A Contemplation on the Beauty of Ugliness

The relationship which unites the three transcendentals as one (goodness, truth, and beauty) is fairly well known to one who has studied philosophy or theology in any depth. It is also true that beauty is the least understood and discussed transcendental. There are obvious reasons for this, and yet, its relationship with the goodness and truth should give us an ability to discuss aspects of beauty without touching the particular issues and questions which come out of aesthetics.

As an example, we know that falsehood and evil, at their root, use and employ truth and goodness as a means to convince people to follow their ways. Heresy, it is said, is just a slice of truth taken out of context and used to subjugate and ignore many other elements of truth. We desire to do some evil, it is said, out of an inordinate desire for some limited aspect of the good, as St. Augustine beautifully demonstrated in his On Free Choice of the Will. In other words, we do not desire the evil, but some good we see in that evil, however limited that good is, which we want. The evil is in taking the good out of its proper context and setting and trying to subvert the natural order to get it. This is not to say we might not understand there is evil involved in our actions; often, we know there is. But we think the good is worth the price, and there we see consequentialism is involved in our sin.

But this then leads us to the beautiful. Can we say something similar to what we have said about truth and goodness as about the beautiful? Is ugliness merely some distorted and misappropriated beauty? Yes. Oscar Wilde was on to a great truth with Dorian Gray. As he showed us, and as this reveals to us, that which is ugly can also be beautiful. Satan did not lose his beauty -- he was beautiful, and he still is beautiful. But now, in his fallen modality, that beauty is distorted when compared to what it should be. When he is seen in that light, his ugliness is quite apparent. However, for those whose vision is impaired, Satan can still appear in the glory he had at creation, a beauty which makes him appear as an angel of light.

Understanding how even what is ugly can also beautiful should help us understand even more the allure of sin. For the sinner, they see its beauty, and that is why they fall for its charms again and again. The more the muck of sin lies upon us, the more it appears to be the norm, and so the more our vision will be impaired and incapable of seeing the ugliness of sin. No wonder the habit of sin is difficult to overcome.

Oriental Orthodox in Ecumenical Dialogues 1

I. Introduction

In 1995, Pope John Paul II gave bold support for the ecumenical movement.[1] He was quite clear: Christians should strive for unity, not because it was his own personal desire, but because it was Jesus’ will:

Jesus himself, at the hour of his Passion, prayed ‘that they may all be one’ (Jn 7:21). This unity, which the Lord has bestowed on his Church and in which he wishes to embrace all people, is not something added on, but stands at the very heart of Christ’s mission. Nor is it some secondary attribute of the community of his disciples. Rather, it belongs to the very essence of this community. God wills the Church, because he wills unity, and unity is an expression of the whole depth of this agape.[2]

For centuries Christians had read Jesus’ prayer for Christian unity. But, as history shows us, it did not become a motivating factor, and they did not engage it as a matter of praxis. Rivalries for power and dissentions in beliefs quickly formed within the Church. While one might point out the political struggles which helped form great divisions between Christians, and use that to suggest that such division existed because of lone individuals who thirsted for power, this would be a simplified and unjust examination of the situation We must be willing to recognize that good Christians, not seeking glory or power, but seeking truly to understand their faith, did have different views of that faith, and the reasons for these differences are as complex as the personalities involved. As we shall discover, recognizing this very fact has been, and continues to be, one of the fruits of ecumenical dialogue. This is quite noticeable when one examines the division between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches.[3]

While it is true that the Council of Ephesus made the first major ecclesial division,[4] there is no doubt that there is something special about Chalcedon, and the division which it created was of a greater nature than what occurred at Ephesus. For those who accepted Chalcedon’s authority, its Christological definition became the normative explanation for how one was to proclaim the personage of Jesus Christ. It was an imperative for them (the Catholic Church and most of the Western tradition, and the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches) to follow the tenets of Chalcedon: Jesus Christ is the second person of the divine Trinity, fully divine and fully human, indivisibly one in hypostasis and without confusion in his two natures.[5] Those who rejected Chalcedon did so because they understood it as being fundamentally flawed and Nestorian in its content. For over fifteen hundred years, Chalcedon has been a dividing line which neither side has been willing to step beyond.

II Encounters and Dialogues Before 1951

Despite what occurred at Chalcedon, there have been several attempts throughout the years where one side or the other of the Chalcedonian divide tried to find an amicable solution and resolution to their theological conflict. It is also interesting to note that the rupture between the Orthodox and Catholic churches that emerged after Chalcedon helped to create ways by which both the Orthodox and the Catholics were able to enter into dialogue with one or more of the Oriental Orthodox churches.

We can see how this worked out before the modern era by looking at one of the particular Oriental Orthodox Churches: the Armenian Apostolic Church. Catholicos Karekin I’s article “Ecumenical Trends in the Armenian Church,” offers us a great amount of information. In it, he explains that the Armenian Church did not find itself entirely isolated from the rest of the Christian world (and the same can be said about most of the other Oriental Orthodox Churches, to one degree or another).[6] “Despite times of bitter controversy and confrontation, relations were pursued with the Greek and Georgian churches, with the Byzantine patriarchate of Constantinople and with Syriac communities.”[7]

Probably the most interesting example of this can be found during the twelfth century. In 1165, the Armenian Bishop Nerses the Gracious (later, the Armenian primate) had a Christological dialogue with Duke Alexis, a representative of the Byzantine Emperor.[8] Alexis was so impressed of what he heard that he asked for a written exposition and record of their dialogue. Nerses accepted the request, and he wrote what the Armenians call the Pontifical Letter of St Nerses the Gracious. Both the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople were intrigued by the position of Bishop Nerses, and they wanted an active dialogue with the Armenians. They believed it would be possible to bring both churches back into communion with each other. The dialogue went from 1165 through 1179, when it ended at the time of the Emperor’s death. There were many ecumenical advances that foreshadow the trends of modern dialogues. For example, the Armenian and Byzantine churches saw that the Christological caricatures each side had placed against each other had been wrong, and that neither side was heretical.[9]

On the other end of the spectrum, the Western Church actively began a reengagement with the Armenians during the Crusades. There was, as Karekin I points out, a lot of political motivation behind the Armenian dialogue with the West: “[...] the kings and political authorities of Cilician Armenia, for example, encouraged an ecclesiastical rapprochement with the West, in the hope and expectation that Western principalities would thereby extend assistance to support the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia.”[10] Sadly, since the dialogue was mostly politically motivated, and as the political alliance that the Armenians desired did not surface, the dialogues ended up being merely controversial debates on doctrinal and liturgical differences without much success in creating a mutual understanding. Yet, we must remember, as Karekin points out, this does not mean there were not any fruitful aspects to this dialogue. “The exchange [...] became a source of enrichment to the Armenians, especially with regard to science and such arts as literature and manuscript illumination, but also in certain aspects of social life.”[11]

Before entering into the modern era, we should also briefly examine one of the more important ecumenical dialogues of the late medieval era, the Council of Florence in 1438 – 1445. While the dialogue and brief reunion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is usually what people are interested about Florence, we must remember that the Oriental Orthodox were also present, although what was said was mostly in a side-dialogue with the Catholic Church.[12] John Meyendorff tell us that despite being a failure, the council itself “is of great theological significance.”[13] Even though the reason for the council could be seen as primarily political, nonetheless there was at the council itself a great and very active dialogue on the disputed questions between the churches. It represented both some of the best and worst approaches to ecumenism. The concessions that were had at the council by each side were many, and allowed for a great diversity of theological thought and liturgical traditions within the Church. The way the agreement had been made, mostly forced upon the East for aid against the Turks, also demonstrates to us that ecumenical unions are not always made for the right reason, nor are they always strong (as the quick demise of the union established at Florence shows).[14] Because of its failure, there is often a hesitancy by Orthodox theologians to believe that the solution to Christian division will be found within a new grand ecumenical council.

Footnotes

[1] Through the publishing of his encyclical Ut Unum Sint.
[2] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint Of the Holy Father John Paul II On Commitment to Ecumenism. Vatican translation (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1995), paragraph 9.
[3] Those churches which are called the Oriental Orthodox Churches are the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India.
[4] Those who rejected the Council of Ephesus helped to form the Church of the East.
[5] See Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma. trans. Roy J. Deferrari (London: B. Herder Book Co., 1954), citation 148.
[6] It is true that the closer one of the Oriental Orthodox churches were to a different ecclesiastical community, the more interaction they would have with each other. They would share common regional problems (for example, what to do with Islam) and this would mean they had more reason to interact with each other and to support each other despite their differences.
[7] Catholicos Karekin I, “Ecumenical Trends in the Armenian Church” Ecumenical Review, vol. 51 (January 1999), 31.
[8] Ibid., 33.
[9] “A tacit consensus was actually reached that when the Armenians spoke of ‘one nature’ of Christ [...] they were neither confusing the two natures nor accepted one and rejecting the other [....] Conversely, when the Byzantines spoke of ‘two natures’, they were not separating Christ into two entities.” Ibid., 33.
[10] Ibid., 33.
[11] Ibid., 34.
[12] For example, see Denzinger citations 695 – 702 to read from the Decree for the Armenians.
[13] John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974; second edition, 1983), 109.
[14] Despite its failure, the model established at Florence became the normative way that the Catholic Church interacted with the Eastern and Oriental Churches. “In the course of the last four centuries, in various parts of the East, initiatives were taken within certain churches and impelled by outside elements, to restore communion between the church of the East and the church of the West. These initiatives led to the union of certain communities with the See of Rome, and brought with them, as a consequence, the breaking of communion with their mother churches of the East. This took place not without the interference of extra-ecclesial interests. In this way Oriental Catholic Churches came into being.” Joint International Catholic-Orthodox Commission, “Uniatism, Method of Union of the Past, and the Present Search for Full Communion,” (1993) chap. in The Quest for Unity: Orthodox and Catholics in Dialogue. ed. by John Borelli and John H. Erickson (Crestwood, N.Y.: Saint Vladimir Seminary Press,), paragraph 8.

Some Ponderings on Tolkien and the Inklings

In letter 131, Tolkien famously stated his desire to write a mythology for England. “There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing,” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 144. Clearly the end result of this was the creation of Middle Earth, and the whole cycle of tales starting with The Silmarillion, going through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and ending as it were, in various unfinished works such as The Notion Club Papers. But was this always Tolkien’s plan? Was his Middle Earth cycle the only thing Tolkien worked on or considered as a way to create this British mythology? Perhaps the answer to this question is no, and Tolkien once pondered, started, but eventually abandoned a different cycle of tales to become his “British mythology.” If so, what would it have been?

The clue to this mystery comes to us in the very words provided above from letter 131. What if he once considered doing a medieval cycle of tales which would end with Arthur? Verlyn Flieger, who once tried to publish Tolkien’s unfinished work on King Arthur, suggests that this might actually have been the case. “The very fact that he raised the issue of ‘the Arthurian world’ suggests that he was not just aware of its place in England’s literary heritage but of its place in his own as well, for Tolkien had already tried writing his own version of Arthurian legend. At some time in the mid-1930s, more than a decade before he wrote the letter, he had begun a long poem that he called The Fall of Arthur,” Verlyn Flieger, Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2005), 34. Before then, Tolkien had worked on and helped translate Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E.V. Gordon. Moreover, if one looks at Farmer Giles of Ham, Tolkien specifically places it within an Arthurian perspective, happening after the time of Old King Coel and before the time of Arthur. Certainly Tolkien had an interest in Arthur and the Arthurian legend, even if he ultimately found it to be unsuitable to meet his needs. We can see influences of its cycle of stories and ideas consistently surrounding Tolkien and making its way into Tolkien’s stories (Gandalf is more than a little like Merlin, and one cannot discount the similarity between Aragorn with Arthur).

Yet, there seems to be something missing. While we have a few stories by Tolkien, some left unfinished, which show an Arthurian bias and might provide enough evidence to suggest Tolkien pondered the development of an Arthurian cycle to appease his own desire for a mythology for Britain, certainly it was not the only thing he wrote upon or worked on during the time he was writing these Arthurian stories. He was still working upon his own Middle Earth stories. He might have had plans to connect the two together, and to show how Middle Earth and its pre-history slowly became the Britain of history and especially of Arthurian legend. But it also seems if this was the case, he might have also desired other mythmakers to share in this task. And this is where the Inklings have a place in this story. Myths and legends clearly need more than one source and one author to develop properly and engage the psyche of a culture. While Tolkien tried to create a mythology which displayed the influence of many editors involved in its creation, for the most part it was all to do with his pre-historical world. However, this interest in Arthur and the possible development of an Arthurian mythology was an idea held not just by Tolkien but other Inklings, such as Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis. If we look at the literary efforts of the Inklings, we can see an interesting, over-arching legacy of stories which could be seen as connecting one to another: Adam Fox’s Old King Coel leads into Farmer Giles of Ham which then leads to all the Arthurian tales written by Williams and Tolkien, and finally ends in Lewis’s That Hideous Strength (written, as it were, in the style of Williams to honor Williams after his death). And, somewhere within that history, one would have found a place for Tolkien’s Smith of Wooton Major.

While this might, at first, seem to be a fanciful reading of the Inklings, we must remember that Lewis’ Space Trilogy, begun with Out of the Silent Planet was originally meant to be followed by a time-travel tale written by Tolkien. The tale Tolkien began was clearly within his Middle Earth tradition. But Lewis was impatient with Tolkien and wrote the rest of the trilogy by himself. The last volume of the Space Trilogy contains the first published reference to Tolkien’s own Numenor, placing it side by side with the novel's own Arthurian references. And even if Tolkien would eventually make his Middle Earth cycle his claim to fame and use it to satisfy his own personal need for a British mythology, we must remember, the Old English texts he worked with as a philologist, consistently called the world in them “Middle Earth.” It could be said that, for Tolkien, the greatest problem with the Arthurian legend is that it was too recent, too Christianized, but it seems that there is always a place, even if it is a minor place, for it and the literature surrounding Arthur made by the Inklings to become a part of the greater story which forms Tolkien’s mythology.

How Logical is Logic?

There is a great amount of misconception on what logic is, what its strengths are, what its weaknesses are, and, most importantly, the boundaries of its domain. Many people have a simple belief that if something is logical this means it is true. Of course, that is not correct. Logic is a skill and practice by which you can determine the consequences of given premises. Initial premises always lie outside of the dominion of logical analysis. Logic is a useful tool, but it must not be understood as being self-sufficient, nor should it be seen as infallible: one can logically prove things which are not true, and some things which are true can never be derived from logic. It must be understood as a human construct, created within the limited perspective of our human intellectual capabilities. To believe the rules of logic are the only sound guide and judge we should follow gives too much credit to the human judgment which created those rules.

This helps explain the exchange I recently had over questions of the virgin birth. It was asked where we get this knowledge: are we to just trust Matthew and Luke? And if so, how and where do they get their knowledge of an event they were not at?

I tried to offer a rather helpful, but simple, explanation.

According to the earliest Church histories, Luke was a personal friend of Mary, and learned from her many historical details which were not found in other Gospels. We can also recognize the fact that there was much which was said and done in the oral proclamation of the Gospel. It is not Jesus and Mary alone, but also the family of Jesus, who could have provided knowledge of the virgin birth to the early Church. Thus, Jesus’ stepbrothers and sisters probably were a source by which the Gospel writers learned about Jesus’ early life. Clearly James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, would have said what he knew about the early life of Jesus from his own family experience, and while it might not have been written down, it does not invalidate the value of oral tradition in establishing historical sources. Finally, as Catholics we believe the testimony of Scripture is more than just a mere human testimony: it was written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This means Scripture should not be seen for us as any mere historical report, but as revelation. Of course this could provide many questions which have not been answered, yet if one comes to the question in and through faith, then we have to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit, who "guides us in truth," helped in the development of the Church's proclamation.

From this, the questioner changed tactic, and moved away from asking “how did the Gospel writers know about this,” to asking why we should believe what they say? Could they not be lying, or could they not have been told lies and just wrote down what they were told? Moreover, it was said that my argument based upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit was not logical because it was be founded upon faith. In other words, the questioner moved away from the direction of the believer to that of the unbeliever, and what I said just did not prove that Jesus was born of a virgin. Moreover, the questioner wanted more witnesses to give credibility to the testimony to the Gospel writers.

It was clear that the discussion was moving away from how and why a Christian believes in the virgin birth to how a Christian could prove it to a non-Christian. Moreover, it was clear that the questioner thought the only way this could be done was through logic. Hence there was even made the claim that “in the claim of a supernatural event, the burden of proof lies with the claimant to prove it.”

Yet, from all this glorification of logic, it was clear the questioner did not appreciate or understand the limits of logic. They want logical answers to everything, even though not everything can be shown through logic. Thus, I provided what I hope is a good, and final, response to this exchange:

If you are coming to the question from faith, then it is logical to make arguments based upon that faith, to follow through and explain what comes about form that faith. Logic can never validate premises: all premises are ultimately based upon faith. Of course one can make a logical argument based upon a conclusion from a former logical analysis, but even then it is tied to the reliability one places upon the initial premises: upon faith. Logic cannot prove itself: logic itself is a human-made construct and therefore, its truth and verifiability transcends the domain of logic. One who comes to the question with faith and believes that Jesus is the messiah will read things one way; their answer, if they follow the rules of logic, would be logical. Logic only tells us that if we start with a set of given statements, that its conclusion follows. It requires one to find something to have faith in to establish any given -- faith is a necessary prerequisite for all logic, and as such, when saying “that’s an issue of faith and not logical,” one would be correct so far as they realize faith is not something inferior to logic but something which falls outside of the domains of logic and indeed is the source by which logical analysis can ever occur. For example: verification of the senses cannot be verified; we have faith in what we experience through them. Empirical science clearly has faith in them when a scientist uses their observation to deduce scientific principles. Yet one must remember that this is all based upon the evidence of the senses, a trust and faith which cannot be logically deduced and yet allows for logical analysis.

But we must be careful here. Logic is a human construct created by humans. Because our intellectual capabilities are limited, we must even put trust upon the rules of logic we create. Moreover, if we want truth, we must be open to revelation which transcends our abilities: truth is still truth even if we cannot explain it. We need a transcendent anchor to provide credibility to our human enterprise. Of course one can ask how one finds that anchor, and suggest one source or another for it – but that concern requires much more study and exploration. For now, if the question comes from one who holds faith, then as a Christian who holds faith in Jesus as messiah, I suggest that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is sufficient, for the Christian is one who believes the Holy Spirit is acting to guide the Church in her search for understanding.

Now if you really are looking for a way to prove the truth of the virgin birth to the non-believer, one will run into many difficulties and they might find the suppositions of the unbeliever makes such proof impossible. If, for example, one such supposition is "it can never happen, miracles are impossible,” you will never prove a miracle to them. Their logical foundation removes such a possibility, and so they will go about finding a logical answer according to their premises. Thus, most often, they will suggest any claims of miracles will come from ignorance or fraud. No matter how many witnesses are around to provide testimony to the miracle, they will find a way to discredit their testimony. When we bring this back into the question of history, this comes out even more, because it is easier to discredit people who no longer can answer back. Yet the science of history requires us to acknowledge testimonies from sources who were not primary witnesses because that is the source for much of history. We don't have eyewitness accounts for most historically believed events. For the historian, while they understand the possible doubts this could provide, they still know that history cannot be done except on this basis. Thus for the Christian, the method by which historians establish other events can be the only secular method by which we establish historical miracles. Of course again, one has to accept or deny the trustworthiness of any such accounts – but to this one can ask, why would one of the Evangelists die for their lie? Would they not recant and would not such a recantation been made known by their opponents? While this gives some credibility to their testimony, it clearly doesn’t prove it – but the same is true for all of history. And one must acknowledge that for one who does not want to believe, they can always find a possible excuse to justify their unbelief.

This is why the best thing one should do is not question the periphery but look to Jesus and discern who he actually is. If you find in him the Lord of Heaven and Earth, if you find him to be the messiah, then the other answers start to come in -- this is not because one has rejected logic – rather, it is because one has made a humble acknowledgment that logic is not self-sufficient and can never prove anything.

Clearly this line of reasoning will not suffice for everyone. Yet I think people need to appreciate more than they do that logic is a human construct and tool, and thus limited by human ingenuity and understanding. Then they will realize both its utility but also why it can never be a sufficient tool to discern truth.