temptations it gives. It is found in the one who embraces the world in love, and conquers those fears through their love of God. There are two ways of not failing a test: not taking it and passing it; wide is the difference between the two; so too with temptation. Just because there is one you have not yet experienced does not mean you have overcome it; only in its overcoming is virtue established. True monasticism is not about a flight from temptation, but about achieving virtue. The early monks went out to the desert to fight devils, that is, to fight the temptations within. Yet we do not need to be a monk to do this; the greatness of St Anthony and his followers is available to all, if we would but desire (eros) God.

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We Must Sow The Seed of Heaven In Our Lives

Medieval exegetes of Holy Scripture primarily used four ways or methods of interpreting a Scriptural text. The first was to look at the text according to its letter, that is, to find out and understand what the text said happened historically. The second was to look for the hidden, and therefore allegorical, meanings of a text; this method was seen as especially useful for the discernment of doctrinal truth in Scripture. The third was to explain the moral significance of the text: what does Scripture tell us about the human condition and how we should live? The fourth way, called the anagogical interpretation, used typology to explain how Scriptural events, including the people, places and things therein, represent things to come in our hoped-for end.

While all four methods were used, exegetes could produce radically different interpretations of a given text. Through the rise of modern hermeneutics, we can understand why this is so. What you take with you into a text will be the lens by which you understand and read that text. Each exegete would come to a given text with their own theological, philosophical, and historical beliefs, which, without question, led each of them to their own individualized Biblical interpretation. Not all of these interpretations, it must be said, are incompatible with one another; nor are all of them wrong. Indeed, many of them complement each other very well. The task for the exegete was to make sure his or her interpretation was compatible with the context of Christian tradition.

Many people consider the kinds of interpretations we can have of Scripture if we look at it within new cultural or philosophical perspectives. It must be noted that our current life and situation requires we do this. Our culture is radically different from the culture in which the texts were written and from the medieval culture which produced the interpretations of Scripture many know and follow. We must study the Sacred Scriptures according to the new cultural situation we live in. This does not mean that Holy Scriptures have to be made as a handmaiden to our culture, never criticizing it; but it does mean that our own cultural situation and scientific knowledge must be taken into account when we read the sacred text.

In Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical, Fides et Ratio, the Pope noted the need for Christian theologians and philosophers to take the ideas of the Indian religious and philosophical imagination into account, and adapt what in them is good and compatible with the Christian faith. “In India particularly, it is the duty of Christians now to draw from this rich heritage the elements compatible with their faith, in order to enrich Christian thought.” Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio. Vatican Translation, 72.

My own work in systematic theology has taken this to heart. There is a great variety of Indian thought, and it would be difficult if not impossible for one to gain a mastery of it all. Therefore, while gaining a broad understanding of it, one should also specialize; for me, that specialization lies with Buddhism. However, once a Christian begins to engage Buddhism, they quickly find out that the Buddhadharma is too wide and broad for one to specialize in all aspects of its history and teachings. One must choose specific areas of interest and focus upon them for one’s scholarly pursuits. The area of Buddhist thought which fascinates me the most is Yogacara Buddhism. Not only is it interesting, but it provides a rather thorough and useful examination of the human psyche and the way we experience the world. While I will not agree with all the Yogacarins profess, I believe many of their insights are compatible with Christian thought.

In the light of my studies, many Scriptural texts have taken on a new meaning. Each time I read them or hear them recited in liturgy, I keep thinking about how Yogacarin they sound. I keep thinking how interesting it would be to put these texts side by side, and interpret them according to a Yogacarin lens. Would such a task be useful? If they provide a new interpretation of the text, one which can be seen as representing at least one of the four primary medieval exegetical methods, and one which ends up being compatible with Christian thought, I would have to say yes. Not only would it provide a possible place for dialogue between Christians and Buddhists, it would also show that Christian thought could be enriched by such a dialogue.

Tradition states that Asanga, under the tutelage of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, founded Yogacara Buddhism sometime in the fourth century. Later, Asanga convinced his half-brother Vasubandhu to join this new school of Buddhist thought, making the two-half brothers the original proponents of its teachings. While Asanga was its founder, Vasubandhu’s writings, it could be argued, were far more influential in the spread of Yogacarin ideas.

Yogacara Buddhism, also known as Vijnanavada (the way of consciousness) or Cittamatra (mind-only) is one of many schools of Mahayana Buddhism. In order to understand the school, one must therefore understand some of the core principles of Mahayana Buddhism. Perhaps the two core Mahayana values are sunyata (which means emptiness) and karuna (compassion). The Mahayanist tries to merge the two together in themselves in order to become a Bodhisattva, one who in their quest for enlightenment seeks enlightenment or liberation not only for themselves, but for all sentient beings, and vows never to enter final nirvana until all beings have been liberated from suffering. While the Yogacarin agrees with the Madhyamakan on the fundamental emptiness of all phenomena of substantial, self-subsistent being, one can say the Yogacarin also looks for a positive ground of framework in which to establish this fundamental emptiness. They want to develop a way to overcome all possible nihilistic interpretations of sunyata.

While the Yogacarins kept to the basic teachings and practices of Mahayana, they provided a unique interpretation of them. Their interest lay in the psyche and how it develops and evolves, and their understanding of the psyche was based upon the combination of canonical Buddhist texts, their authoritative commentaries, and their own experiences in meditation. Many doctrines they produced became widely accepted by other followers of the Great Vehicle; others became hotly contested and disputed. More often than not, the Yogacarins are examined in relation to what they hold distinctly from other Buddhists, making it difficult to understand their teachings holistically. Thus, many of their critics exaggerate aspects of their thought to make their teaching turn into something which it is not: a belief in a substantial, eternal, self-subsistent self.

In saying this, however, I must add that it is many of their distinct teachings which, if they are put into a proper balance in relation to the rest of the Buddhadharma, that I find the most interesting. Any study on Yogacara Buddhism will note that in its understanding of consciousness, it has added several new layers of depth to an earlier, and more commonly accepted among Buddhists, teaching of human consciousness. Traditionally, it was understood that human consciousness was actually the combination of six different elements: the five western senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching combined with a sixth mental sense. The mind, like the eye, is viewed as an organ of perception, one whose objects are mental instead of physical. Moment by moment these consciousnesses are constantly in flux, changing what they perceive and how they should be perceived, so that it must be understood that there is no unchanging, self-subsistent entity being described in them. Even the mind must be seen to exist in this perpetual flux so as not to be discerned as an immortal, unchanging eternal soul.

While the Yogacarins accept all six basic forms of consciousness, they believe that consciousness contains two more “mental” realities, and like the rest, they are in constant flux. The most important one, which to them is the root of all consciousness, is the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness. It is the base upon which all other forms of consciousness flow, what is contained within it influences how all other aspects of consciousness are experienced:

There the maturing [consciousness]
Is otherwise called the
store-consciousness,
Which carries the seeds of all [past experiences].

Stanza 2 of Vasubandhu, “A Treatise in Thirty Stanzas” in A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience. A New Translation and Interpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the Yogacarin.. Thomas A. Kochumuttom (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982), 135

The alaya can be said to be the unconscious base of consciousness in Yogacarin thought. It is called the storehouse consciousness because it contains the impressions of past deeds and experiences, which the Yogacarins call seeds:

Residual impressions from past aggregate-moments in the present consciousness-moment have been given the metaphorical designation ‘seeds.’ The metaphor is in some ways a very apt one. A ‘seed’ is actually a constantly changing series of interrelated energy-events which gradually, if conditions allow, will give rise to a sprout. Similarily, a ‘latent impression’ is a constantly changing series of moment-events which will, gradually, if conditions allow, give rise to a memory, or ‘reverberation’ in the consciousness-series.

Stefan Anacker, Seven Works of Vasubandhu (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), 61.

Like a seed, these impressions can change and mutate, or even be destroyed. What one does creates the seed, but the seeds then influence how one thinks and how one acts. “If a person engages in acts of lust, he becomes permeated with lust. As his mind repeatedly arises and passes away in tandem with lust, the lust becomes the generative cause for the [lustful] evolutions of his mind.” Asanga. The Summary of the Great Vehicle. Translated from the Chinese of Paramartha.. Trans. John P. Keenan (Berkeley, California: Numata Center For Buddhist Translation and Research, 1992), 21. In western terms, they can be seen as similar to habitual imprints in our consciousness, except for the fact that to the Yogacarins these imprints more than influence how we act, but they also become the hermeneutic base in which we experience reality.

For the second layer of consciousness is a transformation of this unconscious alaya into the conscious manas-vijnana, a consciousness which grasps the unconscious alaya with its contents, believing the alaya to be a reflection of an eternal, self-subsistent being. Grasping the alaya in this fashion, it then divides reality into a personal internal subject and external objects, turning the world purely into a realm of individual, self-subsistent objects to be interacted upon by the personal self. These external objects, however, are only understood and interpreted through the lens of the alaya,, that is, how these objects are experienced (as good, bad, or indifferent), and even the way they are perceived through our sense organs are based upon the seeds implanted within our unconscious mind. They create as it were a filter by which reality is perceived, clouding our vision of the world we live in.

The knowable internal form,
which appears as external,
is the object (of the cognition).

Dignaga. “Investigation About the Support of The Cognition” in Being as Consciousness. Fernando Tola and Carmen Dragonetti (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2004), 36.

The knowable form, the seed caught in one's unconscious mind, modifies the way reality is experienced. External reality is experienced as an object of perception by the sixth consciousness, experienced as a combination of the internal seed as it is taken and placed upon what our senses perceive, creating an apparent external reality, but in actuality, it is reality mixed with the defiled sense of experience covered by what the manas generates.

The consciousness contains all seeds;
Its such and such transformations
Proceeded by mutual influence,
On account of which such and such [subject-object] discriminations arise.

Stanza 17 of Vasubandhu, “A Treatise in Thirty Stanzas”,147.

From this it can be said that Yogacarins believe that a “common object” could be and would be experienced by people differently according to the seeds stored in their own alaya-vijnana. Indeed they would say there is but one reality with six realms or ways of experience (from the heavenly realms of bliss to the damnable hell-realms). Even in the same basic realm of experience, different people could and would experience a given “object” differently. A rabid dog, an animal control specialist, and a young girl desiring to have a pet cat, could and would experience a cute stray cat walking down an alleyway differently. The dog would attack it, the animal control specialist would view it as a pest that needs to be taken off the streets, and the young girl would see it as a potential friend.

We should keep in mind that what we have said so far is to be understood as a continual process, by which our actions and past actions already seeded in the alaya creates the base by which new actions are done; these new actions create new seeds in the alaya, fundamentally changing it, so that from moment to moment the alaya and its contents are similar to but not identical to one another. There is no unchanging entity behind all these actions. Because of this, the consciousnesses can be purified and transformed. An unclouded, undefiled experience of reality is possible. “From the total transmutation of the seed, there is the transmutation of the appearances of places, objects and bodies; this is the uncontaminated realm, and it has a universal basis.” Asanga. The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature. Trans. L Jamspal, R. Clark, J. Wilson, L Willing, M Sweet and R. Thurman (Columbia, New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2004), 134.

How does one go about this transmutation? Surprisingly enough, it begins with its own seed, a desire for enlightenment. One who hears about the possibility of liberation is seeded, if ever so slightly, with the desire for its attainment. “The world-transcendent mind arises because its seed is the permeation of hearing that flows from the purest Reality Form.” Asanga. The Summary of the Great Vehicle , 31. This seed is said to develop into the dharmakaya the body of truth, that is the core of enlightened existence. “This permeation of hearing, whether lower, middle, or higher, is then the seed of the Dharma body. Because it rises in countering the container consciousness, it is not comprised within that container consciousness. Since it is an outflow from the world-transcendent, most pure Reality Realm, even though a worldly state, it brings about the world-transcendent mind.” Asanga. The Summary of the Great Vehicle. 32.

That is, while it is called a seed, unlike the other seeds, this seed transcends the personal alaya, and is able to overcome the contents within. There is a revolution within the alaya where that revolution, as it were, sets fire to the other seeds, destroying them. Of course, like a seed, it too must grow; this transformation of the base does not occur in an instant, but develops as one engages in it in the continued transformation of their consciousness. The goal is to experience the world outside of all defilements in one’s consciousness, thereby showing the world once experienced as samsara is itself in reality not other than nirvana.

In discussing the seeds as defilements of consciousness, we must understand that the experience they bring is not always negative. That is, while unwholesome deeds generate unwholesome seeds, wholesome deeds generate wholesome seeds, and wholesome seeds help create a more joyful and even pleasurable experience of reality. But the two are seen as defilements, because these deeds, even wholesome ones, make us cling to an imperfect and therefore limited experience of reality. Thus one can say that to transcend this defiled state one must transcend the way of works, not by rejecting works, but by overcoming any attachment to their effects.

Because of the concern that Yogacara Buddhism has for these seeds and the desire to purify ourselves of any defiling seeds within our consciousness that when I come to Scriptural texts which directly or indirectly use an analogy using seeds that I take notice of the text and see what a Yogacarin hermeneutic could make for the text.

Galatians 6:7 - 10 says, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatsoever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”

It does not take a scholar to notice that this text has a rather karmic tone to it. For every action there is a reaction, for every habit we develop, we will experience its resultant fruit. “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit” (Matt. 12:33). To sow according to the flesh is to sow according to the things of the flesh, making us entirely attached to them. Yet, since these things are impermanent, if we attach ourselves to them, we will suffer when we lose them. “As in the case of seeds, one who sows pulse cannot reap corn, for what is sown and what is reaped must both be of one kind, so is it in actions, he that plants in the flesh, wantonness, drunkenness, or inordinate desire, shall reap the fruits of these things. And what are these fruits? Punishment, retribution, shame, derision, destruction.” St John Chrysostom, “Homily on Galatians Chapter VI” in Nicene Post Nicene Fathers, Series I. Ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1994), Vol. 13, p. 45.

While a Yogacarin could agree with Chrysostom in saying that the consequences of such actions are punishments, they would point out that these punishments are self-contained within the actions that have been committed. Instead of trying to say these punishments are placed upon us by God, one could and should say that these punishments are self-imposed. It is not that one desires these punishments, but rather, out of ignorance of the consequences of their actions, one creates the conditions in which one will suffer. You truly reap what you sow, but you should know what seed it is you are planting before sowing it into the ground.

What about the spiritual seed? In interpreting the Parable of the Sower, Jesus suggests that this seed is planted into our consciousness by himself. “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man” (Matt. 13:37). How then are we to sow this seed, as St Paul tells us we should do, if it is sown by the Son of Man? It is by taking what Jesus tells us to do and to do it. “But the fruit of the Spirit is of a nature not similar but contrary in all respects to these. For consider; hast thou sown alms-giving? the treasures of heaven and eternal glory await thee: hast thou sown temperance? honor and reward, and the applause of Angels, and a crown from the Judge await thee,” ibid. p. 45.

The Yogacarin tells us that the seed for enlightenment is planted into our consciousness by our hearing of the dharma. “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). We must become a hearer of the word. We must be open to this word and receive it into our life. We must realize that this word is none other than the Word of God, the Word which is not-other than God himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Reception of this word is not a one-time event but takes a lifetime sowing, where we must unite ourselves to the very will of God, sowing what God desires us to sow, growing in the spirit, until the seed planted in our soul takes root and cleanses us of all sin and brings us to our desired end. “You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

“Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them,” (Matt. 13:5 -7). It is not enough to hear the word and simply believe it: we must act upon it, and let this word completely enter into the very core of our being and transform us, purifying us of all defilement, ““for indeed our God is a consuming fire,” (Heb. 12:29). God desires us to experience the purity of reality, and will set us afire in his love, so that all our defilements, all our impure sowing, can be cleansed from our being. “If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire,” (1. Cor. 3:15).

While we are called to sow according to the spirit, we must remember it is God who provides us the seed to sow. It is neither works alone nor grace alone. It is our work, in cooperation with the grace of God which provides to us, that leads us to our desired heavenly bliss. “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness,” (2. Cor. 9:10).

In ignorance we sow what we do not know, and we create within ourselves the habits which will make ourselves suffer. Sin left unchecked leads to more sin, and eventually becomes habitual sin:

Directly, as when, by one sinful act, man is disposed to commit more readily another like act: because acts cause dispositions and habits inclining to like acts. Secondly, after the manner of a material cause, one sin is the cause of another, by preparing its matter: thus covetousness prepares the matter for strife, which is often about the wealth a man has amassed together. Thirdly, after the manner of a final cause, one sin causes another, in so far as a man commits one sin for the sake of another which is his end; as when a man is guilty of simony for the end of ambition, or fornication for the purpose of theft. And since the end gives the form to moral matters, as stated above (1, 3; 18, A4,6), it follows that one sin is also the formal cause of another: because in the act of fornication committed for the purpose of theft, the former is material while the latter is formal.

St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros. edition, 1947), II.75.4.

We have sinned out of ignorance; in gaining wisdom, we can overcome sin. Sin covers and darkens the soul, preventing us from experiencing reality in its pristine purity and goodness. Indeed, much of our sin is caused by our desire for an apparent but unreal good. We think something will bring us joy; momentarily it is so, but then it is lost and we cannot recover it. But when the seeds of sin are cleansed from us by the purifying fire of love, we shall no longer see the world as a world of shadows and darkness. We shall not be fooled by apparent goods. Knowing that they are markers on the road to perdition, we will ignore them, turning ourselves instead to the beauty of pure goodness. “The soul does not want a good that is only apparent. And if it is under the sway of some habit, it is also quite able to overcome this habit. Yet even before the habit was formed it had been deceived by ignorance. Hence one should above all strive after a true knowledge of created beings, and then spur one’s will towards primal goodness…,” St Theodoros the Great, “Theoretikon” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Volume Two.. Trans. and ed. by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990), 46.

Proverbs 11:18 tells us, “The wicked earn no real grain, but those who sow righteousness get a true reward.” Evil does not exist in itself; it must be seen as a deprivation of the good; the wicked earn no real grain, only pestilence, because the seed they sow is like a cancer eating away at our very soul. The habits we create determine the direction our soul is moving, but we must realize these habits are created by ourselves and we do not have to become creatures of habit. “Consequently man, while possessing a habit, may either fail to use the habit, or produce a contrary act; and so a man having a virtue may produce an act of sin,” St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II.73.4. If we find ourselves in habitual sin, we must not allow ourselves to become a slave to that habit, but seek for the grace to overcome it. We must not let it become the Lord of our life. Even if we do not overcome it in this life, the seed of grace, planted in our soul, can purify us through the purgatorial trial of fire that leads to heaven, as long as we do not squash that grace and turn it into naught.

Earlier in this essay I suggested that a new hermeneutic for Scriptural understanding should be welcomed if it provides for a complimentary understanding of Scripture; it must be one which does not override Christian doctrine, but rather provides for us a fuller and richer understanding of Scripture, especially if it does so according to at least one of the four primary ways of Scriptural interpretation. However, in this brief excursus, one can argue I have engaged not one but two exegetical senses: that is, according to a moral and an anagogical sense. Morally speaking, Yogacara Buddhism shows us how habits not only influence how we act, but how we think, and explain why bad habits can pervert the way we think. Anagogically speaking, we are shown why all defiled habits must be cleansed from us; because they influence how we think, they influence how we experience reality. If we are to experience the pristine goodness and beauty of God and God’s creation, which is what we seek for, we are shown why this will not be accomplished until the seed of grace, granted to us in baptism, purifies us and leads us to our heavenly rebirth. In the end, when we have truly been born into the heavenly kingdom, we will not sin, and we will not suffer the consequences of sin in our life any longer, since “Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God,” (1 John 3:9).

Theologian as Wise Man

What, precisely, is the nature of the theologian? What is his essence qua theologian? Is he simply a philosopher in religious guise? Or is his a distinct way of life, a distinct manner of being rational? It may seem that the theologian only appears as an impractical specialist whose labor produces nothing of use: his cloister is the academy, and the choir to which he preaches is a small circle of equally unworldly specialists. His language is lofty, technical, unapproachable; his greatest battle is with humility (one thinks of Abelard). And why, one might ask, is his particular skill required? The Church is not, after all, some kind of Gnostic schoolmaster that requires high grades on theology tests to merit salvation. Even the poor, rustic farmer can be saved despite his lack in theological vocabulary, seemingly skipping over all of the speculative busy-work because a true faith does the work for him. He is likely to read Holy Scripture, but use Lombard’s Sentences as a coaster. And he could be a saint just the same. Is the theologian, then, little more than a scholar condemned to obscurity and far from any means of positively affecting his brothers and sisters in Christ?

How one figures the role of the theologian will undoubtedly depend upon how one figures the art of theology. For Alexander of Hales and his Franciscan followers, theology was primarily a means of interpreting the Scriptural Word through the various modalities by which its Revelation can affect the will, and transform the heart. Set in the context of the then rediscovered categories of Aristotelian epistemology, Theology, the science of Sacred Scripture, was for this school a practical science, not a theoretical one. Thus, the particular skill of the theologian would be measured by the degree to which he is able to employ his intellect in service of the structures presented in Scriptural Revelation and ultimately in the service of his moral character.

But in contrast, St. Thomas Aquinas identifies man’s end as an intellectual one. Not only does St. Thomas expand the notion of Revelation beyond a limited focus on Scripture (incorporating, for instance, the Church tradition), but he also locates theology among the theoretical sciences. Is he thereby condemned to the intellectualism spoken of above: the exile of the theorist in a world untouched by the common believer? In fact, he is not. For St. Thomas, the theoretical element is not detached from personal transformation, because properly speaking theology transcends the rigid dichotomy of practical and theoretical science. Scripture expounds upon truth concerning God as well as the nature of human action within salvation history. But there is present here, unseen by thinkers such as Alexander, an internal hierarchical ordering: God is the primary focus, and the realm of human action and moral transformation is only treated of insofar as it relates to God.

In treating of God and, within the same fabric of Revelation, the relations of creatures to him, St. Thomas is able to cast theology in terms not just of abstract theory, but of wisdom. And thus, he is able to conceive of the theologian as the wise man. The wise, Thomas says, are those “who order things rightly and govern them well.” (Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) Book I: 1; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 2). Wisdom involves the intimation of a certain ordering of things to their ends. It is a knowledge of ends and the governance of things in light of that end, for the identity of created things derives from their dynamic orientation to their ends. Wisdom can thus be linked to moral transformation insofar as wisdom discloses the truth through which man can be ordered to his proper telos. Here, wisdom breaks out beyond abstraction and has the power to touch the lived experience of the believer.

Thomas also notes a certain analogia in wisdom: some arts control the ends of other arts, and artisans of these are called “wise” in reference to their more comprehensive knowledge of the ends of particular things. But the universe itself is oriented to an end distinct from that of any particular “thing.” This end, he concludes is that which the First Cause intends, and as the First Cause is, in his unlimited providence, divine intellect, the end of the universe as a whole is Truth. Truth is that at which the wise man principally aims, for it is the ultimate end to which all things are disposed, and thus in the light of which all things can be most properly ordered to their end. “The name of the absolutely wise man, however, is reserved for him whose consideration is directed to the end of the universe, which is also the origin of the universe”(SCG Book I: 1). The divine intention for creation becomes the archetype for the true revelation of the nature of all things, because the origin from which they emerge is the end to which they are driven: and thus things can only be fully ordered and seen as fully ordered in the proportio or beauty of their nature when they are cast in the light of Divine Truth. And because the final end is the divine, only a knowledge of the divine will allow one to perfectly govern things. Wisdom, then, is essential to the life of man, for this life is free and self-moved and thus requires the light in which man can order his own actions toward his true divine end.

But in what sense does this wisdom differ from the knowledge and governance that derive from philosophical science? For this reaches a consideration of highest causes, as Aristotle holds, and can rightly be called wisdom by ordering things to their natural ends. Yet Thomas explicitly distinguishes the ordering knowledge of sacra doctrina from that of philosophical science, precisely because man is ordained to a supernatural end in God. Thus, to properly order his actions to this end, there must be a disclosure of that end beyond the power of his nature (Summa Theologiae I, Q.1 Art.1). Further, sacra doctrina for Thomas is not simply one among the other theoretical sciences, which simply connect truths expressed in natural principles with complex conclusions, resulting in the conforming of one’s mind to the subject matter. For if man’s end rests in that Divine Truth, then his starting point must be above and beyond the principles of natural reason (which are coextensive with a merely “natural” end).

Sacra doctrina is for St. Thomas a subalternate science: one whose principles derive from a higher science. Its principles, rather than beginning with the self-evidence found on the natural level, derive their evidence from their position as the conclusions of the higher science. In this case, the higher science is the highest form of knowledge, the perfect knowledge of the end: the “science of God and the blessed,” or “the knowledge that God has of himself and of his plan of salvation.” (Torrell, Jean-Pierre. St. Thomas Aquinas, vol.2: Spiritual Master. The Catholic University of America Press, 1996: p.1-21.) God’s perfect and simple self-knowledge forms the body of knowledge from which this wisdom derives its starting points, and can thus more perfectly orient man to his true end. Because, through Revelation, man “borrows” principles from a knowledge infinitely beyond his own power, he is not only given a knowledge of his end, but is given a share in that end’s perfect and simple knowledge of Himself. God’s divine intellect is the most perfect knowledge of the divine end, and theology just is man’s share in that radically perfect Wisdom. Thus, theology is not only wisdom, but a radically gratuitous share in the divine Wisdom, God’s knowing of Himself and His perfect ordering of all creation.

Theology is, then, the most perfect wisdom among all kinds of wisdom, because it discloses the ultimate end of all that is. Not only this, but it is a real participation in the divine mind: it is Wisdom in the sense of granting a share in God’s knowledge of the same Divine end (a knowledge whose perfection exceeds all human certainty). Theology then allows one to order his actions most perfectly in accordance with his ultimate end, and thus opens up a dimension for man to transcend a merely “natural” happiness. Without this wisdom, this share in Wisdom itself, man’s self-transformation in happiness would be radically imperfect.

Theology as wisdom constitutes a real situation of the human rational power in the stream of God’s eternal self-knowing. Reasoning is resituated in a plane higher than his natural orientation, and paradoxically allows him to craft his lived experience in accord with his only proper happiness. It is thus a share in the beatitude to come. By engaging in this wisdom, the theologian is not the master of an exclusive and obscure discipline lost in its impracticality: by stressing its orientation to divine truth, it is infinitely more practical than any human practical wisdom. The theologian is engaged in a pursuit that by sharing in God’s action, develops in him the likeness of God (whose very Being is His Wisdom), and joins him existentially to God in friendship (SCG Book I: 2).

Finally, there is a particularly Christocentric element to the practice of the theologian. For as we have seen, theology is a participation in the divine self-knowing. Christ as the Son, the Word, bears the appropriation of Divine Wisdom (1 Cor 1:24), generated in the Father’s eternal intellection of Himself. Christ is Divine Wisdom become manifest to us (1 Cor 1:30), incarnate, and insofar as we share in that divine action, we partake of Christ. We can then figure the likeness to God that wisdom grants as an imago Christi. It is a unique way or manner of becoming likened to Christ. Further, we may then view this art as a distinct way of life within the Mystical Body of Christ: an extension of Himself, who was Wisdom in the flesh, continually present to the world through our participation. The life of the theologian is a radically Christic life. As a limb of the mystical body, its fruit comes to benefit the whole body, by meditating on that truth revealed about God and teaching others how it orders them dynamically toward God, giving them a share in their own salvation (as Christ Himself did; SCG Book I: 1). This wisdom then, the gratuitous wisdom by which we are principally united to God, begins with Christ incarnate: Wisdom for us, descended to us, uniquely that we may have a share in Him and rise to union. The truth that we are to serve, the truth that saves us, is in fact, as Thomas notes, a Person. We find that the theologian, in being ordained to Divine Truth, is ordained to Jesus Christ even unto the very contingency of his place in human history. For this descent itself (even unto the Cross) is, beyond all conception, the deepest expression of Divine Wisdom (Himself).

Some Thoughts On Anthropology

One of the most important elements of a good Christology is a good anthropology. Jesus is fully God and fully man. When one’s anthropology is bad, one’s understanding of Jesus in accordance to his humanity will certainly be in error. We live in a time where a critical-historical approach to the New Testament and the Gospels has helped inspire new, but rather, low Christologies. Jesus is made to be seen as another human like us. Scholars such as Crossan, Funk, Marxsen, and Schillebeeckx suggest considerable doubt as to what Jesus could or could not have done, what he could or could not have known, based upon their own experience of what it means to be human. They turn their human experience as being the model in which to read the humanity of Jesus.

While there is merit to this, sadly, it has many limitations –our current understanding of what it means to be human suggests many limitations for Jesus as well. Thus, following this methodology, Roger Haight says, “The subject Jesus, the person, was ignorant, weak, vulnerable to suffering, and did not in the least appear to be Yahweh or the Father or God,” Roger Haight, Jesus, Symbol of God (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2002), 292. For Haight, this leads him to having a difficulty in finding a proper understanding of the divinity of Jesus; Jesus is read as being just like us, therefore he believes that the discussions about the divinity of Christ in the early Christian creeds really meant to merely suggest that Jesus had a special experience of God, “Second, God’s presence to Jesus must be regarded as a presence within his humanity. By this I mean that the divine in Jesus does not appear over and above Jesus’ being a human being, but rather precisely within the way Jesus was human, the way he lived and taught. […] Once again, he was a human being, and one must begin to understand the presence of God to him and within him beginning with this premise of integral human existence. In terms of the theory of symbol, the finite, created integrity of human existence must be preserved in Jesus.” Roger Haight, Jesus, Symbol of God , 293. If this is truly the case, it becomes difficult for us to understand what it means for Jesus to be the only begotten Son of God. His Jesus is not a divine person, but resembles a Nestorian Christ, where the humanity experiences the closeness of the divinity, but not the realization of that divinity as being the same person as Jesus.

The problem is not with a historical-critical reading of the Gospels. As Wolfhart Pannenberg points out, the way we understand Jesus has to include the records we have of his life (the Gospels and early Christian witnesses of Christ we have in the New Testament), and these records should be sufficient to point out to us who and what he is. “If the human history of Jesus is the revelation of his eternal sonship, we must be able to perceive the latter in the reality of the human life.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology. Volume 2. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 325. The real issue is the fact that most anthropologies being used by those engaging in the historical-critical methodology are wrong, containing significant problematic presumptions which lead to great hermeneutical difficulties. They have a low understanding of the potential of humanity, and thus read this low potential back into Jesus.

What are the problems I mean? There are far too many to relate, but fundamentally, I would suggest that the first and probably greatest problem lies in the prototype used to determine who and want represents humanity. While there is considerable sense in using our own experience as the way to declare what it means to be human, Christian anthropology tells us that the real prototype is not ourselves, but Jesus, and secondly, the reason why we should not use ourselves as the prototype lies in the fact that our own human experience is the experience of an imperfect, crippled existence which does not fully manifest what it is we are intended to be.

“When wealth is hidden, one is ignorant of it
and therefore does not obtain the treasure.”
Buddha Nature. The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra. Trans. Rosemarie Fuchs (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2000), 38.

The wealth is what it means to be human, it is hidden because of our defiled existence, defiled by sin, and therefore if we use this defiled existence as the way to read what it means to be human, we shall never achieve the goal; it will forever be outside of our grasp.

Imagine a land where, once upon a time, some malevolent dictator who, due to some genetic problem, is born without legs, and had the legs of everyone living within his kingdom broken, and incapable of being healed. People were crippled and could not stand up. Imagine if he spread this genetic mutation to his children, and it continues on throughout the rest of the dynasty. Not only were the legs of the people living under the first generation of this new dynasty broken, but state policy makes this a law required to be put into effect for countless generations, and all the children born into this society have their legs entirely mutilated. Eventually, the very understanding of what it means to stand up is lost, and in this society, humanity and its very existence is seen only in this crippled state. Imagine, when you get to the fourth or fifth generation of such a society, and they read stories about people standing up. Since they have never experienced it for themselves, nor could do it if they tried, they believe these stories must be the pure fanciful wishes of previous generations. Anyone who lived in the past, they believe, must be like they are now; and anything which suggests otherwise must be interpreted mythically or allegorically as representing an innate, but deluded, desire of humanity. This is exactly how Jesus is being read in relation to us. When we are used to model what it means to be human, instead of Jesus the author of the new, restored humanity (cf. I Cor. 15:21 -22), Jesus is read to have our own foibles instead of us as being deficient and needing to be healed from them.

One of the significant debates of 20th century theology was the debate over the so-called “pure nature” having its own “natural beatitude.” Is there a pure humanity which can exist on its own without being open to a relationship with the divine, or is the idea of a pure, closed humanity entirely a theoretical fiction? It would seem that many who argue for a low understanding of the person of Jesus, and suggest that he was a rather feeble, ignorant human man, fall along the lines of the “pure nature.” They create a closed human nature incapable of enlightenment, incapable of being penetrated by the divine life. Henri de Lubac rightfully suggests this idea is fundamentally non-Christian, and at the heart of a Christian theology of grace is the idea that humanity was created to be open to and fulfilled by the gratuitous graciousness of God. “Under different forms, and with accentuations varying from one century and school to another, Christian philosophy thus developed the concept of a human nature which is open to receive a supernatural gift” Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural. Trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998), 119. Indeed, if we try to bracket humanity by itself and suggest a humanity entirely by itself, capable of being on its own without God, happy and blessed, and then consider in relation to this the possibility of a humanity which can exist with God and supernaturally lifted up by God to an even greater existence, the end result is a dichotomy which not only destroys who and what we are, but who and what God is as well. “Then there is the hypothesis that seeks to posit a “purely natural” universe, in which man could claim “natural” happiness from God. Now alongside this another universe is imagined – our own in fact – in which man still requires happiness from God, this time “supernatural.” Whether we add the two together or set them against each other, we can hardly hope to find in them the gratuitousness we are looking for.” Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural. 62. Indeed, Lubac points out in many of his writings that the result of this notion (whatever good reasons there were in originally suggesting it) is a separation of humanity from God which seeks to show how God is not needed and ends up a practical if not an entirely philosophical atheism.

Thus, the debate over how to read what it means to be human, when it is a debate which excludes the evidence we have from the life of Christ and the Christian experience, just ends up re-establishing the concept of a pure, closed human nature. Following Lubac’s analysis of what such a pure nature would suggest, it is not surprising that this hermeneutic is one which atheists use to deconstruct the Gospel narratives, trying to show how the “Jesus of faith” was a creation of the Evangelists. Perhaps they do not realize that the results they suggest are one and the same with the presumptions they took with the text itself: what they offer is entirely circular reasoning.

So, we need to have a different anthropological understanding of what it means to be human, and we must use Jesus in his humanity as the ideal. What he does as man must be seen as something all humanity can and should be capable of doing. He himself said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these” (John 14:12). Many debates on what Christ could or could not do, could or could not know, would be answered if we took this approach.

So what does this mean specifically? What does Jesus tell us about humanity that we could not have known without his example? If we believe those who hold a low Christology, the answer would be nothing. However, this cannot be, and indeed is not the case. Instead of being closed off as a reality unto itself, humanity must be in its very nature open to the gracious penetration of the divinity with itself – its potential must not be that of a weak cripple but of a great, potentially infinite and deified, life. “What then is the ground of the Incarnation? Is it an act of divine omnipotence, comparable to the creation of the world ex nihilo? Or does not the fact of the Incarnation itself suppose the presence in human nature of some inalienable characteristic which makes the possibility of the Incarnation comprehensible, not as the invasion of human nature by some deus ex machine, but, on the contrary, as the complete unfolding of it possibilities?” Sergius Bulgakov. Sophia: The Wisdom of God. An Outline of Sophiology. Trans. Rev. Patrick Thompson, Rev. O. Fielding Clarke and Xenia Braikevitc. (Hudson, New York: Lindisfarne Press, 1993), 83.

Thus Jesus shows us that what it means to be human is to be greater than what we are now; indeed, one religious philosopher has suggested this is what it means to be human. “We can express this in the paradox that man always wants to be something greater and other than what he is; and since this wanting is his very essence, we can say that the distinctive character of man consists precisely in the fact that he is greater than what he is. Man is a self-overcoming, self-transforming being.” S.L. Frank The Spiritual Foundations of Society. Trans Boris Jakim (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987), 84. S.L. Frank suggests this can be understood by the moral dimension of humanity: that we can look beyond the empirical life and judge it suggests we are capable of transcending those empirical limitation, “Man alone has the ability to transcend himself, to free himself ideally from his empirical nature, and, rising above it, to judge and evaluate it,” ibid. While one might disagree with him on whether or not this is true of man alone, the point is well taken – we do transcend our empirical given self, and so we do transform ourselves into something greater, showing that we are not closed in to what we are given in our origin but we must be seen as reaching out to something greater, becoming this greater thing. In the end, this can only be true because humanity in its pureness is open to the divine, and lives in accordance to how much the divine has penetrated into it. “Man is man precisely because he is more than an empirical natural being; man is characterized precisely by his superhuman, divine-human nature.” ibid. This means, among other things, that the very concept of a closed “pure nature” can be argued against by the human experience; but we cannot know, except through Jesus as prototype, the fullness of this openness, that is, whether or not there is a limit to what we can become. Through Jesus and his experience, we can know what Bulgakov says is correct, “Humankind, on its side, must be naturally capable of receiving and making room for a divine person in the stead of the human. In other words, the human being’s original mode of being is theandric.” Sergius Bulgakov. Sophia: The Wisdom of God., 85.

Nothing whatsoever is to be removed.
Not the slightest thing is to be added.
Truly looking at the truth, truth is seen.
When seen, this is complete liberation.”
Buddha Nature. The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra, 40.

Humanity in its proper form must be understood according to this original theandric mode of existence, and Jesus must be understood and studied accordingly, and not through the lens of our current, and even less than human mode of existence, one which is closed off to God because of sin. In saying this we must not see sin as some sort of ontological entity: evil does not exist, it consists entirely as a concept used to explain a deficiency in some good. To be saved by Christ is to be become entirely human. This opens us up to the life originally desired for us by God, nothing more, nothing less. “Obviously, in humans, created Wisdom is obscured by sin; but Christ, the second Adam, assumed a human nature exempt from sin, and so adequate to its divine prototype. But the very possibility of God’s taking human nature and uniting it with his own, rests upon the essential conformity between the two; and that, in its turn, rests upon the unity in diversity of Wisdom, in God and in the created world. That diversity can never abrogate this unity or analogy: this is primary.” Sergius Bulgakov. Sophia: The Wisdom of God., 88.

In order to experience this real, original humanity, we must first empty ourselves of all preconceptions of what we think it means to be human. How we interpret what it means to be human becomes the means by how we re-create ourselves; even when grace is offered to us, we reject its full implications and aid because of the habits we have created for ourselves, habits which we assume we cannot overcome because of our base notions of what it means to be human. “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Philip. 1:21)We must lose ourselves of all notions, up to and including any notion of what it means to be who we are, and only then shall we gain our true life, our true existence as we are meant to be. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it,” (Mark 8:35). We must lose all false concepts of what it means to be who we are, to lose our very place in life, in order to gain the boundless openness offered to us by Christ. As long as we struggle to keep hold of our false preconceptions and use them to read Jesus as a reflection of ourselves, our Christ will not be the true Christ of history, but a construction and reflection of ourselves. “Jesus said to them, have you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eye’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls,” (Matt. 21:42-44). Broken up, all that has closed our relationship to God will be destroyed. Then and only then, with the experience of the divine life restored, can humanity in its glory be understood. That glory is the glory we have seen in the life of Jesus “When he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we will see him as he is”(1 John 3:2).