A Thinking Reed

Category: Books

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 7

    The first time I read this I thought that chapters XVI to XVIII of Book One were kind of a weird tangent. There Anselm discusses at some length whether there was a specific number of rational beings God intended to bring to eternal happiness, and, if so, whether God’s purpose in saving human beings was to replace the number of angels who fell. But I now think there’s more to be gotten out of this line of thought than I’d originally thought.

    Anselm considers two possible views. The first is that there was a specific number of angels that God intended to live in heaven with him, and that his only reason for elevating some human beings to eternal life was to replace the number of angels who defected. The other possibility is that God had always intended to bring a certain number of angels and a certain number of human beings to blessedness, but that, after the fall of some angels, he had to save more human beings in order to make up the deficit. It’s axiomatic for Anselm that God has some specific number in mind: “There is no question that intelligent nature, which finds its happiness, both now and forever, in the contemplation of God, was foreseen by him in a certain reasonable and complete number, so that there would be an unfitness in its being either less or greater.”

    Anselm favors the view that God had always intended to save some humans, but that more than originally forseen will be saved in order to make up the deficit of angels:

    [I]f the perfection of the created universe is to be understood as consisting, not so much in the number of beings, as in the number of natures; it follows that human nature was either made to consummate this perfection, or that it was superfluous, which we should not dare affirm of the nature of the smallest reptile. Wherefore, then, it was made for itself, and not merely to restore the number of beings possessing another nature. From which it is plain that, even had no angel fallen, men would yet have had their place in the celestial kingdom. And hence it follows that there was not a perfect number of angels, even before a part fell; otherwise, of necessity some men or angels must fall, because it would be impossible that any should continue beyond the perfect number. (Bk. One, Chapter XVIII)

    God’s celestial kingdom would not be complete, Anselm argues, unless each nature, or at least each rational nature, was represented. Again we see that God’s purposes for creation are the context in which we need to understand Atonement according to Anselm. Leaving aside whether there is a specific number of beings that must populate heaven (though Anselm’s reasons for holding this are better than might be suspected), it shows that he conceives God as having purposes for (at least some of) his (rational) creatures: to bring them into a life of eternal communion with the divine Self. Rational nature, whether human or angelic, “finds its happiness, both now and forever, in the contemplation of God.”

    This suggests why God can’t be satisfied, so to speak, with merely punishing sin. God, on Anselm’s account, is not simply about balancing the books. He is about bringing creatures to the proper fulfillment; anything less would be a frustration of his purposes for creation. Admittedly Anselm’s juridical language can at times obscure this point. But seen in the larger context of his understanding of God and creation, I think we start to get a picture that has more continuity with certain patristic motifs such as “recapitulation.” God is interested in getting the human project back on track so that human nature can be elevated to its proper end.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 6 (the brief version)

    I just lost a long post on the next couple of chapters of Cur Deus Homo, so this is the abridged version…

    The concept of God’s honor is central to Anselm’s scheme, but it has also been severely criticized and (I would argue) often misunderstood. Anselm himself may be partly responsible for some of the confusion in that he seems to say both that sin robs God of his honor and that God’s honor can’t in any way be diminished.

    In Book One, Chapter XV he addresses this directly:

    Nothing can be added to or taken from the honor of God. For this honor which belongs to him is in no way subject to injury or change. But as the individual creature preserves, naturally or by reason, the condition belonging, and, as it were, allotted to him, he is said to obey and honor God; and to this, rational nature, which possesses intelligence, is especially bound. And when the being chooses what he ought, he honors God; not by bestowing anything upon him, but because he brings himself freely under God’s will and disposal, and maintains his own condition in the universe, and the beauty of the universe itself, as far as in him lies. But when he does not choose what he ought, he dishonors God, as far as the being himself is concerned, because he does not submit himself freely to God’s disposal. And he disturbs the order and beauty of the universe, as relates to himself, although he cannot injure nor tarnish the power and majesty of God. … And so, though man or evil angel refuse to submit to the Divine will and appointment, yet he cannot escape it; for if he wishes to fly from a will that commands, he falls into the power of a will that punishes. And if you ask whither he goes, it is only under the permission of that will; and even this wayward choice or action of his becomes subservient, under infinite wisdom, to the order and beauty of the universe before spoken of. For when it is understood that God brings good out of many forms of evil, then the satisfaction for sin freely given, or if this be not given, the exaction of punishment, hold their own place and orderly beauty in the same universe. For if Divine wisdom were not to insist upon things, when wickedness tries to disturb the right appointment, there would be, in the very universe which God ought to control, an unseemliness springing from the violation of the beauty of arrangement, and God would appear to be deficient in his management. And these two things are not only unfitting, but consequently impossible; so that satisfaction or punishment must needs follow every sin.

    God’s honor is intergrally related to his creation and ordering of the universe. Considered in himself, God can’t be harmed or benefited by anything we do. This is the much-disputed doctrine of divine impassibility. Nothing can add to or take away from God’s perfection and blessedness.

    But – sin can and does deface creation. Sin is ugly in that it disrupts the order and beauty of the universe. The beauty of creation consists of each being fulfilling its purpose and contributing to the harmony of the whole. To reject that purpose is to disrupt that harmony. We might also say that sin is a lie – it speaks untruth about creation. If I sin against a fellow creature I am saying something untrue about its worth.

    So, if God were to let sin go unpunished or without satisfaction being made, he would be letting his intentions for creation be frustrated. He would be letting sin have the last word. But God can’t do this because of his goodness. Like what a feudal lord is supposed to do, God upholds the order and beauty of his realm. If he were to let his intentions for creation be frustrated by sin he would be less than fully good or less than fully powerful. To counteract sin God must do something so beautiful that it blots out the ugliness of sin. He must speak the truth about sin and about creation that contradicts the lie.

    Anselm points out that one way or another God’s will prevails. Either creatures render their due obedience to God, or make satisfaction for their sin, or are punished for their sin. But under no circumstances does sin get the last word. However, given that there is sin, Anselm thinks that there are good reasons for God to prefer satisfaction to punishment. This sets Anselm’s account of atonement apart from later views which understand Jesus as having taken our punishment on himself. In fact, he’ll go on to argue that God must make satisfaction rather than extract punishment if his purposes for creation are to be fulfilled, which, I think, has interesting implications.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 5

    In Book One, chapter XII the question is posed “whether it were proper for God to put away sins by compassion alone, without any payment of the honor taken from him.” On the face of it, this seems quite a reasonable question. After all, the Heavenly Father portrayed in, say, the teachings and parables of Jesus seems willing to forgive sins without any satisfaction being made for them. Think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: the father not only forgives his son’s disloyalty and squandering of his inheritance, he runs out to greet him after spying him from afar, not even making penitence and contrition a condition of forgiveness. If this is, as most Christians believe, intended to be a picture of the way God deals with us, doesn’t it fly in the face of Jesus’ teaching to say that God demands satisfaction for sin before we can be forgiven? Moreover, Jesus himself freely forgives people’s sins throughout his ministry without suggesting that it’s conditional upon his sacrificial life and death, much less that they must believe that those events have saving significance in order for their sins to be forgiven. Is the idea of a God who demands satisfaction as a condition for grace not a distortion of the God revealed by Jesus?

    Anselm says that to “remit sin in this manner is nothing else than not to punish; and since it is not right to cancel sin without compensation or punishment; if it be not punished, then is it passed by undischarged” and it “is not fitting for God to pass over anything in his kingdom undischarged,” therefore it is “not proper for God thus to pass over sin unpunished.”

    What does he mean by saying that it’s not fitting for anything in God’s kingdom to be undischarged? Here we’re starting to get into the notion of God’s honor a little more deeply. Following this argument, Anselm goes on to say that “if sin be passed by unpunished, viz., that with God there will be no difference between the guilty and the not guilty; and this is unbecoming to God” and “Injustice, therefore, if it is cancelled by compassion alone, is more free than justice, which seems very inconsistent. And to these is also added a further incongruity, viz., that it makes injustice like God. For as God is subject to no law, so neither is injustice.”

    I think that Anselm is pointing to two important ideas that will help us make better sense of his argument (I hope!). The first is a proper understanding of freedom and goodness as they pertain to God, the second is the order and beauty of creation. I’ll discuss the first here and the second in the next post.

    Boso asks why God isn’t free simply to put away the apparent demands of justice that would require that sin be punished. After all,

    God is so free as to be subject to no law, and to the judgment of no one, and is so merciful as that nothing more merciful can be conceived; and nothing is right or fit save as he wills; it seems a strange thing for us to say that be is wholly unwilling or unable to put away an injury done to himself, when we are wont to apply to him for indulgence with regard to those offences which we commit against others.

    Anselm replies:

    What you say of God’s liberty and choice and compassion is true; but we ought so to interpret these things as that they may not seem to interfere with His dignity. For there is no liberty except as regards what is best or fitting; nor should that be called mercy which does anything improper for the Divine character. Moreover, when it is said that what God wishes is just, and that what He does not wish is unjust, we must not understand that if God wished anything improper it would be just, simply because he wished it. For if God wishes to lie, we must not conclude that it is right to lie, but rather that he is not God. For no will can ever wish to lie, unless truth in it is impaired, nay, unless the will itself be impaired by forsaking truth. When, then, it is said: “If God wishes to lie,” the meaning is simply this: “If the nature of God is such as that he wishes to lie;” and, therefore, it does not follow that falsehood is right, except it be understood in the same manner as when we speak of two impossible things: “If this be true, then that follows; because neither this nor that is true;” as if a man should say: “Supposing water to be dry, and fire to be moist;” for neither is the case. Therefore, with regard to these things, to speak the whole truth: If God desires a thing, it is right that he should desire that which involves no unfitness. For if God chooses that it should rain, it is right that it should rain; and if he desires that any man should die, then is it right that he should die. Wherefore, if it be not fitting for God to do anything unjustly, or out of course, it does not belong to his liberty or compassion or will to let the sinner go unpunished who makes no return to God of what the sinner has defrauded him.

    Anselm is taking one side of the debate going back at least to Plato’s Euthyphro, namely, whether God (or the gods) will things because they’re good, or are they good because God wills them? In the terminology of a later debate this is the question of voluntarism vs. non-voluntarism. Anselm is clearly a non-voluntarist: God is not free to will what is evil or unjust. Not because God is constrained by something “external” to himself, but becuase the divine nature is such that it is identical with goodness, and that nature, being necessary, can’t be otherwise than it is. This is the classic Christian solution to Plato’s dilemma. So, for God to ignore the dictates of justice would be contrary to the divine nature itself and therefore not just wrong but impossible in the strongest sense.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 4

    In chapter XI Anselm turns to the question of sin, since one needs to get clear on that before determining what it means to make satisfaction for sin.

    Simply put, sin is to fail to render to God what is due him. But what is it that we owe? “Every wish of a rational creature should be subject to the will of God.” Therefore, when a rational creatrue fails to subject herself to the will of God she is guilty of sin:

    This is the debt which man and angel owe to God, and no one who pays this debt commits sin; but every one who does not pay it sins. This is justice, or uprightness of will, which makes a being just or upright in heart, that is, in will; and this is the sole and complete debt of honor which we owe to God, and which God requires of us. For it is such a will only, when it can be exercised, that does works pleasing to God; and when this will cannot be exercised, it is pleasing of itself alone, since without it no work is acceptable. (Book One, Chapter XI)

    It’s not clear from this chapter alone how Anselm understands the relationship between obeying the will of God and human happiness. Is it rational to obey the will of God simply because it’s God’s will, or is God’s will for us integrally connected to our own happiness and flourishing? Anselm says elsewhere that God creates rational beings so that they can attain to eternal happiness and blessedness, so it seems likely that he will say that God’s will for us is geared toward our attainment of that goal. In other words, in failing to subject ourselves to God’s will, we aren’t simply dishonoring God, but we’re frustrating our own created purpose. I think this is important to keep in mind in order to better understand Anselm’s view on God’s honor and satisfaction which have been subject to much criticism.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 3

    One of the most vexing questions about the death of Christ theologically speaking is whether and in what sense we can say it was willed by God the Father. Was it specifically the death of Jesus that was required to reconcile God and sinners? Looming here is the modern critique of traditional Atonement theory as exhibiting “cosmic child abuse” and encouraging an abusive mentality in Christians.

    Contrary to some accounts of his views, though, Anselm specifically denies that God willed the death of Jesus in any direct sense. Boso asks:

    [H]ow will it ever be made out a just or reasonable thing that God should treat or suffer to be treated in such a manner, that man whom the Father called his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased, and whom the Son made himself? For what justice is there in his suffering death for the sinner, who was the most just of all men? What man, if he condemned the innocent to free the guilty, would not himself be judged worthy of condemnation? And so the matter seems to return to the same incongruity which is mentioned above. For if he could not save sinners in any other way than by condemning the just, where is his omnipotence? If, however, he could, but did not wish to, how shall we sustain his wisdom and justice? (Book One, Ch. VIII)

    First of all, Anselm denies that the Son went to his death against his will, since “the Father did not compel him to suffer death, or even allow him to be slain, against his will, but of his own accord he endured death for the salvation of men.” But Boso replies that the Son nevertheless fulfilled his Father’s will in going to his death, so mustn’t we say that the Father willed the death of the Son?

    Anselm goes on to distinguish the Son’s obedience from the consequences of that obedience. His mission, as it were, was “that, in word and in life, he invariably maintained truth and justice,” viz. what every human being owes to God. And it was on account of this that he was put to death. God doesn’t directly will the death of the Son; he wills that the Son should come into the world and lead a perfect human life. But, of course, God knew that this would lead to his death. His death, as it were, was a foreseeable but inintended outcome of his life of perfect obedience.

    God did not, therefore, compel Christ to die; but he suffered death of his own will, not yielding up his life as an act of obedience, but on account of his obedience in maintaining holiness; for he held out so firmly in this obedience that he met death on account of it. It may, indeed be said, that the Father commanded him to die, when he enjoined that upon him on account of which he met death. It was in this sense, then, that “as the Father gave him the commandment, so he did, and the cup which He gave to him, he drank; and he was made obedient to the Father, even unto death;” and thus “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered,” that is, how far obedience should be maintained. (Book One, Ch. IX)

    The gift that the Son gives isn’t his death per se, but his life of perfect obedience, the life that no other human being can offer. Still, it can be said that God wills the death of the Son in an indirect sense, as a necessary outcome of his mission:

    So the Father desired the death of the Son, because he was not willing that the world should be saved in any other way, except by man’s doing so great a thing as that which I have mentioned. And this, since none other could accomplish it, availed as much with the Son, who so earnestly desired the salvation of man, as if the Father had commanded him to die; and, therefore, “as the Father gave him commandment, so he did, and the cup which the Father gave to him he drank, being obedient even unto death.” (Book One, Ch. IX)

    Of course, even if we concede that the death of the Son wasn’t directly willed by God in the sense that he was appeased by it or required it, it still seems unjust to send an innocent man (much less the Son of God!) to his ceratin death if the same good could be obtained in any other way. This seems to be why Anselm needs a strong sense of the necessity of the Incarnation; if there was any other way for God to save us, then the price of the death of the Son, whether directly intended or not, would seem too high.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 2

    It’s interesting that in Book One, chapters VI and VII it’s Boso who gets to critique one of the more widespread theories of the Atonement at the time of Anselm’s writing, the so-called Ransom theory favored by several of the Fathers.

    In a nutshell, the Ransom theory teaches that, by sinning, humankind had put iself under the dominion of the devil and that Satan had acquired lordship over us. However, despite exercises this authority over humankind, Satan overstepped his bounds in killing Christ, because Satan had no rights over Christ since the latter hadn’t sinned. Thus, in illegitimately killing him, Satan forfeits his rights over the rest of us. I think it was Augustine who compared Christ to the bait on a fishhook: Satan snaps up the human being Jesus, but the divinity concealed within proves to be his undoing. A version of this theory seems to be at work in the depiction of Aslan’s death in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In betraying his siblings, Edmund has effectively made his life forfeit to the White Witch. But Aslan, agreeing to be slain in Edmund’s place deceives the Witch, who is unaware of the “deeper magic” and the fact that death will ultimately be unable to hold Aslan.

    What Anselm/Boso takes issue with is the idea that the devil has rights over humankind such that God couldn’t release us from bondage to Satan merely by fiat:

    I do not see the force of that argument, which we are wont to make use of, that God, in order to save men, was bound, as it were, to try a contest with the devil in justice, before he did in strength, so that, when the devil should put to death that being in whom there was nothing worthy of death, and who was God, he should justly lose his power over sinners; and that, if it were not so, God would have used undue force against the devil, since the devil had a rightful ownership of man, for the devil had not seized man with violence, but man had freely surrendered to him. (Book One, Ch VII)

    Anselm/Boso doesn’t deny that Satan has a certain de facto power over humanity. After the fall we are certainly in Satan’s thrall and subject to his torments. What is denied, however, is that Satan has a de jure authority over us. The devil tempted humanity by means of treachery, so he can’t have acquired legitimate authority over us.

    It’s allowed that God may justly permit the devil to be the agent of our punishment, but it doesn’t follow that Satan acts justly. “For man merited punishment, and there was no more suitable way for him to be punished than by that being to whom he had given his consent to sin. But the infliction of punishment was nothing meritorious in the devil; on the other hand, he was even more unrighteous in this, because he was not led to it by a love of justice, but urged on by a malicious impulse.” This is similar to the way in which, in the OT, God permits Israel to undergo certain hardships as a means of chastisement, without the agents of that chastisement (typically other nations) being just in themselves. God can use their malicious intentions as the agents of his justice. But they in no way have the right to do what they’re doing, just as Satan has no rights over us.

    Thus, as a matter of justice, God is in no way obliged to respect Satan’s supposed rights. Therefore the Ransom theory, while getting at part of the truth – that, in Christ, God frees us from the power of the devil – can’t be the whole story.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 1

    As a sort of Lenten-ey thing I’m re-reading St. Anselm‘s Cur Deus Homo, his famous (infamous in some circles) treatise on the reason for the Incarnation and how it effects our salvation. So, I thought I would post a series of notes on things that strike me. This won’t be a systematic exposition, which would be beyond my powers, but more like some ruminations informed by the text.

    The work takes place in the form of a dialogue between Anselm and Boso, his interlocutor who poses objections to the Christian docrtine of Incarnation and Atonement. The idea is to present reasons which, independently of revelation, show our need for atonement and how it can only be effected by God becoming man. The purpose is both to turn away the objections of “infidels” and to reach a greater understanding of Christian truth.

    The first objection mentioned by Boso is that it’s unbecoming for God to become human, and that “we do injustice and dishonor to God when we affirm that he descended into the womb of a virgin, that he was born of woman, that he grew on the nourishment of milk and the food of men; and, passing over many other things which seem incompatible with Deity, that he endured fatigue, hunger, thirst, stripes and crucifixion among thieves.”

    In response, Anselm immediately introduces the concept of “fittingness,” which, along with the related notion of “beauty,” plays an important role in his argument:

    We do no injustice or dishonor to God, but give him thanks with all the heart, praising and proclaiming the ineffable height of his compassion. For the more astonishing a thing it is and beyond expectation, that he has restored us from so great and deserved ills in which we were, to so great and unmerited blessings which we had forfeited; by so much the more has he shown his more exceeding love and tenderness towards us. For did they but carefully consider how fitly in this way human redemption is secured, they would not ridicule our simplicity, but would rather join with us in praising the wise beneficence of God. For, as death came upon the human race by the disobedience of man, it was fitting that by man’s obedience life should be restored. And, as sin, the cause of our condemnation, had its origin from a woman, so ought the author of our righteousness and salvation to be born of a woman. And so also was it proper that the devil, who, being man’s tempter, had conquered him in eating of the tree, should be vanquished by man in the suffering of the tree which man bore. Many other things also, if we carefully examine them, give a certain indescribable beauty to our redemption as thus procured. (Book One, Chapter III, emphasis added)

    Fittingness and beauty seem integral to Anselm’s understanding of how God orders and governs creation, which will become clearer later. For the present I think it’s helpful to note that, contrary to some caricatures of Anselm’s position, God’s love is the motive for the Incarnation. There may be some popular presentations of the Atonement which picture a vindictive God appeased by the killing of his innocent Son, but Anselm is clear that God’s love for us is demonstrated in the act of Atonement, not secured by it.

  • Wright on Lewis and some quibbles

    Readers might be interested in this critical appreciation of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity by none other than N.T. Wright (who’s own Simply Christian has been called a Mere Christianity for the twenty-first century).

    Wright has much praise for Lewis of course, as well as some criticism. Some of the criticism hits the target, some of it not so much. I think Wright is, uh, right to point out that Lewis didn’t really engage with Jesus’ Jewishness and his proclamation of the Kingdom. I think that, to the extent that Lewis wrote about Jesus’ teaching and ministry, he generally portrayed Jesus as enunciating something like universal truths (Lewis, to be fair, was hardly alone in this).

    However, I’m less impressed by Wright’s criticism of Lewis’s views on heaven. Lewis no doubt had a strong Platonic streak (which I don’t necessarily consider a bad thing), but I think Wright underplays the way in which, for Lewis, the heavenly realm is more like the material world brought to fruition than a kind of “spiritual” or purely intellectual escape from the physical that some people have imagined. Granted that Wright is just writing about Mere Christianity here, but I think to get a fuller picture of Lewis’s views on the afterlife one would need to attend at least to The Great Divorce, “The Weight of Glory,” and maybe even The Last Battle.

    Part of the problem, too, is that Wright treats the “biblical” view of the world to come as clearer and more univocal than I, at any rate, find it to be. There have been a multiplicity of ways that Christians have tried to describe or make sense of “heaven,” “the new heavens and new earth,” and other expressions for the ultimate consummation of all things. And this is no doubt partly becuase the “biblical” view on such matters is not obvious, not to mention that we’re dealing with realities that are so far removed from ordinary experience that we quickly run up against the limitations of our language and concepts.

    As Lewis himself was well aware, the Bible doesn’t give us a literal picture of the resurrection life, but gives us images that point to essential features of it:

    The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like Him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; fourthly, that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe—ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God’stemple. (The Weight of Glory, p. 34)

    Lewis goes on to explore what these images might indicate, but he’s not dogmatic about describing in any great detail what this will look like. And for good reason – the images we’re given in Scripture – the banquet, the New Jerusalem, the wedding feast, etc. – are hardly conducive to detailed maps of the afterlife. The point being that dismissing Lewis as simply baptizing Plato doesn’t really do justice to his reflection on the matter.

    Any Christian view of the afterlife, it seems to me, has to deal with the tension between change and continuity. We look for the resurrection of the body, but it’s also the resurrection of the body. That is, the New Testament posits both continuity with the present life and radical change (“what we will be has not yet been revealed,” “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body”). Lewis may not successfully navigate this tension, but I think he was aware of it and tried to do justice to both poles.

    The other point at which I think Wright is a bit unfair to Lewis is in discussing the Atonement:

    Lewis is right to stress that Christians are not committed to one single way of understanding the meaning of the Cross, and that as long as one somehow looks at the death of Jesus and understands it in terms of God’s love and forgiveness, that is sufficient to start with.

    But his idea—that (a) God requires humans to be penitent, that (b) we can’t because of our pride, but that (c) Jesus does it in and for us—though ingenious, places in my view too high a value on repentance (vital though it of course is), implies again that soteriology is about God doing something in us rather than extra nos (though I think Lewis believed that as well, but he doesn’t expound it here), and minimizes all the other rich biblical language about the Cross, not least the Christus Victor theme.

    Wright is correct that Lewis puts this account of the Atonement forward strictly as a way of thinking about the mystery that he has personally found helpful, and he even encourages the readers to “drop it” if they don’t. Lewis was very careful for the most part not to get into the finer points of dogmatic theology. We see this in his discussion of the Eucharist too. The important bit is the thing itself, not our theories about it. As Lewis says in his discussion of the Eucharist, the command is “take, eat,” not “take, understand.”

    That being said, I don’t think, even at the level of theological reflection, Lewis can fairly be accused of neglecting the notion that on the Cross God does something extra nos. It’s often been observed, for instance, that The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe works with a notion of Atonement that seems to combine elements of the traditional “ransom” theory as well as the satisfaction theory. Whatever one thinks of those theories, they are strongly “objective” in emphasizing a work that Jesus (Aslan) accomplished for us without our cooperation. Again, Wright is only directly discussing Mere Christianity, but it seems fair to point out that Lewis seems to have had a more multifaceted understanding of the Atonement than Wright implies.

  • Lent for nerds or The desire to possess as alienation from God

    Part of my Lenten fast is that I’m not going to buy any books. This may sound silly, but I’ve found that I often crave books in the way that other people might crave a new pair of shoes or something for their house. Although I (eventually!) read most of the books I buy, I think there’s some deeper and more disreputable feeling that buying stuff serves to alleviate. A sort of anxiousness that the new possession momentarily drives away. Or maybe an Is this a relic of our evolutionary past where securing an important article might have meant the difference between life and death? Or is it an artifact of our capitalist economy and the need to generate new “needs”?

    I’ve also pledged to get rid of some of the books I already have. This has a practical dimension since we’re going to be moving in a few months, but hopefully the letting go of things is a way to combat the desire to possess. I have this pet theory that the anxiousness associated with our desire for security is a important symptom of original sin. Our intended state is to trust our heavenly Father for all that we need, but in our alienation from and inability to trust God we cling to things in a distorted way, and often resort to evil means to secure our being and worth. “Security,” whether it be financial or national, is something of a shibboleth in our culture. By contrast, Jesus’ admonition not to worry about what we will wear or where our food will come from seems the height of hippie irresponsibility.

    The ability to live in this way, though, would have to arise out of a reorientation of our relationship with God. Luther pointed out that, apart from revelation, we’re just as likely to imagine that God has it in for us as that he’s our loving father. So at least one reason for the Incarnation is to demonstrate God’s love for us and to create trust (a.k.a. faith) in us whereby we can live in a restored relationship with God. And the fruit of that restored relationship should be less anxiety about securing our place in this world. This, in turn, should allow us to sit more lightly to what we have, share more freely, and live more joyfully. Given the stubborn persistence of the old Adam, I think we can expect this to be a constant struggle, and one of the benefits of a season like Lent is that we can practice at it.

  • Simplicity and Lent

    I’ve recently started reading a book called Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth by Jim Merkel. Merkel worked for years as an engineer designing weapons systems for arms dealers(!) until, one day, sitting in a bar in Sweden he watched the tv coverage of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Struck by his (and everyone’s) complicity in the lifestyle that made such a disaster possible, he went back to California and went from being “a jet-set military salesman who voted for Regan” to “a bleeding-heart pacifist, eco-veggie-head-hooligan”: he quit his job, and began to use his engineer’s brain to calculate how he could live in a way that reduced his ecological footprint to sustainable levels. The first part of the book describes his research into the theoretical underpinnings of more sustainable ways of living, while the second part offers tips for putting it into practice.

    I’m not an ecological catastrophist, but I’m also not not an ecological catastrophist. I think global warming is real, but I also think it’s possible that we may develop some kind of technological fix. But it’s hard to escape the sense that we’re living on borrowed time and that we won’t be able to dodge the bullet forever, whatever form it comes in (peak oil? avian flu? mad cow disease?). So, there’s certainly a case to be made that it behooves all of us to reduce our footprint, even if most of us aren’t going to go as far as Jim Merkel (though I’m open to arguments that we should).

    But given that it is Lent, I think there’s also a spiritual dimension to the practice of simplicity that’s worth thinking about. Even if living more simply isn’t necessarty to stave off ecological disaster, it’s hard to overlook the fact that a modest lifestyle has been commended by sages of all traditions. Plato and Aristotle along with the Church fathers and doctors, were pretty much of one voice in commending simplicity, moderation, and frugality (and parallels in other traditions are easily spotted). As C.S. Lewis once observed, our society is unique not in the pursuit of wealth, but in upholding it as one of the highest goods, in opposition to the virtually unanimous counsel of our tradition.

    I tend to think of the fasting of Lent as intended in part to create a “space” in our lives where God can be present. There’s a traditional line of thought which says that, since God is by definition present everywhere, the barrier to our awareness of that presence lies in us. And one way of building that barrier is by filling up our lives with distractions. Blaise Pascal (the inspiration for this blog’s title) said with typical hyperbole that “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” I take this to mean that our penchant for distraction makes us unable to perceive reality as it really is.

    Simplicity as a spiritual discipline (which needn’t, it seems to me, be sharply distinguished from doing it for other reasons) might then be understood as an attempt to “cleanse the doors of perception.” Part of our problem is that we tend not to see reality as it really is, but instead as something for us. Instead of affirming reality with Augustine’s “being qua being is good” we ask “what’s in it for me?” This is arguably the root of our mistreatment of nature; we see it primarily as a resource for our use rather than as a gift and something that has intrinsic value. Perhaps the practice of simplicity can be a way of “letting things be” and seeing them as the handiwork of a loving Creator.

    On a more practical level, giving up something – a food, an activity, etc. – can allow us to spend more time doing the things we are always struggling to make time for, like prayer or helping others. I know I could certainly stand to spend more time doing both of those things. Lent seems like a good time to reflect on how I could live more simply, and hopefully this book will be of some help.