1. In rejecting the sacrament of order and preaching a priesthood of all believers, the Reformation rejects the division of labor within a community; with this, the Reformation rejects the the essential principle of modern society.
2. The modern insists that religion is a private affair; his world has therefore two authorities. The word of the Reformation is solus: it has but one God.
3. In the medieval and modern divisions of public and private, church and state, Christ's body is arrayed against itself and the individual believer is compelled to serve two masters. In the church of the Reformation, the body of Christ is one and the individual renders nothing unto Caesar.
4. In this way the Reformation is fundamentally opposed to the separation of Church and State. For Protestants, the paradigmatic moment on this issue is Constantine convening the Council of Nicaea, in which the Christian prince uses his political power for the good of the Church in the same way any other Christian would make use of his skills and position. For Romanists, it is Ambrose refusing communion to Theodosius, where the Christian prince, as a layman, submits to ecclesial authority. The Modern prefers the Roman picture, so long as Ambrose and Theodosius never speak.
5. Thus we may say that for the Reformation the Christian State is in the Church; for Rome, that State is under the Church.
6. For the Reformation, the church is thus totalitarian; this is a monastic impulse.
7. This totalitarian church of the Reformation is the martyrs' church of the first centuries. Tertullian argued for tolerance from the pagans and rigorism among the Christians; Augustine approved of the persecution of heretics and preached grace for all sinners in the church. Their mind was one and the same.
8. That this totalitarian church appears as a state church in a Christian society is a tautology; that it appears as counterculture in a godless society is inevitable.
9. We have need of a martyrs' church amongst the wreckage of the Reformation state, but we insist on thinking like Romanists and Moderns. We live in such wreckage because the Reformers 'gave, expecting nothing in return.'
Friday, September 18, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Sermon
Whether that can be rightly called a sermon which was neither given in the context of worship nor delivered to any real congregation may be honestly debated. Though the circumstances of this performance were those of the classroom, its genre, I hope, is undoubtedly homiletic.
The Scripture: Psalm 4
1Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
2O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.
3But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him.
4Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
5Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD.
6There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
7Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.
8I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
The Sermon:
Success is an object of our desire. Not because we feel success will bring to us the pleasures of health or wealth, make our lives easier, or augment our happiness. O we often think that, but if we dig down deeper we will see that we human beings desire success because in success we find a certain empowering satisfaction. “A job well-done is its own reward;” this we know, just like we know the pleasure we feel when we admire ourselves in the mirror. To have done something is to feel alive. It is this self-esteem that keeps people dusting their cabinets and mowing their lawns. Because we’ve all stood on that summit, we’ve all looked out across the land beneath us with a victor’s eye. And O how we would like it if the delight of that victorious exertion never left us, O we can imagine what a bliss we would live out from that perpetual achievement. So hunger for this satisfaction drives us on, we seek and aspire to new accomplishments and new success. We would be conquerors forever.
But the world does not allow such things, now does it? In the boldness of my youth it may yet seem that life can only ascend, that on every triumph of mine another will be built and grander than the first. But there are others in this room who would restrain my eager heart, who would take down volumes from the study of their experience and show me: “Here, another passed me by. Here, my joys began to pale. Here, I could go no farther.” And even I, if I am honest with the memories of my heart and not its aspirations only, even I will know from the few but sunny pages of my youth that I have often, often cried “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity and seek after lies?”
This shout from the Psalmist is not the cry of the abject and the downtrodden. This is not the cry of the man who cannot feed his family, of the mother who has lost daughters or the father who has lost sons. It is those who have had glory who can cry out when it is turned to shame. It is those who have friends who can cry out when their friendships fail them. It is a cry that people like us tend to make. This is the cry of a promotion which has inspired jealousy among the people who were merely once your co-workers. It is the cry of a long-awaited opportunity which our family had hoped we would never get. It is the cry of a romance that has severed the closeness of old acquaintance. “How long will ye turn my glory into shame?” we cry to those who trouble us. How long will you season my happiness with hatred? How long will you answer my success with your failure? How long will your sarcasm return my earnest joy? Can’t you let me take pleasure in what I have achieved, what I have earned for myself?
And when these words have done nothing—if we even spoke them at all—we take the complaint to God. I’m sure that everyone in here would have brought their joy to the Lord as well, but those people out there, well, they’re going to come to God with anger and it’ll have been a long time since they spoke. But us, the ones who pray, we who know we have boldness to approach the throne of our Lord Jesus through his blood, we who know that “the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself,” we who know that “the Lord will hear when I call unto him,” we have a right to expect some justice when we bring our indignations to the Lord. So we say “God, why can’t I just be happy? Why must I suffer sorrow with my joy? Life, I know, will have its pains, but Lord, why can’t they come in their own time? Why can’t I just love and be happy and successful right now for a while and after that let sadness wait its turn?”
And how does the Lord answer us, how does the God of Love, how does the one whom we call Father answer us? Does he cradle us indulgently? Do his words console the weeping child by affirming what they cry for?
“Stand in awe, and sin not;
Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.”
“Stand in awe of me,” says the Lord, “and you will not sin.” Kneel, and you shall not fall. For I know, says the Lord, that your desires are the children of your fears. But it is not by raising yourself to the heights that you will never sink to the depths, it is by acknowledging the depths of God that he will raise you to the heights of his blessedness. Look deep into yourself, look deep into yourself and you will find no cause to doubt the Lord’s direction of your life. Drop down an anchor into the waters of your soul, and you will nevermore be troubled by the tempests, for at the bottom of that sea is the strength of your God. For when you have communed, as the Psalmist says, with your heart upon your bed, when you have filed past all the agitations of the day, when you have laid down all the troubles that you found within your heart at the feet of Jesus Christ, then, then, and only then you will be still and you will know that he is God and you will look for nothing further. When you have said to the demons that drive you all your hours, demons like pride and desire, demons like jealousy and fear, demons we call friendship, demons called duty, demons called success…when you have said to them all “Be gone!” and you have wept and you have sobbed at the pain of their leaving, when you have weathered all the whirlwinds and the earthquakes and the scorching flames of fire, then with a still, small voice, if you are still enough to hear him like Elijah, he will whisper to you softly “I am God. Put your trust in me, just trust me, and all with you shall be righteous and right. But put your heart in mine and never bitterness shall bite upon the sweet, for I shall be yours and I am the fullness of joy.”
There are many who say “who will show us any good?” They have looked at the pain that hounds all the achievements of this world and they say there is no pleasure on the earth. But for them we say “Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, for in thy light shall we see light! Lord, thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep in security, for thou O Lord only makest me dwell in safety.” We say to them you can only see pain in this world because you have only seen this world, you can only see sorrow because you do not look for Joy, you cannot love life because you have not attended to the life that was lived in Love. You have yearned for sweet nectars from a rock, when the orchards of the Gardener stood ripening all around you.
O Lord, lift up the light of your countenance upon us! Let us see your face! For there indeed do we know we shall have gladness without measure and joy without end, a pleasure without interruption. Then our joy will surpass the happiness of prosperity and the contentment of health, the thrills of achievement and the glory of success. For in the light of your face they slip thoughtlessly from our clutches and we look for them no more. And when we have this gladness in our heart, when we have the faith of Jesus Christ, the love of our heavenly Father, and the comfort of his Holy Spirit, then we will lie down on that bed, that bed of tears where we communed with our own hearts and found the stillness of the Lord, and we will stretch out there our bodies in his peace and sleep with the contentment of a child, for we shall know and we shall know it in our heart, and we shall know it in our bones, that the Lord alone is our success, that the Lord alone makes us to dwell in safety. Amen.
The Scripture: Psalm 4
1Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
2O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.
3But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him.
4Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
5Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD.
6There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
7Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.
8I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
The Sermon:
Success is an object of our desire. Not because we feel success will bring to us the pleasures of health or wealth, make our lives easier, or augment our happiness. O we often think that, but if we dig down deeper we will see that we human beings desire success because in success we find a certain empowering satisfaction. “A job well-done is its own reward;” this we know, just like we know the pleasure we feel when we admire ourselves in the mirror. To have done something is to feel alive. It is this self-esteem that keeps people dusting their cabinets and mowing their lawns. Because we’ve all stood on that summit, we’ve all looked out across the land beneath us with a victor’s eye. And O how we would like it if the delight of that victorious exertion never left us, O we can imagine what a bliss we would live out from that perpetual achievement. So hunger for this satisfaction drives us on, we seek and aspire to new accomplishments and new success. We would be conquerors forever.
But the world does not allow such things, now does it? In the boldness of my youth it may yet seem that life can only ascend, that on every triumph of mine another will be built and grander than the first. But there are others in this room who would restrain my eager heart, who would take down volumes from the study of their experience and show me: “Here, another passed me by. Here, my joys began to pale. Here, I could go no farther.” And even I, if I am honest with the memories of my heart and not its aspirations only, even I will know from the few but sunny pages of my youth that I have often, often cried “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity and seek after lies?”
This shout from the Psalmist is not the cry of the abject and the downtrodden. This is not the cry of the man who cannot feed his family, of the mother who has lost daughters or the father who has lost sons. It is those who have had glory who can cry out when it is turned to shame. It is those who have friends who can cry out when their friendships fail them. It is a cry that people like us tend to make. This is the cry of a promotion which has inspired jealousy among the people who were merely once your co-workers. It is the cry of a long-awaited opportunity which our family had hoped we would never get. It is the cry of a romance that has severed the closeness of old acquaintance. “How long will ye turn my glory into shame?” we cry to those who trouble us. How long will you season my happiness with hatred? How long will you answer my success with your failure? How long will your sarcasm return my earnest joy? Can’t you let me take pleasure in what I have achieved, what I have earned for myself?
And when these words have done nothing—if we even spoke them at all—we take the complaint to God. I’m sure that everyone in here would have brought their joy to the Lord as well, but those people out there, well, they’re going to come to God with anger and it’ll have been a long time since they spoke. But us, the ones who pray, we who know we have boldness to approach the throne of our Lord Jesus through his blood, we who know that “the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself,” we who know that “the Lord will hear when I call unto him,” we have a right to expect some justice when we bring our indignations to the Lord. So we say “God, why can’t I just be happy? Why must I suffer sorrow with my joy? Life, I know, will have its pains, but Lord, why can’t they come in their own time? Why can’t I just love and be happy and successful right now for a while and after that let sadness wait its turn?”
And how does the Lord answer us, how does the God of Love, how does the one whom we call Father answer us? Does he cradle us indulgently? Do his words console the weeping child by affirming what they cry for?
“Stand in awe, and sin not;
Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.”
“Stand in awe of me,” says the Lord, “and you will not sin.” Kneel, and you shall not fall. For I know, says the Lord, that your desires are the children of your fears. But it is not by raising yourself to the heights that you will never sink to the depths, it is by acknowledging the depths of God that he will raise you to the heights of his blessedness. Look deep into yourself, look deep into yourself and you will find no cause to doubt the Lord’s direction of your life. Drop down an anchor into the waters of your soul, and you will nevermore be troubled by the tempests, for at the bottom of that sea is the strength of your God. For when you have communed, as the Psalmist says, with your heart upon your bed, when you have filed past all the agitations of the day, when you have laid down all the troubles that you found within your heart at the feet of Jesus Christ, then, then, and only then you will be still and you will know that he is God and you will look for nothing further. When you have said to the demons that drive you all your hours, demons like pride and desire, demons like jealousy and fear, demons we call friendship, demons called duty, demons called success…when you have said to them all “Be gone!” and you have wept and you have sobbed at the pain of their leaving, when you have weathered all the whirlwinds and the earthquakes and the scorching flames of fire, then with a still, small voice, if you are still enough to hear him like Elijah, he will whisper to you softly “I am God. Put your trust in me, just trust me, and all with you shall be righteous and right. But put your heart in mine and never bitterness shall bite upon the sweet, for I shall be yours and I am the fullness of joy.”
There are many who say “who will show us any good?” They have looked at the pain that hounds all the achievements of this world and they say there is no pleasure on the earth. But for them we say “Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, for in thy light shall we see light! Lord, thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep in security, for thou O Lord only makest me dwell in safety.” We say to them you can only see pain in this world because you have only seen this world, you can only see sorrow because you do not look for Joy, you cannot love life because you have not attended to the life that was lived in Love. You have yearned for sweet nectars from a rock, when the orchards of the Gardener stood ripening all around you.
O Lord, lift up the light of your countenance upon us! Let us see your face! For there indeed do we know we shall have gladness without measure and joy without end, a pleasure without interruption. Then our joy will surpass the happiness of prosperity and the contentment of health, the thrills of achievement and the glory of success. For in the light of your face they slip thoughtlessly from our clutches and we look for them no more. And when we have this gladness in our heart, when we have the faith of Jesus Christ, the love of our heavenly Father, and the comfort of his Holy Spirit, then we will lie down on that bed, that bed of tears where we communed with our own hearts and found the stillness of the Lord, and we will stretch out there our bodies in his peace and sleep with the contentment of a child, for we shall know and we shall know it in our heart, and we shall know it in our bones, that the Lord alone is our success, that the Lord alone makes us to dwell in safety. Amen.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
9-5 Theses
1. We ought to treasure everything we hear about Jesus in our innermost hearts, as Mary did. This is why God forbids us to use his name in vain.
2. Robin Goodfellow in Milton's "L'Allegro" and Frere Jacques in Mahler's 'Titan' model the same process whereby the common may be made acceptable matter for art.
3. Ideas of known authorship can never be profound without idolatry. When the author is known, we know the idea is a fiction, a thing made. But when the author is unknown, there is the sense of something unmade and eternal.
4. The modern state is a monarch. As such it can only remain in power by exciting antagonisms between the rich and the poor, and restricting the freedom of the rich to exercise their own power.
2. Robin Goodfellow in Milton's "L'Allegro" and Frere Jacques in Mahler's 'Titan' model the same process whereby the common may be made acceptable matter for art.
3. Ideas of known authorship can never be profound without idolatry. When the author is known, we know the idea is a fiction, a thing made. But when the author is unknown, there is the sense of something unmade and eternal.
4. The modern state is a monarch. As such it can only remain in power by exciting antagonisms between the rich and the poor, and restricting the freedom of the rich to exercise their own power.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Of the Making of Many Books...
As some of you may know, I have just recently gotten settled in Durham, North Carolina to begin attending Duke Divinity School. In the course of moving I had to take stock of my books, which are numerous. Nothing, I think, gives so much satisfaction to the true humanist than admiring his own library, for it is no less than a concrete expression of his character, the quality of which he surely supposes to be very high. In such a spirit of self approval, I present to you, dear reader, some statistics on my library.
Most Represented Book: The Bible
9 copies on shelf, 2 in everyday use: 2 Greek Testaments, 1 Hebrew Bible, 2 Modern Study Bibles, 4 Older Translations (1 King James Bible, 1 King James Psalms/Proverbs/New Testament, 1 1560 Geneva Bible facsimile, 1 Tyndale New Testament), 2 Modern Translations (1 New Revised Standard Version, 1 Robert Alter Genesis).
Most Represented Language in Reference: Greek
6 Lexica (1 Full Liddell-Scott, 1 Intermediate Liddell-Scott, 1 Classical Greek Basic Vocabulary, 1 Bauer-Danker New Testament Lexicon, 2 Short New Testament Lexica), 3 Grammar References (1 Introductory Grammar/Textbook, 1 Greek Grammar by Smyth, 1 Reference on Greek Verbs)
Most Represented Authors
1. Martin Luther
7 Books: 5 Volumes of Biblical Commentary, 1 Volume of Treatises, 1 Freedom of a Christian.
2. Virgil
6 Books: 2 Latin Editions of the Eclogues, 1 of the Eclogues and Georgics, a 2-volume Latin Edition of the Aeneid, 1 Dryden Aeneid.
2. Cicero
6 Books: 1 De Re Publica/De Legibus, 1 De Officiis, 2 Volumes of Speeches (in Latin), 1 Volume of Speeches (in English), 1 Student text of the Pro Caelio.
4. Herodotus
4 Books: 2 English Translations, 1 Student text of Book III, 1 Greek Edition of Book VIII.
Number of Non-Western Books: 2 (1 Book of Alaska Native Folklore, 1 Tale of Genji)
Obscure Books:
Guido of Pisa's Commentary on the Inferno (in pretty decent medieval Latin).
Giles of Rome's De Ecclesiastica Potestate (in offensively inelegant medieval Latin).
A French School text of Oedipus Rex (or Oedipe Roi) from 1889.
Most Represented Book: The Bible
9 copies on shelf, 2 in everyday use: 2 Greek Testaments, 1 Hebrew Bible, 2 Modern Study Bibles, 4 Older Translations (1 King James Bible, 1 King James Psalms/Proverbs/New Testament, 1 1560 Geneva Bible facsimile, 1 Tyndale New Testament), 2 Modern Translations (1 New Revised Standard Version, 1 Robert Alter Genesis).
Most Represented Language in Reference: Greek
6 Lexica (1 Full Liddell-Scott, 1 Intermediate Liddell-Scott, 1 Classical Greek Basic Vocabulary, 1 Bauer-Danker New Testament Lexicon, 2 Short New Testament Lexica), 3 Grammar References (1 Introductory Grammar/Textbook, 1 Greek Grammar by Smyth, 1 Reference on Greek Verbs)
Most Represented Authors
1. Martin Luther
7 Books: 5 Volumes of Biblical Commentary, 1 Volume of Treatises, 1 Freedom of a Christian.
2. Virgil
6 Books: 2 Latin Editions of the Eclogues, 1 of the Eclogues and Georgics, a 2-volume Latin Edition of the Aeneid, 1 Dryden Aeneid.
2. Cicero
6 Books: 1 De Re Publica/De Legibus, 1 De Officiis, 2 Volumes of Speeches (in Latin), 1 Volume of Speeches (in English), 1 Student text of the Pro Caelio.
4. Herodotus
4 Books: 2 English Translations, 1 Student text of Book III, 1 Greek Edition of Book VIII.
Number of Non-Western Books: 2 (1 Book of Alaska Native Folklore, 1 Tale of Genji)
Obscure Books:
Guido of Pisa's Commentary on the Inferno (in pretty decent medieval Latin).
Giles of Rome's De Ecclesiastica Potestate (in offensively inelegant medieval Latin).
A French School text of Oedipus Rex (or Oedipe Roi) from 1889.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Three Remedies for Modernity, Part 1
...veluti pueris apsinthia taetra medentes
Cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum
Contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore…
-Lucretius
Modernity is a condition of mind into which all of us are born and bred. It is a cage, say some, from which we cannot hope to escape. I prefer rather to think of it as a disease congenital with our era, a birth defect exacerbated by unfortunate but unavoidable habits of environment, upbringing, and education. For such diseases the treatment is simplest and most effective in the early stages of development, painful and dangerous in later life.
Although the essential causes and principal characteristics of modernity may be much debated, the remedies I offer here are directed mainly at the belief in progress, the idea that advances in knowledge and technology so fundamentally improve the human condition that any other solution to our peculiar situation appears primitive and barbaric. An absolute faith in the salvation we shall gain through our increasing mastery of the universe is a prime tenet of the modern creed, and it instills in its adherents as zealous a disregard for the beliefs of others as any fanatical sect. It appears convincing to many not only because it benefits from a grand consensus of the cultural and political powers, but because it is a fact beyond dispute that the progressing technologies and techniques of the modern world have greatly varied and increased the sensual pleasures and material comforts enjoyed by humankind. Against those of us who are wont to long aloud for the condition of some civilization past these benefits are often objected, and the modern assures himself that a long life lived with running water and instantaneous communication is preferable by far to a shorter one endured with simplicity and purpose. It is an important step in the treatment of this condition to expose the vanity of such an attitude.
The three remedies I offer here are all literary, although they differ very greatly from one another beyond that simple category. The first is science fiction, a short story (almost a novella) written in the 1930s. The second is a work of history from the early 1960s. The last is part of an epic poem written in the 1590s. They all address themselves in different ways to some of these important symptoms of modernity.
First Remedy:
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Shadow Out of Time”
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s best work is at least in part a critique of modern assumptions, usually our typically inflated view of humanity’s place in the cosmos. The general drift of his attitude towards the expansion of human knowledge may be intuited from the justly famous sentence which opens “The Call of Cthulhu:” “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” For Lovecraft, as for the modern, knowledge is the decisive factor in human existence. Yet in spite of all his atheism, in stories like “The Call of Cthulhu” he shares something in his attitude towards complete knowledge with the author of Genesis: knowledge here is ruinous and destructive, not life-giving and liberating.
“The Shadow Out of Time,” one of his last stories, is a profound and multi-layered exploration of the ultimate emptiness inherent in the promise of scientific advancement and indeed all hopes of transcendence through knowledge. The plot centers on a university professor—most of Lovecraft’s heroes are intellectuals of one sort or another—who suffers from amnesia of several years of his life during which he acted somewhat bizarrely and conducted strange researches. As he begins to look into what happened to him, he pieces together clues from his own actions with a series of vivid and recurring dreams to discover that he had in fact exchanged minds with a being of the distant past. This researcher of the so-called “Great Race” had used the professor to acquire certain information available in his own day, and the professor in turn, while he inhabited the other’s body, had written a history of his own times for the archives of the Great Race. The ability of the Great Race to transfer their consciousnesses through time means that, in a way, their civilization never dies: by the time in which the professor encounters them, Earth’s distant past, they had already lived out the lives of many previous species, moving their consciousnesses each time into a new host civilization in the future. However, the Great Race also knew that the horrible creatures called Elder Things, which they had subdued when they first transported themselves to Earth, would eventually awake and overthrow them, forcing them to migrate their consciousnesses into the future once more, to a time when the Elder Things will no longer threaten them.
Having pieced this story together, but still fearing himself to be mad or deluded, the professor convinces some colleagues to join him in an archaeological expedition in the Australian Outback to discover the city of the Great Race. Wandering alone at night in the desert, the professor finds the city and the archives from his dreams and memories, but also awakens the Elder Things, which chase him from the ruins utterly terrified. The next day, he tries to rediscover the site, but the desert has swallowed it.
Lovecraft attacks the possibility of transcendence through knowledge from three principal angles in “The Shadow Out of Time.” First, he tauntingly suggests the impotence of the contemporary sciences in the form of the doctors and psychologists who try to convince the professor he has merely had a mental breakdown. This strand, however, does not critique the principle behind the belief in scientific progress, for one might easily respond that our knowledge, although it is insufficient now, will eventually be perfected. The principle of all-powerful knowledge is the object of Lovecraft’s second critique, which operates from the example of the Great Race itself, a civilization so advanced that they had conquered those two forces which seem to make us mortal and therefore form the substance of our problems, time and matter. But it becomes all too clear in the tragic story of the Great Race that this mastery does little to actually change the limitations of creaturely, bounded existence: they are merely capable of fleeing from one set of material and temporal problems to another. Finally, Lovecraft rejects even the idea of attaining some level of transcendence through self-knowledge in the character of the professor, whose quest to find out about himself results only in greater despair when he finds the truth: “If that abyss and what it held were real, there is no hope. Then, all too truly, there lies upon this world of man a mocking and incredible shadow out of time.” In this moment of cosmic despair, the professor’s only comfort is that he has no hard proof of the reality of it all: the best knowledge is faulty knowledge.
Whether the “shadow out of time” is a shadow that emerges from time and is cast by time, or is a shadow cast from outside of time, it lies over all that is bound by time, and it cannot be escaped except by truly transcending that limit—and for the efforts of creatures defined by that limit such transcendence is impossible. Against this metaphysical wall every presumption and ambition of enlightened science will be dashed.
In the story, this metaphysical shadow is personified by the sinister Elder Things, whose presence preceded the Great Race and continues to inhabit their ruins, whose eventual triumph proved inevitable. The Great Race is described as living always with the fear of these Elder Things in the back of their minds, for they knew they could not defeat them. As an object of knowledge, the Elder Things may be recognized, but not mastered.
For atheists such as Lovecraft and his protagonist the situation must indeed look very bleak. With the universe so laid bare, the innate human desire to transcend our mortal limits certainly appears to be mocked by the very principles of existence, and the Great Race, for all its achievements, proves merely to be a stronger creature chained in the same mortal limits. For a Christian, however, things look much different, for God, who becomes man in Jesus Christ, is a light out of time which shines in the darkness: this God throws no shadow over the world of man, as if to smother it, but casts light onto it, as if to reveal its place in the presence of something better. And this light does not merely uncover the tantalizing prospect of something unattainable, for over The Man Who is God death and all the attendant forces of the universe have no power, and in his true mastery over these forces he opens a way to true transcendence for all those who have their being in him. In the Bible (e.g. Hebrews 4) and in Church Fathers such as Augustine and Maximus the Confessor this transcendence is described as rest from the labor and motion of our existence, a characterization we may well apply to the Great Race and its tragic, eternal migrations, doomed, like all things set in motion, never to cease but by the power of another.
Cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum
Contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore…
-Lucretius
Modernity is a condition of mind into which all of us are born and bred. It is a cage, say some, from which we cannot hope to escape. I prefer rather to think of it as a disease congenital with our era, a birth defect exacerbated by unfortunate but unavoidable habits of environment, upbringing, and education. For such diseases the treatment is simplest and most effective in the early stages of development, painful and dangerous in later life.
Although the essential causes and principal characteristics of modernity may be much debated, the remedies I offer here are directed mainly at the belief in progress, the idea that advances in knowledge and technology so fundamentally improve the human condition that any other solution to our peculiar situation appears primitive and barbaric. An absolute faith in the salvation we shall gain through our increasing mastery of the universe is a prime tenet of the modern creed, and it instills in its adherents as zealous a disregard for the beliefs of others as any fanatical sect. It appears convincing to many not only because it benefits from a grand consensus of the cultural and political powers, but because it is a fact beyond dispute that the progressing technologies and techniques of the modern world have greatly varied and increased the sensual pleasures and material comforts enjoyed by humankind. Against those of us who are wont to long aloud for the condition of some civilization past these benefits are often objected, and the modern assures himself that a long life lived with running water and instantaneous communication is preferable by far to a shorter one endured with simplicity and purpose. It is an important step in the treatment of this condition to expose the vanity of such an attitude.
The three remedies I offer here are all literary, although they differ very greatly from one another beyond that simple category. The first is science fiction, a short story (almost a novella) written in the 1930s. The second is a work of history from the early 1960s. The last is part of an epic poem written in the 1590s. They all address themselves in different ways to some of these important symptoms of modernity.
First Remedy:
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Shadow Out of Time”
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s best work is at least in part a critique of modern assumptions, usually our typically inflated view of humanity’s place in the cosmos. The general drift of his attitude towards the expansion of human knowledge may be intuited from the justly famous sentence which opens “The Call of Cthulhu:” “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” For Lovecraft, as for the modern, knowledge is the decisive factor in human existence. Yet in spite of all his atheism, in stories like “The Call of Cthulhu” he shares something in his attitude towards complete knowledge with the author of Genesis: knowledge here is ruinous and destructive, not life-giving and liberating.
“The Shadow Out of Time,” one of his last stories, is a profound and multi-layered exploration of the ultimate emptiness inherent in the promise of scientific advancement and indeed all hopes of transcendence through knowledge. The plot centers on a university professor—most of Lovecraft’s heroes are intellectuals of one sort or another—who suffers from amnesia of several years of his life during which he acted somewhat bizarrely and conducted strange researches. As he begins to look into what happened to him, he pieces together clues from his own actions with a series of vivid and recurring dreams to discover that he had in fact exchanged minds with a being of the distant past. This researcher of the so-called “Great Race” had used the professor to acquire certain information available in his own day, and the professor in turn, while he inhabited the other’s body, had written a history of his own times for the archives of the Great Race. The ability of the Great Race to transfer their consciousnesses through time means that, in a way, their civilization never dies: by the time in which the professor encounters them, Earth’s distant past, they had already lived out the lives of many previous species, moving their consciousnesses each time into a new host civilization in the future. However, the Great Race also knew that the horrible creatures called Elder Things, which they had subdued when they first transported themselves to Earth, would eventually awake and overthrow them, forcing them to migrate their consciousnesses into the future once more, to a time when the Elder Things will no longer threaten them.
Having pieced this story together, but still fearing himself to be mad or deluded, the professor convinces some colleagues to join him in an archaeological expedition in the Australian Outback to discover the city of the Great Race. Wandering alone at night in the desert, the professor finds the city and the archives from his dreams and memories, but also awakens the Elder Things, which chase him from the ruins utterly terrified. The next day, he tries to rediscover the site, but the desert has swallowed it.
Lovecraft attacks the possibility of transcendence through knowledge from three principal angles in “The Shadow Out of Time.” First, he tauntingly suggests the impotence of the contemporary sciences in the form of the doctors and psychologists who try to convince the professor he has merely had a mental breakdown. This strand, however, does not critique the principle behind the belief in scientific progress, for one might easily respond that our knowledge, although it is insufficient now, will eventually be perfected. The principle of all-powerful knowledge is the object of Lovecraft’s second critique, which operates from the example of the Great Race itself, a civilization so advanced that they had conquered those two forces which seem to make us mortal and therefore form the substance of our problems, time and matter. But it becomes all too clear in the tragic story of the Great Race that this mastery does little to actually change the limitations of creaturely, bounded existence: they are merely capable of fleeing from one set of material and temporal problems to another. Finally, Lovecraft rejects even the idea of attaining some level of transcendence through self-knowledge in the character of the professor, whose quest to find out about himself results only in greater despair when he finds the truth: “If that abyss and what it held were real, there is no hope. Then, all too truly, there lies upon this world of man a mocking and incredible shadow out of time.” In this moment of cosmic despair, the professor’s only comfort is that he has no hard proof of the reality of it all: the best knowledge is faulty knowledge.
Whether the “shadow out of time” is a shadow that emerges from time and is cast by time, or is a shadow cast from outside of time, it lies over all that is bound by time, and it cannot be escaped except by truly transcending that limit—and for the efforts of creatures defined by that limit such transcendence is impossible. Against this metaphysical wall every presumption and ambition of enlightened science will be dashed.
In the story, this metaphysical shadow is personified by the sinister Elder Things, whose presence preceded the Great Race and continues to inhabit their ruins, whose eventual triumph proved inevitable. The Great Race is described as living always with the fear of these Elder Things in the back of their minds, for they knew they could not defeat them. As an object of knowledge, the Elder Things may be recognized, but not mastered.
For atheists such as Lovecraft and his protagonist the situation must indeed look very bleak. With the universe so laid bare, the innate human desire to transcend our mortal limits certainly appears to be mocked by the very principles of existence, and the Great Race, for all its achievements, proves merely to be a stronger creature chained in the same mortal limits. For a Christian, however, things look much different, for God, who becomes man in Jesus Christ, is a light out of time which shines in the darkness: this God throws no shadow over the world of man, as if to smother it, but casts light onto it, as if to reveal its place in the presence of something better. And this light does not merely uncover the tantalizing prospect of something unattainable, for over The Man Who is God death and all the attendant forces of the universe have no power, and in his true mastery over these forces he opens a way to true transcendence for all those who have their being in him. In the Bible (e.g. Hebrews 4) and in Church Fathers such as Augustine and Maximus the Confessor this transcendence is described as rest from the labor and motion of our existence, a characterization we may well apply to the Great Race and its tragic, eternal migrations, doomed, like all things set in motion, never to cease but by the power of another.
Friday, July 31, 2009
A Returning Reflection
I hope soon to take up posting with some regularity. The strains and commitments of my senior year and Divinity school applications proved unfortunately too great to allow me the kind of reflective time necessary to write.
As I contemplate the church and world which God is preparing me to serve, the challenge seems often too much and I wonder if I might do better in withdrawal and study. I confess I come too slowly to my own chastisement in these moments and content myself too readily with the feeble faith they evidence. Yet it is for these weaknesses that God has given us the church, and to the church such ministers as turn us out from ourselves, whether we are there satisfied or discontented, to the better destiny God has appointed for each one of us. My grandfather is one such minister, and I had this past Sunday the blessing of hearing him preach a simple undiluted word to the mostly oblivious tenants of an Illinois nursing home; this indeed is 'folly to the Jews and a stumblingblock to Gentiles.' I can thank God that my resident cynicism was crushed for that short space beneath the foolishness of the Gospel, and I pray him constantly that it may be so every hour.
Bishop William Willimon is another such minister, whom I encountered first in his books coauthored with Stanley Hauerwas. I leave you with a recent talk of his on the theology of John Wesley. It ought to be an admonishing and inspiring voice to every Christian, and especially to those of us who are readily enticed to merely think about the faith, not live it.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Christianity and Patriotism
The excellent blogger Chris Tilling has begun to add to his duties the co-hosting of a podcast with three other scholars, which, if he continues to contribute to it with the seriousness and learning of his first foray, I intend often to enjoy.
The podcast, a discussion of the place of patriotism for a Christian, can be heard here.
The podcast, a discussion of the place of patriotism for a Christian, can be heard here.
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