We're beginning a new academic year in our neck of the woods, so this sure was timely. What worries me is that young people have combined a "just in time" approach to knowledge with an internal standard of learning we might call "just enough." Having the patience to explicate (ex-plicare, to separate pressed leaves into separate sheets) is not something that comes naturally to them as their attention flits from this to that. It saddens me that the quality of their attention suffers, but it worries me that placing an interpretative frame (usually race, class, gender) over some bit of information takes less time, and is a path of lesser resistance, than the work of coming to grips with a mass of various details. It sounds like Nabokov had the patience and the passion for mucking about in the details of fiction, and for we who still have brains wired to read slowly and patiently, he remains a hero for that. Thanks, DBH.
Obviously anecdotal, but it seems to me that the moderns who are literalists (modernalists? Really, probably just fundamentalists) are thoroughly beset by this mindset on an almost phenomenological level. It saturates their ethics, politics, homiletics, social interactions. It's the core orientation of the fundamentalist, a severe presentist, essentially Calvinist gymnobiblism as applied to the world, in which there are no hidden "letters," only the chosen can see the world for what it is in its simple unidimensionality.
Don't we ourselves in our historical present recreate allegorical meaning inspired by ancient allegorical truths. For example watching baseball or going fishing. Also, need it be confined to text or classical mediums; the current interest in AI and personal avatars.... what's going on there, really?
Sorry for the clumsy thinking out loud. I guess what I was trying to articulate was that our everyday activities hide deeper spiritual meaning or truths which we moderns have lost the ability to recognize. My aside to AI, avatars, the metaverse, etc., just seems to me some sort of world making or new form of allegorizing by people much younger than me which points to something about ourselves not yet apparent.
I think poems often encourage this kind of premodern reading. This is perhaps one of the virtues of poetry. And possibly also one of the reasons poetry tends to be at odds with the contemporary ethos.
“He also made an absolute demand that “idea” should be translated into existence (being and doing), which is exactly what his contemporaries, in his opinion, failed to do: “Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in their great systematic structure. But in spiritual matters this will always be a crucial objection. Metaphorically speaking, a person’s ideas must be the building he lives in–otherwise there is something terribly wrong.”” (Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard by Soren Kierkegaard (Plough Publishing House, 2014).)
Please forgive me in advance for the length of this comment but the best I can do in response is to post what I think are applicable quotes, passages I have indeed bandied about for years now as a way of making much the same point as you are making here.
"Homer could write of his culture as an integrity of heroes, demi-gods, and divinities whose communication with men expressed those actions and maxims of conduct which summarized his culture and became guides not only to the later Periclean Greeks, but also to the entire occidental civilization which followed. If we recall the various attributes which his gods symbolized, or rather which they were, we become familiar with the motivations of the Greek race and the ideals to which they aspired. These ideals and motivations were not abstractions but the dramatic characters of a struggle expressing the integration of the individual and society. The lack of such integrity, the dislocation between myth and religious metaphysic, and the consequent disparity of fact and spirit are the central problems of the modern artist, whether he try to gather all modern ideologies into an epical summation, or sing the briefest and most personal lyric. In Greek culture, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides progressively demonstrated what T.S. Eliot has termed the 'disassociation of sensibility'. Plato and Aristotle finally abstracted their national myths in dialectic and category; the very title of Lucretius' epical poem, On the Nature of Things, becomes indicative of the transformation."
-Kimon Friar, "Myth and Metaphysics"
"Deeply moved yesterday reading Achilles' speech to Priam. Astonishment: this line is so firm and at the same time so sensitive, a vibrating chord. Deeply moved also by the lofty art Homer has impregnated for others, and which was there, as I read, a harmonious sound. Moreover, in Homer everything meshes, the whole world is a woof of organic 'umbilical cords'; the earthly, the heavenly world, animals, plants, elements, hearts of men, good, evil, death, life--that ripen, vanish, and flower again. The mechanism of the gods performs nothing supernatural, nothing ex machina; it retains coherence, nothing else."
-George Seferis, "A Poet's Journal"
'There is a nice example of that to which Vico points as well as the continuing difficulty and even impossibility for the modern or postmodern reader to enter into that at which he points. Homer states that "kai sphin Dios ombros aexei" (Zeus's raincloud increases them [the wine grapes]). Robert Fitzgerald translates that half-line as "ripen in heaven's rain," which completely misses the mythological character of Homer's formula; the translation is completely naturalistic. Robert Fagles seeks to preserve the mythological character in his rendering, "swelled by the rains of Zeus,"' but his translation allows the modern to read the half-line on his own terms. It is Alexander Pope, however, who best captures the quality of a Zeus-infused world: "And Jove descends in each prolific shower.''^" In the Homeric half-line, the divinity and the force of nature are one. The rain is not an act of god; it is god. It is not merely that Zeus is the sky, but that Zeus both is the sky and is the rain, and insofar as the rain fattens the grapes, Zeus is the grapes, too. The difficulty of translating that half-line is an indicator of what is "beyond our power." The problem is not a new one. Already by the time of Aristotle, "Zeus" had become mere metaphor. When Aristotle says "Zeus rains"—and Aristotle does use the term "Zeus rains""— it is clear that he means, "the sky rains," as translated in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, "A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just because as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity?" Aristotle does not even pause to explain that when one says "Zeus rains," one understands "the sky rains." That transition is assumed. At some stage, there had been what Vico calls "Sympathetic Nature." By the time of Aristotle, that worldview had come to an end, at least among the literate. By the time of Vico—at least in the Western European sphere—that worldview had come to an end even among the illiterate. Vico points to a je ne sais quoi. Like him, the modern and postmodern reader sees that at which he points, but also knows not what.'
-Jeffrey Dirk Wilson, "Vico's Metaphysics of Poetic Wisdom"
Is there some level of historical accuracy that is required to preserve even the allegorical meaning? For example, if Israel was never in exile in Egypt, would this compromise the integrity of spiritual truth? Asked another way, should the Book of Mormon be dismissed because it is fiction masquerading as history, or because its spiritual meaning is poor?
To your first question I would say no. But then I would distinguish between texts that tell a sory (or history) susceptible of a spiritual reading and texts that explicitly base their “truth claims” on a claim of historical veracity. In the latter case, historical refutation does in fact render those truth claims null and void.
As a Mormon, I thought I'd chime in because it's very relevant to the identity crisis the Mormon Church faces. The Church posits the Book of Mormon to be historical so it has painted itself into a corner that seems to lead to either a retraction of a fundamental doctrine or the demise of the whole organization. There are factions willing to accept the Book as 100% allegorical and others 100% historical, both attempting to preserve the traditions and doctrines derived from the Book's teachings.
As to the "truth claims" - maybe I am misunderstanding Dr. Hart's comment, but even if the historicity of the Book of Mormon is bunk, there are allegorical truths which persist. Moses didn't write Exodus, but does that mean the Red Sea was not parted? Be gentle...
My comment was simply a general observation: If a book bases its truth claims on its supposed objective historicity, then an historical disproof is a serious refutation. If the book is, say, like the opening chapters of Genesis, obviously mythical, then that is not a problem that need ever be dealt with. I was not singling out any tradition. For instance, much of Christian fundamentalism bases its claims on the supposed literal inerrancy of scripture; since scripture is not literally inerrant, and not even internally consistent, then the truth claims such fundamentalists advance on that basis are in fact baseless.
I am not a Mormon apologist (too difficult, bordering impossible) and I didn't think you were singling out any tradition - the question was put to you - so I hope no offense was taken/given. As to the issue, let me see if I've got it right: a "truth", if dependent upon a purported historical event, is only true inasmuch as the historical event is historically real. In other words: If it didn't happen, then the truth derived is baseless. Did I get that right?
I was not expecting any Mormons to be on this site, and I apologize if I offended, haha. I am not Mormon, clearly, but I love Mormons and grew up amongst them.
I'm glad you commented because it seems as though we have two contradictory assertions. First, literal historical accuracy does not effect the underlying truth if the inspired writing does not purport to be a historical account (which I certainly agree with), and two, the author's understanding of the meaning of the text does not even necessarily come into play when seeking the true spiritual (or even allegorical) meaning--at least this is my understanding of the Augustinian approach. This leaves us in a strange position of trying to decipher what the authors of the OT intended in terms of genre. If there are historical inaccuracies in Kings or Judges, for example, which seem to be intended as history describing the exploits of real monarchs, then what of the spiritual meaning that can be extracted? If we can ignore genre intentions of the authors and still extract spiritual meaning regardless, then it seems we could do this with almost any text. The only measure of inspiration would be the nourishment that the spiritual meaning provides. Perhaps that is the point. I'm not trying to be difficult, my questions are genuine because I don't entirely understand the approach.
It doesn't even matter if the authors intended their work as history. I was speaking only of the very special case of a supposed revealed truth claim that explicitly bases its claim to revelation on historical veridicality. In other contexts, a book written as a history--for no other reason than recording something--can still be read allegorically.
No apologies necessary, I wasn't offended even if it was intended, which it clearly wasn't. I thought using the Book of Mormon as an example was insightful because of it's unique assertions of unverified historicity.
Maybe this is off point, and I am not sure of the source, maybe I heard it from Iain McGilchrist (sic), but allegorical teachings are so much richer and transcend myopic and literal interpretations. Which is clearly evidenced by, and most probably the reason for, Jesus having spoke in parables. I am not up on Marcionism, but I suppose if you're taking the teachings of Jesus and looking back at some of the incongruous spiritual extractions made by those in the OT in that light, there is good reason to reject portions of the OT.
Modern minds are absorbed into scientific categorizations, it seems or obviously so. First, fiction or non-fiction. Next, genre subcategorizations. Kafka, accordingly, would be cross-categorized as a nerve breaking fiction hitting at a psycho-therapeutic module tale intersecting at a horror fantasy of imaginary entomology to be transferrable. If no one understands, that will be no one's fault, but only the writer's. Literally confusing or allegorically disturbing, otherwise. People, that's a literature! Oops, the audience is missing.
Bible alike. Oh, ancients thought in this way, how interesting to learn for us! Flip flopped is a pancake over a stove top, the saucepan is for the catch ready. St. Augustin flipped Bible pages or not in what way, who knows? May be able to be absorbed fully if one tries to be spiritual with maximum efforts literally. Allegorically drawn down, otherwise? Only by maximum inclinations toward the time-crossover, the road can be occupied with historical consciousness, thus appreciated.
This is not my junk words shop. Take it please literally. What more to say? People, struggle yourselves into Literature! Suffer to read! A good audience are there over centuries backward. Pull them out to read our time.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your excellent book That All Shall Be Saved. It was a monumental step on my journey into the inner life of the Holy Trinity. It helped me see love for what it really is, without qualifications or excuses.
Now, onto the above article. I'm not very knowledgeable about this, but is it possible that our modern understanding of "literal" already crept into St. Thomas' exegesis? I'm wondering this because he defends the slaughter of the Canaanites as morally acceptable (in the Summa?). I doubt that he would be willing to defend such moral horrors if he were not absolutely convinced that the factual reading of the text is essential.
It's true that Thomas believed many of the historical tales in the Bible, even (to his infinite discredit) such loathsome ones as those, but that is not what he meant by reading ad litteram. The two issues are not actually connected directly.
Thanks for the reply. If I may indulge myself in a short digression...
I am currently working through some of your material of Universalism, as that is my main theological interest. I would suggest a novel refutation of the thomistic argument that the saints delight in the suffering of the damned under the aspect of divine justice.
I think that this argument presupposes a retributive theory of justice. (Which is, in my opinion, inherently contradictory, as it entails that a defect can be viewed as something fundamentally good, but that is a topic for another day.) It implies that justice consists precisely in causing a defect in a rational creature who has done some evil in order to correct that evil. This means that the very concept of justice, under this definition, is exhausted by the suffering of the one who has to "pay for what they have done," to put it bluntly.
So, the Thomist can't make the distinction that the saints delight merely in the justice that the suffering of the damned manifests, as this justice and the very suffering of the damned are the same thing. Hence, according to this argument, the saints must be sadists.
I'll stop my ramblings now and go to sleep. Just one more little remark on the concept of justice. Universalism has opened a whole treasure of theological reflection for me in this regard...
I often hear the claim that we "owe" something to God, be it worship, love, servitude etc. But I am now beginning to see that this very concept of "owing" is a diabolical one. It is contrary to the dynamic of the Holy Trinity, which is a compete self-gift, whereas demanding anything puts focus on oneself rather than one's neighbor. God can never demand anything precisely because He is Goodness itself.
More radically, we flip the subjects linked by the verb. He who loves the most owes the most, out of the internal compulsion of one's own goodness. So I would claim that God owes the most precisely because He loves the most and furthermore is Love. And what is the gift which exceeds all others? Himself, of course. Hence, it is not an exaggeration to say that God owes nothing less than Himself to every rational creature.
I was thinking about this issue recently, with Lambeth 2022 wrapping up and with the banal reactionary response of the ACNA/GAFCON crew. Specifically, it occurred to me that GAFCON's insistence on the "plain sense of Scripture" as the standard of orthodoxy on matters of sex, gender, and marriage both a.) confuses the literal and the moral senses of Scripture and b.) conflates the meaning of the literal sense with transhistorical truth. (Unsurprisingly, McDermott is one of those ACNA/GAFCON folks, for the record.)
In a nutshell, if unfamiliar: in 2008, right before the last Lambeth, a sort of alternative Lambeth for the Global South happened in Jerusalem, largely over issues of sex, gender, and marriage, promoting the "plain sense of Scripture" as the standard of Christian orthodoxy in moral matters. That was the first GAFCON. This also led to the creation of the ACNA, as an alternative province in the canonical territory of the The Episcopal Church USA. What ended up happening was that the ACNA absorbed the more evangelical portions of TEC, and attracted a number of evangelical reactionaries interested in a more liturgical and conservative Christianity. GAFCON and ACNA both have repeatedly used buzzword phrases like "plain sense of Scripture" or "plain meaning of Scripture" as the thing they stand for, over against the encroach of liberalism on the portions of the Anglican Communion represented in Canterbury and TEC. It came to mind since this article is coming right at the end of Lambeth 2022 (originally supposed to happen in 2018, delayed two years to ensure people would actually come to 2020, then delayed another two years for COVID), where, basically, some of the core GAFCON provinces simply didn't come, and then the ACNA (unrecognized by Canterbury as the schismatic body that it is) simply derided the conference as more fudging on the "plain sense" of Scripture with respect to these issues in its newsletter this month.
Anyway, McDermott is ACNA. It does not seem to have occurred to me until now that his poor reading skills and reductive account of Christian Tradition in his FT articles about Tradition and Apocalypse is likely inspired by that ecclesial identity to some degree. It deals in very superficial accounts of what Christianity at large and Anglicanism in particular are, at least in the US--I'm inclined to somewhat more sympathy for the African and Asian Christians that found GAFCON necessary, even if I disagree with their hermeneutics.
Are there ever two who don't diverge at some point in their understanding or interpretation of almost anything religious or not? I remember sitting in the pews and contemplating the range of divergent understandings of what was going on and what it meant and what was literal, what figurative etc. Indeed I've thought many time there are as many theologies as there are people. Ambiguity seems to me to often, maybe more often than not, be a form of precision. The whole of what I know, admittedly very little, has never struck me as being adherent to some objective truth or other with the possible exception of the physical sciences although even those continue to bend off in previously unsuspected ways.
In reading this I realized in it things I “knew” to be true, but had not been able to formulate and understand. I’ve suspected that some “things that should not have been forgotten have been lost.” Thank you for helping bring them back. I look forward to your next installment on this subject.
That’s literally the best thing I’ve read this evening.
I see what you did there.
David, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you are one of the writers who makes me feel I can experience that sometimes.
Grazie.
We're beginning a new academic year in our neck of the woods, so this sure was timely. What worries me is that young people have combined a "just in time" approach to knowledge with an internal standard of learning we might call "just enough." Having the patience to explicate (ex-plicare, to separate pressed leaves into separate sheets) is not something that comes naturally to them as their attention flits from this to that. It saddens me that the quality of their attention suffers, but it worries me that placing an interpretative frame (usually race, class, gender) over some bit of information takes less time, and is a path of lesser resistance, than the work of coming to grips with a mass of various details. It sounds like Nabokov had the patience and the passion for mucking about in the details of fiction, and for we who still have brains wired to read slowly and patiently, he remains a hero for that. Thanks, DBH.
De nada.
Obviously anecdotal, but it seems to me that the moderns who are literalists (modernalists? Really, probably just fundamentalists) are thoroughly beset by this mindset on an almost phenomenological level. It saturates their ethics, politics, homiletics, social interactions. It's the core orientation of the fundamentalist, a severe presentist, essentially Calvinist gymnobiblism as applied to the world, in which there are no hidden "letters," only the chosen can see the world for what it is in its simple unidimensionality.
A good picture of hell.
Don't we ourselves in our historical present recreate allegorical meaning inspired by ancient allegorical truths. For example watching baseball or going fishing. Also, need it be confined to text or classical mediums; the current interest in AI and personal avatars.... what's going on there, really?
I think you might need to expand the wording of the question before I'm able to follow it exactly. Sometimes I'm slow on the uptake.
Sorry for the clumsy thinking out loud. I guess what I was trying to articulate was that our everyday activities hide deeper spiritual meaning or truths which we moderns have lost the ability to recognize. My aside to AI, avatars, the metaverse, etc., just seems to me some sort of world making or new form of allegorizing by people much younger than me which points to something about ourselves not yet apparent.
I think poems often encourage this kind of premodern reading. This is perhaps one of the virtues of poetry. And possibly also one of the reasons poetry tends to be at odds with the contemporary ethos.
I tend to agree.
“He also made an absolute demand that “idea” should be translated into existence (being and doing), which is exactly what his contemporaries, in his opinion, failed to do: “Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in their great systematic structure. But in spiritual matters this will always be a crucial objection. Metaphorically speaking, a person’s ideas must be the building he lives in–otherwise there is something terribly wrong.”” (Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard by Soren Kierkegaard (Plough Publishing House, 2014).)
Please forgive me in advance for the length of this comment but the best I can do in response is to post what I think are applicable quotes, passages I have indeed bandied about for years now as a way of making much the same point as you are making here.
"Homer could write of his culture as an integrity of heroes, demi-gods, and divinities whose communication with men expressed those actions and maxims of conduct which summarized his culture and became guides not only to the later Periclean Greeks, but also to the entire occidental civilization which followed. If we recall the various attributes which his gods symbolized, or rather which they were, we become familiar with the motivations of the Greek race and the ideals to which they aspired. These ideals and motivations were not abstractions but the dramatic characters of a struggle expressing the integration of the individual and society. The lack of such integrity, the dislocation between myth and religious metaphysic, and the consequent disparity of fact and spirit are the central problems of the modern artist, whether he try to gather all modern ideologies into an epical summation, or sing the briefest and most personal lyric. In Greek culture, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides progressively demonstrated what T.S. Eliot has termed the 'disassociation of sensibility'. Plato and Aristotle finally abstracted their national myths in dialectic and category; the very title of Lucretius' epical poem, On the Nature of Things, becomes indicative of the transformation."
-Kimon Friar, "Myth and Metaphysics"
"Deeply moved yesterday reading Achilles' speech to Priam. Astonishment: this line is so firm and at the same time so sensitive, a vibrating chord. Deeply moved also by the lofty art Homer has impregnated for others, and which was there, as I read, a harmonious sound. Moreover, in Homer everything meshes, the whole world is a woof of organic 'umbilical cords'; the earthly, the heavenly world, animals, plants, elements, hearts of men, good, evil, death, life--that ripen, vanish, and flower again. The mechanism of the gods performs nothing supernatural, nothing ex machina; it retains coherence, nothing else."
-George Seferis, "A Poet's Journal"
'There is a nice example of that to which Vico points as well as the continuing difficulty and even impossibility for the modern or postmodern reader to enter into that at which he points. Homer states that "kai sphin Dios ombros aexei" (Zeus's raincloud increases them [the wine grapes]). Robert Fitzgerald translates that half-line as "ripen in heaven's rain," which completely misses the mythological character of Homer's formula; the translation is completely naturalistic. Robert Fagles seeks to preserve the mythological character in his rendering, "swelled by the rains of Zeus,"' but his translation allows the modern to read the half-line on his own terms. It is Alexander Pope, however, who best captures the quality of a Zeus-infused world: "And Jove descends in each prolific shower.''^" In the Homeric half-line, the divinity and the force of nature are one. The rain is not an act of god; it is god. It is not merely that Zeus is the sky, but that Zeus both is the sky and is the rain, and insofar as the rain fattens the grapes, Zeus is the grapes, too. The difficulty of translating that half-line is an indicator of what is "beyond our power." The problem is not a new one. Already by the time of Aristotle, "Zeus" had become mere metaphor. When Aristotle says "Zeus rains"—and Aristotle does use the term "Zeus rains""— it is clear that he means, "the sky rains," as translated in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, "A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just because as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity?" Aristotle does not even pause to explain that when one says "Zeus rains," one understands "the sky rains." That transition is assumed. At some stage, there had been what Vico calls "Sympathetic Nature." By the time of Aristotle, that worldview had come to an end, at least among the literate. By the time of Vico—at least in the Western European sphere—that worldview had come to an end even among the illiterate. Vico points to a je ne sais quoi. Like him, the modern and postmodern reader sees that at which he points, but also knows not what.'
-Jeffrey Dirk Wilson, "Vico's Metaphysics of Poetic Wisdom"
Is there some level of historical accuracy that is required to preserve even the allegorical meaning? For example, if Israel was never in exile in Egypt, would this compromise the integrity of spiritual truth? Asked another way, should the Book of Mormon be dismissed because it is fiction masquerading as history, or because its spiritual meaning is poor?
To your first question I would say no. But then I would distinguish between texts that tell a sory (or history) susceptible of a spiritual reading and texts that explicitly base their “truth claims” on a claim of historical veracity. In the latter case, historical refutation does in fact render those truth claims null and void.
As a Mormon, I thought I'd chime in because it's very relevant to the identity crisis the Mormon Church faces. The Church posits the Book of Mormon to be historical so it has painted itself into a corner that seems to lead to either a retraction of a fundamental doctrine or the demise of the whole organization. There are factions willing to accept the Book as 100% allegorical and others 100% historical, both attempting to preserve the traditions and doctrines derived from the Book's teachings.
As to the "truth claims" - maybe I am misunderstanding Dr. Hart's comment, but even if the historicity of the Book of Mormon is bunk, there are allegorical truths which persist. Moses didn't write Exodus, but does that mean the Red Sea was not parted? Be gentle...
My comment was simply a general observation: If a book bases its truth claims on its supposed objective historicity, then an historical disproof is a serious refutation. If the book is, say, like the opening chapters of Genesis, obviously mythical, then that is not a problem that need ever be dealt with. I was not singling out any tradition. For instance, much of Christian fundamentalism bases its claims on the supposed literal inerrancy of scripture; since scripture is not literally inerrant, and not even internally consistent, then the truth claims such fundamentalists advance on that basis are in fact baseless.
I am not a Mormon apologist (too difficult, bordering impossible) and I didn't think you were singling out any tradition - the question was put to you - so I hope no offense was taken/given. As to the issue, let me see if I've got it right: a "truth", if dependent upon a purported historical event, is only true inasmuch as the historical event is historically real. In other words: If it didn't happen, then the truth derived is baseless. Did I get that right?
I was not expecting any Mormons to be on this site, and I apologize if I offended, haha. I am not Mormon, clearly, but I love Mormons and grew up amongst them.
I'm glad you commented because it seems as though we have two contradictory assertions. First, literal historical accuracy does not effect the underlying truth if the inspired writing does not purport to be a historical account (which I certainly agree with), and two, the author's understanding of the meaning of the text does not even necessarily come into play when seeking the true spiritual (or even allegorical) meaning--at least this is my understanding of the Augustinian approach. This leaves us in a strange position of trying to decipher what the authors of the OT intended in terms of genre. If there are historical inaccuracies in Kings or Judges, for example, which seem to be intended as history describing the exploits of real monarchs, then what of the spiritual meaning that can be extracted? If we can ignore genre intentions of the authors and still extract spiritual meaning regardless, then it seems we could do this with almost any text. The only measure of inspiration would be the nourishment that the spiritual meaning provides. Perhaps that is the point. I'm not trying to be difficult, my questions are genuine because I don't entirely understand the approach.
It doesn't even matter if the authors intended their work as history. I was speaking only of the very special case of a supposed revealed truth claim that explicitly bases its claim to revelation on historical veridicality. In other contexts, a book written as a history--for no other reason than recording something--can still be read allegorically.
No apologies necessary, I wasn't offended even if it was intended, which it clearly wasn't. I thought using the Book of Mormon as an example was insightful because of it's unique assertions of unverified historicity.
Maybe this is off point, and I am not sure of the source, maybe I heard it from Iain McGilchrist (sic), but allegorical teachings are so much richer and transcend myopic and literal interpretations. Which is clearly evidenced by, and most probably the reason for, Jesus having spoke in parables. I am not up on Marcionism, but I suppose if you're taking the teachings of Jesus and looking back at some of the incongruous spiritual extractions made by those in the OT in that light, there is good reason to reject portions of the OT.
Modern minds are absorbed into scientific categorizations, it seems or obviously so. First, fiction or non-fiction. Next, genre subcategorizations. Kafka, accordingly, would be cross-categorized as a nerve breaking fiction hitting at a psycho-therapeutic module tale intersecting at a horror fantasy of imaginary entomology to be transferrable. If no one understands, that will be no one's fault, but only the writer's. Literally confusing or allegorically disturbing, otherwise. People, that's a literature! Oops, the audience is missing.
Bible alike. Oh, ancients thought in this way, how interesting to learn for us! Flip flopped is a pancake over a stove top, the saucepan is for the catch ready. St. Augustin flipped Bible pages or not in what way, who knows? May be able to be absorbed fully if one tries to be spiritual with maximum efforts literally. Allegorically drawn down, otherwise? Only by maximum inclinations toward the time-crossover, the road can be occupied with historical consciousness, thus appreciated.
This is not my junk words shop. Take it please literally. What more to say? People, struggle yourselves into Literature! Suffer to read! A good audience are there over centuries backward. Pull them out to read our time.
Dear Dr. Hart!
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your excellent book That All Shall Be Saved. It was a monumental step on my journey into the inner life of the Holy Trinity. It helped me see love for what it really is, without qualifications or excuses.
Now, onto the above article. I'm not very knowledgeable about this, but is it possible that our modern understanding of "literal" already crept into St. Thomas' exegesis? I'm wondering this because he defends the slaughter of the Canaanites as morally acceptable (in the Summa?). I doubt that he would be willing to defend such moral horrors if he were not absolutely convinced that the factual reading of the text is essential.
Thank you for all of your input.
Sincerely,
Gregory
It's true that Thomas believed many of the historical tales in the Bible, even (to his infinite discredit) such loathsome ones as those, but that is not what he meant by reading ad litteram. The two issues are not actually connected directly.
Thanks for the reply. If I may indulge myself in a short digression...
I am currently working through some of your material of Universalism, as that is my main theological interest. I would suggest a novel refutation of the thomistic argument that the saints delight in the suffering of the damned under the aspect of divine justice.
I think that this argument presupposes a retributive theory of justice. (Which is, in my opinion, inherently contradictory, as it entails that a defect can be viewed as something fundamentally good, but that is a topic for another day.) It implies that justice consists precisely in causing a defect in a rational creature who has done some evil in order to correct that evil. This means that the very concept of justice, under this definition, is exhausted by the suffering of the one who has to "pay for what they have done," to put it bluntly.
So, the Thomist can't make the distinction that the saints delight merely in the justice that the suffering of the damned manifests, as this justice and the very suffering of the damned are the same thing. Hence, according to this argument, the saints must be sadists.
What do you think?
In fact, I’ve said as much myself. But you say it more lucidly.
I'll stop my ramblings now and go to sleep. Just one more little remark on the concept of justice. Universalism has opened a whole treasure of theological reflection for me in this regard...
I often hear the claim that we "owe" something to God, be it worship, love, servitude etc. But I am now beginning to see that this very concept of "owing" is a diabolical one. It is contrary to the dynamic of the Holy Trinity, which is a compete self-gift, whereas demanding anything puts focus on oneself rather than one's neighbor. God can never demand anything precisely because He is Goodness itself.
More radically, we flip the subjects linked by the verb. He who loves the most owes the most, out of the internal compulsion of one's own goodness. So I would claim that God owes the most precisely because He loves the most and furthermore is Love. And what is the gift which exceeds all others? Himself, of course. Hence, it is not an exaggeration to say that God owes nothing less than Himself to every rational creature.
Again I concur and have said as much. Baudelaire says that too, incidentally.
Thanks, this does remind me of Illich again.
'A transformation possibly as profound, but enormously sadder than the changeover from
singing lines on the vineyard-like parchment into a mirror of mental ordinatio is now underway.
The mode of presentation, the place-less anomaly in which the screen image appears, its timeless
speed - all make it very difficult to ask students to accompany their teacher in the struggle for the
author's meaning. Not only in linguistics, but in literature too, students are trained to forgo
anything that would formerly have been called reading. Instead, they glory in lightning-like
receptions of messages, and in their ability to trace, manage, and reformat these strings. Some who
come to my classes are so far removed from traditional intercourse with a book that they want to
identify their scrolling through icons on a screen with the stroll on a pagus of cowhide!
http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1991_text_and_university.PDF
True.
Simply put: this is amazing. Inspiring, encouraging, and empowering. I love what it reclaims for the texts and what it offers me as a reader.
I was thinking about this issue recently, with Lambeth 2022 wrapping up and with the banal reactionary response of the ACNA/GAFCON crew. Specifically, it occurred to me that GAFCON's insistence on the "plain sense of Scripture" as the standard of orthodoxy on matters of sex, gender, and marriage both a.) confuses the literal and the moral senses of Scripture and b.) conflates the meaning of the literal sense with transhistorical truth. (Unsurprisingly, McDermott is one of those ACNA/GAFCON folks, for the record.)
Could you explain what those acronyms stand for?
ACNA - Anglican Church in North America
GAFCON - Global Anglican Futures Conference
In a nutshell, if unfamiliar: in 2008, right before the last Lambeth, a sort of alternative Lambeth for the Global South happened in Jerusalem, largely over issues of sex, gender, and marriage, promoting the "plain sense of Scripture" as the standard of Christian orthodoxy in moral matters. That was the first GAFCON. This also led to the creation of the ACNA, as an alternative province in the canonical territory of the The Episcopal Church USA. What ended up happening was that the ACNA absorbed the more evangelical portions of TEC, and attracted a number of evangelical reactionaries interested in a more liturgical and conservative Christianity. GAFCON and ACNA both have repeatedly used buzzword phrases like "plain sense of Scripture" or "plain meaning of Scripture" as the thing they stand for, over against the encroach of liberalism on the portions of the Anglican Communion represented in Canterbury and TEC. It came to mind since this article is coming right at the end of Lambeth 2022 (originally supposed to happen in 2018, delayed two years to ensure people would actually come to 2020, then delayed another two years for COVID), where, basically, some of the core GAFCON provinces simply didn't come, and then the ACNA (unrecognized by Canterbury as the schismatic body that it is) simply derided the conference as more fudging on the "plain sense" of Scripture with respect to these issues in its newsletter this month.
Anyway, McDermott is ACNA. It does not seem to have occurred to me until now that his poor reading skills and reductive account of Christian Tradition in his FT articles about Tradition and Apocalypse is likely inspired by that ecclesial identity to some degree. It deals in very superficial accounts of what Christianity at large and Anglicanism in particular are, at least in the US--I'm inclined to somewhat more sympathy for the African and Asian Christians that found GAFCON necessary, even if I disagree with their hermeneutics.
Are there ever two who don't diverge at some point in their understanding or interpretation of almost anything religious or not? I remember sitting in the pews and contemplating the range of divergent understandings of what was going on and what it meant and what was literal, what figurative etc. Indeed I've thought many time there are as many theologies as there are people. Ambiguity seems to me to often, maybe more often than not, be a form of precision. The whole of what I know, admittedly very little, has never struck me as being adherent to some objective truth or other with the possible exception of the physical sciences although even those continue to bend off in previously unsuspected ways.
In reading this I realized in it things I “knew” to be true, but had not been able to formulate and understand. I’ve suspected that some “things that should not have been forgotten have been lost.” Thank you for helping bring them back. I look forward to your next installment on this subject.