We left off yesterday's post where every post begins, which is to say, with what the Almighty & me works out betwixt us. Which, as I said, raises a host of theological problems, beginning with the "me" in the Almighty & me. In short, how could the finite me not distort the message of the infinite messenger?
But perhaps it cannot not be distorted. It reminds me of Schuon's riff on the four inevitable infirmities to which man is heir:
To summarize, we are "creature, not Creator," which is to say, "manifestation and not Principle or Being." Or, just say we are contingent and not necessary or absolute.
Can't argue with that.
Second, we are men, and all this implies, situated somewhere between absolute and relative, God and animal -- somewhat like a terrestrial angel or a tenured ape.
We are human, and you can't get worse than that, it least potentially, since we run the gamut from Mother Teresa to Stalin.
Third, we are all different, which is to say, individual, and there can be no science of the utterly unique and unrepeatable.
Which reminds me of my comment yesterday to the effect that it is difficult to shake off one's culture or class. In my case, I may not want to be an upper middle class WASP, but it's difficult to pretend I'm not one.
Lastly, there are human differences that are indeed contingent and not essential or providential. These include negative things such as mind parasites that result from the exigencies of childhood, but also the accidental aspects of culture, language, and history. In order to exist at all, we must surely exist in a particular time and place.
Our earthly experiences are woven with contingency and chance, but it's hard to imagine who I'd be without these. Given different experiences, I'd be someone else -- for example, if I'd had different parents.
Can there be a one size fits all cure for these infirmities -- for the existential maladies of creature / human / individual / contingencies? As I've mentioned before, it seems that each of us is a unique "problem of God," and doesn't a unique problem require a unique treatment tailored to the individual?
This is precisely why Protestantism immediately ramified into hundreds of sub-sects. Eventually, each man is not only his own priest, but preaches his own religion.
Which is why I try to color within the lines of orthodoxy and authority, even while I'm always looking for loopholes, so to speak. Can't I work out my own self-styled version of Catholicism? The obvious answer is No, but this is why I am drawn to wild man mystics such as Eckhart. He was never trying to be unorthodox. Come to think of it, even Aquinas had some problems with the authorities:
Shortly after Thomas Aquinas's death, in 1277, the Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, issued a condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions. These condemnations were largely driven by concerns about certain Aristotelian ideas, which Aquinas had integrated into his theology, and their potential conflict with orthodox Christian doctrine.
Things worked out in the long run, but there are still people who don't want to contaminate Jerusalem with Athens.
Certainly Berdyaev combines a high degree of orthodoxy and individualism, of universality and particularity. Like me, he's always working out a modus vivendi betwixt the Almighty and him.
Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started this blog that this sort of thing is frowned upon... you know, 'cause I've written a lot of posts, and I tell you, people do this all the time.
Boomer that I am, it reminds me of the Beatles, who constantly broke the rules, because they didn't know the rules and weren't aware that they were breaking them. But who made the rules? Who's the authority? Who says you can't use electronic feedback in a recording (I Feel Fine), or fade into a song (Eight Days a Week), or begin with the chorus (Can't Buy Me Love), or use backward guitar (Tomorrow Never Knows)?
Likewise, who says God is immutable?
The Bible?
Only some passages. Many passages clearly suggest otherwise, so who gets to decide? I do. Or will, at any rate, but we'll save that for a later post. Meanwhile, back to Berdyaev.
[T]he person is not a part of the universe: the universe is part of personality.... Such is the paradox of personalism.... A person may be known only as a subject, in infinite subjectivity, where the mystery of existence lies hidden.
Now, whatever else I am, I am a Christian personalist, and that's not negotiable, rather, an irreducible principle. I can't not believe it, rather, it reflects who I am, and I can't help being me. Doesn't make me right. Rather, it just makes me Bob.
A person is never a completed datum: it is the task, the ideal, of man. The ideal of man is a perfect unity, the integrity of personality. Personality is a joint effort with itself of creativity. No man can say he is fully a person....
Here we encounter the basic paradox of existence of personality. The personality must produce itself, enrich itself, fill itself with universal content, attain unity in integrity, throughout the whole extent of its life.
I think I get what he's trying to say, or at least I would put it this way: personality is indeed a "joint effort," worked out betwixt man and God, who is the very principle of creativity in which we participate, making us "co-creators" of both cosmos and of ourselves.
But properly speaking, God is the only Person(s). We can fill ourselves with "universal content," which is to say that we are a play of universality-in-particularity, and vice versa. This is what it means to participate in Christ, to be members of his body, or, in Jesus's own words, I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Or in John's words, I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
And the walrus was Paul.
Shut up Petey. You're out of your element.
There has always been a dual attitude toward man in Christianity. On the one hand, Christianity seemed to demean man in recognizing him as sinful and fallen, called to humility and obedience....
D'oh!
But on the other hand Christianity greatly exalts man, recognizing him as the image and likeness of God..., [it] lifts him above the social and the natural world, recognizes spiritual freedom in him..., believes that God himself became man and thus lifted man to the skies.
Phall if you but will, rise you must?
Apparently. Or rather, vice versa: fall we must, but rise if we will, which is to say, cooperate with grace. We'll end with this:
In the phenomenon of faith is given my freedom, my activity, my choice of love, and this is all mysteriously united in the activity of God's grace, God's love, God's movement toward me [↓].... Grace opens communion of another order.... Theophany is given above all in freedom rather than authority.
The essence of life is this striving of all being toward eternity [↑].
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